Kennan Institute
www.wilsoncenter.org/kennan
March 17, 2008
event summary
The Current Situation in the Northern Caucasus
After the beginning of the second Chechen war in 1999, the Russian republic of Ingushetia was a relatively calm refuge for the nearly 210,000 people fleeing the violence in neighboring Chechnya, said Eliza Musaeva, consultant, International Helsinki Federation, Vienna, and Sakharov Human Rights Fellow, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. However, this is now beginning to change, she noted, as violence has slowly tapered off in Chechnya while it has increased considerably in Ingushetia. Currently the population of Ingushetia is caught between the arbitrary repression of the government and the violent attacks of Islamic radical groups. As a result, the region is caught in a cycle of violence from which it is difficult to escape, she said.
According to Musaeva, the motivation for joining resistance groups is different in each case. Some young men join the Islamic military groups, because, as citizens, they lack basic rights, and instead face arbitrary detention, the use of torture, kidnappings, unexplained disappearances, and the fabrication of criminal charges. Others become militants in order to take revenge for dead family members or for the suffering they experienced while being unjustly detained. Many simply cannot accept the situation any longer. For this reason, these people are seen as responding to an “ideology of despair,” which enables militant groups to recruit new fighters, Musaeva noted.
There are many reported cases of torture against detainees, Musaeva stated. Often this torture is used to extract confessions, which are then presented as evidence in criminal trials. Those convicted have the right of appeal, although judges often simply ignore appeals and dismiss them without examining the case. Musaeva described how security services even interfere in judicial proceedings. For example, soon after a man accused of terrorism had been exonerated, armed men in camouflage stormed the courtroom looking for him. The man was able to escape ahead of his pursuers, but eventually was forced to flee the country.
The arbitrary detentions and arrests of young males serve as a very public way of reminding the population of the government’s power to charge individuals as terrorists at will, Musaeva observed. Furthermore, the authorities treat all those living in the Northern Caucasus as part of the problem regardless of their behavior or age. As a result, the population is insecure and faces arbitrary repression by the authorities on the one hand, and the growing influence of Islamic radicals on the other. Murat Zyazikov, the head of the local Ingush government, is very unpopular, according to Musaeva, because he does not address the problems faced by the republic in his public speeches.
Musaeva observed that very little information on current events in the region is available in the Russian or Western press. Russians have a sense that there are problems in the Northern Caucasus, and that terrorist groups are active in the area, but they know very little about the government’s often violent response, she asserted. In the West, the situation is somewhat different. While most of the international human rights organizations try to do everything in their power to report this information, some, such as PACE, do not mention it in their reports on human rights in Russia.
Musaeva predicted that the situation will change only if law enforcement in the region stops arbitrary repression. The government must also assure independent and objective investigations and the prosecution of those responsible for crimes against citizens. Furthermore, the federal authorities must deal with the situation in Ingushetia only according to federal law, she stated, and the population must be able to see this.