Ingush Show Solidarity with Detained, Karachays Warn Against Repeat of Ingush-Chechen Scenario

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 22 – Ingush activists began collecting money online and directly to pay the fines the Yevkurov regime is imposing on those arrested (kavkazr.com/a/29896296.html), and they announced they are appealing that regime’s refusal to allow a demonstration on April 26 (https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/blogs/342/posts/37502).

            Meanwhile, arrests continued, with the number now having been detained well above 50 (zona.media/news/2019/04/21/hamhoev-magas), lawyers complaining of injustices in the processing of detainees (mbk-news.appspot.com/region/int-s-advokatom-magomedom-bekovym/), and Russian human rights activists promising to come to Ingushetia to help (ekhokavkaza.com/a/29894715.html).

            Moreover, the Ingush opposition picked up new support in Moscow. At a meeting there of the All-Russian Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus, Visingirey Gagiyev, the president of the Ingush National Cultural Autonomy, said that the demands of the Ingush people are “absolutely legal, democratic and correspond to the times and policy of Russia” (zamanho.com/?p=6669).

            Gagiyev added that there is no underlying conflict between the Ingush and the Chechens and that the recent arrests in Ingushetia are increasing tension. The Ingush leader called on the Congress to form a special commission to study the situation in his home republic and make proposals before the situation gets further out of hand. 

            But likely the most important development regarding Ingushetia over the last 24 hours has been a statement by the Congress of the Karachay People. It not only demands that Yevkurov release the prisoners and seek a resolution of the dispute via negotiations but insists that any border talks by the Karachay-Cherkess Republic be completely transparent.

            Such talks were conducted behind closed doors in the case of Ingushetia and Chechnya, the statement continues, and that is the root of all the problems – the most explicit example so far of the ways in which the crisis over the border in Ingushetia is spreading to other and larger federal subjects (kavkazr.com/a/my-vidim-kakoy-konflikt-razgorelsya-v-ingushetii/29896205.html).