Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 11 – Newly
confirmed Ingush head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatv has named Konstantin Surikov, a
48-year-old Russian banker from Tomsk with no ties to that North Caucasus
republic to be his prime minister. And while Surikov was easily confirmed 27 to
one by the republic’s Popular Assembly, many will see this as a slap in the
face of the Ingush nation.
This is the second such case in the
North Caucasus in recent years when both the top officials in a republic are
not connected with a republic or its titular nationality. The first was in
Daghestan where last year Vladimir Vasiliyev appointed as head of the republic
government an official from Tatarstan (doshdu.com/glavoj-pravitelstva-ingushetii-stal-bankovskij-funkcioner-i-on-nemestnyj/).
It had long been a source of pride
among non-Russian groups that at the end of the Soviet period and even more
after 1991, they had as their direct rulers people of the same nationality who
had some experience in their republic.
Vladimir Putin appears to be going back to the earlier Soviet practice
of using outsiders and Russians as proconsuls.
The big story of the day, however,
involved the funeral of an ethnic Russian Pavel Zagilov, who lived his entire
life in Ingushetia, had converted to Islam, and spoke the language, who died
while in a Russian prison after refusing to work for the FSB against Ingush
targets. He was remembered as a true
friend of the Ingush people (zamanho.com/?p=12436).
Meanwhile, there were two other
developments in the courts. A Nalchik curt
extended the detention of Ingush activist Ibragim Dugiyev until December 15. He
is charged with attacking police during the March demonstrations and faces up
to ten years in prison if convicted (memohrc.org/ru/news_old/sud-ostavil-v-zaklyuchenii-ocherednogo-uchastnika-ingushskih-protestov).
And jurors refused to convict three
men accused of attacking Imam Khamzat Chumakov, a reminder that when trials
take place in front of juries and not just judges, the results are far less
predictable (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/340091/).
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