Ingush Congress Organizers Invite Yevkurov to Speak

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 29 – Tomorrow, the World Congress of the Ingush People will open in Nazran’s House of Culture. Organizers have invited republic head Yunus-Bek Kadyrov to speak but he has not yet said whether he will accept. The meeting is expected to condemn the border accord he signed with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/327255/).

            Ingush activists are already preparing for the resumption of their public protests in the main square of Magas on Wednesday. Yevkurov earlier gave them official permission to restart the demonstrations then and continue for three days.  Organizers have worked hard to keep within the limits of official rules, but it remains unclear whether they will after November 2.

            Among those attending will be activists from Magas and representatives of the republic’s taips. The latter held an extraordinary congress over the weekend and chose delegates to the upcoming meeting. These overwhelmingly oppose the Yevkurvo-Kadyrov border accord, as do most Ingush (kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/342/posts/35109 and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/327230).

            Three other developments in the past 24 hours are noteworthy:

·         A St. Petersburg commentator says that even oppositionally inclined Russians aren’t focusing on the Ingush protests because, he says, most of them assume that the Ingush are protesting not about the principle of territorial integrity and national defense but for some selfish material reason, a view that the Russian media when it has covered the events at all has routinely implied (gorod-812.ru/pochemu-ingushi-vsyo-delayut-pravilno-a-navalnyiy-net/).

·         Cossacks in Stavropol Kray are going ahead with their efforts to demand the return to the kray of two districts now within the borders of Chechnya (forum-msk.org/material/news/15128622.html).

·         Ever more people in the North Caucasus are talking about what they should do either to avoid a land dispute like the one between Chechnya and the Ingush people or to secure their future.  The answers range from the pursuit of independence individually to the formation of a North Caucasus confederation within the borders of the Russian Federation to the establishment of an independent North Caucasus federal state (gorod-812.ru/gorskaya-konfederatsiya-kak-vyihod-iz-tupika-territorialnyih-konfliktov/ reposted at afterempire.info/2018/10/29/confederation/).