Another Bus Explodes in the Backyard of the Sochi Olympics
Filed under: Russia
Another bus has exploded in the region of southern Russia were the country proposes to conduct the 2014 Winter Olympic games, the second one this month. Itar-Tass reports: "The bus was en route from the famous North Caucasus spa resort of Pyatigorsk to North Ossetia's capital Vladikavkaz. At the moment of the blast that went off at 18:00 hours local time [last night] the bus had about 30 passengers aboard." Reuters reports that at least five passengers were killed and more than a dozen others wounded.
Two horrifying questions arise from this news.
First, did the Kremlin do it? It seems extreme to say, but allegations have been made that the Kremlin planted the bombs that exploded in two Moscow apartment buildings in September 1999. The allegation is that the Kremlin did so in order to soften opposition against a major new attack on Chechnya, which occurred immediately thereafter. The Kremlin razed the sites as soon as the dust had settled, preventing a thorough investigation of the cause, and many of those who sought to investigate the possibility later on have been killed or harassed into silence -- including most famously Alexander Litvinenko. Russia is now deep into a key election cycle that will determine how easily dictator Vladimir Putin can cling to power; the Kremlin may want to emphasize for Russians just how "real" their encirclement by "foreign jackals" is, making the popular far more docile than it already is. The Kremlin has reason to be desperate enough to stoop to any depth; public opinion polls show that its "United Russia" political front is losing ground, and a group of its constitutional framers have recently stepped forward to condemn Putin's efforts to remain in power after 2008. Perhaps most devastating criticism one can make of Putin's Russia is that nobody -- not even the most ardent Russophile -- can say "he wouldn't do that" when incidents of this kind arise.
Second, if the Kremlin didn't do it, why can't it stop it? Despite the horrific 9/11 assault on the U.S., a much more open society, America hasn't had another terror incident in more than six years. If the Kremlin had nothing to do with these explosions, then it is obviously to be condemned for failing to prevent them, and indeed for creating conditions that make them likely; the prospects for the proposed Sochi Olympiad are horrifying indeed. Scholar Paul Goble has concluded that, in essence, the Kremlin is only keeping control of its breakaway province of Chechnya by paying the thugs who govern it protection money, and outbreaks of terrorism have been common. The whole point of having a KGB strongman govern the country is to avoid such incidents, yet they are becoming increasingly common.
If indeed the Kremlin did not instigate these attacks, then the reason they are occurring is obvious: the Kremlin has not solved the Chechnya problem, and is spending far too much time seeking to provoke the West and rigging elections so it can stay in power rather than doing so. The litany is revolting in the extreme:
1. First, the Kremlin simply banned outright a number of parties and candidates it most disfavored.2. Next, it cut the legs out under those that remained, seizing their campaign materials and denying them access to the national airwaves (now dominated by the Kremlin).
3. Then, it refused to allow United Russia to participate in debates, wiping out any chance for the remaining opposition to gain traction.
4. Faced with chronic inflation, it imposed artificial price controls for the duration of the election cycle, to dupe the voters.
5. It denied access to the country by foreign elections observers, giving it a free hand to manipulate the actual ballot as it sees fit.
6. Finally, direct physical attacks designed to intimidate and silence the last vestiges of opposition in the key area of the southern Russia have been launched.On Wednesday, a Kremlin opposition candidate was the victim of an assassination attempt in Dagestan.
Russia has expressed such sheer contempt for the democratic process that it is about to award a seat in its parliament, and immunity from criminal prosecution, to one of the key players in the assassination of Litvinenko -- almost exactly on the one-year anniversary of the killing.
And this all leads us to a third question, the most important of all: Why has the world remained so silent in the face of this outrage? How can it allow a neo-Soviet regime to consolidate power before its eyes, when the memory of the last era is still so fresh in our minds? It's obvious that Putin's actions are designed ultimately to be the basis for renewed imperialism against its neighbors,
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