Integration causing concern for Russian compatriot ideologists - Estonian security police

Photo: Toomas Huik

Success of the integration policy in Estonia is a cause for concern for the ideologists of the so-called compatriots policy in Russia, as integration runs counter to the aims of the compatriots policy, the annual review of the Estonian security police for 2012 says.

"Treatment of the Russian-speaking diaspora as compatriots who are loyal to Russia and Estonia's wish to integrate its Russian-speaking population into Estonian society are competing concepts, a fact that Russian compatriots policy ideologists are well aware of. The success of Russia's compatriots policy depends on the segregation of the Russian-speaking population in its country of residence," the security police said.

The yearbook said that, thus, criticism of the integration process in Estonia, including certain specific aspects originating from the Russian Foreign Ministry and other state institutions, is neither credible nor sincere.

"In reality, authors of the Russian compatriots policy are worried by the advances that minorities in Estonia have made in the field of integration, including acquiring sufficient fluency in the official language, continuing studies in Estonian institutions of higher education, participating in national defense, and their increased public participation in areas that have nothing to do with Russia but are linked to Estonia's development as part of Europe," it said.

In 2012, diplomats from the Russian embassy who have a decisive say over who belongs to the Coordination Council of Russian Compatriots participated in and shaped the outcome of the council's of meetings in Estonia. The embassy encourages suitable activists of the Russian-speaking diaspora to participate in public events of interest to them, to forward information about the events to the embassy and to publish articles favorable to Russia. The activists are also encouraged to make critical public statements about specific events or public statements made by Estonian politicians as well as to make critical statements about Estonia in international organizations, the yearbook said.

It described preserving the special, Soviet-era status of Russian language and Russian-language education as being still an important part of Russia's compatriots policy, as Russia hopes to preserve its long-term political influence over the Baltic countries and its possibility for mobilizing the local Russian-speaking population to exert political pressure.

With this aim in mind, Russian embassy officials meet with locals who are opposed to high school education in the official language and offer to them cooperation with the Fund to Support and Protect the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad. They include compatriots' policy activists, professional so-called antifascists as well as other radically minded individuals. Neither the key persons involved nor their activities have changed over the past year. They have also not managed to engage a significant number of teachers, students and parents at Russian schools – that is to say, their actual target group – in their activities.

The effect from the counteractions described above was smaller in 2012 than in 2011. In 2011, 11 secondary schools in Tallinn applied to continue education in Russian language, whereas in 2012 there were only four applications. The security police will continue to pay attention to this issue as long as the Russian Federation plans to play an even greater role in influencing Estonia's educational and language policies and other youth projects.

A new approach in the compatriots policy is what Russian officials call the abandonment of the parental model in working with compatriots. According to Russian Foreign Minister [Sergei] Lavrov, this means that Russia will help ethnic Russians living in other countries consolidate so that in the future they can receive praise and stand up for their rights on their own.

Even more striking, however, are the goals formulated by Konstantin Kosachev, leader of the agency specializing in compatriots policy, the Estonian security police said. According to Kosachev, Russian compatriots could emerge as the primary link between Russia and the local civil society and elites. They should shift from the consolidation stage over to the stage in which they legitimize themselves as influential civil society players who play a role in local power structures and decision-making.

"This is much more than just a public statement about the need to defend someone's rights. It surprisingly openly expresses the real aim of Russia's compatriots policy – to establish organized groups linked to Russia that are capable of influencing another country's sovereign decisions without obvious intervention by Russia," the annual review said.

Also Russia's old rhetoric about defending the rights and legal interests of compatriots acquired a new dimension in 2012, when the Fund for the Legal Protection and Support of Russian Federation Compatriots Living Abroad started work, the security police said. The fund's main area of operation is what Russia defines as its "near abroad" and it has begun to set up a network of legal protection centers throughout the CIS and the Baltic countries.

The fund's management board has already approved the allocation of grants for the establishment of many centers, including the Legal Information Center for Human Rights in Tallinn, whose director Aleksei Semjonov belongs to the Compatriots Coordination Commission run by the Russian Federation's embassy in Tallinn. It is also characteristic that the fund decided to provide financial support to the Estonian resident Anton Gruzdev to pay for the material damage caused by him in the northeastern town of Johvi in the course of the mass unrest in April 2007.

The same fund also financed the participation of activists from the the organization World Without Nazism – Mir bez Natsisma (MBN) in conferences of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and made donations to MBN to support their general assembly in Strasbourg in October 2012. The purpose of the assembly was to develop a reputation for MBN of an international non-governmental organization, provide legitimacy for its messages and goals and create favorable conditions for strengthening the organization's cooperation with international organizations.

The above mentioned organizations continue to be mainly run by Russian citizens and compatriots policy activists despite efforts to conceal their membership. MBN defines itself as an international movement for the protection of civil rights. Yet its assembly failed to back a suggestion that the charter of MBN should also include standing up for the rights of sexual minorities, a proposal toward which was met with homophobic comments and left out of the charter.

Also worth mentioning, according to the Estonian security police, is the MBN seminar held to mark the anniversary of the day the Red Army captured Tallinn as well as its attempts to spark conflicts at World War II memorial events.