THE INGUSH-OSSETIAN CONFLICT

The first ethnic conflict in the form of open violence between representatives of two peoples in the North Caucasus, the Ossetians and the Ingush, took place on the territory of the Russian Federation toward the end of October 1992. This  conflict, due to its intensity and consequences, can be considered along the order of  a deep-rooted conflict, a category to which specialists assign inter-ethnic and other  types of group clashes that are difficult to settle due to far-reaching claims and  demands of the conflicting parties. As a rule, there are so many factors at work in  these conflicts, deep-rooted sentiments, values and needs, and the level of mutual  estrangement so great, that the usual methods and policies of reconciling conflict  through legal mediation, negotiations or the use of a higher or foreign power  doesn't bring a settlement to the conflict. More often than not, methods of sociopolitical or military deterrence, measures of a legal punitive nature, are applied in  relation to these conflicts, but even these steps do not bring about a resolution to the  conflict and may even have the opposite affect.

                 The mentality of politicians and publi cists is inclined toward a simplistic perception of these conflicts. Their explanation  for conflicts seeks either a genetic inter-group hostility (to which a simple  structuralist scheme of "us versus them" is applied around which ethnic identity  supposedly forms) or malicious intentions of other forces, usually in the personage  of a higher authority. These forces are accused of either weakness and connivance,  or abuse of power to the benefit of one of the conflicting parties.

                 The Ossetian-Ingush conflict belongs to a category of events extremely laden  with emotionally-charged factors, which includes "historical injustices", "territorial  affiliation", "personal government", "border inviolability" and similar ideological  constructs of nationalism, which were repeatedly reason for bloody conflicts and  even world wars in the past. However, behind reasons of the so-called "first order",  which usually manifest themselves, declared factors with social and political  properties, that is, characteristics connected with such issues as the just distribution  of resources, access to power, and the status of group representatives in the  surrounding political and cultural milieu, are usually not so obvious in ethnic  conflict. In the case in question, ethnicity appears solely as a "reservoir for  agitation" in a society where power and prosperity are allocated in an unjust  manner among different groups. Specialists have not yet undertaken a comprehensive analysis of the OssetianIngush conflict and this report for PRIO is a first step, although, it is difficult for the  author to write about these events having a direct connection to them and feeling a  certain sense of responsibility for what happened.

The conflict's participants

The conflict involves two peoples, who live in the central part of the  Northern Caucasus on territory made up of two administrative districts of the  former USSR and the present Russian Federation, the North Ossetia and the  Chechen-Ingush Republic. The Ossetians form the majority of the population in  North Ossetia (53%) where 335,000 of 598,000 of all Ossetians of the former USSR  continue to live (as of January 1, 1989). The Ingush, whose population numbered  about 215,000 for the entire USSR in 1989, live for the most part in the ChechenIngush Republic (where they number 164,000 or 13% of the republic's population)  and in Northern Ossetia (33,000 people or 6%). The main areas of Ingush settlement  are the three western regions of Chechen-Ingush (Nazranovsky, Malgobeksky and  Syndzensky) where 140,000 Ingush live, comprising three-quarters of these regions'  populations, and the Prigorodny district of North Ossetia where the number of  Ingush was officially around 18,000, but in reality was approximately twice as large.  In a number of villages in this region (Chermen, Tarskoy, Dachnoy, Maiskoy and  Kurtat), Ingush comprise 50% to 80% of the entire population. Significant numbers  of Ingush also settled in two of the republic's centers: the cities of Grozny and  Vladikavkaz.   Since the doctrine of ethnic nationalism, set in a system of so-called national  state government and in an ideology of "socialist federalism", envisaged the  presence of a titular nation, from exactly whom this or that national autonomy was  proposed, and this titular group considered this autonomy "their" own state, the  formal and real status of the two groups is unequal. In Ossetia, the Ingush were  considered a minority without status, that is, they didn't gain any form of territorial  autonomy in the autonomous republics (they were not authorized after the  abolishment of national regions in the 1930's). This issue couldn't be raised even in  Chechen-Ingush because officially the republic was created as a form of national  self-determination of two peoples. This practice of dual formation was wide-spread  in the Soviet Union and is preserved to this day. In the Northern Caucasus, for  example, there is Kabardino-Balkariya and Karachevo-Cherkessiya, although the  Balkars and Karachayev activists have energetically supported a partition on the  basis of ethnicity and almost achieved success when the president of the Russian  Federation himself introduced a draft law on the division of Karachevo-Cherkessiya  at the beginning of 1992. Nationalist radicals among Ingush activists have also  supported this same plan of action. 

                In both republics, the Ingush, constituting an ethnic minority, and the third  largest group by number (Russians total 30% of the population of North Ossetia  and 23% of the population in Chechen-Ingush), have lived with humble status in  political and socio-economic spheres. First and foremost, the predominant majority  (Chechens and Ossetians) has controled the power structures. For example, only 7  Ingush were in the Supreme Soviet of North Ossetia, and not one was among the  members of the Presidium or the Republic's government. The Ingush have been  kept away from prestigious and influential positions in public office and in other  social spheres. Ingush youth have experienced certain limitations during  enrollment in secondary and higher educational institutions. In the summer of  1992, the Russian government received complaints from the Ingush regarding the  impossibility of enrollment in universities in Vladikavkaz and Grozny for young  people of Ingush ethnicity. Even in the Prigorodny district of North Ossetia, a total  of only 5 Ingush worked in leading positions in all of the 53 party and soviet  organizations, the economic and socio-cultural institutions (as of October 12, 1989).

                In Chechen-Ingush, access to authority was totally controlled by the  Chechens in a similar manner. In January 1990, there were only 4 Ingush out of 73  people of authority working on the Republic Committee of the CPSU, only 5 Ingush  among the 19 Secretaries in the City and Regional Committees of the CPSU, 4  Ingush among the 56 leading officials in the State apparatus, and among them only  3 Ingush of the 21 Ministers and Chairmen on the Government Committee.

                Being underrepresented in the power structure at the republic level, and not  having the possibility of attaining a "voice" in the framework of the existing system,  the Ingush prefer a well understood alternative, a "way-out" of the system ("voice  versus exit" is one of the rules of political behaviour) and the creation of a society  where representatives of a given group will have a dominating position. The form  of this association, in accordance with the decade-long propagation of the postulates  of the Marxist-Leninist theory of nations, is a national (meaning ethnic-national)  autonomy, or in other words, an a priori authority of titular groups. It might seem  quite simple to allow the division of territory in this community along borders of  demographic predominance, but in many cases, especially with small and dispersed  groups, this option is unacceptable or not feasable. It is exactly this theory and  political practice which prompts an answer with a view to formulas for a "historical  homeland", "ethnic territory" and so forth. A group, even if it is a minority, tries to  realize its right to command dominance by finding a claim to "personal" territory  through this doctrine. So, for example, in the Synzhensky region of ChechenIngush, which is considered Ingush territory, representatives of this group already  managed to secure such a status, at the expense of other ethnic groups. In 1989,  62,000 people lived in this region: 26,552 Ingush, 19,245 Russian, 13,247 Chechen  and about 3,000 people belonging to other ethnic groups. In the 1989 elections,  however, out of 59 deputies elected to the Regional Council 37 were Ingush, 14 were  Russian and 8 were Chechen, while in the Executive Committee 10 were Ingush, 2  were Russian and none were of Chechen nationality. This exclusion of Chechens is  especially noteworthy; apparently a certain unspoken compromise was functioning  in the republic which allowed the Ingush to control power organs at the local level  in the three western "Ingush" administrative regions.

                This compromise, however, was a forced one, at least on the part of the  Ingush who were kept away from the republic's center. Under conditions of nondemocratic administration, and strict, centralized distribution of life-sustaining  resources through government channels, the possession of as much power as  possible, and at as high a level as possible, in a multi-ethnic community allows  representatives of the prevailing group to re-distribute resources to their advantage  and at the expense of others.

