KavkazCenter - We live on our own land and we will not leave it

We live on our own land and we will not leave it

Respected colleagues of Kavkaz Center!We wish to report that after the publication on your website last April of an article from Yakutskaya Gazeta, so much pressure has been exerted on myself and my brother Leonid (editor of Yakutskaya Gazeta) that we thought it was the end for us. KGB agents came from Moscow and for two months did not leave us alone. They asked how we contacted you, why we have such an acquaintance and so on.Oddly, they could not even imagine that a person can simply reach a boiling point and state his opinion and that in order to appear on the Kavkaz Center website, one need only to have access to e-mail. They simply fail to comprehend this!The investigation was long and heated; we were saved by the fact that in our parliament and government there are still a few honest and influential people who love their homeland and are willing to go to the end. They did not betray us and Yakutskaya Gazeta continues to be published, despite the fact that Moscow never ceases to indicate that it will close us down. But not all is lost yet!New public organization against federal government's policies in YakutiaWe received support and many people are ready to fight. The People's Front Yakutia-ALROSA [Diamond Russia-Sakha [another name for Yakutia]] has been created, which will not stand for the [Russian President Vladimir] Putin regime robbing our people. This organization has become truly of the people and Moscow is panic-stricken about it. They simply do not know what to do with us.The example of the heroic Chechen resistance has left the Putin regime dripping with cold sweat and made it refrain from using forceful methods in Yakutia, though they do not shy away from threatening to do so. All central television channels and newspapers howl about "Yakut nationalism and separatism" and try to sling mud on our leaders, calling them "Yakut princelings."Here in Yakutsk, the local Federal Security Service (FSB) has created the so-called "Russian Community of Yakutsk", in which they have thrown together a group of local agent-alcoholics and cried "Yakuts are oppressing Russians" on the websites of notorious fascist organizations like the Movement Against Illegal Immigration. After this, they have the gall to speak of "the inflaming of ethnic strife."Putin flew into Yakutsk on 6 January with an enormous entourage in order to "finally resolve" the issue of our uncut diamonds. Nothing of the kind! The people did not bow before him - he left with nothing. The whole battle lies ahead and the main thing is that we unite; with each passing day, more and more people are understanding this.We live on our own land and we will not leave it. The last few months have shown that we have enough strength and resources to push the Putin "power vertical" back to where it belongs.Thank you for your help, we have become convinced that Kavkaz Center is read by many honorable people for whom the words "freedom" and "independence" are not meaningless. And not only the Chechen people and the peoples of the Caucasus, but all for whom land, language, people, honour and pride are the most important things in the world.I ask that you publish the appeal of the People's Front Yakutia-ALROSA, which was published in Yakutskaya Gazeta on 26 January of this year. You have a large audience and we hope to find partners in our struggle.Andrian and Leonid Nikolayev, journalists of Yakutskaya Gazeta, YakutskUpon the request of the Yakut journalists, Kavkaz-Tsentr publishes an abbreviated variant of an appeal of the People's Front Yakutia-ALROSA addressed to Putin. The appeal reads as follows:Appeal of the People's Front Yakutia-ALROSA to Putin "The residents of the republic had hoped that the arrival of the president of the Russian Federation in Yakutsk would once and for all resolve the problem that has arisen in the joint stock company ALROSA [Diamonds of Russia-Sakha (Yakutia)] (closed-type joint stock company.) Unfortunately, 6 January of this year was nothing more for the republic than a standard political show, the kind so common to Russian reality. Regional media outlets report that you will conduct a "thorough investigation" into the property of the former production-academic union Yakutalmaz [Yakut Diamond] and "make a decision as to what should be transferred to federal ownership and what will remain in the hands of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia.)It is hard to believe that this was said by the president of the Russian Federation about a property which, on the basis of an agreement signed in 1992 by the then Russian president, is owned by the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia.)You, as president of the Russian Federation, yourself overruled all government claims on disputes on properties up for privatization that have a statute of limitations of three years, whereas the agreement was signed 13 years ago. As Yakut President Vyacheslav Shtyrov assures us, you promise to pay compensation to the republic for all resulting profits, and if need be, you will sign a corresponding executive order.You, having so casually crossed out the signature of your predecessor, Boris N. Yeltsin, in a document of principal importance for the federal government and legalizing with such actions the lawlessness of the Russian authorities, now assure us that after three years, your signature will still have some kind of value or power......It has been five years that the people of the republic have been struggling with the arbitrariness of national officials. With each passing year, the number of people within the joint stock company Yakutia-ALROSA who support defending the interests of the population grows larger and larger. From February to April of 2004, seventy-one thousand signatures were gathered against the reorganization of the company from a closed-type to an open-type one.Last year, in one month alone 66,500 signatures were collected against the federal government's seizure of the diamond mine. In April 2005, our movement acquired the name "People's Front Yakutia-ALROSA." By the end of the year, rallies and pickets were held in the uluses [regions] of the republic. At the given moment, practically the whole population of the republic knows what is going on concerning ALROSA and understands the reasons behind this situation.If you take such actions that will lead to the seizure of all or part of the complex of the former production-academic union Yakutalmaz [Yakut Diamond] on the part of the federal government, or if the Arbitration Court of Russia makes a similar decision..., we well resort to decisive measures - we will strive to fully halt the activities of the stock company ALROSA on the territory of Yakutia. We will say: "There is no diamond mining for oligarchs at the expense of the health and gene pool of the people of the Republic of Sakha [Yakutia]!"This will be our answer to your "reforms" directed at restricting the rights of the people of Yakutia to the natural resources of the land, the complex of the joint stock company ALROSA and rent payments, and deliberate policy directed at eliminating the gene pool of the people by poisoning our rivers and enacting underground nuclear explosions in peace time under the pretence of studying the depths of the earth and constructing dikes!"People are more valuable than diamonds!"Public Council of the movement People's Front Yakutia-ALROSAKavkaz Center