Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 53, No. 31, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 5, 1999 Page: 3 of 24
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IN OUR S3RD YEAR! - THURSDAY, AUGUSTS, 1999. TEXAS JEWISH POST F&StUTGS 3
More Fears Raised As Russian Mayor
acks Anti-Semitic, Nationalist Group
By Lev Krichevsky
MOSCOW — The
Communist mayor of a
southern Russian city has
backed Russia's largest
ultranationalist organiza-
tion, giving credence to
the group's claims that it
has supporters in high
places.
Stavropol Mayor
Mikhail Kuzmin voiced
his support for the
Russian National Unity
group in a meeting earlier
this month with Russia's
interior minister, Vladimir
Rushailo, according to a
published transcript of the
meeting in Vremva-MN, a
leading Moscow daily.
Kuzmin added that he
did not see any difference
between being a member
of the Communist Party
and Russian National
Unity.
Meanwhile, American
Jewish leaders pressed
Russian Prime Minister
Sergei Stepashin during a
meeting Tuesday in
Washington for a strong
response to recent anti-
Semitic incidents in
Russia.
Earlier this month,
Russian National Unity
held a conference in
Stavropol, attended by
some 250 activists, that
was sanctioned by the
local administration,
according to press reports.
During the past several
years, Jewish groups and
human rights watchers
have voiced concern over
a surge in grass-roots anti-
Semitism and interethnic
tensions in southern
Russia.
Stavropol, a city of
200,000 that is the home-
town of former Soviet
leader Mikhail
Gorbachev, is known as
one of the group’s strong-
holds.
The group's members
wear black military-style
uniforms, greet each other
with a stiff-armed salute
and wear armbands that
have a swastika combined
with a cross, which they
claim is a traditional
Russian symbol.
Founded in 1990, the
group claims to have
50,000 to 100,000 mem-
bers, though observers
believe this number is
greatly exaggerated. The
group is making plans to
run in parliamentary elec-
tions slated for December,
as well as in some local
elections, according to the
Vremya-MN newspaper.
Russian authorities
have expressed concern
about local officials
allowing groups espous-
ing ethnic hatred to run in
the elections, yet little has
been done to halt these
groups’ activities.
Earlier this month,
Russia’s advisory
Security Council reiterat-
ed that the country should
adopt a law to combat
political and religious
extremism before the
December elections, but
most observers say that
such a law has no chance
of passing the
Communist-dominated
Russian Parliament.
In a separate develop-
ment, local prosecutors
have charged a Russian
National Unity leader in
Tomsk with inciting eth-
nic hatred.
Pavel Rozhin is charged
with organizing a cam-
paign in this Siberian city
in which leaflets were
stuffed in mailboxes,
allegedly written on
behalf of a fictitious
International Jewish
Committee, calling on
"the sons of Israel" to
encourage conflicts
among ethnic Russians so
that Jews could accrue
power.
(JTA staff writer Peter
Ephross in New York con-
tributed to this report.)
Lev Krichevsky is a
TJP/JTA correspondent.
Russian Prime Minister Pledges To ‘Eradicate’ Ant-Semitic Violen
By Daniel Kurtzman
WASHINGTON — In
Russia's strongest condemna-
tion to date of an upsurge in
anti-Jewish violence, Russian
Prime Minister Sero^j Stepashin
IS piedging to "eradicate” anti-
Semitic and racist acts.
Speaking with Jewish leaders
Tuesday at the conclusion of a
two-day visit to Washington,
Stepashin condemned “radical
politicians” in Russia who he
said were using anti-Semitism
"for their own purposes,”
according to those who met with
him.
“We will not allow these peo-
ple to take power in Russia,” he
said.
After dodging a reporter’s
question earlier in the day about
what the Russian government
was doing to counter the rise in
anti-Semitic rhetoric and vio-
lence, Stepashin spoke forceful-
ly about the need for a govern-
ment response.
"This brutality will be eradi-
cated — and I am not afraid of
this word — eradicated by our
security agencies,” he told the
delegation led by the National
Conference on Soviet Jewry and
the Conference of Presidents of
Major American Jewish
Organizations.
"Our country and the Jews
suffered too much from racism
during [World War II] for mod-
em Russia to permit present-day
fascists a free hand,” Stepashin
said.
Jewish officials, who had crit-
icized the Russian government
for failing to make public decla-
rations against sr.ti-Semitism
following several recent inci-
dents, welcomed the assurances.
Last weekend, a bomb was
discovered and defused inside a
Moscow synagogue minutes
before a ceremony was to begin
in the synagogue’s main hall.
Earlier this month, a Moscow
Jewish leader was stabbed
inside a synagogue by a youth
with a swastika painted on his
chest.
Stepashin said he and Russian
President Bons Yeltsin had dis-
cussed the problem with
Russia’s internal security serv-
ice and that measures were
being taken to secure syna-
gogues
"Overall he respond^ *ffir-
n»S!!Y£«j and strongly, and the
question now is the deeds,” said
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive
vice chairman of the Conference
of Presidents.
“The question is will they
sustain the protection of the
institutions, will he and others
make the same kind of public
declarations in Moscow and
will we see more arrests,”
Hoenlein said, adding that "it’s
the arrest and convictions that
really send a message that
they’re serious."
Mark Levin, executive direc-
tor of the NCSJ, said the delega-
tion was “encouraged by the
message that he gave us,”
adding, “We tried to impress
upon him that this was a mes-
sage that needed to be heard not
in the United States but in
Russia.”
Jewish leaders were not the
only ones to raise concern about
the surge in anti-Semitic activi-
ty. President Clinton. Vice
President A1 Gore and members
of Congress also raised the issue
in meetings with Stepashin this
week.
Stepashin was also pressed on
the issue of Russian transfers of
sophisticated weapons technolo-
gy to Iran. He acknowledged the
importance of the concern and
told Jewish leaders he had dis-
cussed weapons proliferation in
his meetings with Clinton and
Gore.
Daniel Kurtzman is a
TJP/JTA correspondent.
CONGRESS
At the end of the
process, military aid to
Israel will total $2.4 bil-
lion, up from $1.8 billion
before the plan went into
effect last year. Economic
aid to Israel, which
amounted to $1.2 billion
annually, will no longer
exist.
The previous economic
package was designed to
pay off loans provided to
Israel after the 1979
Camp David accord. By
the end of the 10-year
period, those loans will be
repaid.
In this year's foreign aid
bill, Israel would receive
$960 million in economic
aid and $1.92 billion in
military assistance.
The bill also includes
$60 million to aid Israel in
resettling Jews from the
former Soviet Union.
As in previous years,
the House included a
measure known as early
disbursal, under which
aid to Israel is delivered
at the beginning of the
fiscal year. In addition to
aid to Middle Eastern
countries, the bill
includes $725 million for
former Soviet states,
down $76 million.
Under U.S. law. Russia
cannot receive some of its
designated aid if it "fol-
lows through on a prom-
ise to provide $2 billion
in arms sales to Syria,
which remains on the
U.S. list of slate sponsors
of terrorism.
The House foreign aid
bill also contains policy
recommendations on a
host of issues that affect
the Middle East, includ-
ing:
• A requirement that the
secretary of state report by
Feb. 1, 2000, on State
Department efforts to
remove anti-Semitic text-
books from schools run by
the United Nations Relief
and Works Agency for
Palestinian refugees;
CONGRESS p. 24
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 53, No. 31, Ed. 1 Thursday, August 5, 1999, newspaper, August 5, 1999; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth754705/m1/3/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .