Remembering Anastasia Baburova and Stanislav Markelov
Torsdag 19 Februari, 2009 kl. 10:30 emOne month ago, on January 19th, Anastasia “Skat” Baburova and Stanislav “Stas” Markelov were gunned down in Moscow. Skat was a journalist writing for Novaya Gazeta, as had Anna Politkovskaya done before her until she was murdered in 2006. Skat was a dedicated Anarchist. Stas was a radical lawyer and human rights activist. On Avtonom.org friends and comrades of Anastasia and Stanislav have written texts commemorating them. We reprint excerpts of these texts here.
Anastasia “Skat” Baburova, 30.11.1983-19.01.2009
Our friend and comrade Skat was murdered today in Moscow, shot to head by an assassin.
Assassin was not after her – he was after advocate Stanislav Markelov, another good friend and comrade. We do not know who was there to kill Stas – it could be associates of some war criminals he put to prison, it could be connected to some corporate crimes, it could be Nazis, many of whom Stas put to prison as well. List of achievements of Stas is so long, that it will take a couple of days to gather all of them to a necrology – and list of his enemies is even longer. But we know for sure, that Nastya had a bad luck of being in a wrong place in wrong time. Assassin shot her to head as well, either to eliminate a witness, or in order to escape – some witnesses have stated that Nastya attempted to arrest assassin. Stas died in place, Nastya died in hospital few hours afterwards.
Nastya was studying in evening line of journalist faculty of Moscow State University. She worked a while in “Izvestiya”, but left and worked as a freelancer. During last few months she wrote to critical paper “Novaya Gazeta”, mostly about far right.
Nastya was an anarchist and was involved in numerous activist projects. She was involved in anti-repression issues, such as solidarity actions in Moscow for repressed French activists Ivan and Bruno, and later last year in solidarity work for Tarnac 9. Last year she was actively involved in attempts to defense a dormitory in Yasniy Passage, inhabited by refugees from conflict regions of Caucasus, against violent takeover of the premises by UFSIN (Administration of Federal Service for Execution of Punishment, that is Russian federal prison administration). Nastya was arrested in that action. Nastya also joined protest camp of Rainbow Keepers last summer in Sasovo of Ryazan region, and campaign against police brutality in spring of 2008. She also traveled to European social forum in Malmö in September 2008. She was co-organising alternative media section in Russian conference Anticapitalism-2008. Nastya also helped in work with latest issue #30 of Avtonom-journal. She joined Autonomous Action a day before she got murdered. Inside the movement, Nastya got well along with everyone.
Nastya was into physical sports such as jumping with a parachute and she was also well trained in martial arts. She never went around unarmed, but her knife was not a match against a gun.
Nastya was a positive person of exceptional spirit. She will be missed by parents, friends and comrades from all around Russia and Ukraine. She was from Sevastopol, and is likely to be buried there.
Stanislav Markelov and the Anarchists
Stas was too young to join underground hippie movement (“Systema”) of the Soviet time, but his first ideas (and early hairstyle) came from there. Already when a young student in early 1990’s, Stas became activist of social-democratic party (which always was a rather marginal in Russian politics), in its left wing. Probably first time anarchists came to contact with him was time of Yeltsin’s coup of 1993 – practically all anarchists and socialists considered Yeltsin’s unconstitutional presidential order number 1400 a Pinochetist coup, and were ready to rally against it. Anarchists and social-democrats, Stas among them, drafted a proposition for Supreme Soviet, which included refusal of support from national-patriots, withdrawal from Moscow to regions supporting Supreme Soviet and economical blockade of Moscow. But as we know, history went otherwise – Supreme Soviet rejected the proposal, chose support of national-patriots instead and stayed in Moscow, where it lacked mass support, and eventually defenders of Supreme Soviet got massacred by Yeltsin’s gang. Official death toll is 199 (including 12 of police and army), but defenders have also presented up to 10 times bigger estimates on number of victims.
When it became clear for anarchists and socialists that it was no way of picking a conflict in the side, they decided to organise an impartial street medic brigade instead. Brigade was named after Maksimilian Voloshin, famous humanist and poet who during Russian civil war remained impartial and defended organised humanitarian aid for civilians. There are some stories from work of the brigade available in English, for example “Under fire between the Lines” and translation from Avtonom-journal, “Unhappy anniversary”. Participation of this street medic brigade was a real “baptism in fire” for its members but also very frustrating, as eventually untrained volunteers had to help people with bullet wounds. But people who were there, sticked together ever since.
No matter how famous Stas became, he was always ready to do even smallest cases for anarchists and other radicals, even if cases were not political. He did not work for free, but he always understood if we had problems to pay in time – he never required any guarantees. Work of Stas to defend radical was such an annoyment for authorities, that during NRA investigation police put him out of the game by giving him a witness status, so he could not be advocate. NRA was an armed group in the 90’s, offshoot of Rainbow Keepers and anarchist scene mixed with some young stalinists, they made arson attacks and bombings against military call-up centers, a yellow trade union, police and eventually they bombed FSB (x-KGB) premises in center of Moscow. 2 former Rainbow Keepers got prison sentences for actions of the group. Read more.