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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Makka ALBOGACHIEVA
Ph.D. (Hist.), Senior Research Fellow, Department of Ethnography of the Peoples of the Caucasus, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg, the Russian Federation).
THE OSSETIAN-INGUSH CONFLICT: CAUSES AND ECHOES OF THE TRAGEDY OF THE FALL OF 1992
Abstract
The author takes an in-depth look into the causes of the ethnopolitical conflict in the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia that developed on 31 October-4 November, 1992 into armed clashes with numerous deaths on both sides. As a re-
sult, all the Ingush who lived in North Ossetia were driven from their homes to take up residence in temporary refugee camps. She reveals the factors which keep the Os-setian-Ingush conflict (inherited from the Soviet Union) burning.
Introduction
It is an ethnopolitical conflict over territory; this type of conflict, very much like wars of independence, is much more acute than others and much harder to settle. In this case, the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia is a disputed territory, the confrontation over which repeatedly led to armed clashes and produced numerous victims, as well as drove the Ingush from their home. Many of the destructive processes in the republic are directly connected to its past.
Going Back into the Past
During the revolution of 1917 and the Civil War of 1917-1920, the Ingush actively supported Soviet power in the Northern Caucasus in expectation of fair settlement of the national question. In the course of state-building, the local nationalities were assigned their own administrative units, which were later transformed into autonomous regions of the R.S.F.S.R. In this way, on 1 September, 1921 the Kabarda District was separated from the Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (G.A.S.S.R.); on 12 January, 1922, the Karachay District appeared; several days later, on 16 January, 1922, the Balkar District was formed; and still later, on 30 November, 1922, the Chechen District. By a Decree of the All-Union Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) of 7 July, 1924, the G.A.S.S.R. was liquidated to be replaced with the North-Ossetian and Ingush autonomous regions and the Sunzha Cossack District.1 The autonomous regions had to share one center—the city of Vladikavkaz (Orjoni-
1 See: S.A. Tarkhov, "Izmeneniia administrativno-territorialnogo deleniia Rossii za poslednie 300 let," Geografia, No. 15, 2001, p. 31.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
kidze in 1931-1944 and 1954-1990)—which, as an autonomous unit, did not belong to any of the regions. At the turn of the 1930s, the policy of relatively great autonomy of the national minorities was replaced with the policy of ethnic integration, speeded up by stricter administrative methods. In 1928, the C.C. All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) discussed the "possibility of uniting the Ingush and Chechens" as a practical step toward the desired aim.
On 1 June, 1933, the VTslK transferred Vladikavkaz to North Ossetian jurisdiction; this deprived the Ingush of their political, economic, and cultural center. All the administrative structures were liquidated, while industrial enterprises, educational establishments, and hospitals found in the territory of Ingushetia were transferred to North Ossetia.
In January 1934, the Chechen and Ingush autonomous regions were united into the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Region (no one bothered to find out what the people thought about this); two years later, the new administrative unit became the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic2 with its capital in Grozny (separated from Ingushetia by at least 100 km) where all cultural and educational institutions were concentrated. This "act of humanity" presupposed that, given special conditions, two kindred peoples will unite into a single ethnicity. This meant that, given "special conditions,"3 the Chechens (whose numbers were and still are four times higher than the Ingush) would engulf the smaller ethnicity. The Ingush, who had become accustomed to living close to their administrative center,4 became aware of the discriminatory policy of the people in power.
As soon as the Great Patriotic War broke out in 1941, the Ingush did not hesitate: 11 thousand of the total 80 thousand (about 50% being children and old people) joined the army (not counting those conscripted elsewhere in the Soviet Union and those who had already been serving in the army). Nearly 4 thousand perished in the war; 46 were awarded orders of the Hero of the Soviet Union.
In September 1942, Germans crossed into Ingushetia in the northwest (Malgobek District) and occupied its oil-producing center, Malgobek.5 The occupants were met with fierce resistance by the troops of the Transcaucasian Front and two thousand volunteers who did not let the Nazis break through to the Caucasian oil fields and halted their offensive.6
Despite these services to the Motherland, in 1944 the Chechen-Ingush A.S.S.R. was liquidated, while the Chechens and Ingush were deported to Central Asia and Kazakhstan as "traitors."7 Those who had fought in the war and been awarded state orders and medals were sent into exile along with their relatives.8 "Between 23 February, 1944 and 1 October, 1945, the number of Ingush and Chechens dropped by over 91 thousand."9 After reaching their places of exile, they found that there was no housing; they were expected to register every month at the commandant office; they could not leave the place of exile of their own will under fear of being sentenced to 25 years in GULAG camps; young people were deprived of the right to higher education. "Deprived of adequate employment and
2 See: M.M. Zyazikov, Na rubezhe stoletiy, Moscow, 2011, p. 10.
3 Yu.Yu. Karpov, "Obrazy nasiliia v novoy i noveyshey istorii narodov Severnogo Kavkaza," in: Antropologiia nasiliia, St. Petersburg, 2001, p. 239.
