VIOLENCE PERSISTS IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 000509



SIPDIS



E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/02/2019

TAGS: PREL, PGOV, KDEM, PHUM, PINR, RS

SUBJECT: VIOLENCE PERSISTS IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS



REF: MOSCOW 182



Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Alice G. Wells; reason 1.4

(d)



1. (C) Summary and Comment: Violence persists in northern

Caucasus republics of Ingushetiya, Chechnya and Dagestan

despite attempts by the local administrations to calm the

situation. Ingushetiya president Yevkurov needs to pull yet

another sleight of hand, perhaps with the help of Kremlin

money, if he is to reduce the amount of crime and attacks

against law enforcement. Chechnya's strongman Ramzan

Kadyrov, facing increased pressure over the violence, is

reaching out to former foes with olive branches and the butt

of a rifle, in an attempt to consolidate his control. In

Dagestan, the political elite seems more concerned about how

to divide up plum jobs than how to solve the republic's

instability. End Summary and Comment.



Ingushetiya's New Look Sadly Resembles Last Year

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2. (C) Ingushetiya's new president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, has

continued his efforts (reftel) to bring peace to the northern

Caucasus republic and the region as a whole. He succeeded in

keeping the thorny issue of to whom the Prigorodniy region

belongs off the agenda and out of discussions at the January

31 Ingush People's Congress. On February 9 he even declared

that, at the current moment, the return of the Prigorodniy

region to Ingushetiya is not possible "from the point of view

of the country's leadership" and called on ethnic Ingush from

Prigorodniy (of which he is one) to return to their homes

there. Grigoriy Shvedov from the internet-based Caucasian

Knot news service told us February 25 that Yevkurov's

statement and his earlier rapprochement with North Ossetia's

president is unpopular in Ingushetiya and could become a

possible rallying cry for future opposition to the President.





3. (C) Yevkurov also took the extraordinary step on February

14 of calling for the end of all "blood feuds" in

Ingushetiya, characterizing them not only a tragedy for the

victims of the crime and their families, but also the

families of the person who committed the murder. An

estimated 180 families are believed to be involved in blood

feuds in Ingushetiya. Among the families participating in

the public reconciliation presided over by Yevkurov were two

that had been involved in a blood feud since 1970, as well as

members of the family of slain opposition leader Magomed

Yevloyev who died as a result of a gunshot wound to the head

on August 31 while in police custody. On February 26, a

court in Ingushetiya ruled that legal proceedings concerning

Yevloyev's death could proceed without the participation of

the accused parties. Neither Shvedov nor Kommersant North

Caucasus correspondent Musa Muradov believe this public event

will have much effect on this traditionally Ingush way of

settling disputes.



4. (SBU) On February 16, Ingushetiya Prosecutor Yuriy

Turygin announced that the number of crimes committed in the

republic in January 2009 was 25 percent greater than in

January 2008 and the number of serious crimes had increased

by an even greater number. Opposition leader Magomed

Khazbiyev has called for demonstrations March 2-3 against

Turygin, for allegedly referring to people killed in special

operations as terrorists or insurgents.



5. (SBU) Yevkurov's actions have not had a noticeable effect

on violence perpetrated by the small Islamic insurgency

currently operating in Ingushetiya. In a one-on-one

interview with Kommersant's Muradov conducted in late January

but not published until February, Yevkurov said that he had

information about a large blast being planned by insurgents

in Ingushetiya. On February 8, law enforcement officers in

the town of Malgobek discovered two powerful bombs. Then on

February 13, a firefight between police and insurgents holed

up in a partially constructed home in an upscale housing

development along the main road into Nazran resulted the

death of the insurgents and four special OMON troops after

the insurgents detonated a powerful bomb. An additional

twenty-four people were injured as a result of the blast.

There have also been the same type of intermittent attacks

during the month of February on law enforcement personnel

that plagued Ingushetiya this time last year and Shvedov told

us that people there are still afraid to go out onto the

streets, which he viewed as a sign of continued instability.



6. (SBU) A possible turning point, Muradov hoped, will be

the effects of Yevkurov's management of the three billion

ruble (currently approximately USD 84 million) initial

tranche of assistance promised to the republic by President

Medvedev on January 20. Muradov said that Yevkurov must do



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something fast to improve upon the republic's high

unemployment rate before more young men "head to the

mountains." Yevkurov discussed his plans for the funding

with Putin and Medvedev on February 20. Yevkurov told and

incredulous Putin he hoped to reduce unemployment in

Ingushetiya from its current 54 percent to 25-27 percent by

July. Yevkurov noted that the republic lacks an industrial

base and offered to transfer 51 percent of the shares of the

local Ingush oil company to Rosneft.



Kadyrov Deals with Former Foes and Friends

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7. (C) Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov has once again

extended an olive branch to a former foe. According to press

reports, on February 5 Kadyrov made a general call for all

former fighters living in Europe to come home and on February

9, he personally invited London-based separatist leader

Akhmed Zakayev to return to Chechnya. Caucasian Knot

reported February 26 that recently the separatist

representative Bukhari Barayev returned to Chechnya from

Austria. Muradov said that he believed the Russian Federal

Security Service (FSB) is very concerned about a possible

reconciliation between Kadyrov and Zakayev because it would

result in Kadyrov's near control over Chechnya. Muradov

echoed reports that some in the security services are

irreconcilably opposed to the return of a former insurgent as

prominent as Zakayev to Chechnya.



