111th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the 1st Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe RUSSIA’S MUSLIMS DECEMBER 17, 2009 Briefing of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe Washington: 2012 VerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:05 Sep 20, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 3191 Sfmt 3191 U:\WORK\121709 KATIE big-LOGO.EPS Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 234 Ford House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 202–225–1901 [email protected] http://www.csce.gov Legislative Branch Commissioners HOUSE SENATE ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FLORIDA, BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, MARYLAND, Co-Chairman Chairman EDWARD J. MARKEY, MASSACHUSETTS CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, CONNECTICUT LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND NEW YORK TOM UDALL, NEW MEXICO MIKE MCINTYRE, NORTH CAROLINA JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE G.K. BUTTERFIELD, NORTH CAROLINA SAM BROWNBACK, KANSAS CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, NEW JERSEY SAXBY CHAMBLISS, GEORGIA ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, ALABAMA RICHARD BURR, NORTH CAROLINA JOSEPH R. PITTS, PENNSYLVANIA ROBERT F. WICKER, MISSISSIPPI DARRELL E. ISSA, CALIFORNIA Executive Branch Commissioners MICHAEL H. POSNER, DEPARTMENT OF STATE ALEXANDER VERSHBOW, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE MICHAEL C. CAMUN˜ EZ, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE (II) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:05 Sep 20, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 3193 Sfmt(2) 3193 U:\WORK\121709 KATIE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of January 1, 1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 56 partici- pating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the partici- pating States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and meetings are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior Officials, Ministers and Heads of State or Government. Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage and resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>. ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular emphasis on human rights. The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine mem- bers from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff assists the Commissioners in their work. In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant informa- tion to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that reflect the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details about the activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating States. The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delega- tions to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organiza- tions, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission is: <www.csce.gov>. (III) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:05 Sep 20, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 3193 Sfmt(3) 3194 U:\WORK\121709 KATIE RUSSIA’S MUSLIMS DECEMBER 17, 2009 PARTICIPANTS Page Kyle Parker, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe .................. 1 Paul Goble, Professor, Institute of World Politics ........................................................................ 2 Shireen Hunter, Visiting Professor, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service ........... 9 (IV) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:05 Sep 20, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 3193 Sfmt(4) 3193 U:\WORK\121709 KATIE RUSSIA’S MUSLIMS DECEMBER 17, 2009 Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe Washington, DC The briefing was held at 2 p.m. in room 1539, Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC, Kyle Parker, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, moderating. Panalists present: Kyle Parker, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and Coopera- tion in Europe; Paul Goble, Professor, Institute of World Politics; and Shireen Hunter, Visiting Professor, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Mr. PARKER. On behalf of Senator Cardin, Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commis- sion, I’d like to welcome you all to today’s briefing on Russia’s Muslims. We are pleased to have two world-renowned experts on the topic and this is the last official event the Hel- sinki Commission will hold this year. This event will be on the record and transcribed and will be posted on our Web site and I think a video feed on YouTube and there will ultimately be a transcript. So we’ll hopefully go at a leisurely pace and not be interrupted, as we often are when the Congress is in the session by the annoying buzzers and not as pressed for time. So please, as you’re out there listening to the presentations, be thinking of good questions. There will be, certainly, an opportunity to participate, hopefully, in a discussion about a topic that’s quite relevant and I would say quite misunderstood. Islam in Russia is something that I get the impression is not terribly well-understood in Russia, let alone here in Washington. And it’s something that there are clearly policy relevance—given a number of issues in Russia, religious freedom, the radical Islam, ter- rorism, demographic issues as far as where the community’s growing, but it is, as I think, we’ll learn from the presentations of our witnesses, a type of Islam unlike what we may be a little more familiar with coming out of the Gulf or out of Iran, but certainly having some commonality as well as an influence from abroad. There are a number of centers of Russian Islam, the North Caucasus being one of the largest ones. The city of Kazan, which was in the news when Secretary Clinton visited because it was her city she visited outside of Moscow and remarked there on the relative inter-religious, interethnic harmony that exists in the Republic of Tartarstan, not nec- essarily the case in some of the southern regions. As well, of course, the two big cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, which have sizable Islamic communities. (1) VerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:05 Sep 20, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 3194 Sfmt 3194 U:\WORK\121709 KATIE And as far as briefings go that we hold, it’s a little unique in the sense that we’re often holding a briefing or a hearing on a crisis. The war in Chechnya, free media under siege in a particular country, whereas this one is not being held on any particular crisis at all, but on a community, an interesting community and I hope our discussion today will have a certain academic flair to it, in a sense, something you might, you know, might almost expect from a college lecture. But hopefully, an interesting one. [Laughter.] So with that, we will begin with Professor Paul Goble, who is currently a professor at the Institute of World Politics here in Washington. He’s held a number of senior government posts over the past few decades, including at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of State, USIA or—— Mr. GOBLE. Voice of America. Mr. PARKER. Voice of America. Mr. GOBLE. Radio Free Europe. Mr. PARKER. Pardon me, Radio Free Europe. [Laughter.] So we will begin with you, Paul, please. Thank you very much. Mr. GOBLE. Thank you very much. It’s a great pleasure to have this opportunity to speak on this subject and I wish to commend the Commission and its staff for organizing it. And I’m very grateful to have the chance to appear before you. I have been in the nationalities business in Washington for 35 years and one of the sad things is that despite the increasing importance of the various parts of this community and other ethnic group— ethnic and religious groups in what was the Soviet Union, many of them remain largely unstudied. And indeed, within the U.S. Government, large numbers of them are referred to as orphan communities, by which people mean no one is paying attention to them. We tend to wait until there’s violence and one of the consequences of that is that we associate small groups only with violence, rather than with a much more important historical and political tradition. Two years ago, Elena Chudinova, a Russian Orthodox Children’s writer published a remarkable novel which sold very well in the Russian Federation. It was called ‘‘The Mosque of Notre Dame de Paris.’’ The premise of this novel was that in the year of Our Lord 2048, Muslim radicals had taken over the European Union. They had imposed Shariah. They had confined the small number of remaining Christians in ghettos that were guarded by Palestinian radicals.