4 Vladikavkaz is found in the center of Ingushetia, between its highland and lowland parts. The nearest settlement was found at a distance of 2 to 3 km; the farthest, at a distance of 8 km or more.
5 In 2006, Murat Zyazikov, the then president of Ingushetia, suggested that the Ingush city of Malgobek be granted the honorary title of the City of Military Glory, which President Putin instituted on 9 May, 2006, in compliance with the Federal Law on the Honorary Title of the Russian Federation "The City of Military Glory" adopted by the State Duma on 14 April, 2006 and approved by the Federation Council on 26 April, 2006. Under the Law, the title should be conferred on cities of Russia in which, or in direct proximity to which, defenders of the Fatherland demonstrated courage, staunchness, and mass heroism in the course of bitter fighting. Malgobek, a city of working people and warriors, added one of the brightest pages to the chronicles of the Great Patriotic War.
6 See: Istoria Ingushetii, Magas, 2011, pp. 408-409.
7 A. Uralov (Avtorkhanov), Ubiystvo Checheno-Ingushskogo naroda. Narodoubiystvo v SSSR, Moscow, 1991, p. 63.
8 See: Yu.Yu. Karpov, "O sotsialnoy kulture i obshchestvennykh praktikakh narodov Severnogo Kavkaza," in: Kavkaz i Rossia—proshloe i nastoiashchee: materaily dlia nauchno-prakticheskogo seminara "Problemy tolerantnosti v peterburgskoy shkole," Publishing House of the journal Zvezda, 2007, p. 56.
9 M.Zh. Aliev, Tak eto bylo, Nazran, 2007, p. 17.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
confronted with the prejudiced attitude of the local population, members of the intelligentsia, representatives of the cultural front, numerous teachers, writers, academics, and Communist Party officials had to abandon their former professions and take those manual jobs that came their way."10
In 1954, the right to higher education was restored; in 1955, the deported people were relieved from monthly registration; and in 1956, the Ingush were allowed to travel across the country (with the exception of the Caucasus). They sent a delegation to Moscow to get permission to go back home. After receiving oral approval and without waiting for an official document, they sold their homes and cattle for a pittance and moved to their homeland. Special travel documents were issued and special trains organized.
When the first Ingush families started coming home,11 albeit without official permission, the Ossets moved out of the houses they had occupied to return them to their legal owners. The Ingush repaid the money Ossets had invested in their homes. The Ossetian authorities, however, banned these transactions.12 Circular No. 063 instructed the local authorities to prevent "organizations and private people from selling houses or rent out living space to the Ingush returning from exile; any completed deals were to be deemed null and void."13 The heads of the village Soviets informed the local people about possible administrative and other repercussions; the state preferred to ignore the feelings and kindness of the ordinary people; it deliberately fanned a national conflict.
Late in 1956, the first train from the Kostanay Region brought Ingush families to the Beslan railway station. People were returning in an orderly manner with tickets bought according to special documents. First Secretary of the North Ossetian Regional Committee of the C.P.S.U. Akkatsev instructed the local forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to encircle the station to prevent people from unloading and to send the train back. The passengers were kept inside the train under the threat of machineguns and bayonets and were returned to Kazakhstan.14
In 1957, the liquidated Chechen-Ingush A.S.S.R. was restored by a decree of the Presidium of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet. The restored republic had to work hard to find employment for those returning, supply them with housing, extend financial and material assistance, raise their educational level, professional skills, etc.15
Restoration involved administrative rearrangement of the region, which was not an easy task; in the summer of 1957, repatriation was suspended. Most of the Chechens and Ingush had returned by the spring of 1959; the process, however, went on until 1963.16
At home, the Ingush were confronted with another problem: only a third of them could settle back in their old homes; the homes of the rest had been appropriated by new inhabitants resolved to stay put. While the Ingush were in exile, the Prigorodny District and part of the Malgobek District, which had been parts of the Chechen-Ingush A.S.S.R., were transferred to the North Ossetian A.S.S.R. While Georgia, the Stavropol Territory, and Daghestan returned the land that had belonged to the Chechen-Ingush A.S.S.R., North Ossetia tried to prevent repatriation of the Ingush of the Prig-orodny District; the militia and the army were instructed to move the repatriates outside the district.
Some of the Ingush families, however, managed to retrieve their old homes with the help of identical family names (not infrequent among the Ingush and Ossets), bribes, and other methods.
10 Ingushi: deportatsia, vozvrashchenie, reabilitatsia, 1944-2004: dokumenty, materialy, kommentarii, Compiled by Ya.S. Patiev, Magas, 2004, pp. 332-333.