8. (C) Umar Israilov was less fortunate; he was shot on the

street in Vienna, Austria on January 13. In 2006 he had

filed a suit in the European Court for Human Rights alleging

that Kadyrov and his men tortured and murdered men detained

by them. Austrian police arrested eight Chechens suspected

of participating in Israilov's murder the following day, and

on February 23, Polish special police arrested suspect Ali

Turpal at a hotel in Okuniyev in connection with Israilov's

murder. According to Caucasian Knot, a Polish court approved

his return to Austria shortly thereafter. Muradov told us

that although one version offered for Ismailov's murder could

be his work as one of Kadyrov's own bodyguards, but that the

more likely reason is that Kadyrov did not want Ismailov's

suit at the ECHR to move forward. Previous suits concerning

atrocities in Chechnya decided by the ECHR have all been

against the Russian government.



9. (C) Kadyrov's spokesman Lema Gudayev was quick to label

any attempt to connect Israilov's murder to Kadyrov as

"ideological terrorism." One month later, Gudayev was out of

a job; Kadyrov fired him on February 26. Gudayev had worked

as Kadyrov's spokesman for three years and journalist

Aslambek Dadayev told Caucasian Knot that he did not know of

any reason for his dismissal. Muradov told us Gudayev was

fired because he was not able to make the Israilov case, and

the suspicions surrounding Kadyrov's involvement in it,

disappear.



Violence in Chechnya Also Continues Unabated

--------------



10. (C) The violence in Chechnya has also continued and

representatives of human rights organizations in Moscow

report no improvement over the previous year. Alsanbek

Apayev from the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) was adamant the

conditions there are the same or worse, except that after an

outcry from human rights organizations like MHG, Memorial and

Human Rights Watch, the Chechen government is no longer using

the odious practice kicking out the families of suspected

fighters from their homes and burning them down. Deputy

Minister of Internal Affairs Arkadiy Yedelev told reporters

in Rostov on Don January 21 that there were currently 500

suspected fighters in Chechnya and 120 in Ingushetiya. Only

one week before, Kadyrov told religious leaders from the

North Caucasus gathered in Groznyy that there were only 50-60

remaining in the republic. At the end of March 2008,

Commander of the Ministry of Internal Affairs forces in the

North Caucasus General Nikolai Rogozhkin had put the total

number of fighters in the entire northern Caucasus republics

at from 400 to 500 and according to the Ministry's own data,

in 2008 the police had arrested 327 militants and an

additional 61 had been killed in special operations.



11. (SBU) The Ministry of Internal Affairs placed its troops

on high alert in the run up to the 65th anniversary on

February 23 of the deportation of Chechens and Ingush to

Central Asia under Stalin. Nevertheless, the anniversary was

marked by several attacks, during one of which in Urus-Martan

two OMON troops were reportedly killed.



Just Another Day in Dagestan

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12. (SBU) The violence in Dagestan shows little sign of

letting up. According to Caucasian Knot, in 2008 law

enforcement carried out no fewer than 17 special operations

in which 49 persons suspected of being involved in illegal

armed groups. In the latest installments, streets in the

capital of Makhachkala have become unsafe on which to travel.

On February 28 a powerful bomb went off on the city's major

thoroughfare named after noted Caucasus freedom fighter and

on February 26, a bomb detonated at a busy intersection when

a bus carrying policemen passed nearby. Five people were

wounded by the February 26 blast, but no one was injured on

February 28. In a series of three special operations carried

out in late February in which at least one policeman was

killed and three wounded, police killed several five

suspected insurgents and arrested three others.



The Curious Case of Vladimir Radchenko

--------------



13. (C) Kommersant's Musa Muradov confirmed that the recent

controversy over the February 2 appointment of ethnic Russian

Vladimir Radchenko as Director of the Federal Tax Service in

Dagestan was a case of internal Dagestani politics and not a

rebuff of the Kremlin or an attempt to break ties with

Moscow. Under Dagestan's unofficial quota system, the tax

inspector job is reserved for an ethnic Lezgin. According to

Muradov, the mayor of Khazavyurt in northern Dagestan, and

ethnic Avar, wanted to put his own candidate in the position.

When he realized that would not be possible, he decided to

convince the federal authorities in Moscow to name Radchenko,

who had formerly served in the same job in

Karachayevo-Cherkessia, to the post, thereby keeping it sway

from the Lezgins. Muradov said that masked men working under

the orders of Gadzhimurat Aliyev, the president's son, came

into Radcheko's office and told him that his services were no

longer required. Radchenko dialed the number for the mayor

of Khazavyurt and handed the phone to the intruders, but his

sponsor could not persuade them to leave without Radchenko.

According to Muradov, the men put Radchenko on a train headed

for Moscow, and in the process Radchenko received a bump on

the head, for which his lawyers have complained. Dagestan's

president quickly flew up to Moscow to assuage Medvedev that,

despite the public demonstrations in opposition to Moscow's

appointment of Radchenko, the controversy was nothing more

than an internal Dagestani political matter that will be

sorted out at home. Muradov ventured that the appointment of

a Lezgin to the post by the Kremlin is expected.

BEYRLE