                Resources from the ''main" center, which are already being applied to the  periphery center, may become subject to redistribution, out of various  considerations ranging from geopolitical to personal sympathy, for the benefit of  one region or ethnic group. This practice flourished particularly well under the  totalitarian soviet regime, but in recent years it has taken on even more blatant  forms.                 With regard to North Ossetia and Chechen-Ingush, there is enough data  which shows that, for a long time, the latter received less than its due share from the  center in comparison with the former. The Chechen-Ingush Republic produced  noticeably more goods, placing them at the disposal of the center. Among the  Ingush there is a firm conviction that "Stalin was an Osset by nationality (his father -  an Ossetian according to his last name, Dzysouti, and this mother - a Georgian), and  having unlimited power, he naturally suppported all measures directed at the  eminence of the Ossetian people over other peoples." A comparison of the basic  indicators of development and socialist parameters of life for the population of the  two republics at the end of the 1980's noticeably favors North Ossetia; for a  population half the size, there was a higher proportional volume of: capital  investment in non-producing spheres, monetary income per capita, expenditures on  housing construction, market turnover/commodity circulation in trade per capita,  doctors per person, schools and so forth. 

                According to the Ingush conception "it was a planned program of Stalin,  together with cohorts among the leadership of North Ossetia." The Ossetians have  there own myth about the disinclination or incapability of the Chechens and Ingush  to establish their own republic and their excessive passion for "seasonal work"  behind the borders of Chechen-Ingush. Actually, seasonal labor migration and  individual enterprise activity among the inhabitants of this republic was indeed  higher comparatively, which, by the way, makes any comparison of the two  republics solely by official indicators of the state economic and social sectors  incorrect. However, it is the lag in social development of the Ingush regions of the  former Chechen-Ingush Republic and the Ingush settlements of the Prigorodny  district of North Ossetia which is indisputable. One of the most pressing problems  on the eve of the open conflict was the extraordinarily high unemployment among  the gainfully employable population; on August 20, 1992, on the territory of the  newly created Ingush Republic (Nazranovsky, Malgobeksky, and the Synzhensky  region minus three population points) 204,036 residents were registered, out of  whom 114,429 were voters and 50,577 were unemployed, which is about half of the  adult population. It is precisely the unemployed young men who constituted the  most explosive material for the provocations and criminal actions that occured on  the eve of the conflict. Ingush leaders repeatedly expressed alarm and concern or  used as the main argument of pressure the capability of authorities and adults,  which had reached a breaking point, to keep the Ingush youth from extreme  activities.               

      The radical removal of the Ingush minority from the general republic  political process took place as a result of a coup by General Dzohar Doudaev with  support of radical-nationalist forces of ethnic Chechens. The declaration of a  separate Chechen Republic in 1991 was completely without Ingush participation  and the three administrative regions densely populated by Ingush remained behind  the borders of this new formation. The Chechen leadership left the issue of  territorial demarcation as if it were open, but in fact discontinued ear-marking  resources and curtailed political ties with the Ingush Republic. In one of his  television interviews, Doudaev declared in connection with this that "the Ingush  should go their own path of misery and struggle."     

     Until now it is not totally clear to us why the Chechen national movement  and its leaders tore away a people whose language and culture was native to them  along with part of the former territory of their republic, and preferred to create an  independent Chechnya instead of a separate Vaynahk state (Vaynahki is the general  name for the Chechens and Ingush). The interpretation which is accepted is that it  was an answer to an even earlier resolution of a radical part of the Ingush national  movement concerning creation of a separate Ingush republic in Russia, which was  expressed in September 1989 at the Ingush peoples congress in Grozny. But  another possible interpretation is that it was geopolitical calculations of Chechen  leaders to put the Ingush portion of the population in a desperate situation with  only one way out - creating an autonomous republic on the basis of some backward  regions (Grozny maintained control over parts of the Synzhensky region, where  mostly Chechens live), and implementing the Ingush goal - the restoration of  integrity to the Ingush Autonomous Oblast (which once existed), - through transfer  of part of the Prigorodny district of North Ossetia to the Ingush.               

     It is quite clear in Chechnya's actions that they were pushing the Ingush  toward an uncompromising position on the territorial issue. In the summer of 1992,  the Chechen parliament adopted a special resolution which declared parts of the  Ingush regions populated by Chechens under Chechen jurisdiction, and  detachments of fighters chased out the local rural authorities by force and seated  their own leadership in the Chechen villages. In those days, General Doudaev  repeatedly stated that "there is nothing for Russia to help the Ingush with," and  "Russia can't return their territory to them." The law adopted by the Supreme Soviet  of the Russian Federation on June 4, 1992, "Concerning the Formation of an Ingush  Republic within the Russian Federation" was received skeptically by Chechen  leaders as well.                 Several specialists advocate the version that Chechnya is pursuing a policy  goal of reunification with Ingushetia after the latter succeeded in annexing the  disputed territory of the Prigorodny district. My observations, however, call into  question the thesis of two "fraternal nations." The cultural distance between the two  ethnic groups is not really so great; the opportunities for constructing a united  Vaynahk community, at the very least in the Soviet period, were no less, than for the  formation of two "socialist nations." But it is not an absolute given that oppositions  and estrangement are fewer between these two culturally similar peoples. Cultural  propinquity is not a guarantee against inter-ethnic tensions and conflicts. The Serbs  and Croats, for instance, support this thesis. The depreciated status of the Ingush in  Chechnya was more than sufficient grounds for anti-Chechen sentiments, and the  backwardness of the regions of Ingush residence completely justified the policy of  "removing" them from the acquired independence. During the partition of former  Czechoslovakia, the Czechs conducted themselves in exactly the same manner  towards the Slovaks. According to some data, by the way, the level of inter-ethnic  contacts and, above all, marriage between Chechens and Ingush was lower than  between other ethnic groups with contact. We might also conclude from historical  data, that it is exactly the inter-clan fighting between Vaynahks that compelled the  czarist administration to take measures toward division and isolation of hostile  groups, after which an even stronger feeling of belonging to either a Chechen or  Ingush group formed.                

     On the whole, in our view, the Ingush's humiliated position in former  Chechen-Ingush created the fundamental reason for an ethnic movement which  favored administrative separation in order to acquire the right to direct distribution  of resources from the center and to widen nomenclature administration. The  reluctance of the dominating group of Chechens to ensure a comfortable status to  the Ingush minority strengthened this movement. It was supported by leaders of  the Ingush minority in Northern Ossetia where political discrimination  supplemented a policy of covert and overt cultural oppression. In the present case,  we are calling the highest level of acculturation of the social sphere, existing in the  republic, in favor of Russian culture and language covert or indirect discrimination.  Of all the republics of Northern Caucasus, the level of acculturation was probably  the highest in North Ossetia. The Ossetians, are the only large group of the region  with a wide dissemination of orthodoxy in the past, and in the Soviet period, with a  relatively influencial party-communist nomenclature, who intensively cultivated  Russian as a semi-official language. In recent decades, to a considerable extent  through the efforts of the local elite, the Russian language almost totally replaced  Ossetian and other languages in all important areas of use: from government and  mass-media to the educational and service spheres. The Russification of the  language in the republic presented itself as a much greater unwelcome challenge to  the Ingush than to the Ossetians because the latter were more traditional in their  cultural orientation and less urbanized. Census information from 1989 regarding  the degree of diffusion of native versus Russian languages among the three ethnic  groups, and for both territorial autonomies, is as follows:

Consider their nat'lity Ingush Chechens Ossetians the native language (%) 96.5 97.9 86.4 Consider Russian the native language (%) 3.2 1.9 7.4 

Consider their nat'lity the native language in the:  Chechen-Ingush Republic (%) 99.6 99.8 78.0 North Ossetian Republic (%) 99.0 95.0 98.2

                Unfortunately, these facts reflect the actual situation only to the smallest  degree, because questions on peoples' language are formulated in a manner that is  misunderstood; in response to the language question people actually repeated an  answer about ethnic affiliation, but not about the language they speak, and which is  often the only one they know. In fact, the native language (that which is used in a  social context, spoken at home and at work) for the overwhelming majority of  Ossetians is Russian, while among Ingush this indicator is about 50%.     