11 According to the All-Union Population Census of 1939, there were 33.8 thousand living in the Prigorodny District, 28.1 thousand of whom were Ingush, 3.5 thousand Russians, and 400 Chechens. The territory comprised 34% of the total territory of five Ingush districts of Checheno-Ingushetia.
12 See: A. Nekrich, Nakazannye narody, New York, 1978, p. 89.
13 R.Sh. Albogachiev, Vera nas podderzhivala, Nazran, 2004, p. 22.
14 See: Tak eto bylo: Natsionalnye repressii v SSSR: v 1919-1952 gg., Compiled by S.U. Alieva, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1993, p. 135.
15 See: Groznensky rabochy, 8 June, 1957.
16 "'Nakazanny narod.' Kak deportirovali chechentsev i ingushey," available at [http://www.stolicaplus.ru/ index.php], 12 January, 2012.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
According to the population census of 1970, there were 18,387 Ingush living in North Ossetia (about 11.7% of all Ingush living in the U.S.S.R.). Those who could not return to the old places tried to restore Ingush autonomy within the old borders.
On 22-23 November, 1970, an Ingush delegation set off for Moscow with a request addressed to General Secretary of the C.C. C.P.S.U. Leonid Brezhnev to restore the Prigorodny District within the Chechen-Ingush A.S.S.R. Later the same year, a group of communists and non-party members sent a letter to the C.C. C.P.S.U. "About the Fate of the Ingush People," which clearly showed the position of the Ingush. "We are prepared to accept any variants of a solution to the Ingush question which will allow us to restore territorial integrity and national statehood of Ingushetia. We see two possible solutions:
"(1) Creating an Ingush A.S.S.R. Ingushetia has all the conditions necessary for the development of its own autonomy.
"(2) Creating an Ossetian-Ingush A.S.S.R. This variant will preserve traditional territorial integrity.
"We want a variant under which the Ingush people can once more, like in the early years of Soviet power when it developed autonomously and independently, have the opportunity to fully reveal their creative forces in order to find a worthy place in the fraternal family of the Soviet peoples and to preserve their territorial integrity.
"Out of the two possible solutions to the Ingush question and in view of the economic, cultural, and historical specifics, we prefer the first. Irrespective of this, the people who used to live in the Prigorodny District and the Keskemskie khutora area should be returned to their old places of residence as soon as possible. This is a matter of life and death for the Ingush and a question of friendship between the Ingush and Osset peoples."17
The compromise variant—a joint Osset-Ingush A.S.S.R.—said that restoration of the lost territory where ancestors were buried was of fundamental importance. The country leaders preferred to ignore the request.
On 14 January, 1973, however, the Ingush, who had learned that Secretary of the C.C. C.P.S.U. Mikhail Suslov would be coming to the republic to award orders and discuss the Ingush problem,18 demonstrated their determination; they converged on Grozny from all ends of the autonomous republic in great numbers. After three days of waiting, the 15 thousand people who had gathered in the republic's capital were promised that Moscow would send a commission to look into their demands.19
The Ingush wanted to talk to the authorities, but were denied this opportunity. "The appellation near the building of the Grozny Regional Party Committee was a form of traditional sociopolitical and socio-psychological 'symbiosis' between the people and the government at the new (after Stalin and Khrushchev) development stage of Soviet society."20 Those who organized the meeting lost their Communist Party cards and jobs and were stonewalled.
In October 1981, North Ossetia was swept by huge rallies of Ossets who objected to the territorial claims of the Ingush; the people insisted on ethnic anti-Ingush cleansing and plundered the offices of the Supreme Soviet in Orjonikidze.21
This did not pass unnoticed. On 14 January, 1982, a Decision of the C.C. C.P.S.U. on Serious Shortcomings in the Ideological-Political and International Education of the Working People of the North Ossetian Regional Committee of the C.P.S.U. was issued. On 8 June, 1982, the bureaus of the North Ossetian and Chechen-Ingush Regional Committees of the C.P.S.U. met in Orjonikidze for a joint sitting in an effort to improve the situation. They drafted and signed a plan of joint measures of
