KHANATE WILD

CAUCASUS KNOT

Six months after Beslan, President of North Ossetia Alexander Dzasokhov found out that terrorist attacks threatened the people. And in order to protect the people from terrorist attacks, he banned rallies. I must say that until now it is precisely at rallies in North Ossetia that terrorist attacks ...

Six months after Beslan, President of North Ossetia Alexander Dzasokhov found out that terrorist attacks threatened the people. And to protect the people from terrorist attacks, he banned rallies.

I must say that so far there have been no terrorist attacks at rallies in North Ossetia. Until now, the rallies demanded the resignation of Dzasokhov.

But, on the other hand, who can demand Dzasokhov's resignation? Only enemies of Russia. When the mothers of Beslan blocked the federal highway for the last time, one of the members of the commission on Beslan said just that: behind them, they say, there are hostile forces. That is, if mothers ask about the fate of their own children, then they are accomplices of the terrorists who killed them.

As they say, the one who does not use it has a clear conscience.

President Dzasokhov was not the first to see the connection between rallies and terrorists. Not long before him, the president of neighboring Ingushetia, Zyazikov, did this, blocking with armored personnel carriers not only the square where they were going to demand his resignation, but also the exits from the villages, from where the protesters could leave.

And to prove the terrorist intentions of the protesters, they even printed leaflets in which, on behalf of the organizer of the rally, Musa Ozdoev, they called for the separation of Ingushetia from Russia. And they delivered those leaflets in state-owned cars in unopened bundles to the villages: look, they say, look what a bad man Ozdoev is!

I must say that the deputy of the People's Assembly of Ingushetia and the head of one of the largest teips of the republic, Musa Ozdoev, is quite pro-Russian and does not fall under the definition of a terrorist. If only because when the Ingush terrorists are going to organize something, they do without applications. And no armored personnel carriers help. Actually, they don't exist, these armored personnel carriers, when it's hot.

On June 22, 2004, without any prior requests, the militants controlled Nazran for seven hours, and no one saw any armored personnel carriers.

But here's the thing.

The day before, when two hundred people in Ingushetia nevertheless leaked past armored personnel carriers to the square (and this rally was widely covered by all opposition media), in neighboring Dagestan, in Makhachkala, two hundred people surrounded the building of the local FSB.

They demanded the release of the Gairbekov brothers, who were accused of preparing an assassination attempt on the head of the Republic's Pension Fund: a few months ago, his next armored car was flattened into another cake. The officer himself survived.

The pension fund of Dagestan is a profitable position, and therefore deadly: one of the previous holders of the position, Sharapuddin Musaev, a blood enemy of the mayor of Makhachkala, was recently shot in Moscow.

Whether the Gairbekov brothers are to blame, I will not judge: I will only say that they were friendly with the current head of the Pension Fund, who gave them tidbits, but, apparently, appeared in his entourage at the request of his old blood enemy.

Gadzhimurad Gairbekov is an authoritative person in the republic. He was still part of the entourage of the late Nadirshah Khachilaev and became famous in his time for rescuing a hostage from Chechen captivity. Then Mr. Gairbekov and his men went to Shamil Basayev and spoke to him so harshly that Basayev not only handed over the kidnapped girl, but also promised to shoot the Chechens who stole her. For both high negotiating parties agreed that the kidnappers had violated Sharia law. (It is unlikely, however, that he shot him - otherwise he would have done it in front of Gairbekov.)

In a word, when the Gairbekovs were arrested, their relatives and friends came to the FSB building and demanded that they be returned. Like, this is our business: one fund, another fund, one blood-monger, another blood-monger - why are you, the FSB, getting into other than your own business?

The rallies in Ingushetia and North Ossetia are aimed at the Russian audience. They appeal to President Putin and Russian society. That's why you hear about them. Stories like the one that happened because of the Gairbekov brothers are not heard about, not because the federal government suppresses references to the surrounded FSB building. It's just that the people who surrounded this building did not work for the Russian audience. They were solving their own problems, and the Russian media for them were about the same as the FSB officers, representatives of a foreign world.

Who understands local affairs like a pig in oranges.

So: the problem is that the khans, shamkhals and sultans of the Caucasus appointed by the Kremlin can ban rallies, that is, the last way of expressing protest loyal to Russia against these very khans, shamkhals and sultans.

But they are not in a position to prohibit either popular unrest or terrorist attacks. They are only able to use major terrorist attacks (and organize small ones) to justify their own arbitrariness and silence the opposition.

The more the opposition loyal to Russia is silenced, the more influential the anti-Russian opposition will be. The fewer rallies there are in the Caucasus, the more terrorist attacks there will be.

By agreeing to classify as terrorists any opposition to its own puppet regimes, the Kremlin is driving itself into the same dead end in the Caucasus as the United States is in Central Asia.