Moscow (AsiaNews) – Maksharip Aushev, an Ingush businessman and civil opposition leader, was murdered by unknown gunmen last Sunday. His death is the latest in an ongoing series that has turned Ingushetia, the small Russian republic in the North Caucasus, into the most dangerous place in the Russian federation. For some observers, it has already become another Chechnya.
The unlawful detentions, torture and extra-judicial executions that are taking place in Ingushetia are bringing back memories of the trail of disappearances and murders left by a decade of conflict in Chechnya, something that Human Rights Watch highlighted in the latest report it released this summer on the region.
On Sunday, Aushev was driving near the city of Nalchik when his car was sprayed with bullets. He had harshly criticised the former president of the republic, Murat Zyazikov, an old KGB agent and a friend of Putin, who was very unpopular among the local population because of widespread corruption in his administration.
Aushev had however good relations with Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, Zyazikov’s replacement, appointed last year by Moscow. But Yevkurov, too, was targeted last year, when a suicide bomber rammed the presidential convoy, sending the president to hospital in critical conditions.
Since the start of the year, the number of attacks in the North Caucasus has jumped. Systemic corruption, fuelled by a war between Islamic extremists and Russian security forces engaged in counter-terrorist action, has turned the region into a slaughterhouse where blood is shed daily.
Although Ingushetia was spared Russia’s two latest wars against Chechen separatists, it did not prevent violence from spilling over the border.
Even though the Kremlin has officially announced that Chechnya was pacified, Islamist rebels have reacted by turning the fight for Chechen independence into a jihad to establish an emirate in the Caucasus that includes all its Muslim republics under one law, Sharia.
Victims of federal forces
In Ingushetia, conflict is fuelled by popular resentment generated by President Putin’s decision to install unpopular Zyazikov as the head of the region.
During his time in office, the republic became a virtual Far West and a very poor one too.
According to local human rights group Mashr, since Zyazikov took over anyone suspected of opposing the regime has had “visits” by security forces.
Mashr estimates that 212 people were killed in 2008; this year, that number was reached in August.
Civil society activists blame federal troops and the Russian military for the escalation in summary executions and killings that take place during “special operations”. Such actions are more like the kind of roundups and targeted attacks seen in Chechnya that police raids.
Agents storm private homes. With no explanation, they take the men of the family, and then kill them, claiming they were rebels. This way they can show the Kremlin how well they are doing their job.
Generally, inquests do not follow these killings and families can never have justice.
Victims of Islamic terrorists
Violence by counter-terrorist forces is matched by that of Islamist groups. In the last seven years, Islamic militants have killed 200 policemen, soldiers and government officials.
The most devastating attack took place in August 2009 when a suicide bomber drove a truck into a police station in Nazran, Ingushetia’s main town, killing 24 people and injuring more than 160.
Islamic militants have also started targeting civilians whom they deem un-Islamic. Recently, two sisters, aged 52 and 60, were shot to death in a roadside kiosk, supposedly for selling alcohol. (MAl)
