Khasavyurt Discord

A rally was held in Dagestan against Chechen security forces

On Saturday, the so-called people's forum was held in the Dagestan city of Khasavyurt, the participants of which protested against the illegal, from their point of view, abductions of local residents by Chechen security forces. The forum, which was attended by about 1,000 residents of Khasavyurt and the surrounding area, representatives of the mayor’s office and Moscow human rights activists, turned out to be far from the first protest action: this summer and throughout the fall, townspeople held rallies several times and even blocked the Caucasus federal highway. In their opinion, this is the only way to attract the attention of the authorities to the situation in the area of ​​the Chechen-Dagestan administrative border. Forum participants calculated that over the course of two years, about 70 people were kidnapped from the city alone and taken to Chechnya.

Khasavyurt is the second largest city in Dagestan, located in close proximity to Chechnya and living mainly at the expense of several large wholesale markets, inhabited by Avars, Kumyks and Chechens. In the last years of the reign of the Chairman of the State Council of Dagestan Magomedali Magomedov, who resigned in February 2006, Khasavyurt was one of the centers of the Avar opposition, nicknamed the “Northern Alliance”. The name was connected not so much with the events in distant Afghanistan, but with the fact that Khasavyurt is located north of the capital Makhachkala. The mayor of Khasavyurt, Saygidpasha Umakhanov, was one of the key figures in this opposition movement.

In February, when there was talk about a successor, the “alliance” proposed to the presidential envoy in the Southern Federal District, Dmitry Kozak, the candidacy of the head of the republican department of the federal treasury, Saygidgusein Magomedov. However, the former head of the republican parliament, Mukhu Aliyev, became president. Mr. Aliyev apparently belonged to the old management team, but unlike Dargin Magomedali Magomedov, he was an ethnic Avar. As a result, his rise to power satisfied the “northerners,” who believed that the largest Dagestani ethnic group should be represented at the highest level of republican power. The current series of Khasavyurt rallies is in no way directed against Makhachkala. Moreover, the organizers decided to hold the Saturday forum only after confirming Mukhu Aliyev’s consent.

Some relatives of the abducted people hinted that the Dagestan police, also led by the Avar Adilgirey Magomedtagirov, might also be involved in the disappearances. But the organizers chose to carefully ignore the harsh remarks. Specific charges were clearly avoided, although it was clear that it was not militants who were suspected of the abductions, but rather employees of the Chechen security forces. It is known that operations in the border areas are carried out by forces of the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs, mainly controlled by Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, and by fighters of the Vostok battalion, which is part of the 42nd division of the Russian Ministry of Defense and headed by Sulim Yamadayev.

While Yamadayev’s name was heard several times in the hall, Saigidpasha Umakhanov spoke about Kadyrov only on the sidelines and in very cautious terms. The fact is that Mr. Umakhanov and Mr. Kadyrov had a long-term friendship, and one of the closest assistants to the mayor of Khasavyurt, Jamalutdin Gamzatov, was proud of the fact that he grew up in the same house with Ramzan. True, in recent years these relations have not been particularly warm: it became difficult for the mayor to continue to be friends after Kadyrov’s security officers in January 2005 actually attacked the Khasavyurt police department, seeking the release of their boss’s sister, who was detained by local police at the border with an armed escort. Jamalutdin Gamzatov, who was a key figure in the complex system of “cross-border cooperation,” was killed at the end of September 2006 when his car was shot at by unknown assailants using machine guns.

As a result, the resolution adopted by the forum participants turned out to be quite diplomatic. But the participants themselves, including the extremely correct mayor, promised that if the abducted were not returned and the abductions continued, they would again assemble the Avar militia that defended the city and the republic from Chechen militants before the start of the war in Chechnya and in the first years of the campaign . Khasavyurt, according to forum participants, is ready to “act according to the Ingush option.” This refers to an attempt by Ingush policemen with weapons in their hands to interfere with the mission of Chechen riot police who carried out a detention on the territory of Ingushetia on September 13 of this year. The shootout on the administrative border with casualties on both sides ended only after the appearance of a federal helicopter.

Ivan SUKHOV