17 B.U. Kostoev, Predannaia natsia, sine loco, 1995.
18 See: A. Nekrich, op. cit., pp. 131-132.
19 See: Tak eto bylo. Natsionalnye represii v SSSR, Vol. 2, pp. 140-141.
20 M.D. Yandieva, Obshchegrazhdanskiy meeting ingushey 1973 goda, Nazran, Moscow, 2008, p. 47.
21 See: Ya.S. Patiev, Khronika istorii ingushskogo naroda, Makhachkala, 2007, p. 191.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
ideological-political, international, and atheist education of the people. The Ingush culture and language received more attention in the Prigorodny District; several Ingush acquired posts in the administrative structures of North Ossetia. To put an end to the "territorial claims" of the Ingush, North Ossetia decided to "manage certain demographic processes, in particular to establish strict control over migration."22 The Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R., in turn, passed Decision No. 183 on 5 March, 1982, which established a special regime for registration and real estate transactions in North Ossetia. The Ossets referred to the ecological and economic problems caused by the high population density in the republic to justify these measures.23
In 1985, the Ingush hailed the social and political changes in the Soviet Union in the hope that the situation regarding the Prigorodny District would improve. Early in 1985, E. Kushtova, an Ingush woman, was elected Secretary of the Communist Party Committee of the Prigorodny District on the insistence of Secretary of the North Ossetian Regional Committee of the C.P.S.U. V. Odintsov. This was the first time an Ingush person had been elected to a high post in the Communist Party in North Ossetia.24 It looked as if equality and justice would triumph.
Meanwhile, the conflict persisted: according to official information there were at least 100 cases of national intolerance between 1984 and 1986: there were murders, desecration of cemeteries, and numerous acts of hooliganism.25 In 1988, the Ingush set up a popular-democratic union they called Niyskho (Justice) to insist on Ingush autonomy in the territory the Ingush believed to be their historical homeland. The newly established union tried to convince the Ossetian leaders to return the annexed lands to the Ingush.26 In October 1988, the Ingush expressed their indignation over the discrimination practiced against them in an address of the Ingush people to the leaders of the C.C. C.P.S.U. and the Soviet government signed by 8 thousand people.27
In January 1989, a cultural-historical society appeared in Ingushetia called Da'k'aste (Fatherland) set up to restore the violated rights of the Ingush people. In February 1989, a wave of rallies timed to coincide with the 45th anniversary of deportations swept Nazran and the villages of the Prig-orodny District.
The deportations were discussed by the First Congress of Peoples' Deputies of the U.S.S.R. at the request of Ingush deputies Khamzat Fargiev and Mussa Darsigov. They asked the Congress to finally resolve the Ingush problems and liquidate the heritage of Stalin's arbitrary rule, which still existed in the law-governed state. They transferred their request to Mikhail Gorbachev.28 On 9-10 September, 1989, the Second Congress of the Ingush People passed a resolution which demanded territorial rehabilitation of the Ingush: "Ask the C.C. C.P.S.U., the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., and the Second Congress of People's Deputies of the U.S.S.R. to finally resolve the problem of re-establishing our autonomy in the form of the Ingush Soviet Socialist Republic within the Russian Federation with its administrative center in the right-bank part of Orjonikidze."29 Impressed by the repeated requests of the Ingush people and under pressure from protests by Soviet and international human rights organizations against the violations of civil rights of the Ingush and their discrimination, the Union and Russian centers finally turned their attention to the problem of the Prigorodny District.
In 1989, numerous commissions (of the Council of Ministers of the R.S.F.S.R., the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the Supreme Soviet of the R.S.F.S.R., the State Committee of the R.S.F.S.R. on Nationalities, and others) began studying the question of restoring the Ingush autonomy. The decisions of the commission set up in March 1990 by the Nationalities Council of the Supreme Soviet of
22 V. Shanaev, "Terek—reka druzhby," Groznenskiy rabochiy, 13 September, 1988, p. 2.
23 See: V. Snirelman, Byt Alanami. Intellektualy i politika na Severnom Kavkaze v XX v., Moscow, 2006, p. 298.
24 See: Ya.S. Patiev, op. cit., p. 196.
25 See: V. Snirelman, op. cit., p. 299.
26 See: Ya.S. Patiev, Respublika Ingushetia. Sobytiia i liudi. Entsiklopedia: 1992-2008, Makhachkala, 2008, p. 60.
27 See: Ya.S. Patiev, Khronika istorii ingushskogo naroda, p. 200.
28 See: Tak eto bylo: Natsionalnye repressii v SSSR, Vol. 2, p. 141.
29 Vtoroy s'ezd ingushskogo naroda, Grozny, 1990, p. 212.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
the U.S.S.R. were especially illustrative. The commission demanded that the Decision of the Council of Ministers of 5 March, 1982 On Limiting Registration in the Prigorodny District of the North Osse-tian A.S.S.R. and other discriminatory acts be revoked. It pointed out, however, that the suggestion that the capital of the Ingush autonomy be set up in the right-bank part of Vladikavkaz could not be realized for sociopolitical, demographic, and economic reasons.30
The leaders of Ossetia tried to put the "Cossack card" on the table to justify their claims to the annexed territories. They insisted that the Ingush had lived in the disputed territories for only 23 years— from 1921 to 1944—and deliberately ignored the earlier period. In the mid-19th century, the Ingush were turned out of their settlements and Cossacks took up residence there. For example, between 1859 and 1867, the Prigorodny District consisted of the Cossack village of Tarskaya (instead of the Ingush village of Angusht), the Cossack village of Sunzha (instead of the Ingush village of Akhki-Yurt), the Cossack village of Aki-Yurt (instead of the Ingush village of Tauzen-Yurt), and the settlement of Tarsky (instead of the Ingush village of Sholkhi).31 In addition to these settlements, there were about 40 more Ingush villages in the territory the Prigorodny District.32
In 1990, in an effort to defend the republic's rights to the contested territories, the Supreme Soviet of the North Ossetian A.S.S.R. passed a Declaration of State Sovereignty stating that its territory could not be changed without a referendum of the entire population. It was thought that the document was intended to confirm the rights of North Ossetia to the lands of the Prigorodny District claimed by the Ingush.33 Limited registration made it much harder to find jobs, gain access to social benefits, etc.
