Dancers duped to seek asylum abroad: Chechnya

A group of 18 Chechens who applied for asylum while on a dance tour of Finland were duped into abandoning their homeland and want to come back, Chechnya's culture minister said on Thursday.
The asylum claim by the Zhovkhar troupe - which had semi-official status in Chechnya - is embarrassing for local leaders who have been proclaiming that life is returning to normal after a decade-long separatist war devastated the region.
Two male and three female performers, the manager and 11 family members applied for asylum, citing a dangerous security situation at home. Another female dancer travelled to Belgium.
In a public relations exercise, officials in Chechnya invited journalists to watch a rehearsal of a folk ensemble, including the four members of the Zhovkhar troupe who did not go to Finland, at the ministry of culture.
Culture Minister Dikalu Muzykayev said the dancers who sought asylum had actually been sacked from the troupe a month ago, although a Finnish businessman who invited them to Finland disputes that.
"They enjoyed good working conditions here. They are crying and want to come back," said Muzykayev, without giving more details on whether the troupe would take them back. "Foreign special services are luring Chechen youths from their homes for their own uses."
The dancers' flight is a blow to former Chechen rebel Ramzan Kadyrov, who was appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to head the south Russian Republic in March and has overseen a large scheme to rebuild Chechnya's economy and society. "(Kadyrov) has tried to prove to everybody that all is okay and well and this has shown publicly that people still want to leave," said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Centre in Moscow.
Traffic once against chokes the centre of Grozny, shops sell mobile phones and restaurants offer pizzas and other western food. But shell holes still scar apartment blocks on the city's outskirts, unemployment is around 70 percent and rebels and Russian-backed forces still clash in sporadic fighting. This was what the asylum seekers said they want to escape, said Mikael Storsjo, a Finnish businessman who invited the dancers to Finland.
"They told the Finnish authorities Chechnya is not as safe as it is made out to be, that there are many explosions and that ordinary people get caught up in police operations," he said.