      In this situation, special measures were necessary to ensure the rights and  cultural needs of the Ingush in North Ossetia, not only in the Prigorodny district,  but also at the level of the republic center. In the North Ossetian leadership,  including members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the opinion prevailed  about the impossibility of any kind of preferences for the Ingush minority in the  cultural-language sphere, if there weren't any preferences for Ossetians. Any kind  of programs in support of Ingush language and culture in the republic were  likewise absent in the Government Committee on Inter-national Relations, which  was headed by Teymuraz Kusov in 1992.    The distance and alienation between the two communities was secured by  specific measures for limitation of certain rights of the Ingush population in the  social sphere as well. Examples of these are: the policy of limiting Ingush residency  in the Prigorodny district, hindering access to receipt of land plots, numerous cases  of prejudiced treatment toward citizens of Ingush nationality by the law-preserving  organs where Ossetians predominated, especially in a period of state of emergency  put into operation by the North Ossetian leadership in the Prigorodny district since  April 1992. The latter circumstance was extremely painfull to the Ingush because  emergency measures often took forms which insulted personal and group dignity.

                The arrival of a great number of refugees to the republic from Georgia, in  connection with the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict, became an alarming  challenge to Ingush minority status in North Ossetia. This was a serious social and  political problem for the republic in 1991 and 1992. The overall number of refugees  reached 60 to 70 thousand and they were concentrated mainly in Vladikavkaz,  introducing tension to society, including the sphere of inter-ethnic relations.           

By special measures or rational choices, a considerable portion of refugees  were directed to the Prigorodny district where the primary agrarian land of the  republic was concentrated. On January 15, 1992, there were 15,563 refugees from  Georgia here, and at the beginning of July - 11,916. These are only official figures  from the Committee on Inter-national Relations, but they haven't reflected the exact  situation since summer because refugees stopped registering to the Committee  because of a disseminated rumor that all of them would be settled out of the  Prigorodny district. Since the first of September, a certain new influx of refugees  began due to hopes for receipt of Russian privatization vouchers. South Ossetians,  formally citizens of another state, used their cultural kinship with the main  population in order to formulate a specific claim to rights in the Prigorodny district,  and to evoke additional anxiety within the Ingush community about the possibility  of expansion on the part of the new arrivals. These apprehensions were more than  warranted and this is demonstrated by the following events. During the course of  open skirmishes, South Ossetians played the most brutal role in the expulsion of the  Ingush. Representatives of authority, including the federal government, prefered to  support 'blood ties' instead of civil solidarity, having distributed weapons to foreign  citizens for the repulsion of "aggression" on the part of the autonomous citizens. A  statement made by Alan Chochiev, Vice-Chairman of the South Ossetian Supreme  Soviet, following the bloody events, can be taken as a triumph of the ideologies and  practices of ethnic nationalism over the principles of civil society and government.  Chochiev declared that "the Ossetian people acted as one for the first time in the  course of armed conflict in the Prigorodny district", that the events in the  Prigorodny district were the "first mutual military-national actions of Ossetians in a visible period."          

Thus, the socio-political and cultural status of the Ingush minority in both  republics was sufficient foundation for dissatisfaction, complaints and attempts to  change the status-quo. However, was this sufficient grounds for strong actions on  the part of the representatives of the discriminated group, and, in the final stage, for  an open conflict? There are a great number of similar situations in the world,  however, it is precisely in the post-Soviet space that they take on expressed and  conflicting forms. Why? It is necessary to search for the answer in the  contemporary social structure of the former Soviet nationalities and in the  prevailing doctrine inherited from the totalitarian regime. The issue of social  structure has first-class significance for understanding the exceptional "vocalization"  of Soviet nationalities, which they acquired during conditions of liberalization and  social-political transformation beginning in the second half of the 1980's. (It is  through this term "vocalization" that we understand the capability of an ethnic  group, or rather their symbolic elite, to verbalize complaints and needs, as well as to  mobilize a number of members around them.)             

Despite all the disfunctions of the Soviet system, its provision for access to  education for a large number of citizens and the creation of numerous prestigious  elite among the non-Russian nationalities as a demonstration of regime successes in  the successful "resolution of the nationality issue in the USSR" was an undoubted  achievement. Higher education, and particularly an academic degree, became the  most important form of social ladder for representatives of the peripheral elite.  Receiving a higher education, according to special quotas, and acquiring an  academic degree in the leading universities in Moscow and Leningrad had  exceptional significance. The "race" for education was especially intensive in the  1960's - 1980's, particularly for the youth of a number of so-called repressed peoples,  to which Chechens and Ingush belong. Access to higher education was limited to  them over the course of almost two decades. Ruslan Hasbulatov justly considered  his admission into Moscow university a rare stroke of luck since he is a repressed  Chechen himself by birth.     

The dramatic changes in education are clearly obvious according to the  figures of two recent censuses, that is, within one decade. In the 1970's, the general  educational level among Chechen, Ingush and Ossetians was already equal to or  higher than among Russians, and by the end of the 1980's became noticeably higher,  especially among Ingush and Chechens. The bad rupture with the All-Union level  was continued only for the category of persons with higher education for Ingush  and Chechens and looks extremely favorable for Ossetians. The presence of a great  number of people with higher and secondary education leads, as a minimum, to  two very important results: there is a powerful reservoir among members of the  group for setting social expectations too high, and there are numerous intellectual  elite, striving to achieve the power of knowledge in specific dividends, who invade  social-political discourse. In addition, in a society where education is available to  everyone, the activities of elite elements toward the production of ideas and  mythological constructions easily translates to the mass level, and lower perceptions  and arguments in turn lead to official nominations and formulated demands on a  higher level.

                In this scheme, the conflicting sides more than suceeded in amassing  mutually exclusive myths and interpretations particularly in historical and politicallegal material. On the Ingush side, the initiatives belonged to the urban  intelligencia residing for the most part in Grozny, the capital of the Chechen-Ingush  Republic. The first Peoples Deputies to the Russian Parliament came from here;  Bembulat Bogatirev and Ibrag Kostoev, both Ingush, played important roles in the  approval of, first, the Law on Rehabilitation of Repressed Groups, and then the Law  on Creation of the Ingush Republic. Both men led two of the most active political  organizations: Bogatirev - the Ingush Peoples Council; and Kostoev- the party  "Neeskho." Among other leaders which can be named are: the professor Dr.  Beksyltan Saynaroev, J.D., of the Grozny Peoples Court; Tamerlan Mutaliev, Ph.D.,  history, the pro-rector of the Grozny Pedagogical Institute; and assistant professor  Fedor Bokov of the Chechen-Ingush University. Almazev, Tumgoev and  Mashtagev, leaders of three Ingush regions, also played an active role in the Ingush  movement.          

     The Ingush national movement constructed their program around basic ideas  and demands for reinstatement of Ingush autonomy and return of the Prigorodny  district to the Ingush people. The main, and at times singular, goal of rehabilitation  of these repressed people was apparent in this. In general, the theme of  rehabilitation occupied a major place in the pre-history of the conflict for the Ingush  side and this topic requires special analysis.

