by David Kavanagh

The first thing you’d encounter if you were looking to join one of Mongolia’s most reported on neo-Nazi organisations, the Tsagaan Khass, is lingerie.

Adorned with swastikas and portraits of Mongolian heroes (think Genghis Khan), the group’s official headquarters are neatly tucked away behind a cramped lingerie store in Ulan Bator, the country’s capital and home to about 1.1 million people.

Here, the group discusses its plans and policies and assigns storm troopers, young men and women clad in black SS-styled uniforms, tasks to complete daily.

Once, they would go out into the streets and harass foreigners and women suspected of sleeping with the Chinese. Now, they march to save the environment.

Tsagaan Khass (translated: White Swastika) was founded by Ariunbold Altankhuum and his partner, a man that goes by the enigmatic moniker, ‘Big Brother’, in the 1990s.

At the time, the Cold War had just ended and Mongolia, which had, up until then, been a communist satellite state controlled by the Soviet Union, had attained its independence.

Although the idea of Mongolian Nazis may sound absurd given the fact that the real Nazis actively persecuted those of ‘impure’ Asian descent, for Altankhuum and Big Brother, the idea of a group that espoused austere fascist ideals and extreme nationalism was a welcome and refreshing alternative.

1990s – 2010: The early days

In a 2010 exposé by The Guardian, Tsagaan Khass’ leaders revealed their devout reverence for Adolf Hitler, praising him for fixing Germany’s economy and “preserv[ing] national identity”.

In many ways, parallels can be drawn between the situation in Germany in the 1930s and Mongolia following the collapse of the USSR.

Like Germany after World War One, Mongolia was left with a relatively impoverished economy following the Cold War.

Heavily reliant on its mining sector, the government soon began to allow foreign investors and mining corporations into the country. For the ultranationalists, this was a threat to pureblood Mongolians everywhere.

With a support base of 3000 (according to its leaders), Tsaghaan Khass declared itself a “law enforcement body” that actively conducted “checks” on hotels, restaurants and local businesses.

Although Javkhlan, one of the group’s leaders, claimed that they only tried to “make sure Mongolian girls don’t do prostitution and foreigners don’t break the laws” and didn’t use any violence, there were numerous reported cases of foreigners, interracial couples, and members of the LGBT community being threatened and beaten.

Anti-Chinese sentiment was particularly rife among neo-Nazi groups and, in 2007, a young man who purportedly studied in China was murdered by a leader of Blue Mongol, another Mongolian neo-Nazi group.

2013: Switch to environmentalism (sort-of)

Tsagaan Khass underwent a makeover of sorts in 2013.

If it wasn’t weird enough already, the extremist Mongolian nationalists rebranded themselves as environmentalists, albeit ones still motivated by anti-foreign ideals.

According to a report by Reuters, in 2013, mining accounted for approximately 90% of Mongolia’s economy and foreign investment was expected to boost it up even further, by about a third, by 2020.

While Tsagaan Khass’ leaders and their now humble base of only about 100 members continue to highlight the pollution caused by mining practices, it’s likely that they are still mainly driven by the fact that mining is so heavily synonymous with the “outsiders”.

In Mongolia, foreign mining companies like Rio Tinto rely extensively on cheap labor from neighboring China and South East Asia generally.

Given that about 30% of the locals live below the poverty line and could really use a job, Tsagaan Khass’ indignation is somewhat understandable.

They now conduct “environmental patrols”, visit quarries with a misguided sense of legitimacy, and check that papers are in order. At least their tactics are a little less crude.

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