Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 3 – Since
Vladimir Putin named him to head Ingushetia, Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov has talked
almost exclusively about economic issues even those are not the ones that are
agitating the residents of that North Caucasus republic. Now, five days before
the elections, he is talking about one but again not those Ingush are most
upset about.
On the 15th anniversary of the
Beslan tragedy which gave rise to today’s Day of Solidarity in the Struggle
with Terrorism, Kalimatov stressed that the Ingush people share in grief of
those who survived and are committed to preventing anything similar from
occurring (ingushetia.ru/news/m_kalimatov_obratilsya_k_zhitelyam_respubliki_v_svyazi_s_dnem_s
olidarnosti_v_borbe_s_terrorizmom/).
That is certainly true, but – and
this must not be forgotten either – Beslan is located in North Ossetia, a
republic with which Ingushetia fought a war in the early 1990s over the
Prigorodny district and still does not have a border demarcation agreement.
Indeed, in the wake of Yevkurov’s giveaway to Chechnya, many Ingush want the
status of Prigorodny reopened.
Consequently, while many Ingush
undoubtedly share the sentiments Kalimatov expressed, it is also true that at
least some of them will wonder why their new head chose in the first instance
to talk about victims among a neighboring people many of whom view as their
enemy.
Two other developments in Ingushetia
over the last 24 hours also deserve mention: On the one hand, the Magas mayor began distributing
his brochure specifying how Ingush people should behave in public places (kavkaz-uzel.eu/forum/topics/6405).
And on the other, the opposition website Zamanho appears to have been blocked (zamanho.com/?p=12163).
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