The participants of a mourning meeting in Nalchik declared that the authorities ignored the “land question”

The participants of a meeting in Nalchik devoted to the 68^th anniversary of deportation of the Balkar people stated that the officials of Kabardino-Balkaria ignored their demands. The participants of the action consider that the main problem of the Balkars is unsettled land question.

The officials ignore regulations of three federal laws at once in this way violating the rights of the Balkar, participant of the meeting Tamara Gerieva, expert of All-Russian movement “For Human Rights”, senior secretary of the Council of Elders of the Balkar people (CEBP), considers.

“Our major problem is land. The republican authorities violate a number of federal laws turning the Balkar people into slaves doomed to slow extinction in the long run”, Gerieva declared.

The officials in the districts of KBR attempt to misappropriate the Balkar people’s lands, Chairman of the Council of Elders of the Balkar people Ilyas Sabanchiev said in his speech at the meeting.

“I spoke about the tourist cluster and the local authorities’ attempt to misappropriate our lands”, Ilyas Sabanchiev says.

“Genocide of the Balkar people that started on March, 8, 1944, is going on nowadays, Sabanchiev considers. – But now it has an economic nature”.

“Then, in 1944, families of the people fighting in the front were driven into livestock carriages and carried away to the East, Middle Asia. Today economic genocide against the Balkar is going on: there is not a single industrial or agricultural enterprise in the territory of Balkaria”, Chairman of CEBP states.

The demands of the Balkars have remained the same during the last twelve years, participant of the meeting lawyer Shagaban Elzhorukaev says.

“If we are an independent subject of the federation with our own territories give our lands back to us. If they re-established our rights then let them re-establish our territories!”, the lawyer declares.

According to Elzhorukaev, the participants meant re-establishment of the status of four districts: Bezengi, Balkar, Chegem and Elbrus they had before March, 1944.

The “Caucasian Knot” has received no comments from representatives of the authorities of Kabardino-Balkaria yet.