On 14 September, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of North Ossetia passed a third decision banning real estate operations in the republic; the protest issued by the General Prosecutor Office of the U.S.S.R. was ignored. These and earlier decisions of that kind notwithstanding, refugees from South Ossetia and other parts of Georgia driven away by the Georgian-Osset conflict settled in the Prigor-odny District and received all sorts of social benefits and privileges. This flagrant violation of the Decision on Temporary Limitation of Mechanical Population Growth in the Territory of the North Ossetian A.S.S.R. added tension to the already tense atmosphere around the contested territories.34
In view of the Center's obvious reluctance to interfere and set things right, the Ingush felt that they were being discriminated against. Mistrust and resentment mounted: the state proved unable to ensure genuine equality of all nationalities.
On 20 April, 1991, at a meeting of people living in the Ossetian quarter of Vladikavkaz, it was decided to set up a self-defense unit with strict army discipline "to rebuff Ingush attacks." On 21 April, 1991, military commandant of the Prigorodny District V. Medveditskov issued an order On Instituting a State of Emergency in the Territory of the Prigorodny District of the North Ossetian S.S.R.; the state of emergency was regularly extended until November 1992. The North Ossetian authorities used it to build up pressure on the Ingush diaspora and acquire a pretext to set up republican armed units. In November 1991, a Union of Border Guards in the Reserve was set up in Vladikavkaz; on 14 November, a special session of the republic's Supreme Soviet endorsed the decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on setting up a State Self-Defense Committee of North Ossetia (SSDC) presided by Head of the Supreme Soviet Akhsarbek Galazov. The Supreme Soviet endowed the new structure with special powers and instructed it to set up a Republican Guard. "Neither at that time, nor later when North Ossetia acquired its Republican Guard and units of 'people volunteers' did Russia's leaders and the federal law and order enforcers respond in any way to the appearance of illegal bodies of power and armed units obviously targeted at the claims of the neighboring people."35
30 See: Tragedia ingushskogo naroda, Compiled by Yu. Tangiev, Grozny, 1991, p. 54.
31 See: Sbornik svedeniy o Terskoy oblasti, Vladikavkaz, 1878, pp. 373-374.
32 See: I.A. Novitsky, Upravlenie etnopolitikoy Severnogo Kavkaza, Krasnodar, 2011, p. 103.
33 See: G.Z. Anchabadze, Vaynakhi, Tbilisi, 2001, available at [http://www.magas.ru/osetino-ingushskii-konflikt], 2 December, 2011.
34 See: Ya.S. Patiev, 20 let bezdeystviia zakona, Nazran, 2011, p. 4.
35 I.A. Novitsky, op. cit., p. 103.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Meanwhile, the Second Special Congress of People's Deputies which passed the Law on Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples was going on in Moscow. It bred hopes among the Ingush that the territorial issue would be fairly resolved. Indeed, Art 3 clearly stated: "Rehabilitation of the repressed peoples means recognition and realization of their rights to territorial integrity that existed prior to the anti-constitutional policy of changing borders by force." The country's leaders, however, did not hasten to apply the law.36
It should be said that the new law exacerbated the situation in the Prigorodny District because it left many points unspecified. On 13-14 August, 1991, a Commission of the Supreme Soviet and the Council of Ministers of Russia headed by Vice Premier of Russia Oleg Lobov started working in Checheno-Ingushetia and North Ossetia; it discussed its results at a joint meeting in Vladikavkaz attended by representatives of both republics.
On 18 August, 1991, the delegation of Checheno-Ingushetia arrived in Vladikavkaz to discuss execution of the Law on Rehabilitation of the Repressed Peoples; however, North Ossetia claimed it was unprepared. The talks and decision on an issue equally important for both nations were postponed.
