Paul Goble
Staunton,
October 8 – The September 19 clashes between Kabards and Balkars over the
commemoration of a battle three centuries ago appear to have had led to the
deaths of two residents of the KBR, a development that likely would be
attracting far more attention were it not for the events in Ingushetia.
The two
men, who were killed in the course of a special operation by Russian siloviki,
may or may not have been linked to the earlier clash. Some have suggested they
were provocateurs who had to be removed from the scene; while others say they
had no links to the Circassian movement at all (kavkazr.com/a/dva-dnya-ubiystv-v-sele-atazhukino/29529146.html).
The case is convoluted.
On October 3, a local police official went to the home of the two to query them
about their involvement with the September 19 clashes. He asked them to come
with him to the militia station but on the way, he and they got into a fight;
and he was killed after being stabbed 18 times by a knife.
(The policeman leaves a wife and
three children, Kavkazr repors; and the authorities have given them a one-time
payment of 500,000 rubles (7,000 US dollars) in compensation.)
After the policeman was murdered,
other police approached the residence of the two men on October 4. Seeing them
approach, the men opened fire with automatic weapons, and both were killed.
Residents of their village, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the
two had “a bad reputation” and were known as “hooligans.”
Valery Khatzhukov, the head of the
regional human rights center in KBR, said that he could not say whether or not
the two heavily armed men were in any way linked to the September 19 clashes,
even though that is what the police initially sought to interrogate them about.
Martin Kochesovo, a young Circassian
activist, says that the two weren’t at the September 18 meeting of about 200
people but may have taken part in the events of September 19 when several
thousands assembled, far more than allows him now to remember exactly who was
there and who was not. They could have been provocateurs, he suggests.
Aslan Beshto, the president of the Kabardin
Congress, says that the murder of the policemen was “completely irrational.” He
adds that he is certain of one thing: “the Circassian national movement has
never and will never divide people on a social or religious basis and always follows
lawful methods of solving problems and issues.”
“Therefore, I am afraid,” the Kabard
activist says, “these young people were chance participants n the events in Kendelyon
and everything that happened after that, including the murder of the policemen could
hardly have been connected with these events.”
This may seem a small thing, but it
is anything but. It is confirmation of three long-standing features of
conflicts in the North Caucasus: first, they tend to become violent because
both officials and the population are heavily armed and ready to use force when
challenged in any way.
Second, people there, in the minimal
information environment imposed by Moscow, immediately link events together
even if there is no real connection, with such rumors taking off and defining
how people think and act in situations sometimes far removed from those that
sparked the rumors in the first place.
And third, both the first and the
second of these features point to a third: the clashes in KBR are far from
over; and they are likely to be repeated in other parts of the North Caucasus,
especially as the conflict in Ingushetia over the border accord with Chechnya continues
to grow in scope.
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