Authorities Gear Up for First Anniversary of Yevkurov-Kadyrov Land Deal

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 15 – The first anniversary of the deal between former Ingush head Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov, a deal in which Yevkurov gave up 26,000 hectares of Ingush land, violated the republic constitution to get this approved, and sparked protests ever since, is rapidly approaching and officials, fearing trouble, are preparing.

            One of the measures they have adopted is to announce the convention of a meeting of a hitherto-unknown Congress of the Vaynakh People in Turkey, an action that Akhmed Pogorov, the vice president of the World Congress of the Ingush People, says at best is an attempt to distract Ingush from their problem but at worse quite possibly something far more serious (fortanga.org/2019/09/novye-popytki-pridat-zabveniyu-ingushskuyu-gosudarstvennost/).

            Pogorov, who has been on a wanted list since last spring but remains free, says in an open declaration that this meeting is intended to discredit the Ingush Congress and the Ingush nation, to undermine the idea that the Ingush and Chechens are separate nations, and to prevent Ingush from seeking to recover the lands that have been taken from them or traitorously given away. 

            Speaking on behalf of the World Congress of the Ingush People, Pogorov calls on the Ingush nation to ignore this “congress” and any other attempts by the authorities to distract them from their responsibilities, an appeal that both Magas and Moscow are likely to view as a call to protests on the September 26 anniversary.

            Meanwhile, lawyers for Leyla Chemurziyeva who has been convicted on trumped up charges of being a member of an Ingush underground group say that their client has been threatened with beatings or a longer jail sentence if she doesn’t sign statements implicating other on the lists of officials (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/340238/).

            Chemurziyeva, who says she doesn’t know any of these people, has refused to sign. Her lawyers’ account is important because it provides additional details on how the powers that be in Ingushetia (and elsewhere in the Russian Federation) are engaged in the fabrication of cases against opposition figures they want to imprison.