Chechens Must Not Move onto Lands Taken from Ingushetia, World Congress of Ingush People Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 28 – Two declarations today, one by the World Congress of the Ingush People and a second by a justice of the Ingush Constitutional Court, demonstrate that the Ingush opposition to the September 26 border accord between Ingushetia’s Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov is intensifying rather than dying out.

            In fact, taken together these declarations suggest the Ingush population is increasingly alienated not only from its own leadership but also from Moscow-controlled structures such as the Russian Constitutional Court which declared the border accord is legal and the Coordinating Center for Muslims of the North Caucasus which seeks to block a shariat hearing on that accord. 

            The World Congress of the Ingush People has issued an appeal to what it calls “the fraternal Chechen people” concerning Kadyrov’s plans to have Chechens move into the land transferred from Ingushetia to Chechnya (fortanga.org/2018/12/obrashhenie-vsemirnogo-kongressa-ingushskogo-naroda-k-bratskomu-chechenskomu-narodu/#more-1335).

            This territory, it says, was “illegally” torn away from the Ingush people, even though it has been the homeland of prominent Ingush families and teips for “many centuries,” something that is proved by “historical maps and documents.”

            “The Ingush people has expressed its categorial disagreement with the transfer of these lands into the Chechen Republic. However, using administrative possibilities and crude force and undermined the traditional right of the Vaynakhs (adats) and Shariat, the leadership of the Chechen Republic was able to sell this unjust Agreement.”

                    

            The World Congress of the Ingush People continues with the following declaration: “the resettlement on these lands of anyone, despite the opinion of the Ingush people and lack of agreement with its historical masters living in Ingushetia is illegal.  It is just as illegal as at one time the resettlement of Avars and Laks on Chechen lands in the Aukhov distriction of the Daghestan ASSR and the resettlement of Osetins on Ingush lands in the Prigorodny district in 1944 after the deportation of Chechens and Ingush.”

            “Any use of these lands, including the construction of houses, is illegal and forbidden to you by the Shariat and our adats,” the congress says.

            “At the present historical moment, the Ingush people, betrayed by its own leadership, does not have the opportunity to defend its territorial integrity. However, at the very first opportunity, it will present its claims against those who illegally occupy the territory and property of the Ingush people.”

             And it concludes: “Do not allow a wedge to be driven between our fraternal peoples and do not act with our property as marauders did in 1944 and during the Chechen wars. Do not forget that we in the first instance are Muslims and Vaynakhs.”

            The second declaration by Ibragim Doskiyev, a justice of the Ingush Republic Constitutional Court, is equally important (stapico.ru/photos/1943582741876406878_2279287373).

            It is directed against the decision of the Coordinating Center for Muslims of the North Caucasus which has issued a statement against the use of a shariat court to resolve the border dispute, a statement that was clearly orchestrated by the Russian authorities and at variance with Muslim law and practice. (See windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/12/moscows-pyrrhic-victory-in-discrediting.html.)

            Doskiyev observes that he always “tries not to criticize religious leaders and their organizations” but that the actions of the Coordinating Center leave him no choice.  “I consider,” he says, “that these muftis have no moral right to condemn the actions of the Ingush Muftiate since they from the beginning of the confrontation over the anti-people Agreement on the transfer of part of the territory of Ingushetia not once tried to get involved int eh situation or propose their services to resolve the conflict.”

            Indeed, “it seems to me,” he continues, “judging by the inaction of the Coordinating Center and the absence of its own opinion on many important issues of the Caucasus community, it cannot criticize anyone. I do not remember a single significant project of this organization since it was founded in 1998.”

            “Over these 20 years, the Muslims of the North Caucasus have experienced and experience to this time many problems, but Berdiyev and company always conduct themselves like marriage generals.  As for the Kadiat of Ingushetia, there has been no violation of Russian law in the work of this consultative organs.”

            The Ingush kadis, Doskiyev says, “have acted as mediators for the resolution of disputes between citizens. The carrying out of such mediating procedures is recognized by the state and supported by it. There is even a special law regulating these issues: the federal law from July 27, 2010, No. 193-FZ: ‘On alternative procedures for resolving disputes with the participant of a mediator.”