Putin Seeks More Jobs to Stabilize North Caucasus

Alexei Druzhinin / RIA-Novosti / AP Putin shaking hands with Khloponin on his arrival Friday in Pyatigorsk. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared on Saturday that peace has returned to the North Caucasus and called for the region's economy to be rebuilt. Putin ordered Alexander Khloponin, a new deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, to improve the quality of life of its population by creating jobs, signaling a new approach to restoring stability — something that military force has so far failed to achieve. "The bandits have been fended off. We did this together. … Together we won and returned the peace," Putin said at a meeting in the Stavropol regional city of Pyatigorsk, which serves as the new capital of the North Caucasus Federal District. President Dmitry Medvedev grouped the most troubled provinces together in the new federal district this week and appointed Khloponin, a former Norilsk Nickel chairman and Krasnoyarsk governor, as its head. "Now we need to take the next step, which, as it turns out, is no less difficult," Putin said. Putin called for the creation of special economic zones to lure investors to the North Caucasus. "We need to seriously improve people's quality of life," he said. "High unemployment, of course, discredits the government and creates the basis for extremist moods. So now it is vital to launch the mechanisms for the creation of new jobs … [and] new projects, stimulate the development of small and medium-sized companies, local industry, agriculture and infrastructure." Putin also ordered North Caucasus officials to ensure what he called the "normal work" of human rights groups operating in the volatile region. "I ask the representatives of regional authorities … to do everything for the support of normal work and daily activity of rights-defending organizations in the Caucasus," Putin said in televised remarks. "Those who work within the framework of the law and help people," he added. The rights movement in the North Caucasus has been decimated in the last few years as fear of being the next target has driven out of the area those who fight for the accountability of the authorities. Leading rights group Memorial was forced to close its Chechnya chapter in the aftermath of the July slaying of rights activist Natalya Estemirova. Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, urged President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday to end a wave of abductions in the North Caucasus and to prosecute Estemirova's killers. Lilia Shvetsova, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Putin's history as a hardliner against dissent who restricted the work of nongovernmental organizations during his eight-year presidency cast doubt on the sincerity of his words. "Who will believe that he wants to ensure the safety of rights activists?" she said. But Memorial's chief, Oleg Orlov, told RIA-Novosti that he welcomed Putin's words. "I hope that they are not empty words and that actions of some kind will follow them," Orlov said. "It's a signal, primarily to local authorities, that they should somewhat turn down their desire to crush any independent structure."