INGUSHETIYA AT THE CROSSROADS

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 000182 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/27/2019 TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM PHUM PINR PREF ECON RS SUBJECT: INGUSHETIYA AT THE CROSSROADS REF: 08 MOSCOW 3209 Classified By: Political Minster Counselor Alice G. Wells; reason 1.4 (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: In his first three months as president of Ingushetiya, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov has made all the right moves to tackle what he believes are the three root causes of extremism and crime in the northern Caucasus republic -- corruption, unemployment and a lack of credibility in the government. He has brought members of the opposition into his inner circle, and met with representatives of civil society, human rights organizations and internally displaced persons (IDPs). During an unannounced visit on January 20, Russian president Dmitriy Medvedev said that Moscow would provide Ingushetiya with an additional 29 billion rubles over the next seven years and stressed that Yevkurov should do more to create jobs in Ingushetiya. Through his visit and federal largesse, Medvedev is trying hard to give Yevkurov the means to improve the social and economic conditions there as well as to show that he made the right decision in appointing him. An upcoming Ingush People's Congress may test Yevkurov's new coalition over the thorny issue of what to do about the disputed Prigorodniy region. End Summary. ¶2. (C) Since replacing the unpopular Murat Zyazikov as president of Ingushetiya on October 30, 2008 (reftel), Yunus-Bek Yevkurov has taken several bold initiatives to break down the barriers between the Ingush government and the people it governs (septel). According to Caucasus expert Sergey Markedonov, Head of the Department of International Relations at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis, Yevkurov has begun a dialog with the opposition and other dissatisfied members of society who had been largely opposed or ignored under his predecessor. Journalists Musa Muradov and Ivan Sukhov agreed, stating that Yevkurov has broken down the barriers that had separated the government in Ingushetiya and its people. They admitted, however, that despite his outreach efforts Yevkurov had not yet changed the facts on the ground due to a lack of resources. Yevkurov's Big Tent -------------- ¶3. (C) Part of Yevkurov's early strategy has been to bring people who had been opposed to his predecessor into his government before they can become opposed to him. On November 3, during his first week as president, Yevkurov met with oppositionists Maksharip Aushev, Magomed Khazbiyev and Musa Pliyev. On December 7 Yevkurov named Pliyev (who was the lawyer for the family of slain opposition leader and Ingushetiya.ru editor Magomed Yevloyev) as his coordinator for the activities of the court and security service departments in Ingushetiya. (NOTE: This is a significant change for an Embassy contact who carried a hand gun to his last meeting with us at the apartment of Moscow Helsinki Group Chairperson Lyudmila Alekseyeva off the Old Arbat. Pliyev has already used his new position to allege interference by Ingushetiya's prosecutor general in the investigation of the shooting of Yevloyev while he was in police custody. END NOTE) In November 2008, Yevkurov had previously named Rashid Gaisanov as his prime minister and noted opposition leader Magomed-Sali Aushev as deputy prime minister. Muradov and Sukhov joked to poloff January 16 that while these appointments might be good for Ingushetiya, they were terrible for journalists looking for stories from the opposition. They added that the fare on the opposition Ingushetiya.org website was also tamer now that Yevkurov had taken the fight out of them. ¶4. (SBU) On November 25, 2008, Yevkurov continued his efforts to sideline any opposition to him by ordering the creation of a temporary commission within the Office of the President to investigate human rights violations. He announced that this commission would be quasi-governmental and also represent the interests of civil society. Yevkurov also took a swipe at Ingushetiya's current Ombudsman Karim-Sultan Kokurkhayev, criticizing his office for inactivity and naming human rights champion and former Ingushetiya parliament deputy Azamat Nalgiyev to head the new committee. Yevkurov met for three hours with the head of the local human rights organization MASHR and local representatives of the Chechen Committee for National Salvation and of the Memorial Human Rights Group. In addition, one month later he met with representatives of the Moscow Helsinki Group, including Alekseyeva herself. Magomed Malsagov, a member of the Coordinating Committee of Non-governmental Organizations of Ingushetiya, has stated that Yevkurov is sincere in his desire for a real dialog with human rights organizations. ¶5. (SBU) The next group of potential opposition to Yevkurov with whom the new president met was Muslim religious leaders. On November 26, Yevkurov called a meeting with muftis and imams to ask for their help in stabilizing the situation in the republic. (NOTE: The radical Islamic insurgency that plagued both Zyazikov and his predecessor Ruslan Aushev continues, and bringing in members of the enlightened opposition will have little meaning to them and their struggle to create an Islamic caliphate in the North Caucasus. END NOTE) The meeting with Muslim religious leaders and curbs on the ability of law enforcement to take suspects into custody without due process (24 instances in 2008) or the use of extra-judicial killings (46 killed in 2008) could take away some of the incentives for young Ingush to head to the mountains. Despite all this, however, there continue to be sporadic attacks in Ingushetiya targeting law enforcement and military elements (septel). ¶6. (C) On November 28, 2008, Yevkurov met with internally-displaced persons from neighboring Chechnya and North Ossetia. (NOTE: Most of the displaced persons from North Ossetia are from the Prigorodniy region near the border with Ingushetiya. This area was given over to North Ossetia in the 1940's during Stalin's resettlement of Ingush and