08MOSCOW207, NORTHERN CAUCASUS: INGUSHETIYA BOILS OVER, AGAIN

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Reference ID	Created	Released	Classification	Origin
08MOSCOW207	2008-01-28 15:35	2011-08-30 01:44	CONFIDENTIAL	Embassy Moscow

VZCZCXYZ0003
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHMO #0207/01 0281535
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 281535Z JAN 08
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6295
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 000207 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/28/2018 
TAGS: PGOV PINR KDEM PHUM SOCI RS
SUBJECT: NORTHERN CAUCASUS: INGUSHETIYA BOILS OVER, AGAIN 
 
REF: MOSCOW 181 
 
Classified By: DCM Daniel A. Russell.  Reasons: 1.4 (B) & (D) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary:  Violence in Ingushetiya is growing, which 
threatens to have impact neighboring North Ossetiya and 
Kabardino-Balkariya.  Following a week of violence, police on 
January 26 dispersed an unsanctioned opposition meeting, but 
not before demonstrators set fire to nearby buildings housing 
a hotel and a pro-government newspaper.  Several journalists 
and human rights activists were beaten up and arrested. 
Another demonstration is planned for February 23 in Nazran 
and organizers promise that it will be joined by one in 
Moscow asking for Putin to intervene to bring stability to 
the republic.  The question remains whether Ingushetiya 
President Murat Zyazikov's "success" in delivering the 
Republic's votes to the ruling party continues to buy him 
immunity from his incompetent rule.  End summary. 
 
Weekend Melee in Nazran 
----------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) While Chechnya experienced some much needed 
stability in 2007 (reftel), the situation in neighboring 
Ingushetiya has worsened considerably over the past several 
months, despite the introduction of an additional 2,500 
federal Ministry of Interior troops there in late summer.  In 
the latest development, police dispersed several hundred 
demonstrators January 26 who had gathered near the central 
square in Nazran to participate in an unsanctioned meeting. 
On January 25 the local Ingush branch of the Federal Security 
Service (FSB) had declared several districts of Nazran, the 
new capital of Magas and the village of Nesterovskaya as a 
"zone of counter-terrorist operation," in which 
demonstrations were banned, movement was restricted, and 
citizens were subject to identification checks.  The local 
FSB claimed that a car-bomb that exploded in Nazran on 
January 22 had been meant to coincide with the planned 
January 26 demonstration to protest human rights abuses, 
local corruption and voting fraud in the December 2 Duma 
elections. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) According to press reports, at 10:30 some 150-200 
participants, mainly young men, gathered near the square. 
Some had reportedly come armed with molotov cocktails.  When 
the special forces police blocked access to the square, they 
responded by throwing stones and their petrol bombs.  In the 
melee that followed, two nearby buildings housing the office 
of the local "Serdalo" newspaper and the Hotel Assa were set 
on fire.  Damage to the hotel was less severe than to the 
newspaper's offices. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Police arrested between 30 and 40 people, according 
to press reports, including at least ten journalists and 
human rights representatives covering the demonstration. 
Yevgeniy Buntman, an Ekho Moskvyy correspondent, confirmed 
that their correspondents Vladimir Varfolomeyev and Roman 
Plyusov were among the group of journalists detained by 
police in Nazran on January 26.  The group also included 
camera crews of Rossiya Channel and St. Petersburg-based 
Fifth Channel, and correspondents of Novaya Gazeta and Radio 
Liberty.  According to Buntman, the authorities cited no 
reasons for the detention, searched the journalists personal 
belongings, questioned them about the purpose of the trip to 
Nazran and kept them in detention for about six hours.  Later 
they were put on a bus and driven to Vladikavkaz with a 
military escort.  Varfolomeyev reported on the air that the 
military escort was there to protect the journalists and that 
they were not being harassed.  Danila Galperovich of Radio 
Liberty also said that the police did not use violence 
against them at any point. 
 
¶5. (SBU) All of the journalists were released shortly after 
their arrival in Vladikavkaz.  Novaya Gazeta Deputy 
Editor-in-Chief Andrey Lipskiy told us that after Novaya 
Gazeta arranged a meeting for its correspondent Olga Bobrova 
with Zyazikov and Ingushetiya's chief prosecutor, she stayed 
in Ingushetiya until January 27 investigating kidnappings and 
is currently in North Ossetiya.  Correspondents from 
RIA-Novosti and the newspaper Zhizn were beaten up and 
arrested when they attempted to take photos of the burning 
newspaper office.  They were eventually released on Sunday 
evening.  According to Memorial, they were denied access to 
counsel, medical treatment, food and even water during their 
detention. 
 