The complex of "outcast people"

The legacy of the Stalinist regime imparted an extremely complicated and  emotionally-laden quality to the conflict situation; however, it would be a  simplification to reduce an analysis of the conflict's reasons to a reaction to past  injustices and offences. As a rule, in situations of ethnic conflict, history is  mobilized by its participants for the achievement of present-day goals, and the  demands for re-instatement of a certain "norm" in the past most often comes down  to a search of that exact moment in past history, which best can serve the  achievement of these goals. However, with Stalinist deportations, the matter was  much more complicated. First of all, they were actions, which were executed solely  on the basis of discriminate ethnicity, and affected the whole group without  exception, even those representatives who resided in other regions of the country or  were at the front during the war. Second, deportations and the subsequent  limitations connected with them don't belong to the category of "dead" history; a  significant portion of people living today were victims of deportation and retain the  memory and pain of absolute coercion. Third, until recent times, clear and tangible  actions, which would have properly defined these crimes, where not taken on the  part of the government and society. It is exactly for these reasons that the problem  of repressed peoples turned out to be the most acute and painful in all aspects of  inter-ethnic relations in recent years.               

The deportation of peoples, among whom there were Chechens and Ingush,  had a double influence on the fate of ethnic communities. On the one hand, it was  an enormous trauma (in terms of its physical size, socio-cultural and moral  dimensions) for hundreds of thousands of people on a collective, as well as  personal, level. But the most cruel and aggressive actions aroused an unconditional  (along the lines of a verdict) consciousness among their victims of their ethnic  affiliation, first as a curse, then as a means of collective survival, and finally, at the  present stage, as a form of therapy (catharsis) from the outrageous trauma, as a  means to re-instate and mend collective and individual dignity. Deportation was  not able to annihilate the nation, instead, it strengthened ethnic sentiment, having  outlined borders around ethnic groups even more rigidly, in many cases borders  which didn't exist in the past, and which in the normal social milieu always have a  certain mobility and situational mutability. Ethnicity under Soviet conditions was  far from being an "individual referendum", but above all was the fifth item listed in  a passport, which for representatives of repressed peoples was a special mark,  attracting not only limitation of rights, but functioning also as an everyday  reminder. Deportations designed special self-manifesting and painful forms of  ethnicity just like the Karabakh conflict stirred thousands of new Armenians and  Azerbaijanians to life, especially among those with "acquiescent" or "inert" ethnicity  in the peripheral diaspora of these groups.                

In connection with this, we now recall a short history of the Ingush in order  to better understand the nature of the conflict, and, in addition, the very  complicated issue connected with the territorial argument. In the present case we  don't mean "history" as an account of the "objective" version or "correct"  interpretation over which historians and ethnographers from various backgrounds,  institutional origins and ethnic preferences desperately argue. In contemporary  historiography and social-cultural anthropology it is already convincingly shown  that interpretations of the past are primarily a present-day resource and means for  attainment of certain group and individual goals. Through archeological and  historical reconstruction and ethnographic descriptions, people not only find  arguments that favor their "personal" and collective integrity, but also advance  emotional and political-legal reasons that support their programs and positions. As  a rule, representatives of every ethnic group strive to embellish their history,  enriching it with cultural heroes and achievements as much as possible to invent  "tradition." These efforts, above all by accomplished historians, anthropoligists,  writers and journalists, are used for additional substantiation of group legitimacy,  for strengthening group integrity, and frequently for colonizing a past from the  present, that is necesary for the political fight, as an argument in favor of status  territorial, cultural or other demands. All of these constructions are extremely  conditional on a nation's real or genuine history, and it is exactly for this reason that  the possibility of multiple interpretations and their reconsideration always exists.

                The events of the North Caucasus region are notable for their particular  complexity and dramatic quality: the cultural mosaic of the population of the  foothills and mountain ravines is formed on the basis of aboriginal tribal groups,  and their migrant displacement under the powerful influence of Russian  colonization even from the 18th century. In the midst of events during the  Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War in the 20th century, the Northern Caucasus  turned out to be a testing ground for "national-government construction" and an  object of especially cruel collective repression. In fact, the territorial settlement of  various ethnic groups, their political status, adminstrative borders and even the  nationalities of the nomenclature itself repeatedly changed within living memory.    

     Two historical circumstances are particularly related to the pre-history of the  conflict. One of these is connected with the Bolshevik experiment of  territorialization of ethnicities, or rather the creations of inner-state administrative  formations on ethnic grounds. Historically this issue has one very important aspect  which many political figures and experts don't recognize, and which socialist  engineers of the Lenin-Stalin era didn't ponder. Government-administrative  boundaries are usually drawn around specific ethno-cultural areas, or at least this is  the goal: it is better for administration and it reflects aspirations of the cultural  community to defend their interests and integrity with the framework of a state  system at various levels. That is why, for example, the formation of the  Autonomous Highlands Soviet Republic as part of the RSFSR in January 1921 was  completely justified; it included lands occupied by Chechens, Ossetians, Ingush,  Kabardians, Balkars and Karachais, as well as Cossacks living among them. In  order to avoid exclusive claims to power on the part of any one group of the  population, the adminstrative center Vladikavkaz and the industrial center Grozny  were chosen as independent administrative units, but the Cossack villages with a  predominant Russsian population were made subordinate directly to the Republic  government. In 1921-1924, however, the "will of the peoples settling in the  Autonomous Highlands Soviet Socialist Republic" and "the goals of wider  involvement of the working masses of this republic in the business of Soviet  government adminstration" led to a division of multi-ethnic formations into the  following autonomous oblasts: Kabardino-Balkar, Karachay-Cherkess, Chechen,  Ingush, North Ossetia, and the autonomous territorial district Sunzhensky with the  rights of a provincial executive committee.             

     The Ingush and Ossetians obtained separate autonomy in this manner in  1924, but the city of Vladikavkaz was ear-marked as an independent administrative  unit of the RSFSR and the administrative centers of both autonomous oblasts and  the Sunzhensky district were placed in it. In 1934, the Ingush Autonomous Oblast  was united with the Chechen Autonomous Oblast into a single Chechen-Ingush  Oblast, which became an autonomous republic with its center in the city of Grozny  in 1936. All these actions bore a superficial nature, but it is not possible to deny that  the powerful pressure of local national leaders, lobbying in the center, and other  circumstances were behind them. The transfer of the city of Vladikavkaz under  total control of the North Ossetia adminstration in 1933 turned out to be the most  painful moment for the Ingush in this history, especially from the point of view of  the present situation. This deprived the chief area of Ingush settlement of a large  city center, and the possibility of industrial and cultural development which such a  center presents.    

     The issue of administrative centers of ethno-national formation during the  course of the entire Soviet period has particular significance and remains a topical  question even in the post-Soviet space. If this formation is constituted, its  bureaucratic and symbolic institutes appear; they prefer to locate their offices in a  single place called the capital. Major population centers with a developed economic  and cultural infrastructure, which ensure the bureaucracy the conveniences of life  and administrative work, usually serve as these. For many Soviet nationalities who  received their "own" government during the period of USSR formation, only cities  with a foreign ethnic, chiefly Russian, population could be such centers. Even the  Northern Caucasus region was not exempt. In Vladikavkaz, in whose environs both  Ossetians and Ingush settled, these groups comprised 10% and 2% of the population  respectively, but Russians comprised the majority of inhabitiants. Chechens  likewise comprised the minority in Grozny. As a rule, the subsequent demography  is in favor of the titular group, but the capital cities almost everywhere preserve the  complex composition of the population just the same, although the "indigenous  nations" already firmly associate the city with personal national property.           

     Robbed of Vladikavkaz, the Ingush didn't find their capital even in Grozny.  On the basis of peoples' infringement, a powerful complex arouse especially among  the intelligencia and executive elite of Ingush origin. In the period of  industrialization, no new city, which could take on the role of a national center,  emerged on Ingush territory, and the subsequent tragic history of the Ingush never  even gave them a chance. It is precisely due to this that the issue of transferring part  of Vladikavkaz, in order to situate an administrative capital of a recreated republic  there, became one of the most important points of the radical wing in the Ingush  national movement.