The dramatic events of late 1991 destroyed the Soviet Union and radically changed its administrative structure. The autonomous republics demanded independence. On 1 October, 1991 the Chechen-Ingush A.S.S.R. split into the Ingush Republic within the R.S.F.S.R. and the independent Chechen Republic. On 15 September, 1991, a Special Congress of People's Deputies of Ingushetia decided that Ingushetia should remain within the R.S.F.S.R.37
On 4 June, 1992, the RF Supreme Soviet passed a Law on the Formation of the Ingush Republic within the Russian Federation; the borders of the new republic, however, were not outlined. The Ingush hoped to resolve their territorial problem in the new reality and on the strength of the Law of the RF of 1991 On Rehabilitation of the Repressed Peoples, which presupposed "restoration of the national-territorial borders as they existed prior to their anti-constitutional change carried out with the use of force."38 In Ingushetia, rallies followed one after another, while members of the intelligentsia wrote letters to President of Russia Boris Yeltsin and addressed him personally.
On 24 March, 1992, he arrived in Ingushetia and spoke at a meeting in Nazran: "When representatives of the Ingush people approached me I invariably answered that I could promise nothing until I visited your republic, met representatives of the Ingush people, and looked them in the eye. This meeting should take place so that I can feel the pain in your hearts and realize how much you have suffered in the past and the last decades. I have understood this and I promise you my support."39 The Ingush believed the head of state once more and dispersed, fully confident that their question would be positively resolved.
North Ossetia responded with unconstitutional armed structures: it started setting up the National Guard and volunteer units to oppose "Ingush expansion." The people in power infringed on the rights of the Ingush who lived in North Ossetia by provoking violence, which later could have been passed for a show of nationalist intentions by the extremist part of the Ingush people.
In June 1992, the Supreme Soviet of North Ossetia discussed draft laws to legalize, in one way or another, a republican army in the form of self-defense forces. In August 1992, the Russian military supplied them with a huge amount of automatic weapons, armored vehicles, and Grad and Alazan missile launchers. Speaking at a meeting of the Supreme Soviet of North Ossetia, President of North Ossetia Galazov called on the deputies to annul the decision of 21 May (on weapon production in Vladikavkaz) because, he argued, "the republic was receiving enough weapons from the Russian Federation."40
36 See: Ya.S. Patiev, Zakon o realibilitatsii repressirovannykh narodov: istoria soprotivlenia (K 10-letiiu so dnia priniatia zakona), Nazran, 2001, pp. 3-34.
37 See: Vtoroy s'ezd ingushskogo naroda, p. 211.
38 Yu.Yu. Karpov, "Obrazy nasiliya...", p. 247.
39 "Salam aleykum, ingushi," available at [http://www.youtube.com/watch], 20 December 2011.
40 I.A. Novitsky, op. cit., p. 104.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
On 12 June, 1992, the RF Supreme Soviet, at North Ossetia's request, declared a state of emergency in the Ossetian districts bordering on Ingushetia and Chechnia. This triggered murders and other crimes against Ingush; their houses were set on fire.
The indignant Ingush rallied together to demand that the country's leaders protect them against the arbitrary rule of the local authorities. On 23 October, 1992, People's Deputy of the R.S.F.S.R. Issa Kostoev presented his analysis of the situation in the Prigorodny District where human rights of the Ingush were violated to the Supreme Soviet of the R.S.F.S.R. People's deputies tried and failed to meet President Yeltsin.41 Issa Kostoev, likewise, asked the president to receive him and was ignored. In fact, hundreds of telegrams, complaints, and addresses from Ingush deputies were ignored.42 "There are enough documents to testify that the president, the government, the Supreme Soviet, and the federal ministries of state security and internal affairs knew what was going on in the Prigorodny District and Vladikavkaz."43
The country's leaders and people who headed North Ossetia insisted that the claims of the Prig-orodny District were unjustified; little by little this thought was accepted by the political, economic, and legal systems of North Ossetia and caused armed clashes.
The Armed Conflict
The latent conflict rapidly developed into an open confrontation: on 31 October-4 November, 1992, mass armed action supported by the army was launched against the Ingush settlements, which the local people tried to defend. For several days people were killed and taken hostage, while their houses were plundered and set on fire; the Ingush were driven out of the Prigorodny District and Vladikavkaz.
The Russian leaders were on the side of North Ossetia. According to S. Belozertsev, "deportation and genocide were prepared well in advance. This means that neither the Ministry of Security of North Ossetia, nor the federal Ministry of Security could remain uninformed: bulk purchases of armored vehicles for North Ossetia were never concealed. By the time of the large-scale operation, even collective farms had armed themselves with tanks and armored vehicles. There were about 70 tanks and over 120 armored vehicles, nearly all of them adequately equipped. In Vladikavkaz, all the Ingush, registered and unregistered, were entered in special lists. This could not remain unnoticed!"44 A military contingent of up to 12.5 thousand servicemen and armored vehicles were moved into the republic.
