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Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted failings on
the part of Russian Security Services. This, following last
week's school hostage crisis in the southern Russian town
of Beslan. About 340 people died in the crisis.
The President has vowed a major overhaul to bolster his shaken
nation's security. But experts are skeptical that authorities
can prevent more deadly terror acts by Chechen separatists.
Howie Lim spoke to Aldo Borgiu from the Australian Strategic
Policy Institute and first asked him why experts were skeptical
President Putin will succeed.
AB: A lot of it has to do with the slow pace of military
reform and security services reform in Russia to this date.
Certainly a lot of it would have to do with Vladimir Putin
having been a former officer in the KGB. He obviously has
a great, considerable links with the security services at
the moment and a number of ex-security people are serving
in his administration so I think it just comes down to a general
scepticism about his commitment to reform.
HL: It has been said that Russian security forces and law
enforcement agencies are corrupt and inefficient and even
President Putin acknowledged that. Just how rampant is corruption
amongst the security forces?
AB: It’s certainly a problem and you’ve got to
look at the size of the security forces and they are quite
large in terms of the security services and also the military
within Russia. Without a doubt it is a problem and it isn’t
something that’s going to be turned around over night.
This is something that needs a lot of time and effort. A lot
of the forces are actually serving in the ministry of defence
and the security services are conscript forces so that in
itself affects the quality of people you’re going to
be attracting. And that’s one of the reasons why they’re
supplementing their wages with corrupt activities.
HL: The US formed a new structure to coordinate security
agencies, The Department of Homeland Security after Sept 11.
Would Russia consider doing the same?
AB: I’d be surprised if they considered copying anything
the Americans do because there is a sense of pride there.
Certainly, they’re going to need to do something. The
fact is that there were so many breaks in security that allowed
the Chechen terrorists to achieve what they were after and
least the fact that they’d been planning this attack
for such a long time and managed to get through a number of
check points and in the light that something has to be done,
I’m not quite sure that the US model provides a model
for any country to follow let alone Russia.
HL: President Putin’s refusal to resolve conflict in
Chechnya through political means provides fertile ground for
militants. How will this further affect Russian Internal Security?
AB: Certainly until Russia actually comes around to seeking
a political solution to Chechnya it’s going to be subjected
to these attacks more and more and the danger that you run
into is that if you don’t actual solve it at some point
in time, eventually when you do solve it, the fact is, you’ll
still be submitted to these terrorist attacks by virtue of
resentment more than anything else so it does underlie the
fact that terrorism cannot be answered by military solution.
It really requires a political one.
HL: Will this incident in the Russian school cause Russians
to ostracise or discriminate against Chechens in general?
AB: I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
There’s certainly going to be an increase in resentment
from Russians towards the Chechens and certainly towards Muslims
in general and in some respects, not necessarily what the
Chechens are after but certainly Al-Qaeda will be happy about
that sort of affect because it estranges Islamic people from
the rest of the population at large. The Russian government
has called out for calm and for people to not go on these
revenge attacks but there’s no doubt that a big blow
has been struck there.
HL: Will this then lead to an increase in profiling of people
at border/immigration checkpoints?
AB: I think to a fair degree it happens at the moment but
part of the problem with Russia you have is that it is a multi
ethnic country. It’s a federated republic; it has so
many different ethnic groups and nationalities. A large number
of whom are actually Muslim and by and large mostly peaceful,
happy to be citizens of the Russian Federation. So there already
is that problem the fact is that there are limits to what
the security services can do.
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