                The great affect of mass deportation in 1944, on the mentality and behavior of  this group, turned out to be a second important factor in contemporary Ingush  history. The Chechen-Ingush Republic was obliterated by the March 7, 1944 decree  of the Supreme Soviet Presidium and all Chechens and Ingush were deported,  mostly to Kazakhstan and Kirghizia. The Groznensky Oblast was formed on part of  the republic's territory, while the remaining part of the territory was divided among  the North Ossetian A.S.S.R., the Dagestan A.S.S.R., and the Georgian S.S.R.. Severe  ordeals were the fate of the migrators: physical deprivation, limitation of civil  rights, disintegration of social ties, and suppression of religion, language and  culture. The people were even deprived of the hope of returning to their homeland  because resettlement had an "eternal" quality.

The territorial argument      

After Stalin's death, the rehabilitation of the Ingush, like that of other  repressed peoples, was unhurried and incomplete. The decree on lifting the  restrictions on special deportees, adopted in 1956, preserved the prohibition against  returning to places from which they were deported. The restoration of the ChechenIngush Republic in 1957 took a different configuation; the Prigorodny district  remained a part of North Ossetia, but Chechen-Ingush was handed over to three  districts of the Stavropol Krai: Kargalinsky, Shchelkovsky and Nairsky. Since no  organized program of resettlement existed, the stream of returning Ingush was  directed primarily to places of their former settlement, including the Prigorodny  district as well. Local authorities hindered Ingush settlement in every way possible,  and the USSR Council of Ministers adopted a resolution in March 1982 on the  restriction on propiska (residence permits) for citizens living in the Prigorodny  district. It was actually a continuation of hidded repression, a renunciation of  rehabilitation.       

The Ingush tried to return to their native spot in any way possible despite the  rigid restrictions. Many families moved and settled in a number of villages in the  Prigorodny region without authorization, and the real number of citizens of this  nationality considerably exceeded the figures of official censuses. Many built  durable houses, owned plots of land, and worked on local state farms or in  industry.      

A rather tense demographical situation took shape in the Prigorodny district  toward the 1990's. The area became the most densely populated in the republic,  where density of the population was one of the highest even without this district. In  1990, more than 75,500 people lived on 1,440 square cubic meters in the republic's  territory. Within the boundaries of villages, which are a topic of argument, the  density of the population was 186 persons per square kilometer (the average for the  republic was 80 persons per square kilometer). In fact, at the time of our visit to the  Prigorodny district in the summer of 1992, there wasn't a single free plot of land.  The restrictions on residence permits were preserved, and from 1982-1992 only  around 1,000 persons of Ingush nationality were registered.          

Serious concern about the issue of the Prigorodny district's fate existed  among the Ossetian population, and they had what seemed to be a weighty  argument. It found reflection not only in official statements, but also in documents  of public organizations. Two weeks after the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted  a law on "Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples", a letter was sent from "Adashon  Tsagis" (The Peoples Union) to M. S. Gorbachev, A. I. Lukyanov, B. N. Yeltsin, and  the Peoples Deputies of the USSR and the RSFSR. In particular, the letter indicated  that "the implementation of this law leads to new repression with regard to the  Ossetian population of the Prigorodny district of the North Ossetian S. S. R.. The  Ossetian people will again be driven to the abyss of calamity and misery. The point  is that a significant portion of the Ossetian population of Georgia was forcibly  settled in the Prigorodny district in 1944 to please Beria and the Georgian  authorities. Since 1944, people established themselves here in places of new  residence, and built industries and agricultural enterprises; the region became a  new homeland, a small Fatherland, and an inseparable part of North Ossetia for  thousands of Ossetians, Russians and representatives of other peoples. It is  sufficient to say that in the villages of the Prigorodny district, 99% of the residential  capital, that is, houses, were built by settlers after 1944. We still haven't spoken  about the fact that the lands of the Prigorodny district never belonged to the Ingush  (who lived here since 1921, after the expulsion of the Cossacks, until 1944).  Thousands of Ossetians and Russians, participants in World War II and veterans of  labour, found peace on this land for 50 years. It is not just the length of our  settlement, but also the remains of our predecessors, that gives us more right to  these lands than the Ingush."

                If the land issue was an important social problem, then its projection into the  the sphere of political and mass psychology became a question of territorial  affiliation, or rather, administrative subordination. In essence, the land as a  resource, and not as a territory, became a subject of rivalry for the two communities.  Both sides in the person of political figures and activists advanced a desperate  argument as a testament to their priority to possession of the most valuable  resources (this area of land is one of the most productive in the region). For North  Ossetia, the withdrawal of part of the Prigorodny district from their control  signified the loss of the most important portion of the agrarian complex. For the  Ingush, it was actually impossible to create a republic with a life-sustaining  economy without this territory. A factor of moral-emotional significance added to  this: most ancient Ingush settlements were right here, including the Angush village,  from which the name Ingush is itself derived. At least this is the version of  Chechen-Ingush historiographers, and also certain other writings of Caucasus  experts which in recent decades was translated to mass consciousness on the level of  an established myth.         

The collectively experienced trauma gave rise to a special sensitivity toward  the territorial issue among repressed groups, a special halo around the idea of  Homeland. We bring forward just one example from contemporary writing by  Ingush authors: "In fact, land into which sweat and blood is abundantly poured, not  only of ourselves, but also of our ancestors, isn't abandoned under any  circumstances. For generations this feeling only grows and strengthens - as is  known to everyone, but not everyone naturally admits this to themselves at all times  - and for others the sacred feeling of the inseparability of personal fate with a plot of  land, which although not large, is the cradle of your forefathers and is preserving  your roots, means it is also your Motherland. For a person separated from it, the  thirst for justice subordinates all remaining feelings and sweeps aside other  concerns; personal fate almost doesn't alarm him, but the desire to share his fate  with the fate of his people becomes overwhelming, no matter how bitter it proves to  be."               Beginning in the spring of 1992, the movement for an Ingush statehood  acquired a mass nature and organized forms. On March 17, 1992, a large group of  leaders of the local administration in Ingushetia and the Prigorodny district  addressed the President of the Russian Federation, the Chairman of the Supreme  Soviet and the Peoples Deputies of the Russian Federation with a collective letter.  All of the following complaints were registered in the letter:     

1933 - "they seized the administrative and cultural center of Vladikavkaz and  turned it over to the Ossetians";         

1934 - "they deprived us of government";    

1944 - "they took away our homeland and gave it to North Ossetia";

1957 - "they didn't return half of our homeland and they left it to a  particularly privileged Ossetia as a present, which has two forms of government:  North Ossetia and South Ossetia, and Ingushetia does not have a single one."        

The document contains very emotional remarks which inflame the popular  consciousness: "they will lead us to national degradation," "the Ingush people are  outside the laws, outside the constitution; it is permissible to crush, rob and hack up  their homeland," "poverty and tyranny oppress Ingushetia." The peoples' demand -  "to restore the historical homeland of the Ingush people with Ingush Republic  status, with the adminstrative and cultural center in the city of Vladikavkaz."     