The Ingush could not understand why the federal center sided with the Ossets and encouraged the use of force instead of disuniting the conflicting sides. Issa Kostoev, who represented the president of Russia in the Ingush Republic, insisted that he had suggested that troops be moved into the conflict zone from Beslan, block it, and disarm the conflicting sides. At first, the people in power accepted the plan, but later they decided to move troops in from Vladikavkaz to push the Ingush out of it, which caused numerous deaths.45
Later, Valentin Tishkov, former head of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Nationalities, admitted that the position of the federal center during the so-called national conflict "was acceptance of ethnic cleansing aimed at citizens of another (Ingush) nationality."
Insurgent Chechnia was the true target of the operation planned by the RF Security Council and the heads of the federal defense and security structures.46 Experts studying the causes of the conflict
41 See: Ya.S. Patiev, Khronika istorii ingushskogo naroda, p. 250.
42 See: Ya svidetelstvuiu... Khronika krovavoy oseni 1992 goda v Prigorodnom rayone, Nazran, 1996, p. 43.
43 I.M. Sampiev, "Etnopoliticheskaia situatsia v Ingushetii: novye vyzovy i alternativy," in: Severny Kavkaz: pro-filaktika konfliktov, Moscow, 2008, p. 39.
44 S.V. Belozertsev, "Narodny deputat SSSR," Daymokhk newspaper, No. 31-32, January 1993.
45 See: S.V. Belozertsev, "Delo i v terminakh i v suti proiskhodiashchego," available at [http://consultantsv. livejournal.com], 10 January, 2012.
46 See: "Indulgentsia na genotsid: 'osetino-ingushskiy konflikt' gotovilsia rossiskimi i osetinskimi politikami,"
available at [http://criminalnaya.ru/publ], 6 January, 2012.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
are of the same opinion. The conflict was carefully planned ideologically. Jokhar Dudaev, elected President of the Chechen Republic, was a thorn in the Kremlin's side. Fully aware of this, the leaders of North Ossetia laid their plan of action on the table.47 To avoid a conflict Dudaev hastened to declare the neutrality of his republic on 2 November, 1992.
The following confirms that what is written above is absolutely correct. On 8 November, Russian troops approached the border between Chechnia and Ingushetia, not the administrative border between Ossetia and Ingushetia. An analysis of what the Russian troops were doing under the slogan of conflict settlement reveals that the action had been never aimed at the Ingush. On 5-6 November, 1992, after promptly routing the weak and disjointed units of Ingush volunteers, the federal units left the conflict territory to move further eastward, across Ingushetia to the Chechen border.48
On 10 November, 1992, Dudaev introduced a state of emergency and announced mobilization of the self-defense forces of the Chechen Republic. A week later the government and parliamentary delegations of Chechnia and the Russian Federation agreed to disengage the Russian and Chechen armed units. The events of the fall of 1992 in the Prigorodny District added intensity to the anti-Russian feelings among the Chechens, who interpreted them as a stern warning.49
Ossetia and Ingushetia were used as a springboard for reaching Chechnia. Five days of "restoring constitutional order" by federal forces, the defense and security structures, and illegal armed units of North and South Ossetia ended in the deportation of tens of thousands of Ingush (according to some sources, 60 thousand were deported)50; official sources insist on 546 casualties: 407 Ingush, 105 Ossets, 186 missing Ingush, and 12 missing Ossets. Over 4,000 houses and apartments were plundered and destroyed.51
Here is what independent military experts of human rights organizations wrote about the preparations and course of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict in the territory of the Russian Federation: "The Ingush Republic had no state power structures, which meant that consistent and well-substantiated military preparation of the conflict was impossible. People armed themselves at random."52 The experts were objective—there is no doubt about it. After 6 September, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Chechen-Ingush Republic was disbanded and power was transferred to the Executive Committee of the All-National Congress of the Chechen People. Until 4 June, 1992 the Ingush part of the Chechen-Ingush Republic remained suspended: the money allocated for the republic (including its Ingush part) remained in Grozny, which increased social, economic, and political tension in Ingush-etia.53 The republic was set up, but it lacked money and had no clear borders, two things indispensable for the smooth functioning of any new state.54 In these conditions Ingushetia, which had no money, could not prepare for an armed conflict.
After the Conflict
After the conflict, 52,828 people (9,606 families) applied to the immigration service of the Ingush Republic for the status of forced migrants. Many of them either could not wait or did not apply;
47 See: "Mark Deutsch: Osetino-ingushskiy konflift: u kazhdoy iz storon—svoia pravda," available at [http://www. ng.ru/ideas/2007-11-02/10_konflikt.html].
48 See: "Indulgentsya na genotsid."
49 See: A.M. Bekov, Geopoliticheskie funktsii i rol Rossii: istoria i sovremennost, Moscow, 1997, p. 55.
50 See: Est prigovor, no net viny, Compiled by M.Yu. Zangiev, R.M. Ozdoev, Magas, 2006, p. 31.
51 See: Sobytiia oktiabry-noiabrya 1992 goda v interpretatsii Generalnoy prokuratury RF, Nazran, 2006, p. 2.
52 Ya svidetelstvuiu, p. 107.
53 See: I.M. Sampiev, "Etapy natsionalno-gosudarstvennogo samoopredeleniia ingushskogo naroda," in: Vuzovskoe obrazovanie i nauka: materialy regionalnoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii, Magas, 2007, p. 254.
