Saturday, April 11, 2020

Despite Partial Apology, Kadyrov’s Crude Remark Likely to Exacerbate Chechen-Ingush Relations

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 9 – Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s suggestion that those Ingush who oppose the border agreement he signed with former Ingush head Yunus-Bek Yevkurov could “go to hell,” despite his apology for those specific words, will only further enflame Ingush anger about an arrangement that handed over 10 percent of their republic’s territory to Chechnya.

            Kadyrov’s initial outburst came during a Grozny meeting about combatting the coronavirus and then were posted on his Instagram account before being picked up and then in some cases dropped from regional media outlets (doshdu.com/kadyrov-poslal-k-chertovoj-materi-ingushej-protestovavshih-protiv-pogranichnogo-soglashenija-s-chechnej/ and  lenta.ru/news/2020/04/09/kadyrov/).

            When he then apologized (rbc.ru/politics/10/04/2020/5e904c839a7947afcd18962e), Kadyrov may have made the situation worse because he said that his words were directed not at “any true Ingush” who necessarily views Chechens as “brothers” but only at the handful of troublemakers he said were stirring up trouble among members of “a single nation.”

            Meanwhile, the Council of Teips of Ingushetia called on the authorities to release from preliminary detention as a result of the coronavirus threat Akhmed Barakhoyev and Malsag Uzhakov because of their ages and Zarifa Sautiyeva because of her health problems (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/348150/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/348110/).

            The Ingush supporters of the three are encouraged both by recent Stavropol court decisions to release others pending appeal and by the petition Moscow human rights groups are circulating calling for the release of all non-violent detainees and prisoners in the face of the pandemic (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/348129/).

            The backers of the Moscow petition say that their call would not lead to the release of anyone convicted or accused of terrorism, however. Given that all three of the Ingush whose release is being sought are also accused of organizing a terrorist organization, it is not clear that a Moscow amnesty of this kind would extend to them.

            Ingush have other concerns as well. Many are angry that Magas has appointed a former Cossack ataman who backs the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian empire to be its representative in the Russian Social Chamber, violating the spirit if not the letter of procedures in place to do so (6portal.ru/posts/православный-имперец-и-чадо-рпц/).

            And other Ingush are expressing concerns that the incompetence of their current republic leaders is so great that Ingushetia faces “an Italian scenario” with large numbers of deaths as far as the spread and consequences of the coronavirus pandemic is concerned (6portal.ru/posts/ингушетия-готова-к-итальянскому-сц/).

            But there was one piece of apparently good news: Ingushetia now has the lowest crime rate per capita among the federal subjects in the Russian Federation except for Chechnya. In that republic, there were 2.6 crimes per 1000 last year; in Ingushetia, 3.6. How real as opposed to falsified these numbers are is unknown (capost.media/news/obshchestvo/in-chechnya-ingushetia-dagestan-and-kbr-are-committing-less-crimes/).

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