Yevkurov Promises Not to Use Force Against Ingush Protesters

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 12 – Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the head of Ingushetia whose agreement with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has sparked massive protests over the last week, says he won’t use force to disperse the demonstrators because that would be inconsistent with Ingush society and counter-productive (rbc.ru/politics/12/10/2018/5bc040859a7947396b6b19f9?from=main).

            Yevkurov’s promise came during an interview with RBC in which he said he had reached the agreement with Kadyrov “spontaneously” after Chechen efforts to build a road in a disputed area. He said that they had talked about it before but that the road building gave new impetus to reaching an agreement. And he specified that Moscow had played no role in the accord.

            The Ingush leader also justified his handling of the agreement which protesters complain had not been shared with their leaders or them.  Yevkurov said he had met with deputies five or so times to discuss it but that he saw no reason to raise it before a larger audience (rbc.ru/politics/12/10/2018/5bc03e8b9a79473934b154f9?from=main).

            While Moscow remained silent in the face of the continuing demonstrations, Russia’s most senior siloviki leaders assembled in Daghestan, nominally to discuss counter-terrorism but in fact to consider how to respond to the situation in Ingushetia and more generally to its echo elsewhere in the North Caucasus (chernovik.net/content/anons/mezhdu-vlastyu-i-dzhamaatom).

                Other developments in and about Ingushetia in the last 24 hours (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/326282/) include:

The ninth day of protests coincided with a Friday and thousands of those taking part in the demonstration also marked Friday Islamic services right at the square. Everything remained calm and those going to and from the square were able to do so without any problems.

The organizing committee of the demonstrations in Magas appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to annul the border agreement. They cited the illegal pressure Yevkurov had been putting on republic deputies as the reason for their request to Moscow.

St. Petersburg police reported that they had detained the man who had made an anonymous telephone bomb threat at the time of a meeting in the northern capital devoted to the Ingushetia events.  The alleged perpetrator was from Grozny and therefore is likely a Chechen.

A third civil suit was brought in Ingushetia seeking to force Yevkurov’s government to hold a referendum on any border change agreement, as the republic’s laws and constitution require.

Demonstrators continued to ignore Yevkurov’s order that they disperse every night at 10:00 pm. The crowds ebb and flow in size and do get smaller at night, but some participants remain 24/7.

Participants in the protest have filed a request with the republic government that permission for their actions beyond Monday, October 15, be extended. On that date, the original permission Yevkurov gave runs out.