The city of Nazran, the largest population center of Ingushetia, became the  center of the national movement. Meetings and congresses of the Ingush people, at  which the most radical sentiments and suggestions were expressed, began right  here. We propose the record of proceedings of the "national Ingush meeting" of  May 21, 1992, at which several new motives were heard which didn't find reflection  in the larger official appearances and addresses of Ingush leaders. One of these  factors was relations with Chechnya, which was continually present behind the  scenes in the evolution of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict. At the meeting, the  prevailing position of those who stepped forward was the following: "I am for a  union with Chechnya, but an equal union" (Mutaliev Tamerlan, the city of Grozny);  "We are inseparable from Chechnya" (Dolgiev Magomet, the village Surhahi); "I am  for a union with Chechnya 100%" (Barahkoev Magomet-Khadzhi); "I said, that the  people themselves headed by Doudaev will decide the Ingush issue" (Habriev  Beslan, the village Troitskoy).                 The second aspect present were the calls for concrete direct actions on  resolution of the territorial issue. "I am waiting for the Ingush people to understand  that not only their enemies, but their own leaders, are leading them by the nose"  (Ozdoev Issa, the city of Nazran); "I propose the creation of detachments for selfdefence in every village" (Ozdoev Hasan, the city of Nazran); "There is a very good  base for maintaining a national guard in the Sunzhensky region. It is necessary to  collect the means for forming them from the people" (Tochev Akhmet, the village  Troitskoy); "We need to strengthen our position, create squads and arm them in  order to protect law and order" (Gazdiev Mukhamed, the city of Grozny); "The  Prigorodny district should be settled by aborigines. We should not fear the  Ossetians. There were never men among them and there never will be" (Malsagov  Akhmet, the village Maiskoy); "As long as one Ingush lives, the Prigorodny district  won't belong to the Ossetians" (Habriev Beslan, the village Troitskoy).           

The documents cited above make it possible to draw the conclusion that the  mobilization of group members initiated by leaders might acquire an independent  logical development which is difficult to control by these same initiators. Beginning  in the summer of 1992, it was as though two parallel processes were at work:  persistant advancements on resolution of the issue of creating a new republic were  made at the level of the highest legislative organs and in the legal frameworks,  while simultaneously, new legitimacy was established on the grounds of directly  delegated powers or usurpation of authority. The pressure from below exerted a  powerful influence on the behavior of the leadership. Thus, for example, the  resolutions proclaiming an Ingush Republic of the RSFSR at the March 27, 1991  Ingush Peoples Congress, and at the June 20, 1991 Congress of Peoples Deputies of  all levels in the city of Nazran, became a decisive factor in favor of adopting the  Law on Formation of the Ingush Republic. Finally, on November 30, 1991, a  referendum was conducted among the Ingush population, in the course of which  92.5% of those who took part in the voting (around 100,000 people) spoke out for the  formation of a sovereign Ingush republic within the RSFSR and the return of the  Prigorodny district and the portion of Vladikavkaz situated on the right bank. In  the referendum, the issue was formulated in the following manner: "Are you for the  creation of an Ingush Republic in the RSFSR together with the return of the illegally  seized Ingush land and with a capital in the city of Vladikavkaz?" Conducting the  referendum in this format undoubtedly exacerbated Ingush-Ossetian relations even  more, and added a new incentive to the most radical demands of the Ingush, as  though they had gotten a mandate with universal backing.                

On February 5, 1992, President B. N. Yeltsin introduced a draft law to the  Supreme Soviet on the transformation of the Chechen-Ingush Republic into the  Ingush Republic and the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation.  Simultaneously, by the way, a draft law was put forward on the division of yet  another national-autonomous formation - Karachevo-Cherkessia, into the  Karachaevsky and Cherkessky Autonomous Oblasts; this draft law was likewise  motivated by "taking into account the will of the Karachaev and Cherkessian  peoples." However, it wasn't adopted due to strong opposition on the part of the  Karachaev-Cherkessian leadership, and the many possible complications involved  in implemention of such a division. Why was the law on Ingushetia adopted and  what did it represent?        

It is a fact that the introduction of the draft law by the President himself was  a powerful argument in favor of its adoption by the Supreme Soviet. The  substantiation of the law was based on a main, and singular, argument -  reinstatement of the abolished autonomy of Ingushetia and creation of the Ingush's  "own" statehood, of which they were deprived in 1944. No calculations of the  resource base, or proposals on territorial borders of the new formation, were made  although both these issues were most critical. The following statements were found  in the notes affixed to the draft law. "The territorial issues are the most complicated. 

The Ingush demand the borders of the Ingush Republic be settled so as to include  part of the Prigorodny district (the 1944 borders), part of the Mozdoksky district  (which was part of the Chechen-Ingush A.S.S.R. before 1944) of the North Ossetian  Republic, and also Nazranovsky, Malgobeksky, and Sunzhensky regions (minus the  territory of the Sernovodsky Village Council of Peoples Deputies) of the ChechenIngush Republic. Taking this into consideration, in our view, one would need a 3year period to study the legal and organizational measures on national-territorial  demarcation and to consider other problems, as well as to form a government  commission, with participation of all interested parties, for these purposes."              

One June 5, 1992, the Supreme Soviet passed a law almost unanimously and  with virtually no discussion. This document created a republic without borders and  permanently sealed the controversy with the text of the Federal Treaty on the  impossibility of altering republic borders without consent. However, the very  matter of restoring autonomy to peoples repressed in the past was a good deed and  was met with great enthusiasm by the Ingush. Hope remained that the  recommendation to government organs, parties and other public citizen associations  contained in the text of the law "to abstain from the unconstitutional methods of  resolving disputed issues" would have an influence on the conflict's participants.

The politics of the Center in Ingushetia

Adoption of the law required actions by federal authorities to bring about its  implementation. It was necessary to create temporary organs of authority capable  of beginning the process of constructing an Ingush statehood. V. F. Ermakov,  Peoples Deputy of the Russian Federation, General of the army who retired after the  events of August 1991, was appointed as the representative of the Supreme Soviet  of the Russian Federation in Ingushetia by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. I.  M. Kostoev, an investigator of the Procurator-General of the Russian Federation,  legal advisor (with the rank of general), and an Ingush by nationality, was  appointed as the representative of the President of the Russian Federation in  Ingushetia. Both "Moscow representatives" were energetic, intelligent and  responsible individuals ready to work in difficult material and psychological  conditions. Their efforts to organize public life in the newly-created republic for the  duration of several months were extremely valuable. However, a number of  circumstances limited their work and prevented them from fulfilling their mission  as representatives of supreme power.   First of all, Ermakov and Kostoev didn't receive effective support or  provisions for their activities from the center; there were no real financial resources  or help on the part of the federal ministries in their direction. The group of ministry  representatives, directed to investigate the situation and prepare suggestions, was  tied up with the bureaucratic procedure of financial "calculations and  miscalculations." Ermakov and Kostoev's proposals on the promulgation of a  presidential decree on support measures to Ingushetia never got a signature.  Shortages of routine lobbying, in the governmental structures in Moscow, in favor  of providing means of subsistance and implementing economic and social-cultural  programs for the population of the new republic were clearly felt. The government  commission for North Ossetia and Chechen-Ingushetia was in Moscow without an  organized core and barely managed to conduct everyday work. Apparently, the  connections and coordinations of this structure needed to be strengthened. As far as  the Ingush leaders are concerned, their efforts were limited by the political fight,  and after adoption of the Law on Formation of the Ingush republic this fight became  more focused around questions of authority.           The center appointed candidates to two positions, but the main one,  provisional head of the adminstration, remained vacant. The arrival of Ermakov  was met with sharp reaction and threats on the part of local groups of semi-military  fighters. Kostoev was accepted more quietly. Nevertheless, both were regarded as  "aliens" by local leaders. Almost up to the very beginning of the open conflict, the  representatives of the center were isolated in their efforts to do anything in the  complicated and disputed situation. Ingush activists expanded rivalry to the office  of the provisional head of the administration; more specifically, the Ingush Peoples  Soviet began to press for the appointment of Bogatirev to the post. This is precisely  the second circumstance which hindered the work to create a republic, since the  issue of the head of the administration was unresolved for a long time.              

