Four national park inspectors have disappeared in a remote part of Krasnoyarsk region in southern Siberia, and local officials believe they have been murdered as part of a territorial dispute with the national minority people in the neighboring autonomous republic of Tuva.


According to Leonid Botvik, head of the local administration, the four inspectors disappeared in the taiga of the Sayano-Shushensky national park, close to the border with the Tuva republic, at the beginning of September. All searches have drawn blanks.


"We are sure they were killed by the Tuvin people to deter other national park officials from trying to keep them out of the national park," he said.


The national park, which was set up in 1977, adjoins the administrative border between the Tuva republic and the Krasnoyarsk region.


"In the past these were traditional hunting and fishing grounds for the Tuvin, who also grazed their cattle and held religious rites there. So it is only natural that they consider this land to be theirs. Now the Tuvin are prohibited from doing everything they used inside the national park and they resent this," Botvik said.


He said the conflict started in 1992 after Tuva declared sovereignty within the Russian state with the right to secede from the federation and relations between Russians and Tuvin in the republic worsened.


The same year, two Russians were killed by Tuvin, sparking demonstrations by angry Russians in the Tuva capital, Kyzyl.


Then Tuvin who were living close to the Krasnoyarsk region border laid claim to the southern part of the national park.


"Our inspectors are constantly threatened by the Tuvin, while local authorities in the border district openly express their support for the claims in their dealings with national park officials. We regularly complain about cases of poaching in the national park but the Tuvin side has not answered any of our official letters," Botvik said.


"Ever since the murders, the situation has been tense in the national park and in the Shushensky region where 40,000 people live. But nothing ever comes out in the open, so there is nothing we can do.


"Moscow pretends nothing is happening while senior officials in Tuva keep talking about friendship," Botvik added.


The Tuva local authorities of Khemsky region which is situated on the border with the national park refused to make any comment on the situation there.


Ornat-oll, aide to the Chairman of the Supreme Hural of the Tuva republic, confirmed in a telephone interview that the southern part of the national park used to be the traditional lands of the Tuvin for hundreds of years, but denied that there were any territorial claims.


"We don't have any national problems in our republic. Especially with Russians. We have been living together for years," he said.


Ornat also denied press reports that the Tuvin side hampered the investigation of the murder in the national park by denying Krasnoyarsk police access to their republic.


According to Sergei Komaritsin of the Krasnoyarsk regional administration, the regional governor, Valery Zubov, met the President of Tuva Sherig-ool Oorzhak in October to discuss the problem.


"They agreed to intensify investigation of the murder and work out ways to deal with tension in the region," he said.


Sergei Samoilov, spokesman for the Tuva president's administration, said the president was aware of the problem and treating it as a priority.


He said the problem was complicated by the fact that so many of the borders of the autonomous regions and republics, which now had the status of states within the Russian Federation, were drawn up in Soviet times for administrative purposes without any consideration for historical or national divisions.