Situation in Ingushetiya has worsened since 2007 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) The internet-based newspaper Caucasian Knot 
contends that the situation in Ingushetiya is already out of 
control and the Ingushetiya President Zyazikov does not have 
the support of authoritative leaders of family clans there. 
Zyazikov was already called to the carpet in Moscow by Putin 
on January 15 to discuss the worsening situation in 
Ingushetiya. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Among a recent string of security incidents, on the 
evening of January 17, a ten-minu
te gunfight -- complete with 
automatic weapons fire and grenades -- occurred in Nazran 
near the home of Ingushetiya Prime Minister Ibrahim Malsagov. 
 (Note:  Press reports did not confirm that Malsagov was the 
target of the attack, but he did survive an August 2005 
shooting in which his bodyguard died and he himself was 
wounded.)  As a result of a failed January 31, 2007 
assassination attempt on the mufti of Ingushetiya, security 
agencies from Ingushetiya and neighboring Chechnya and North 
Ossetiya carried out nine special operations in Ingushetiya 
during February and March 2007 in which nine suspected 
insurgents were killed. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) The situation continued to deteriorate in the 
summer, punctuated by murders of ethnic Russians and attacks 
on local Interior Ministry and FSB police.  The introduction 
of additional federal police in July and August increased 
local resentment, culminating in a November 24 rally of 
several hundred people in Nazran which was broken up 
violently by the FSB.  In the following months, Memorial 
reported that there have been almost daily attacks on 
security personnel as well as private citizens.  On December 
18, police arrested two young Ingush men, Ruslan Dzagiyev and 
Bashir Kotiyev in connection with the August 13 bombing of 
the Nevskiy Express train between Moscow and St. Petersburg. 
Also on December 18, police arrested Ruslan Kesayev, who was 
wanted in connection with the December 9 bombing of a bus 
from Pyatigorsk to Stavropol. 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  Unlike Chechnya, where the number of abductions 
has decreased dramatically, Memorial reported that during the 
first eight months of 2007, 22 persons were kidnapped in 
Ingushetiya -- almost the same number as in Chechnya, which 
has a much larger population.  According to Memorial, people 
in Ingushetiya are seized in the streets by armed individuals 
in uniforms.  Since Ingushetiya does not have a pretrial 
detention center, those detained end up in North Ossetiya 
where torture is reportedly used to extract confessions.  On 
June 25 in the village of Surkhakni and again on September 19 
in Nazran, members of families whose sons had been abducted 
held rallies demanding that Zyazikov put an end to the 
indiscriminate killings of suspects by police and the 
practice of abducting Ingush men and taking them to 
neighboring republics. 
 
¶10.  (C) Sasha Petrov, Deputy Director of the Moscow office 
of Human Rights Watch believes the increased violence in 
Ingushetiya is a result of the influx there of Chechen and 
Ingush fighters who have either been pushed into the hills by 
the recent success of Chechen and federal troops to bring 
more stability to Chechnya, or fighters excluded from Chechen 
President Ramzan Kadyrov's amnesty program.  According to 
Petrov, the reason for the increase in attacks in Ingushetiya 
is that neither federal nor local troops have any 
accountability for their actions.  This, according to Petrov, 
breeds more extremism.  A Moscow-based newspaper reported on 
January 15 that according to sources within the FSB for 
Russia's southern region, the current number of insurgents in 
Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetiya is 620, who are organized 
into 46 groups.  Petrov gave little credence to this number. 
 
Zyazikov's Days as President May be Numbered 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Putin's overhaul of the Ingushetiya leadership has 
failed to deliver stability and Zyazikov's long-term 
viability is under question.  In 2002 Putin replaced army 
general and Ingushetiya's first leader Ruslan Aushev with 
Zyazikov, who was then an FSB general.  United Russia 
selected Zyazikov as its "locomotive" for Ingushetiya during 
the December Duma elections and he did not disappoint -- 
official results showed a turnout of 98.9 percent with almost 
all the votes for United Russia.  However Ingushetiya is the 
only North Caucasus republic that lost deputies in the new 
Duma, going from three to only one.  An interet-based "I Did 
Not Vote" campaign has resulted in over half of the voters in 
Ingushetiya saying that they did not vote in the December 
elections.  In January a local court ruled that a lawsuit 
filed by the prosecutor in Ingushetiya against the NGO Golos 
Beslana (Voice of Beslan) claiming that statements on the 
NGO's website critical of Putin and the Russian government's 
reaction to the 2004 terrorist attack were "extremist" should 
be heard in North Ossetiya. 
 
¶12. (SBU) It remains to be seen if Zyazikov will be able to 
weather these latest embarrassments, along with the worsening 
security situation that led Ramzan Kadyrov to offer 
additional Chechen police last September.  But the Kremlin 
may be hard-pressed to come up with a successor to him, 
especially before the next big test, planned demonstrations 
in Nazran and Moscow on February 23 to mark the anniversary 
of the 1944 mass expulsion by Stalin of Ingush to Central 
Asia. 
BURNS

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