Moscow Used Chechen-Ingush Land Deal to Weaken Both Vaynakh Peoples, ‘Zamanho’ Writer Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 31 – Amir Polonkoy, a commentator for the Ingush portal Zamanho, says that Moscow has used the land deal between former Ingush head Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov not only to weaken both of these republics but all the non-Russian territories in the North Caucasus (zamanho.com/?p=11215).

            That is because the explosive reaction in Ingushetia has allowed Moscow to argue that “you see what will happen there if we aren’t present: you will all die. This is in fact a racket in pure form. I promise to protect you but I myself organize the threat to you and you are forced to seek my defense. This is Moscow’s imperial logic.”

            Unfortunately, he continues, many Russians and all too many people in the North Caucasus accept it, Polonkoy says, and do not see that such conflicts which Moscow allows to emerge only when it needs them and within the limits it decides are designed to weaken all the peoples of the region including the two Vaynakh nations, the Chechens and the Ingush.

            It is of course true, he acknowledges, that not Ingush or Chechen comes to this issue with clean hands. “Among us are not a few nationalists just as there are among the Chechens.” But more thoughtful people have to realize that they must not always themselves to “become pawns in a foreign game and give up these beautiful lands to Gazprom and the Russian military.”

            Meanwhile, there were four pieces of news from courtrooms in which Ingush defendants figured and one about an Ingush returning home from St.Petersburg:

1.      A court in Nizhny Tagil reduced the sentence of Timur Khamkhoyev, a former siloviki who was found guilty of torturing Ingush prisoners earlier (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/338521/).

2.      Jailors ruled that Zarifa Sautiyeva could not be released to attend the funeral of her brother who died unexpectedly of a heart attack. That action violates Ingush understandings of good order and has sparked outrage among many people there (fortanga.org/2019/07/zarifa-sautieva-ne-smozhet-popast-na-pohorony-brata/ and http://zamanho.com/?p=11231).

3.      A lawyer had his watch confiscated after he used it to photograph a hematoma inflicted on his client, Bagaudn Myakiyev (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/338478/).

4.      A Nazran court fined Murad Dakiyev, a leader of the Union of Teips of the Ingush People, 15,000 rubles (250 US dollars) on charges of distributing fake news. His lawyers say they will appeal because they have evidence that what he reported was in fact true (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/338475/).

5.      And Mochkkh Sultygov, an Ingush writer living in St. Petersburg where he has been undergoing medical treatment, has become the most prominent Ingush from beyond the borders of the republic to declare that he is returning home to fight for the rights of opposition figures now in jail (http://zamanho.com/?p=11272).