Arrests in Beini Towers Case Fail to Calm Ingush Anger about Chechens

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 10 – Two men have been arrested on suspicion that they stole stones from an Ingush memorial complex in Beini (nazaccent.ru/content/31930-zaderzhany-podozrevaemye-v-razrushenii-bashennogo-kompleksa.html and etokavkaz.ru/news/71853). But that has done nothing to calm Ingush anger at Chechens for this sacrilege.

            Specialists on the region note that there have been attacks on Ingush monuments before, but never have they sparked such anger online and in the streets. They suggest that Ingush are expressing their anger now about this because they remain furious about the land deal Yunus-Bek Yevkurov signed with Chechnya (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/344493/).

            They warn that such occasions for anger will always be found and that there is a danger that some small action will trigger protests by Ingush against Chechens or even violence between the two Vainakh nations, a development with potentially disastrous consequences for both peoples.

            Meanwhile, there were three other developments which have the potential to exacerbate Ingush anger at the authorities. First, Magomed Ozdoyev, now under detention for his role in the March protests, tells the court hearing his case that  he did not strike a Russian Guard out of political motives but only in self-defense (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/344474/).

            Second, North Caucasus analyst Anton Chablin documents an extreme case of corruption under the Yevkurov regime in a detailed article entitled “Potemkin Villages. Or In Fact Yevkurov Ones?” that will certainly refocus public attention on the misallocation of money intended to help Ingushetia (6portal.ru/posts/потемкинские-деревни-или-все-таки-евк/).

            And third, Russian officials report that 18.39 percent of Ingushetia’s residents are invalids, almost twice the 9.5 percent of the population of the Russian Federation as a whole and even higher than in Chechnya where the figure is 17.29 percent (capost.media/news/zdorove/v-chechne-i-ingushetii-samyy-vysokiy-protsentov-invalidov/  and zamanho.com/?p=16312).

            That the figure is so high in Chechnya will surprise no one given the two wars that have been waged against that republic since 1991, but the figure in Ingushetia is striking, a reminder both of the conflicts Ingush have been involved in, most prominently with North Ossetia in the early 1990s, and of the failure of the authorities to provide the assistance many there need.