54 See: D.S. Kokorkhoeva, Stanovlenie i razvitie sovetskoy natsionalnoy gosudarstvennosti ingushskogo naroda (1917-1944), Elista, 2002, p. 141.
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
they merely moved to other regions55 (Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Tyumen, etc.) and to the Near and Far Abroad (mainly Kazakhstan). After going through a very complicated procedure, 47,045 people (8,554 families) acquired forced migrant status.56
According to independent experts, there were over 60 thousand unregistered Ingush living in the Prigorodny District and Vladikavkaz; the official figure being 32.7 thousand.57 Forced migrants wanted to return to their former places of residence; this was confirmed by a poll carried out by the Interregional Administration of the Russian Migration Service.58 On 19 May, 2007, there were 2,988 registered families (10,715 people) of forced migrants; 2,878 families (10,444 people) were Ingush.59
After November 1992, 143 federal regulatory legal acts were adopted to liquidate the repercussions of the events in Vladikavkaz and the Prigorodny District, including:
■ 47 decrees and instructions of the President of Russia;
■ 12 assignments and addresses of the RF President;
■ 50 decisions and instructions of the RF Government; and
■ 23 decisions of the RF Federal Assembly.
The presidents and the governments of the Republic of North Ossetia and the Republic of Ingushetia signed over 20 agreements, work plans and programs designed to resolve the problem. Not one of the above-mentioned regulatory legal acts that envisaged return of the forced migrants to their former places of settlement has been executed in full.60
The villages where Ossets and Ingush continue living side by side and where there are no ethnic enclaves (in the villages of Dongaron and Kurtat, for example) are marked by the best moral and psychological climate. A public opinion poll has revealed that people between 40 and 50 years of age with earlier experience of living together easily accept good-neighborly relations; young people who grew up during the conflict and after it (when young people of both groups were isolated from each other) are less receptive of the idea of contacts.61 The young people are divided by the current practice of separate schools for Osset and Ingush children in the Prigorodny District.62
Conclusion
The Ossetian and Ingush societies are prisoners of the stereotypes imposed on them in the last few decades; most of the people in both republics look back to the past with nostalgia. Both peoples have a huge number of relatives since for many centuries they lived side by side, which means that mixed marriages were quite common. The aristocrats of both peoples deliberately created kindred relations; this tradition has survived until today. During the deportations, many Osset wives preferred to follow their Ingush husbands into exile rather than stay behind (as they were advised); many of them died during these tragic years.
55 The present author was one of them.
56 See: R.Z. Sagov, "Etnopoliticheskaia situatsia vokrug Prigorodnogo rayona," in: Severny Kavkaz: profilaktika konfliktov, Moscow, 2008, p. 58.
57 See: B.A. Akiev, E.D. Muzhukhoeva, R.Z. Sagov, Tragediia oseni 1992 goda v Prigorodnom rayone, Nazran, 1996, p. 109.
58 See: I.M. Sampiev, Etnopoliticheskaia situatsia v Ingushetii, p. 42.
59 See: F.P. Bokov, A eto i est fashizm, Kiev, 2008, p. 454.
60 See: L.Ya. Arapkhanova, "Rol federalnoy i regionalnoy politicheskoy elity v likvidatsii problem vynuzhdennykh pereselentsev na Severnom Kavkaze," in: Sbornik nauchnykh statey filosofskogo fakulteta MGU, Moscow, 2010, p. 154.
61 See: "Osetino-ingushskiy konflikt 1992 g: istoki i razvitie (po may 2005 g.)," available at [http://www.memo.ru/ hr/hotpoints/caucas1/prigorod/msg/2005/05/m291.htm].
62 See: "Mark Deutsch: Osetino-ingushskiy konflift: u kazhdoy iz storon—svoia Pravda."
THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
The Ossets and Ingush could have lived peacefully side by side if the people at the top had wanted this. This was amply confirmed by numerous cases when Ossets, in fear for their lives, helped Ingush escape from "self-defenders" and when Ingush saved Ossets from their enraged neighbors.63 Not infrequently Ossets and Ingush have common businesses.
Our society can start thinking positively if it learns the lessons of history and traditions of its ancestors. It is our task to tell the truth about the hard crisis stages of the past without negative assessments and in a format of serious analysis very much needed to correctly assess the lessons of the negative and positive past of our peoples for the sake of future generations.
1 See: "Mark Deutsch: Osetino-ingushskiy konflift: u kazhdoy iz storon—svoia Pravda."
