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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Ingushetia on the Verge of an Uprising |
| 2007-09-24 |
| From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty In just the past four days, Ingushetia has seen two police officers shot dead inside their car, a district law-enforcement head killed outside a mosque, and two Interior Ministry servicemen slain in a midday attack. It also saw clashes between protesters and police in the largest public demonstration the republic has seen in years, with some 500 people gathering Wednesday in IngushetiaÂ’s main city, Nazran, to protest a rise in abductions. Police fired guns into the air to disperse the crowd after some of the protesters began throwing stones. Many in the crowd said federal and regional military and security forces are behind the kidnappings, and called for the resignation of the republic's unpopular president, Murat Zyazikov, himself a former Federal Security Service general. .... Magomed Yevloyev, an independent journalist and chief editor of the ingushetiya.ru news site, tells RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service that public anger isn't likely to diminish anytime soon. "It's 100 percent true that Ingushetia was on the verge of an uprising [during the rally]," Yevloyev says. "If the organizers had not stopped rallying at 3 o'clock at night, groups of some 100-200 young people from Magalbek and other towns had armed themselves with sticks and stones and were prepared to act as well. People were ready to revolt against our weak authorities. Now things are calming down, but in the future we could see the same situation developing again." .... Local officials in Ingushetia have routinely blamed Islamic insurgents for the rising violence. Several of the rebel groups accused of the acts have rejected any connection to the spate of bombings and shootings. RFE/RL Caucasus expert Andrei Babitsky says, however, that Ingushetia today is undeniably a host to rebel fighters who have flowed out of Chechnya as Ramzan Kadyrov came to power and imposed strict control over that republic. "The regions of Chechnya have actually come under strong control. It's becoming more and more difficult [for rebels] to fight there," says Babitsky. "A substantial portion of the armed groups that were operating in Chechnya are now moving into Ingushetia. The process began relatively early -- several years ago already. Ingushetia will settle down only if, for example, they impose a kind of dictatorship like the one currently in Chechnya." Resistance fighters commanded by radical Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev staged multiple attacks against police and security personnel in Ingushetia in June 2004, killing some 80 people. Since then, Russian troops have regularly sought to intercept groups of Chechen fighters who use Ingushetia as a rear base. In the summer of 2006, the resistance began systematically shooting ethnic Ingush serving with the republican Interior Ministry, branding them as traitors. But the Ingush jamaat -- one of several operating under the aegis of the Chechen resistance command -- stressed at the same time that in conducting such operations, it takes every precaution to avoid harming "ordinary Muslims." .... In some part, the violence in Ingushetia may be aimed at undermining presidential authority. Zyazikov has patiently attempted to woo back ethnic Russians who left the region in the past decade. The apparently deliberate targeting of Russian residents is certain to hurt his standing, as are the frequent attacks against law-enforcement and security personnel. .... Zyazikov's already dim reputation in the region is due in part to what as seen as his unwavering loyalty to Moscow. He is the only North Caucasus leader to be reappointed to his post after the Kremlin eliminated direct elections in 2004. Over the past four weeks, more than 1,500 people of a total of almost 2,000 respondents to an online poll have registered their readiness to sign a collective legal action against Zyazikov for corruption and deliberately misinforming Moscow about the true situation in Ingushetia. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #1 Time to use the environmentally friendly DOAB |
| Posted by: john frum 2007-09-24 09:33 |