Records of proceedings from regional organs and meetings were delivered to  Moscow in support of Bogatirev. On June 26, a united session of Ingushetia's  Soviets took place in Nazran during which a decision was made to: "Request the  President of the Russian Federation, B. N. Yeltsin, to accelerate the appointment of  Peoples Deputy of the Russian Federation Bembulat Bersovin Bogatirev to the chief  of the provisional administration of the Ingush Republic." Strong pressure was  exerted on Yury Boldirev, the head of the Control Department under the  administration of the President, who immediately prepared issues of personnel  assignment for report. In the final analysis, the necessity of an exit from the deadend situation led to the view to request Bogatirev's appointment to adminstration  chief. At that moment, the most important thing was to overcome the power  vacuum and to engage influential leaders in constructive activity. However, even  the draft presidential decree on Bogatirev wasn't signed: a sufficient number of  people spoke out against it, possibly including Khasbulatov, and it is also possible  that B. N. Yeltsin could have known Bogatirev by his work in the Supreme Soviet.  Only toward the beginning of September did yet another cadidate appear (at the  sugggestion of Ermakov and Kostoev and supported by myself). This candidate  was Tamerlan Didigov, the Chairman of the State Committee on Building  Construction of Chechen-Ingushetia.               

Leaders of the Peoples Soviet of Ingushetia, headed by Seinaroev, tenaciously  pressed for a meeting with G. Burbulis and presidential assistants in order to push  through, "in the name of the people", the candidacy of Bogatirev. An inconceivable  event, in terms of normal government practice, took place: after the signing of the  Yeltsin decree on the appointment of Bogatirev, a group of Ingush activists walked  into the office of Korabelshikov, an assistant to President, and under their influence  Korabelshikov delayed the decree which was already signed! Thus, up to the  beginning of the open skirmishes, the appointment didn't take place.       

Virtual anarchy established itself under conditions of political exaltation and  social crisis in Ingushetia (financial and economic activity in Ingush regions was  paralized after the separation of Chechnya). The local newspaper "Yedinstvo"  (meaning unity) evaluated the situation in the following manner: "The socialpolitical situation in Ingushetia is strained to the limit. Social tension has sharply  intensified. Plundering, robbery, murders, weapon trading, unrestrained  speculation, auto theft, stealing of personal and government property have become  the norm. There is no one who can be entrusted with the personal safety of man."  The redistribution of land became a main topic. In the Sunzhensky region, for  example, collective farm lands were distributed among residents of this and other  regions as peasant (rural) farms measuring from 8 to 100 hectars. "These lands are  not cultivated for the most part, they are overgrown with weeds. At the same time,  those who received these lands, don't allow the cutting of hay on the territory  adjacent to their possession (in ditches and on hill-sides), defending it with guns in  their hands. As a result, arguments and fights occur which threaten to develop into  full-scale conflicts."   

Traditional structures, in the form of elders and leaders of familial clans -  Taips, attempted to partly restore social control. The spreading of the custom of  bloody feuding presented the most complicated problem because the traditional  peace-making institutions, which aided in the reconciliation of those who spilled  blood, were forgotten. So, for example, the gathering of elders, with participation of  Hadji pilgrims in the central mosque of the Ordzhonikidzevsky village, reached a  decision (VAAD) to fight the transgressors of law and order and to stabilize the  situation in the Sunzhensky region.       

To what extent the association of elders could replace the militia and court is  rather difficult to imagine and this issue has not been studied, but there is sufficient  ground to suppose that resurrecting the role of traditional social control, even in a  partially modernized society, is extremely complicated and even impossible. Young  Ingush men, who traded weapons in the "row of Kalashnikov stalls" on the market  in Nazran in the sumer of 1992, already couldn't be subordinated to VAAD. To the  same extent, the Taips structure which was preserved also found a contemporary  camouflage, frequently shielding trivial discord amidst Ingush politics and social  rivalry. So, on September 5, about 600 representatives of the Taips of Bogatirev,  Vedzizhev, and Dahkilgov, who consider Bohktar their common forefather,  gathered at the Muzhich village vacation resort. According to the information we  have, the meeting of clans was actually a micro- or proto-party. The consideration  of the higher interests of all the Ingush peoples, and not just those of the Taips, was  accompanied by an expression of indignation addressed to the "Kostoev clan",  whose representatives are occupied with denunciations of the Bogatirev Taips to the  leadership of Russia. Those who steped forward were united in not tolerating  slanderous attacks on representatives of their Taips and in demanding the culprits  be made answerable. The gathering chose a special delegation which was supposed  to "record Taips claims of slander and denunciations that they will have to be called  to account for."         The session of the Peoples Soviet of Ingushetia, which took place September  12 in the village of Ordzhonikidzevsky, reflected the complicated situation in the  Ingush movement. The main political priority was formulated by Seinaroev,  Chairman of the Ingush Peoples Soviet: "The elections must be conducted only after  the return of all Ingush territory. The main task is the return of the Prigorodny  district. When there will be a territory - there will also be a state. The capital of  Ingushetia should be in Vladikavkaz, not Nazran. The will of the Ingush peoples is  conveyed by all social movements: Bembulat Bogatirev must be the chief of the  administration. If Yeltsin doesn't confirm our candidature, we must elect him at the  Congress."        

The loyalty to authorities in Moscow was combined with a feeling of distrust  and alienation toward the center, which in the public's mind was personified in the  concept "Russia." The language of the address reflected a persistent stereotype  about machinations and anti-Ingush plans of the Russian authorities.

                The Ingush Peoples Soviet clearly aspired to be an exclusive representative  and was especially dissatisfied with the inclusion of representatives of the  "Neeskho" party, whose leading posts were apparently from the Kostoev and  Aushev clans, in the Coordination Committee. They were reminded of old injuries,  including: non-support for the demand on return of the Prigorody district in the  past, and a statement opposing the referendum. Finally, all efforts of the  representatives of federal power in Ingushetia were called into question: "The  appearance of Russia's representatives is itself illegal. For whom have they come?  We have no administration."      A more radical and provocative variant of republic formation was  formulated in the Ingush Peoples Soviet. In my archive, there is a draft plan on  measures for realization of the laws on "Formation of the Ingush Republic" and on  "Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples", that was given to me by one of the Ingush  leaders. The plan envisioned such items as "All homes and other citizen property,  which belonged to them by right of personal property at the moment of resettlement  on February 23, 1944, are subject to return to their owners" or "Affirming a list of  population points for renaming to their previous name." A paragraph working out  a plan of social-economic development for the Ingush Republic appeared only at the  end of the list.

5. The North Ossetian position     

The activities of the Ingush side couldn't be missed in North Ossetia. A  strategy of rejecting any kind of compromise and of building a strong position  accompanied by anti-Ingush propaganda was selected in response to this. During  numerous conversations with Ossetians, both with representatives of authority and  with a number of residents, general negative stereotypes concerning the Ingush  were heard: lazy, insidious, dishonest, trespassers and so forth. North Ossetian  leaders felt rather certain of themselves, having at their disposal a materially  powerful advantage, close contact with the center, and a constitutional position on  the inviolability of borders, including the decision, made by the Congress of Peoples  Deputies, on a moratorium against their alteration for a period of up to three years.            

There is evidence that a plan for the execution of ethnic cleansing, that is,  Ingush expulsion from the North Ossetian territory, was formed within the  republican leadership in the late summer of 1992. Such views were not made  openly. However, Mark Deich, a correspondent of Radio "Svoboda" (Radio  Liberty), broadcast a statement of Militia Captain Vladimir Valiev, of the  Chermensky village militia division, in his report from the conflict zone on October  30: "After general review, closed meetings about the course of preparations for  military action took place on Mondays for the past three months, usually in the  office of Dzikaev, Chief of the Regional Department of Internal Affairs (ROVD).  Either Minister Kantemirov or one of his deputies was usually present at these  meetings. At the beginning of August, at a conference of officials of the Prigorodny  district's ROVD, at which Minister Kantemirov was present, there was the  following agenda: 'Concerning the commencement of intensified preparation for  military action and tasks stemming from these.' The same Minister came forward  with information. He casually underscored that the idea originated in Moscow,  and more specifically with Minister Erin. As he reported, Moscow promised our  ministry higher salaries and all kinds of support in equipment and weapons in the  case of successful implementation of these actions. The first results were already  apparent by the next conference; in particular, they had increased the staff in  OMON (special purpose militia detachments) from 200 to 1,000 people. At that  time, Deputy Minister Batagov, Peoples Deputy of Russia, announced this. It wasn't  really spoken about at the meeting, but it wasn't hard to quess that we were only  required to find the smallest occasion in order to stir it up further with the  subsequent involvement of Russian forces... The approximate date of armed  provocations was worked out at the 3rd meeting, which took place on the last  Monday of August. Deputy Minister Sikoev came forward at this meeting. He  proposed, and it was unanimously accepted, that a conflict should be provoked at  the end of October when the field-work was basically finished. At the next  meetings, Dzhivaev, the head of the department, reported on those additions which  were being accepted in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Supreme Soviet. In  particular, in the first half of October, Kokaev, the deputy head of ROVD, reported  that additional means were allotted even for a peoples militia, and, in particular,  armoured personnel carriers (BTR's) were ear-marked for Tarsky and Chermen.  Automatic weapons were also provided and a decision was made to hide the BTR's  in the village of Olginsky for the time being... The head of all these actions was  Galazov himself and Kantemirov was his deputy."         

