Khloponin: authorities' blunders contribute to spread of extremism

On February 9, Alexander Khloponin, Plenipotentiary of Russian President in the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), said, when meeting students in Nalchik, that the main reason for the spread of religious extremism and terrorism is the growth of corruption as a result of "essential deficiencies of the authorities, both regional and federal."

Mr Khloponin's meeting with students of the leading universities of Kabardino-Balkaria was held as a questions-and-answers session. The event was attended by about two hundred persons.

According to the Plenipotentiary, extremism stems, first of all, from authorities' blunders, which also contributed to social injustice, when "innocent people are punished, while those guilty are not; some people are allowed to break the law, while others are not."

He also named the "bandit property division" among the main reasons for the spread of terrorism. According to his story, "many of those who hide themselves under Islam are involved in the criminal redistribution of property."

The low level of education and culture is another promoter of the spread of various radical ideas. "The better a human is educated - the less amenable he or she is to external influences. Those who hide themselves by Islam very often do not understand it," said the Plenipotentiary.

The population employment problems in Northern Caucasus were also named by Mr Khloponin among the reasons giving rise to extremism.

He treated the December events in Manege Square in Moscow as a "splash of extremism," which was instigated, among other triggers, by provocateurs.

The Plenipotentiary stressed the importance of uniting young people around positive ideas - implementation of projects, youth building teams, panel games, volunteer movement, youth subculture and theatres.

Formation of institutions of civil society, creation of youth organizations, free mass media and the independent judiciary were also among the debate topics.

Mr Khloponin is convinced that "no law enforcement system can do without support of the population."

Dealing with the problem of unemployment, he noted that the main success of every young person is his or her mobility and competitiveness, "when a person easily gets up and goes anywhere where he or she is offered a job."

"If you're ready to wait - then, wait. If you want to work now - go and look for," said the Plenipotentiary, adding that everywhere in the world people move to migrate to places, where there is a manpower demand; however, people in Russia are rather inert.

Development of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) in the country is hampered, according to Alexander Khloponin, by bureaucracy and corruption among officials. According to his version, this is the explanation of the fact that internationally some 80-90 percent of economy relies on SMEs, leaving just 10 percent to large enterprises; while in Russia it is vice versa.

In his opinion, one of the pressing current tasks is also to bring alcohol industry out of the shadow, to direct taxes on revenues into the state budget, while "we'll have to re-profile some companies in this industry into production of lemonade."

One of the questions addressed to the President's Plenipotentiary concerned Zhirinovsky's utterances on Northern Caucasus. Khloponin refused to answer it, saying that he was not going to "advertise a clown."

During the meeting, innovative projects, deployed in the lobby of the Kabardino-Balkarian State University (KBSU), were presented. Mr Khloponin promised that grants would be allocated - 100 million roubles in total to implement the best projects.

He referred to Kabardino-Balkaria as one of the most promising republic in terms of project implementation: out of 200 projects designed in Kabardino-Balkaria 27 got into the category of priority ones. Among those projects that Khloponin got acquainted during the presentation, in his opinion, 10 percent can be already put into production.