Minister under the gun By Alexander Voron, special to Prague Watchdog
On September 9, Magomed Bolgochev, the imam of the mosque in the town of Malgobek, appeared outside the home of Ingushetia’s interior minister Musa Medov together with two relatives of the recently murdered Magomed Yevloyev. As one of them subsequently told Newsweek Russia, it was supper time, and the three Medov brothers came out to see them. "For what?" they asked. They didn’t wait for a reply, for everything around the murder was quite clear to them.
"It’s outrageous,” Musa Medov said to Newsweek, explaining his attitude to the blood feud that had been declared on him. “I’m a government official and I’m engaged in affairs of state."
At 8.18 am on September 30, as Medov was driving along Kartoyev Street on his way to work, a suicide bomber tried to ram his car, but the explosive device in the silver VAZ 2114 passenger car detonated before the collision. According to official reports, the minister and his bodyguard were unhurt by the explosion, and only the suicide bomber was killed.
Medov is a figure with a highly dubious past. Since 2004 bonuses have been paid to Ingushetian interior ministry employees who served during the Ingush-Ossetian conflict and the two Chechen military campaigns. Each case was considered individually by the court, and the judges made the payment approval in return for a certain percentage of the total claimed by the applicants. Many interior ministry employees have opted to take part in what appears to them to be a lottery they cannot lose, and have sold their last cow or car in order to raise enough cash to pay the judges the percentage required for a positive decision.
But the court’s decisions have been no guarantee that payment will be made on time. The federal centre has consistently delayed the transfer of the essential funds, and from time to time rumours that the payments were to be discontinued have began to circulate in the republic. The claimants became nervous, demanding the payment of their receivables, and now, under pressure of circumstances, the hapless merchants in the police force have discharged the state’s obligations on the cheap.
In this way Medov earned his first millions of roubles by completely subjugating beneath him the system of compensation payments and charging quit-rent to all whose names were entered on the payment lists. He invested some of the money in his own future, creating with President Zyazikov an enormous trust based on extorted funds.
The principle underlying the new career of the former veterinary surgeon is a simple and very reliable one. It is the principle of shared responsibility. The group that Medov has cobbled together is made up of relatives of the Ingush president: Ruslan Zyazikov, who is head of the presidential bodygyard, and the president’s brother, Rashid Zyazikov. Not only do these two men engage in the sharing of criminal proceeds – they are also forced to take on part of the dirty work which the Federal Russian Criminal Code regards as criminal acts.
The total number of Ingush interior ministry employees is about 5,000, plus several thousand more who are either retired or kept as reserves. They all regularly pay “kickbacks” to the Medov-Zyazikov trust out of the bonuses and other payments they receive from the state.
In June 2007 there was a final flourish. As a reward for faithful service and considerable entrepreneurial talents, Musa Medov received the post of Interior Minister.
Medov has inherited a body of state employees which because of its professional incompetence is utterly unfit for purpose. This was demonstrated in the summer of 2004, when during Basayev’s raid on Ingushetia the interior ministry’s staff were totally unable to provide any resistance. The guerrillas mowed the Ingush policemen down like flies, with a loss ratio of one guerrilla to a hundred police. In addition, Basayev removed the entire arsenal of weapons from the armouries of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
After that, the security forces took it out on the local population, unleashing a hunt for young men accused of links with the guerrillas (in most cases without any foundation).
It would, however, be wrong to suppose that the fighting capability of the police units has been improved. Over the past year there has been an epidemic of shootings of police officials. Almost every day there are bombings and attacks. Medov takes action, but in his own way: he simply gives instructions that the incidents should not be reported, and even forbids the recording of occasions when his own home has come under fire.
He has, on the other hand, succeeded in the matter of reprisals. He actively breaks up opposition rallies, and in most cases his staff violate all the requirements of the law. These actions have included the seizure of the petition with signatures demanding Ruslan Aushev’s return to the republic, the confiscation of vehicles belong to opposition figures, and the shelling of the homes of those whom the authorities consider as enemies .
Magomed Yevloyev and his "Ingushetiya.ru" web site gave Medov and Zyazikov sleepless nights. Everything that the authorities could be accused of, ranging from corruption to arbitrary violence by the law enforcement bodies, appeared on the site. Every morning, the officials in Magas would turn on their computers with trembling fingers, fearing most of all to see their own names on the screen. Medov carried out the order in the name of the prosperity of the trust, fulfilling the wishes of his colleague, and also in full compliance with the line of the federal centre. But it looks as though Yevloyev's death is going to become an intolerable burden for him.
The Interior Minister’s home has been surrounded by concrete blocks several metres high. A steel mesh net has been stretched across its roof. The house of Murat Zyazikov was long ago “enshrouded” in this way. Such steps are being taken to give protection from grenade launchers. But now Medov’s fortress is no longer his home, but his car. And what will happen next time is anyone’s guess.
The illustration is borrowed from the website Miotah.info. (Translation by DM) (T)
DISCUSSION FORUM
|
