>> http://www.newint.org/issue211/black.htm
>>
> This was an unbelievably stupid article.
Like this?
The 'black hole' of Chechnya
by Shohdy Naguib [from Moscow]
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 12 - 18 June 2003 (Issue No. 642)
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/642/in6.htm
> ...The nine-year Chechen conflict can be described as the Russian "black
hole" which is sucking up funds, lives and hopes for a better life,
while discharging at the same dazzling rate xenophobia, radicalisation
of politics, corruption and crime. In other words, if transparency can
be regarded as the opposite of corruption, then this conflict is
tantamount to a powerful smoke generator that is suffocating the
nascent Russian democracy. Placing this independence war within the
framework of the global "war on terror" was a lucky strike for the
Russian president and the likely doom for the 200 years of struggle
for self-determination by this proud nation.
The alleged link between Chechnya's rebels and Al-Qa'eda raises the
question of whether that link exists despite, or because of, Russia's
anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya. And it certainly cannot justify
the horrendous scale of atrocities that has befallen its people.
According to the International Herald Tribune , the "statistics on
murders and so-called disappearances show that Chechnya is one of the
most dangerous places on earth," outstripping Colombia by a wide
margin, which leaves no doubt as to the total failure of the federal
government to contain the situation. Staging a referendum on the
future of the republic and the adoption of a new constitution against
such a troubled background could not have been more inappropriate. The
96 per cent of votes which were cast "in favour of peace and against
the separation" are viewed by most international observers as
irrelevant and as having nothing to do with durable peace in the region.
Indeed, all the assurances of stability in Chechnya issued by the
Kremlin-backed administration of Ahmad Kadyrov are regularly truncated
with news of stinging attacks by the rebels. The suicide attacks on
the tightly secured administration buildings wipe out all such claims,
while the incessant reports of atrocities committed in the course of
"cleansing operations" carried out by the federal forces and Kadyrov's
militia may well explain why entire families have chosen to become
shohada (martyrs).
The frequent use of suicide bombers, particularly women, by the
Chechen separatists further validates the Kremlin's claims of the
"foreign hand" which dares to meddle in Russia's internal affairs.
Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov, reporting to President Vladimir
Putin, recently said, "This was brought to us from abroad. There were
previously no suicide attackers in the Chechen conflict." The wave of
terror attacks is also spilling over from Chechnya to the neighbouring
regions of southern Russia.
On Thursday 5 June a female bomber dressed in the white garb
associated with medical personnel, blew herself up in front of a bus
carrying military and civilian personnel to a nearby airfield not far
from the city of Mozdok in the North Ossetia region, killing herself
and at least 16 others.
Conventional guerrilla warfare also seems to be gaining momentum after
a period of relative calm. On the following Friday an intensive fight
broke out in the republic's third largest city of Argun, which lasted
for many hours and produced contradictory reports as to the number of
casualties on both sides. Certain, though, is the fact that Kadyrov's
deputy, Colonel Aud Yusupov, lost his life in an ambush in the city
centre. Fighting, therefore, is no longer confined to the southern
mountainous regions, as has been claimed.
The Western guests who recently attended the international summit in
St Petersburg during its splendid tercentenary anniversary did not say
a single word to their host regarding the situation in the war-torn
North Caucasus. Nobody wanted to spoil the party.
The miserable human rights record in Chechnya will, sooner or later,
surface at the highest diplomatic level. The upcoming trial of Ahmad
Zakaev -- official envoy of Chechen President-elect Aslan Maskhadov --
in London will probably trigger this. He is currently facing
extradition in England and his defence is based upon accusations aimed
at Russia regarding massive human rights violations in Chechnya. In an
interview with Radio Liberty he said, "For three or four years now,
our leadership has been seeking the creation of an international
committee to investigate these horrible crimes, followed by an
international tribunal to bring the war criminals to trial." Such an
approach may well turn the tables on the Kremlin.
<SNIP>
Le Monde diplomatique June 2003 (Not available on their website to non- subbers.)
