Balancing competitiveness and climate objectives: Bellona Europa’s insights on the Draghi Report
Introduction Competitiveness has been the dominating topic in EU political discussions in recent months and is set to be a key focus of the upcomi...
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Publish date: January 9, 2003
Written by: Nadezhda Kutepova
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These people live in ZATOs, i.e. closed administrative and territorial entities of Russia. Democratic institutes and the Western society appear neglecting the fact of ZATOs existing. Some of them dont know about such modern reservations, others consider them to be a kingdom of well-being, somebody simply profit from ZATOs existing, the fourth attitude is However, one could hardly be reproaching with anything, because the myth about closed cities as an oasis of prosperity and problem-free life is still widely spread. And how many leaders of the remedial movement in ZATOs you have met? They were never born there due to the system conditions!
Nowadays ZATOs are totalitarian antidemocratic entities, where any forms of civic activity are restricted by public punitive mechanisms that were tested well within 50 years of its existing. Moreover, these closed cities are potentially risky in terms of unpredictable changes. These words are not high-flown. Democracy in ZATOs is the basis of risk-free existence not only of one region, but the whole Russia and the world as well. The reasons to declare it are the following:
Thus, every ZATO is a small-scaled Soviet Union.
The conclusion is that people in ZATOs form outwardly flourishing, but inwardly manipulated society where civic activities are suppressed, and no democratic conditions exist. Such society is potentially dangerous for the world, and the population there cant change anything for the best without support from the outside. In case no civic movement starts acting in ZATOs in the coming future, the result could be unpredictable consequences.
Unfortunately, there is no simple or single-step solution for this problem, but instead only co-ordination of the outside interference and inside initiatives is needed. Simultaneous efforts will provide the population of ZATOs with a possibility to begin thinking about that antidemocratic environment they are living in. Its important to create initial conditions, which allow the people to perform public and civic activities in order to protect democratic values and their own human rights. On the other hand, such efforts should be conducted very smartly and using methods understandable for different groups of ZATOs community. The purpose is not to scare them, but make to be interested in those possibilities, which would appear in their lives together with the democracy.
And the last, but not least. The basic argument of those ho support the ZATOs system in Russia today is that closed cities were established and exist now to secure military and nuclear plants, whish are located inside of them. But if so, how one could explain the fact that such an expensive "security" is protected so poorly by Russian laws? Starting from July 1st, 2002 several regulations came into the force on the territory of Russia, and thus in every ZATO as well. One of them is Russian Federation Code of Administrative Delinquency. We would like you to pay a close attention particularly to the article 20.17 of this Code, where "violation of admission regime to secure facilities" is specified.
Starting from July 1st, 2002 any citizen of Russian Federation is obliged to pay 3-5 minimal wages, in case he violates the admission regime, i.e. crosses the borders without special permission on it. Local police station is authorized to examine such cases. If registers any of them, naturally.
You can consider it as progress. Earlier outsiders could visit any ZATO with impunity. The price of ZATOs security is USD 30-50 in the end of the year 2002. So you can ask, what the government needs ZATOs for? We would like to know the answer.
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