The unbearable lightness of non-being By Magomed Toriyev, special to Prague Watchdog
The web sites, Internet forums and chat rooms of the Caucasus are discussing the attempted assassination of Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. Forgotten are the internal Ingush wranglings and disputes. Both inside the republic and beyond it, people are following the course of events, never missing a single report on the President’s condition or that of his bodyguard, and they are exchanging their information. Any encouraging news immediately becomes the object of keen attention. Even the supporters of the armed insurgency are not celebrating victory as might have been expected, but have gone quiet and are practising great restraint. It appears that the Ingush are confronting the fact of the assassination attempt as a single nation, regardless of their political views and affiliations, forgetting their disagreements and claims to power in the face of a shared misfortune. It is safe to say that not in the entire history of the republic there has there ever been a case like this, where the wounding or death of an official has called forth a unanimous reaction of grief. Much of this attitude to the dramatic events of recent days is clearly dictated by respect for the President. The mortal threat that hangs over him has suddenly revealed the true stature of a man who has proved to be too good for his people.
Let us remember the moment at which Yevkurov took up his post. The republic was sinking ever deeper into chaos, and the disintegration of the state apparatus and machinery of government had reached its limits. Yevkurov’s first steps on taking office inspired excitement of a kind that had not been witnessed since the presidency of Ruslan Aushev. For first time in their history, the Ingush people saw a president who knelt before the Almighty in the mosque along with ordinary mortals. He cancelled the inauguration events and visited the family of Magomed Yevloyev, the Ingush journalist and lawyer who was shot and killed in 2008 while in police custody. After a somewhat uncertain beginning, he held talks with the opposition, and indeed began to have discussions with almost everyone who wanted to tell him their views on how the republic should be put back in order again.
But all the while Kremlin was demanding results, insisting on the immediate use of force. After all, it was not in order to advocate independence and democracy that Moscow had sent an army general to Ingushetia. In the second half of May, Yevkurov opened a front of his own, creating a coalition with Ramzan Kadyrov. The result was not long in arriving.
I still have an agonizing sense, however, that the attempt on Yevkurov’s life desperately lacks a proper motivation. As a general and as a public servant, Yevkurov was obliged to wage war on the enemy, but he never tried to insult, shame, or trample on the dignity of his adversary. He rode over no corpses, did not persecute the families of insurgents or forbid them to bury their dead, did not dishonour the memory of the martyrs. It may be argued that he simply did not have time to adopt the entire arsenal of methods used by his neighbours. To be honest, I cannot imagine that with his character, training, experience, and undoubted personal integrity Yunus-Bek Yevkurov would have stooped to the level of criminal terror and taken a hand, for example, in the torture of captured mujahedin. No doubt he would have fought the war successfully and ruthlessly, but according to rules more decent and less fanatical than those that were adopted in Chechnya.
In Ingushetia the mujahedin had a model battle front on which they achieved one success after another in their campaign for the glory of the Caucasus Emirate: they killed police, servicemen, officials, they bombed and raided their way to victory. They also created a rear supply zone in the republic, where they had easy access to the procurement of food and medicine. Here they could treat their wounded, wait for the round-ups by federal troops to pass, and dream in the long winter nights of how they were going to establish an eternal kingdom of Sharia in the ancient land of the Caucasus.
And now it appears that all of this is to be no more. In place of Yevkurov the insurgents have cast Ramzan Kadyrov in the role of enemy. And by doing so have wedded him to the entire Ingush people as a "sworn" friend. The reunification of the two republics and the loss of Ingushetia’s autonomy now seem more probable than ever.
Photo: GZT.ru. (Translation by DM) (P,DM)
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