Dzokhar-Khala/Agency Caucasus – Umar Hambiyev, who worked as the Minister of Health within the cabinet of Aslan Mashadov, the last elected President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, has returned to Chechnya after years of exile in Italy. While Hambiyev’s return to his homeland is viewed as an act of his to form alliance with Ramzan Kadyrov, the Russian-backed President of Chechnya, local sources tend to say that the Resistance will not be affected by his homecoming.
Hambiyev was persuaded to return home by his brother and former Defence Minister Magomed Hambiyev of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. When the fellow men of Kadyrov threatened to kill Magomed Hambiyev’s relatives after they were taken hostage, he resigned himself to the administration of Chechnya in 2004 and agreed to take a seat in the Russian-backed Chechen parliament the year after. Magomed Hambiyev went in August to Europe in order to convince the Chechens over there of the need to return home.
The likelihood is that the Kadyrov administration will treat the homecoming of Hambiyev, a chief name of the Mashadov era, as a tool for propaganda. “The return of Hambiyev has added to the fake triumphs of the Kadyrov administration,” a local political analyst told Kavkazky Uzel. “When Dokka Umarov proclaimed the Caucasian Emirate, all the institutions of the former administration of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria were abolished. Those who nowadays fight with their guns do not recognize the administration of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria any more, the president of which is Ahmed Zakayev. It will not be surprising for me to see even Zakayev return to Chechnya soon, because there is always the likelihood that new faces will appear around Ramzan Kadyrov.”
“Umar Hambiyev is, in principle, a nice man and a good doctor who did a lot to save those who were injured in both wars; however, he is not a commander,” said one of the former parliamentarians of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. “He has never had the kind of armed supporters who would be prepared to resign any time now themselves to the administration once they were called on to do so. I believe that the young people who hide in forests know nothing about him. Hambiyev can only represent himself, definitely not a group; besides, he is an important person for the current administration because he managed to represent the interests of Mashadov in Europe. It is perhaps only in this way that the government will be able to exert its influence on the Chechens in Europe; that is to say, it will be able to achieve the status of a fully legal government.”
Umar Hambiyev was kept in a prison camp in Chernokozov for a while after he and all the other health workers of a hospital in Dzokhar-Khala were taken hostage by Russian forces in 2000. When released, Hambiyev left Chechnya and worked for some time as the foreign representative of Mashadov.
KU/ÖZ/FT
