By Fred Weir | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
MOSCOW – Alexander Belov is leader and chief ideologist of the unabashedly racist, street-based Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI). But he's no fringe character. In fact, his group is Russia's fastest-growing political sensation.
Critics have long alleged that DPNI is a Kremlin creation, designed to redirect popular dissatisfaction toward ethnic scapegoats.
Still, many Russians were surprised last week when President Vladimir Putin took a page straight out of Mr. Belov's book.
In the midst of a political standoff with the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Mr. Putin authorized a crackdown on Georgian-owned businesses, called for tougher curbs on immigration, and said non-ethnic Russians should be prevented from operating in the marketplaces.
"What Putin said is exactly what Belov has been saying; the main theme is Russia for the Russians," says Alla Gerber, president of the Russian Holocaust Foundation, a human rights group.
Experts warn that the Kremlin is moving into a political minefield that has been primed and put on hair trigger by Belov and his rapidly-growing DPNI.
In late August, six days of rioting in the northern town of Kondopoga left at least three people dead and forced hundreds of Caucasians - dark-skinned people from the former Soviet Caucasus region - to flee.
Similar upheavals have been reported over the past six months hitting far-flung Russian towns in Saratov, Chita, Rostov, Astrakhan, and Irkutsk regions.
And a survey conducted last month by the state-run VTsIOM agency found that 57 percent of Russians believe that Kondopoga-like riots could break out in their town. In a poll by the independent Levada Center last week, 52 percent said they favor declaring Russia "the Russian people's state," with restrictions on non-ethnic Russians.
"There is a social explosion waiting to happen in Russia, with many potential Kondopogas," says Galina Kozhevnikova, deputy head of the Sova Center in Moscow, which monitors hate crimes. "Over and over again lately you have tensions in some town, then Belov shows up and tells people they're being terrorized by Caucasians, and the violence begins."
Our authorities have been manipulating this movement, thinking they can channel peoples' resentments against ethnic minorities instead of the powers that be," says Ms. Kozhevnikova. "They think they can control it. But it's too big, too dangerous to be managed."
