Paul
Goble
Staunton, March 11 – In an open letter to
Vladimir Putin, the Council of the Ozdoyev Teip of Ingushetia says that the
continuing failure of Moscow and Magas to respect the rights of the Ingush
people and the unwillingness of both to enter into dialogue mean the Ozdoyevs,
one of the largest clans in the republic, won’t take part in the referendum on amendments.
Dismissing both that referendum and the
entire process of preparing amendments to Russia’s basic law as “a PR action,”
the Ozdoyev council uses this letter to detail what it describes as crimes
against the Ingush people from tsarist times up to the present (fortanga.org/2020/03/otkrytoe-pismo-soveta-tejpa-ozdoevyh-prezidentu-rossijskoj-federatsii-v-v-putinu/).
Those range from the destruction of many Ingush
villages at the end of the Caucasian War, the deportation of the Ingush in
1944, the failure of the Soviet and Russian government to fully restore the
republic, Moscow’s support for Ossetia in the 1992 conflict, and its backing of
the sell-out by Yunus-Bek Yevkurov of ten percent of the republic’s territory
in 2018.
Moreover, in violation of its own laws,
the Russian authorities have backed Magas in cracking down on peaceful
protesters and kept in jails outside of Ingushetia those “patriots” of
Ingushetia who have spoken out against the give-away of the territory and
rights of the Ingush people.
Moreover, the letter says, “the organs of
power of the Russian Federation constantly say that the Republic of Ingushetia
is the most economically backward subject of the country. It would seem that in
this case, the Government of the Russian Federation would take measures to
promote the economy and social spheres of the republic. But this isn’t
happening.”
According to the letter, “the impression
has been created that ignoring the rights and freedoms of the Ingush people is
a main task of the federal and regional authorities” and that Moscow and Magas
hope to destroy the spirit of the Ingush people. “We want You to know that these efforts will
be for nought.”
“If the powers of the country in the
course of a lengthy period have trampled on the rights of an entire people, if
all appeals of patriots of the Ingush people to this have remained without a
positive solution, … then what is the sense of taking part in this PR campaign,”
otherwise known as the referendum on the Constitutional amendments.
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