Chechens to other parts of the Soviet Union. Ossetians and Ingush engaged in a bloody conflict over Prigorodniy in the fall of 1992. Yevkurov's family is also from the Prigorodniy region, but most with whom we have raised this point believe that he was too young when he left to consider himself from there. Nonetheless, Yevkurov stated in November 2008 that he disapproved of "people who lived in Vladikavkaz" working in local law enforcement in Ingushetiya. The Internet-based Caucasian Knot estimated that up to 60,000 ethnic Ingush may have been forced to leave North Ossetia because of the conflict, and there are 18,000 displaced persons from North Ossetia, 2,000 of whom currently live in several dozen temporary accommodation centers in Ingushetiya. END NOTE) During his meeting with IDPs, Yevkurov promised to resolve the question of their return to their homes in the Prigorodniy region as his first order of business, and until that time, to do all that he and his government could to improve the conditions under which they live. Shortly after this November 28 meeting, Yevkurov called together representatives of the UN agencies (most of whom are PRM implementing partners) that assist displaced persons from North Ossetia and Chechnya to discuss their assistance programs. Our implementing partners said that this sort of meeting was unprecedented in Ingushetiya. ¶7. (SBU) Yevkurov met on December 1 with families of victims of abductions, extra-judicial killings and arrests. According to Caucasian Knot, 150 family members participated in this meeting at which Yevkurov set out the goals for his proposed public council on human rights: establish the whereabouts of previously abducted persons; end and investigate fabricated proceedings against suspects used to extract information from them without proper judicial procedures; and stop extrajudicial killings by law enforcement. Medvedev Gives Yevkurov Some Financial Help -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Dmitriy Medvedev's surprise January 20 visit to Ingushetiya could give Yevkurov the means to tackle the Republic's endemic economic problems. While Medvedev's visit also provided moral support to Yevkurov in his strategy of engagement with the opposition and public outreach, its real value was Medvedev's pledge of 29 billion rubles (USD 870 million at current exchange rates) over the next seven years. Medvedev noted that the standard of living in Ingushetiya is "one of the lowest" in Russia and called upon Yevkurov to create jobs to lessen the republic's 57 percent unemployment rate. Medvedev stressed, however, that the grant would fall outside the regular regional budget, and every ruble of this earmark would be monitored by both the Ministry of Regional Development and the Office of PolPred for Southern Russia. Upcoming People's Congress Could Be Devisive -------------- ¶9. (SBU) On January 8, Yevkurov signed a decree on holding a Congress of the Ingush People in Nazran on January 31. Zyazikov had long opposed such a meeting, demanded by the opposition, for fear that debate would spiral out of control. In accordance with Yevkurov's decree, the congress will discuss the stabilization of the social-political situation in the republic, questions about the republic's self-governance and the fight against crime and corruption. The question of self-governance is intertwined with resolution of the thorny issue of the status of the Prigorodniy region. According to the daily Kommersant, some delegates may ask for a delay in the adoption of a law on local self-government (as required by the law on self government passed by the Russian State Duma in October 2008, passed by the Federation Council and signed by Medvedev in December 2008) until a law on the rehabilitation of repressed people (including those forced out of Prigorodniy) is fully implemented. The Ingushetiya.org website has even upped the ante by proposing that the congress request that the fate of Prigorodniy be determined by Russia's Constitutional Court. Sergey Markedonov told us that the upcoming congress should be a defining moment for Yevkurov and his young administration. He noted that it is one thing for people to oppose the government on a website or at a public gathering, but quite another to have an actual dialog with the regime. He added that by agreeing to the congress, Yevkurov had hoped to complete his co-option of the opposition to Zyazikov and civil society. ¶10. (SBU) There is an inherent risk to allowing people to speak their mind on Prigorodniy, especially given the conflicting legal basis for the claims by both Ingushetiya and North Ossetia on the region. Ingushetiya's 1994 constitution provides for the return by political means of the Ingush territory illegally taken away and the preservation of the territorial integrity of Ingushetiya as the "most important goal of the government." The constitution of Northern Ossetia provides that the Prigorodniy region is part of North Ossetia and that the republic's borders cannot be changed without the will of the multi-ethnic people of the republic, as expressed in a referendum. Yevkurov has stated that the question of the Ingushetiya's borders should be resolved by the end of 2009. Opposition leader Magomed Khazbiyev has warned that former residents of Prigorodniy have been too passive and should not expect that the Yevkurov government will give them back their land on a silver platter. Comment -------------- ¶11. (C) Yevkurov's consent to hold the proposed Ingush People's Congress may backfire if he cannot control the debate over Prigorodniy. For all the fanfare of Medvedev's additional grant, only three billion rubles (USD 100 million) will be available each of the next three years. This amounts to only USD 200 for each of Ingushetiya's estimated 500,000 inhabitants, and that is only if bureaucrats at each of the three institutions responsible for spending the money (the Ministry of Regional Development, the Southern PolPred, and the republic's local government) can keep their hands off it. As the economic crisis intensifies, Moscow's ability to buy stability will decline, increasing the challenge for president's like Yevkurov, who have few other levers of influence beyond the security services. BEYRLE