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The Ingush-Ossetian powder keg

Timur Aliyev

44-year-old accountant, Lyuba Dzeytova, steps out over the threshold of her caravan in the refugee settlement near the small village of Maysky, wiping her floury hands on her apron. She is preparing "dulkh-khaltam", an Ingush national dish of chicken and dumplings, for her son. "It's not easy to cook in a kitchen a metre square," she complains.

Dzeytova has lived in this caravan for almost ten years, ever since she was forced to leave her large apartment in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia. Even then she thought she would never return.

Although the village of Maysky is officially within the borders of North Ossetia, it is virtually an Ingushetian town, inhabited only by Ingush. Only 15 kilometres from Ingushetia's largest town, Nazran, and 35 kilometres from Vladikavkaz people travel regularly to Ingushetia to work and visit family and friends. The residence permits in their passports say "Prigorodny District, North Ossetia".

Before the conflict in 1992, equal numbers of Ingush and Ossetians lived in Prigorodny District. Over five October days of armed clashes between incited nationalists on both sides, 407 Ingush and 105 Ossetians were killed, people disappeared without trace, houses were burnt out and abandoned. Only the eventual interference of federal troops put a stop to the carnage.

Sixty thousand Ingush were forced to leave their native republic. Only the villages of Maysky, Kartsa and parts of Chermen remained inhabited by Ingush, and the Ossetians from those villages were forced to abandon their homes.

The refugee camp in Maysky was set up that same October in 1992 when the Ingush fleeing from other Prigorodny District villages were given caravans in a field opposite the village of Maysky and provided with electricity, a temporary arrangement for the winter. But after the refugees moved in, annexes were added to the caravans and the refugees stayed for another 12 years. People did not want to return to their destroyed homes, yet nobody provided them with a place to live in Ingushetia.

Every autumn and winter brought problems for the refugees: the electricity was cut off, and with the caravans placed directly onto the ground, brown mud clung to people"s feet. Encouraged by the federal authorities, the Ossetian and Ingush peace process and the return of the refugees has continued for the past 12 years. There has undoubtedly been progress: around thirty percent of Ingush from the Prigorodny District had already returned home when the seizure of hostages in Beslan effectively aggravated the Ossetian – Ingush conflict.

"We are fearing again"

Last year, a court decreed that the apartment Dzeytova had lost be returned to her. Unable to sell it, she decided to live there with her son, until the recent events in Ossetia forced her to flee a second time.

"We left to be on the safe side" she says. "They say that in Vladikavkaz, the Ossetians beat up somebody from Ingushetia. I am afraid for my son. It's better to wait it out for a couple of weeks in Ingushetia, until passions die down."

Information in the press that Ingush were among the terrorists immediately revived memories of the long ago conflict. The Russian television channel NTV showed the wife of one of the terrorists, Ingush Iznaura Kodzoyeva with her five children, and the mother of another, Magomeda Ausheva, both calling on the terrorists to release the children.

The authorities responded almost immediately, but it was too late. The whole of Russia and Ossetia in particular saw that there were Ingush among the hostage-takers in the school. Many Ingush, including those living in Vladikavkaz and Beslan, had to leave the republic.

"We are very afraid that a war will break out. We have already lived through something like that and we very much do not want to live through it again," Lyuba says.

13-year-old Medin, who lives in the caravan next door, returned to Ingushetia with her parents only three years ago. "I knew there was a war here when I was only a year old," she says. "When I first moved here, I was very afraid. I thought the Ossetians and the Russians would come in their tanks. And now I am afraid that there will be a war again and people will be killed."

Closed border

Near Chermen, the road from Maysky crosses the Rostov-Baku federal highway leading to Vladikavkaz. Concrete blocks, barriers and speed humps partition off the roads. The checkpoints are surrounded by barbed wire. In a gun slot, the face of a soldier is visible over the barrel of a machine gun.

Dozens of cars and buses form queues. Police check the documents of drivers and passengers and allow only those with Ossetian residency permits to go through. The post was officially closed after the hostage crisis in Beslan when Russian president, Vladimir Putin, arrived in town on 4 September and ordered the closure of the republic"s state border in an attempt to track down anyone suspected of taking part in the terrorist act.

"It's a very inconvenient situation, you can"t drive in or out of the republic," says 43 year-old taxi driver Alikhan Barkinkhoyev, waiting at the checkpoint.

In Ingushetia itself, the situation is one of heightened tension rather than danger. Police posts are stationed along the main roads of the republic and conduct joint patrols with federal troops.

Nevertheless, a radical part of Ingush society that includes many young people, believes that even if a conflict were to begin, it wouldn"t be too bad. "We"d easily deal with the Ossetians. They"d run away from us," says 26-year-old unemployed Magomed Yevloev.

"Of course, there aren"t many people left who fought in Chechnya or Ingushetia. They were taken away long ago and put in prison in Ossetia. But all the same, it wouldn"t be bad. It would allow war to be unleashed throughout the Caucasus," he says.

In search of the culprits

Ingush political scientist, Yakub Sultygov, believes that conflict between Ossetians and Ingush would only be possible if the Ossetian leadership wanted it, to shift the blame away from itself and onto someone else.

"Ossetia has the same kind of corruption and clan society. Large families have lost close members, and their reaction will somehow need to be addressed," he says.

"Many different, previously undiscussed issues are rising to the surface," he continues, "information that could break up even Ossetia itself from within."

"Everybody knows that it was an international brigade in Beslan, but…this is just an excuse. And maybe, it will come from within, indeed somebody has to be guilty," he says.

According to Sultygov, "there will undoubtedly be some sort of hysteria and emotions, very strong emotions, more intense than usual. It would have already been the case even if Putin had not come here. After that it was immediately said that if someone called for the finding of the culprits, then they would be considered a provocateur," he says.

However, Sultygov suggests that it's possible the blame will be laid not on the Ingush but on the Chechens. "The Chechens are further away. If everyone blames them, then Ingushetia would be like a buffer zone," he says.

(T)