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Bombing in Sinai kills three South Koreans Almost all 33 passengers on bus wounded
AP
Aisa Achmizov, director of the local folk art museum, shows off traditional smoked cheese made by his Circassian tribe in the village of Bolshoi Kichmai, Russia. Circassians are a Muslim ethnic group who live in villages sprinkled through the Sochi region, just a few dozen miles from where the Winter Olympic games are being played out in gleaming arenas.
Olympics divide Sochi’s indigenous Circassians Ethnic group was mostly ignored in run-up to games BOLSHOI KICHMAI, Russia (AP) – While Vladimir Putin and rich Olympic sponsors watch the Winter Games in gleaming arenas, boys in nearby Bolshoi Kichmai herd their goats by tying them to rickety bicycles, riding against the wind through a rocky valley where invading Russian armies slaughtered their ancestors 150 years ago. These Circassian boys, their families and neighbors are the real hosts of the Sochi Olympics. Circassians, a Muslim ethnic group native to these lush lands that Putin chose for his hegemonic Olympic project, were massacred and exiled by czarist troops, persecuted under Stalin and largely ignored in the run-up to the Sochi Games. Members of the Circassian diaspora from New Jersey to Turkey and Israel have protested, arguing that Olympic skiing and other events are being staged on the blood of their forebears. But Circassians who still live in villages sprinkled through the Sochi region are loath to put up a fuss. The people of Bolshoi Kichmai worry more about securing a longawaited gas pipeline and paved roads than righting historical wrongs. And they fear that confronting powerful Russian author-
ities could invite new discrimination against a long-powerless minority. “We don’t need to throw stones at the past; we need to look forward,” said Aisa Achmizov, who runs the small folk art museum in Bolshoi Kichmai, which he hopes will bring in more visitors thanks to the Olympics. “You have to know the history of your country. But I don’t want to say too much.” Russia’s most prominent terrorist, Doku Umarov, made matters worse by adopting the Circassians’ cause. In a warning last year, the Chechen rebel leader urged Muslim extremists to target the Games. Circassians insist they are peaceful and have nothing to do with Umarov’s threat. But it has made the villagers of Bolshoi Kichmai even more wary of speaking out. Activists say Umarov’s threat has provided Russian security services a pretext to increase document checks and pressure on women in headscarves and men with long beards across the Caucasus. The Circassians are one piece in a patchwork of more than 100 ethnic groups across the Caucasus whose warrior traditions and resistance to outside rule loom large in Russia’s history and collective consciousness. The people of Bolshoi Kichmai are from one of several Circassian groups, the Shapsug. That diversity contributes to Russia’s cultural wealth – and has posed
challenges to Russian rulers ever since they brought the soaring peaks and seashores of the Caucasus region under the imperial yoke. The conquest ended in the 1860s after decades of scorched-earth warfare, mass killings and expulsions that some label genocide. The Circassians surrendered in 1864 in the city of Sochi, and exiled Circassians scattered across the Caucasus and around the world. Today, Circassians in New Jersey have a tightknit community whose congressional representative defends their interests. Circassians in Jordan are among the country’s elite. Circassians in Bolshoi Kichmai, by contrast, struggle to get by on tourism in a town with few amenities, just a few dozen kilometers from Olympic events but a world away from their glory. The toilet at the folk art museum is an outhouse with a hole in the floor. Firewood is the primary fuel for many families. Grandparents fight a losing battle to ensure that the goat-herding boys and other village children speak their native dialect. And well water is running dry, after a company building railroads for the Olympic project hauled away huge amounts of gravel from the Shakhe river, disrupting its flow through town. Residents filed a lawsuit against the company, but are still waiting for results.
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CAIRO (AP) – An explosion ripped through a tourist bus near a border crossing between Egypt and Israel on Sunday, killing at least three South Koreans and the Egyptian driver in an attack that stoked fears Sinai militants have resumed a bloody campaign against tourists. The targeting of foreign tourists was the first to take place in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula in nearly a decade, when a massive bomb devastated a luxury hotel in Taba, killing 34 people, mostly foreign tourists. At least 11 of those killed were Israelis. The 2004 attack was followed by suicide bombings at Sharm elSheik in July 2005 and the smaller Red Sea resort of Dahab the following year. Combined, the three attacks killed about 120 people. In contrast, the restive northern part of Sinai has for years witnessed attacks on security forces blamed on disgruntled local Bedouin residents. However, a fledgling insurgency by militants, some with al-Qaida links, emerged after the ouster
in July of Egypt’s Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi. The 2004-06 attacks in Sinai were the worst to target foreign tourists since the 1997 Luxor massacre, when gunmen opened fire at the Temple of Hatshepsut on the city’s west bank of the River Nile, killing 58 tourists and four Egyptians. No claim of responsibility has been made for the latest Taba bombing, which bore the hallmarks of attacks blamed on the al-Qaida-linked militant groups battling the army and security forces in Sinai’s restive north. The security officials said the source of the explosion was not clear, but they believe it was either a car bomb or a roadside bomb that was detonated by remote control. Rescue workers found three bodies at the scene of the attack and the badly burnt remains of one or possibly two other people, said Khaled Abu Hashem, the head of ambulance services in southern Sinai. Almost all 33 passengers on the bus were wounded by the explosion, with 12 suffering serious injuries. The wounded were being treated in hospitals in Taba and the coastal resort towns of Nuweiba and Sharm al-Sheikh
to the south on the Red Sea’s Gulf of Suez. In Seoul, the foreign ministry said in a text message that 31 passengers were from a church in Jincheon, in the country’s Choongbuk Province, being led by a South Korean tour guide. Only two of its nationals were found dead and nine were injured, the ministry added. Such discrepancies in death tolls often occur in the initial stages of an emergency response. The Egyptian security officials said the bus had arrived at the Taba crossing from the ancient Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine’s in central Sinai. The journey, they said, originated in Cairo, Egypt’s capital. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Egypt’s vital tourism sector has been badly hit by the deadly turmoil roiling the country since the 2011 revolt that deposed longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. Sunday’s attack came as signs of a slow recovery in tourism were emerging, with the focus of the rebound on Red Sea resorts in Sinai and the mainland rather on Cairo, often the scene of some of the deadliest unrest.
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