From His Nalchik Jail Cell, Khautiyev Warns Ingush Their Republic Under Threat of Abolition

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 6 – In an open letter from his jail cell on the occasion of the anniversary of the creation of the Ingush Republic in 1992, activist Bagaudin Khautiyev warns that forces both outside the republic and within are working to abolish it by combining it with some neighboring federal subject.

            “From the moment of the establishment of the republic,” he says, “we have been in a serious struggle, one that has been unequal in its conditions and possibilities. And in this struggle for our statehood, we each time have encountered the most dangerous of horrible enemies, the internal ones” (fortanga.org/2020/06/obrashhenie-bagaudina-hautieva-iz-sizo/).

            Thinking of only themselves, these internal enemies “are ready to sell themselves, their family, their people, and their religion,” and thereby set the stage for disaster for Ingushetia and the Ingush people. “we must soberly recognize that at any moment, we may lose our republic and our statehood which was restored with great effort.”

            If Ingush fail to understand this danger, we will lose everything that we hold dear and be forced in the end to recognize that we are “chronically naïve and short-sighted.” Khautiyev says his words are directed in particular to the young who need to join the battle to save the nation and its state. 

            While Khautiyev did not mention any names, many Ingush will likely assume that he is referring to ethnic Ingush like republic head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov and other officials who despite their nationality seem more concerned with pleasing Moscow than with defending and advancing the interests of the Ingush people.

            Such remarks will not do him any good when his case is heard in a Russian court, but they are yet another sign that the leaders of the Ingush movement have not been broken in jail and that they will resume their efforts to reverse the sell-out of Ingush land to Chechnya by Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and to defend the republic against any Kremlin amalgamation plans.

            Meanwhile, in what many will see as an Ingush act of resistance against an effort to denigrate their nation and undermine its statement, officers at the Ingush branch of the Russian bailiffs authority are seeking to have the Russian in charge of them removed (fortanga.org/2020/06/sotrudniki-ingushskogo-ufssp-zhaluyutsya-na-novogo-shefa/  and doshdu.com/sudebnye-pristavy-ingushetii-poprosili-uvolit-svoego-nachalnika-shatina-za-hamstvo-i-pjanstvo-na-rabote/).

            Maksim Shatin, who earlier served in Russian internal troops and as a bailiff official in Vladivostok was appointed to run that judicial agency in Ingushetia a month ago. When he arrived, he infuriated his subordinates by demanding that men working for him shave their beards and women remove their hijabs, violations of Muslim norms.

            The Ingush bailiffs sought his removal but were rebuffed by Magas which said Shatin’s demands did not violate anyone’s rights. Now, the bailiffs have two more reasons for wanting him out and petitioned Moscow demanding his removal. According to it, Shatin is often drunk and worse has promoted the spread of the coronavirus by failing to take protective measures.