Ingush Outraged by Kadyrov’s New Threat to ‘Take Back’ Even More Territory for Chechnya

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 4 – Ramzan Kadyrov’s declaration last week that if Ingushetia is not cooperative, Chechnya will seize additional portions of Ingushetia because “this is our territory!” is enraging ever more Ingush who see his words as sparking a new round of protests (grozny.tv/news.php?id=35619 and 6portal.ru/posts/снять-несуществующее-напряжение-и-со/).

            That is only one reason why Ingush are likely to take to the streets after the New Year’s holiday. The Council of the Mogushkov Teip has sent an open letter to republic head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov saying that his refusal to reappointment the Supreme Court justices who ruled against the border accord is a concession to Moscow and unworthy of an Ingush leader.

            Unless he changes course and moves to drop charges against and then releases the Ingush protesters, the Teip said, it and other Ingush teips will come together and organize new protests against him and his pro-Moscow regime (doshdu.com/tejp-ingushetii-prigrozil-kalimatovu-protestami/ and fortanga.org/2020/01/tejp-mogushkovyh-prizyvaet-kalimatova-pereizbrat-sudej-ks-ri-i-otreagirovat-na-aresty-aktivistov/).

            Meanwhile, even on this holiday weekend, there were two other key developments in Ingushetia.  On the one hand, viewers of a ten-minute film about Ingush activist Barakh Chemurziyev that has been posted on YouTube described it as emblematic of the problems all Ingush now face under the current rulers (fortanga.org/2020/01/5142/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/344303/).

            And on the other, two experts, Moscow ethnographer Akhmed Yarlykapov and British journalist Joanna Parashuk said that the way in which the New Year’s eve attack was carried out on the Magas police post had all the earmarks of an Islamic State operation (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/344290/).