It is difficult for us to judge to what extent this account by Mark Deich is  trustworthy; however, from personal observation I can confirm as fact the  organization and arming of a so-called national guard in Northern Ossetia. Ingush  activists from the Prigorodny district informed me about the BTR's which appeared  "for defense purposes" in North Ossetian villages. It is enough to remember the  inert reaction of Minister Erin when, after returning to Moscow, I expressed to him  concern about the necessity of disarming the civilian population in a zone of  potential conflict. But all this doesn't permit drawing a conclusion about Moscow's  initiative in the preparation of "armed action". I am well enough aware that  government members' concern with preserving the civil peace prevailed in activities  to settle or prevent conflicts at that time.       Most likely, a scenario, already normal for the post-Soviet space, took place -  the demonstration of a self-confident force, which the local elite found unexpectedly  and without training after the dismantling of the totalitarian center. Especially since  the Northern Caucasus region with its ethnic mosaic, comparatively dense  population and limited resources was rich with inter-tribal discord and fighting in  the past, and not only with respect to the Russian "subjugation" of the mountain  people. The last splash of internecine and general chaos was present in the First  World War and Civil War, when conflicts between local nationalities became  intricately entangled with the aspirations of the local intelligencia to achieve  government independence.             

Among North Ossetian leaders, it was the representatives of local power  structures, with experience gained in the Georgia-South Ossetian conflict and with  muscles and arms built up for operations on a district scale, who particularly  demonstrated the presumption of force facing provocative Ingush claims. Having  taken part in measures on settlement of the conflict in South Ossetia, North Ossetia  was noticeably militarized and had established close contact with the all-Russian  power structures. Special residences of local leadership became the usual place to  stop or stay for members of the Russian leadership visiting the region. The  hospitality shown somehow made a critical appraisal of the situation relating to the  Ingush problem more difficult on the part of representatives of the center. The  difficulties of peacemaking in Tskhinval, and the problems of refugees from  Georgia, pushed out of the foreground the trouble growing inside the republic with  the Ingush portion of the population. Even though serious signals began to ring out  already in the spring of 1992. For example, 5 deputies of of Ingush nationality of  the Supreme Soviet of North Ossetia (R. Akhulgov, R. Dalakov, Y. Patiev, B.  Sampiev, and B. Khamatkhanov) directed a letter to Yeltsin and Khasbulatov and to  the 6th Congress of Peoples Deputies of the Russian Federation in which it said:  "The behavior of the Ossetian generals, who don't miss an opportunity to rattle  their weapons once again, is particularly scandalous. A day doesn't go by when  threats directed toward the Ingush aren't heard from the television screen, and those  of them who live in North Ossetia are declared hostages with martinet  straightforwardness."            

Our recent visit to the republic, and the meeting which took place October 10  with the whole Presidium of the North Ossetian S. S. R. Supreme Soviet, confirmed  the extremely negative attitude of this assembly's participants to any kind of  compromising policy with respect to the Ingush minority: these citizens were  considered, unreservedly and exclusively, as part of the "people aggressors" who  are laying claims to Ossetian territory. The evening of the same day of our visit to  Nazran, I arrived at Galazov's dacha and stayed for dinner with the republic's top  leaders together with three leading Ingush activists - Ibrag Kostoev (a member of  the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation), Akhilgov (an official of the  Government Committee on Nationalities) and Mogushkov (Chairman of the Nazran  Regional Soviet). Serious conversation didn't take place, especially since Akhsarbek  Galazov walked out of the meeting in protest.

The stage of violence  

     The records of escalation of violence in the Osset-Ingush conflict are well  known. On October 20, in the village of Sholki in the Prigorodny district, an Ingush  schoolgirl was crushed by an armoured troop-carrier of the OMON of Ministry of  Internal Affairs of the North Ossetian S. S. R.. This roused the rebellion of the  village residents. On the night of October 21, two Ingush were killed in Yuzhny  (Southern) village of the Prigorodny district. That same day, a skirmish broke out  between the residents of this village and officials of the North Ossetian S. S. R.  Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the course of which another seven people were killed  and wounded from both sides. On October 24, a meeting of the Ingush population  took place in this village, during which a provisional administration for the district,  parallel with existing organs, was chosen. In the subsequent days until October 30,  local skirmishes occurred in villages with dense Ingush settlement which  transformed into a mass armed conflict in the Prigorodny district settlements on  October 31.         Groups of youths armed with rifles came forward as participants in the  fighting on the Ingush side, and there isn't any kind of information that this action  was organized from a single center under the guidance of trained commanders.

     It  really was a spontaneous action, provoked rather than prepared in advance. "On  the morning of October 30, Ingush boys armed with automatic rifles and hand  grenades approached Ossetian armoured personnel carriers. Their path was  blocked with shelling from Russian armoured personnel carriers. In this incident,  two Ingush were killed and four were wounded. In the skirmish that ensued, the  Ingush seized nine personnel carriers, disarmed their detachments and occupied  Ossetian posts from which bombardments of Ingush population centers were  perpetrated daily" (from a speech by B. Bogatirev at the November 6 session of the  Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation).                

     On October 31, Vice-Premier Georgi Khizha of the Russian Government  arrived in Vladikavkaz. He flew from Moscow together with Sergei Hetagurov, the  Chairman of the Council of Ministers of North Ossetia, and on arrival was housed at  Galazov's residence. There was already an extremely tense atmosphere in the  republic's capital: demonstrators on the square demanded that weapons be  distributed to them and on local television Galazov's address on "Ingush  aggression" was continuously broadcasted. Perhaps it was Khizha's fatal mistake to  give permission for the distribution of several hundred sub-machine guns to the  population which virtually sanctioned the execution of the most barbarous murders  and arsons. The large military units deployed into the conflict region didn't  accomplish their main mission - separation of the conflicting parties, and instead  they blocked off the border between Ingushetia and North Ossetia and even  performed an obscure march through Ingush territory toward the border with  Chechnya. The Prigorodny district fell under total control of the Ossetian  formations, including South Ossetian detachments.      

The representatives of Russian authority weren't able to organize critical  negotiations in these difficult circumstances or apply drastic measures in defense of  the civilian population. On November 2, an action was executed under the escort of  a regular army against those Ingush settlements which were defended by local  residents. Over the duration of several days, the following incidents took place:  mass killings, seizing of hostages, pillaging and arson of homes, and expulsion of  Ingush from the district's territory and from Vladikavkaz. The state of emergency,  introduced on the territories of North Ossetia and Ingushetia by the presidential  decree of November 2, in no way limited the activity of North Ossetian authorities  and ethnic cleansing was completed with the sum total of almost 40,000 citizens of  Ingush nationality driven from the republic. Approximately 5,000 homes were  burned; the number of victims according to rough calculation consisted of  approximately 300 people.