Abductions Inflame Ingush-Ossetian Relations

The mood in North Ossetia’s Prigorodny district, the scene of conflict between Ingush and Ossetians in 1992, is again tense following the mysterious abduction of two Ingush men last month.



The two elderly men, Muhadzhir Gaisanov and Magomed Torshkhoyev, both from the village of Chermen in Prigorodny district, disappeared in the North Ossetian capital Vladikavkaz on July 7. Police later found their car empty and abandoned.



A criminal case was launched into the case, and a protest rally began in Chermen, during which local Ingush residents demanded that the North Ossetian authorities do more to prevent such abductions.



“We are demanding that the law be observed and the abduction of Ingush in North Ossetia be investigated,” one of the protestors, Issa Torshkhoyev, told IWPR. “People are disappearing without trace and no one is looking for them.”



The protestors threatened to block the main road through Chermen. “The talk every night is mainly of revenge,” said one villager, Magomed. “The families of the abducted are ready to seek vengeance against the president of North Ossetia [Taimuraz] Mamsurov. After all, it was he who told everyone after the terrorist attack in Beslan that none of the dead would remain unavenged.”



Chermen has a mixed population, with Ingush in the majority, and saw some of the worst violence between the two communities in the 1992 conflict over the Prigorodny region. In subsequent years, Ingush who fled during the fighting have begun to come back, but the village is divided and has separate schools for Ossetians and Ingush.



“We are not ready to forgive the Ingush,” said Deme Kachmazov, an Ossetian elder in the village. “Let them come back, live quietly and build their houses – but not interfere with us.”



As Magomed suggested, relations between the two peoples took another downward turn after the seizure of the school in Beslan in North Ossetia in 2004, in which more than 330 people, over half of them children, died. Over half the hostage-takers are believed to have been ethnic Ingush.



A series of incidents over the last year has put relations under further strain.



According to the North Ossetian authorities, 19 Ingush were abducted last year and this. One was later found dead, while nothing is known of the fate of the rest.



Ingush and Ossetians are drawing very different conclusions about the kidnappings.



“The government of North Ossetia is deliberately creating a conflict situation so as to provoke an upsurge of violent retaliation by the Ingush,” said Daur Garkayev, a member of parliament in Ingushetia itself, although he conceded he had no firm evidence for this allegation.



In North Ossetia, the general view is that the abductions were an act of provocation committed by outsiders to as to discredit the republic.



As evidence of outside interference, Ossetians point to the case of an armed group from Ingushetia, led by a man named Ruslan Gatagazhev, which was found guilty of 15 counts of abduction of North Ossetian interior ministry soldiers, government employees and ordinary civilians. Four members of the gang were given long prison sentences.



A member of the North Ossetian parliament, who did not want to be named, said he believed that many Ingush could not reconcile themselves to a forthcoming resolution of the Ingush-Ossetian dispute.



“The incident happened on the eve of a meeting in Rostov at which there were plans to finalise work on returning Ingush to [North Ossetia] and to close this subject once and for all,” he said. “Certain circles in Ingushetia who are trying to get the border redrawn simply can’t stand that.”



Russian federal officials have shed little light on the abductions.



Suleiman Vagapov, deputy head of the Southern Federal District that includes the North Caucasus, made the unexpected announcement that the kidnappings were the work of an “organised gang whose main motive is revenge for Beslan”.



Vagapov’s boss Dmitry Kozak then intervened with a more cautious statement, saying that several different versions were under review. “They include the version that the abductions are simulations and the men who disappeared are vanishing into the mountains to join bandit groups, but I cannot say anything for definite now.”



Kozak added, “We have long forecast that the situation would deteriorate and this is naturally occurring in the context of upcoming elections.”



A parliamentary election is due in North Ossetia in the autumn, to be followed by Russian federal parliamentary elections and presidential elections in the winter and spring.



Kozak has overseen the plan to resolve the dispute over Prigorodny district, with Ingush refugees returning to their homes there and two billion roubles (78 US million dollars) earmarked for their resettlement. Around 3,000 Ingush have returned in the past three years.



The human rights group Memorial has linked the abductions to this return of Ingush refugees and noted the “clearly ethnic nature of the crimes committed”.



North Ossetia’s interior ministry says that this view is “tendentious”, and that Ossetians have also been abducted.



Independent sociologist Alexander Dzadziev said that all crime figures needed to be treated with scepticism, and that passions were being inflamed by rumour and the lack of full information.



“If the authorities didn’t cover up this problem, no one would be able to manipulate these figures, as has happened in the case of the Ingush who vanished,” said Dzadziev. “At the rally [in Chermen] people were talking about dozens of people being kidnapped.”



In Ingushetia, both media and the public are accusing the North Ossetian authorities of direct involvement in the abductions.



“The leader of North Ossetia [Mamsurov] has a personal armed group which specializes in the abductions and murders of Ingush,” alleged the popular news web-site Ingushetiya.ru



Mamsurov flatly rejected these claims.



“If criminals have no nationality, you should not look at the nationality of the victims either,” he said. “Crimes against individuals are committed by scoundrels and I’m not interested in the nationality of the citizen of our republic who disappeared. We will look for everyone in the same way.”



But Khariton, a resident of Vladikavkaz, said he welcomed the thought that there was a group pursuing Ingush in revenge for the Beslan tragedy.



“I’d like to believe that there is a group that does this,” said Khariton. “Then the Ingush here, instead of sheltering their own criminals, would be interested above all in ensuring that this kind of ethnic terrorist act does not take place.”



Susanna Dudieva, head of the Mothers of Beslan committee, blamed the North Ossetian authorities for not getting a grip on the republic after the Beslan tragedy and allowing the situation to deteriorate.



“When the authorities learn no lessons from the [Beslan] tragedy, when there is no judgement on it and the guilty are not named, then conflicts will occur,” she said. “The authorities do not want to correct their mistakes and that is only the beginning of it.



“Our leaders are pushing people into taking the law into their own hands. There is only one recourse left to us – to name the guilty ourselves and shoot them!”



Madina Sageyeva is a journalist and IWPR contributor in North Ossetia.