Kadyrov’s Comments about Ingush Sparks Outrage among Chechens and Ingush

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 13 – During his open line broadcast, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said that in the 1990s, when Chechnya was pursuing independence, “90 percent” of Ingush enriched themselves by taking money from Chechen refugees. As a result, he continued, while grateful for that help, “we do not owe them anything.”
    Kadyrov’s words have been denounced as slanderous not only by Ingush but by Chechens who have lashed out at the Chechen leader with some of the sharpest commentaries ever (fortanga.org/2024/12/eto-kadyrov-a-ne-ingushi-obogatilis-za-schet-chechenczev-obshhestvenniki-otvetili-na-kritiku-glavy-chechni-v-adres-ingushej/).
    Musa Lomayev, a Chechen human rights activist now in exile, said Kadyrov’s version of events was just the opposite of the truth. In fact, the Ingush helped the Chechen refugees, including his family, and it was Kadyrov who enriched himself at the expense of the Chechen people (youtube.com/watch?v=cUeV_d7r_Lg).
    Ansar Garkkho, the leader of the Committee for Ingush Indepemdence, said that Kadyrov has “no authority” to speak in the name of the Chechens. “You are a Russian official,” not a genuinely Chechen one. If you were otherwise, he continued, you wouldn’t say such things (youtube.com/watch?v=sZOFj-l1Fmo).
    And Islam Belokiyev on the Thoughts of Islam YouTube channel also took issue with Kadyrov’s comments on the Ingush. “If 90 percent of the Ingush became riche,” he asks rhetorically, “then where are their mansions and high-rise buildings built at the expense of the Chechens?” (youtube.com/watch?v=lhjeF5fiAOw).
    These responses to Kadyrov’s comments will not only make it likely that the Ingush will dig in their fight to retain control of a park on their borders but also will make it virtually impossible for the achievement of the kind of rapprochement of the two Vainakh peoples that many anti-Kadyrov leaders have sought.
    Indeed, they are a sign that the two, long combined in a single republic by Moscow, are now going to go their own way, increasingly suspicious and even hostile of the other – and that such hostility will undermine Kadyrov’s standing not only across the North Caucasus but in Chechnya as well.