Chechnya: an occupied territory President Vladimir Putin of Russia reaffirmed his policy on Chechnya in May despite suicide attacks that killed 75 people in the space of a few days. The responsibility for policing will be handed to local militias; a president and parliament will be elected; a treaty will set out the powers of the Russian Federation and the Caucasian republic; and an amnesty will be declared. He said nothing about abuses by Russian soldiers that provoke demands for vengeance now and possibly by future generations. By GWENN ROCHE ___________________________________________________________ THERE is nothing surprising about the Chechen capital, Grozny, on first sight. Just the usual landscape of war. Roadblocks, masked soldiers in their tanks, rubble, roads potholed, trees shattered, burnt-out buildings with pockmarked frontages. What does startle is the life. The traces of life and of human activity, the real people in this ghost town. It seems incongruous to see washing drying in gaps between the walls, to see sheets hanging like curtains, drinks stalls and street vendors. Grozny was heavily bombed from September 1999 to March 2000 (1). Most citizens fled, but others stayed and some have even come back. Amid the ruins life has gone on. In some parts it has developed, even flourished - although, like the ruins, it is battered and in pieces. This is the second war in 10 years for this small republic. Between 1994 and 1996 a conflict destroyed most of the infrastructure and killed 100,000 people. Now may be the turning point for Chechnya. The major military operations - the massive bombardments of towns and villages - stopped in the plains in the spring of 2000, but continue in mountain areas (the Chatoi, Itum-Kalinsky and Vedensky districts). Chechnya has been the target of "clean-up operations" to seek "terrorists" among the civilian s, which are accompanied by looting, ill treatment, arbitrary arrest, torture and summary executions: about 70,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed since 1999. This does not stop the Russian authorities declaring that the situation is being "normalised" in an attempt to persuade the Russian public and the West that anti-terrorist operations are justified. President Vladimir Putin declared on a news programme earlier this year: "All of the combatants' infrastructure has been destroyed. All that remain are a few isolated groups engaged in terrorist acts - and that is all they are capable of. Our task is to eliminate them." Since the hostage-taking in Moscow's Dubrovka theatre in October 2002, the Russian army has increased its "targeted operations". These arbitrary arrests, which end in disappearance or summary execution, are carried out after dark by groups of masked men who do not generally identify themselves. They know who they are after. According to Memorial, the Russian association for the defence of human rights, the arrests and killings are crimes committed by organised structures with men from different units forming the death squads. A MAN we shall call "K" lives in a village in the Ourous-Martan district in southwest Grozny: "I have five sons. During the night of 20-21 October soldiers burst into my garden in an armoured vehicle. They were hooded and armed and said they were from the GRU ( military intelligence ). They took away four of my sons, aged between 22 and 28, without even giving them time to dress. My sons have 'disappeared'. Despite the representations I have made to all the different authorities - the FSB [formerly the KGB], police, public prosecutor's office and army - I have not been able to get any infor mation about where they are being held." Several thousand people, mostly men, are currently listed as "disappeared". Sometimes bodies of individuals arrested by military units, the police or the FSB, are found in mass graves. The Russian army commits crimes with impunity. Since the war began only about 50 soldiers have been tried for crimes against civilians, but no action has yet been taken against those responsible for the clean-up operations in Alkhan-Luort and Novye-Aldy (December 1999 and February 2000), both of which claimed an exceptional number of civilian victims. Chechnya has two governments. Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, who came to power in 1997 under the auspices of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), heads the resistance to what he calls "Russian invaders". But in June 2000 the former mufti of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, was appointed by the Kremlin to head a pro-Russian Chechen administration. Armed militias, placed under the direct orders of Kadyrov, have begun to make arbitrary arrests at night in the past few months, and to rule by terror. They may be "relieving" Russian federal troops of duties, but their raids are probably also acts of reprisal, or are even criminal acts. The Chechen resistance is in difficulties, partially destroyed by intensified Russian military activity after 11 September 2001. Its supply networks are less active, and Turkish and Saudi sources that provided financial and logistical support have dried up. After three and a half years of war Chechens are exhausted and ready to accept the Russian authorities' token peace, so the resistance is finding it difficult to recruit. But, although drained, scattered, in small groups and sometimes radicalised, it continues guerrilla attacks on military targets, as demonstrated by recent attacks against Russian forces. The isolation of the resistance has led Maskhadov, who wavers between distancing himself from and moving closer to the Islamists, to choose the latter. Last summer he introduced an Islamist system, the majlis al-shura, a centralised Chechen command, with Shamil Basayev as head. This has led to the return to grace of radical Islamist leaders such as Movladi Udugov and Zelimkhan Landarbiev. Maskhadov, who claims to be on the secular wing, has used Islamist symbols, especially when addressing the media, for some months. This is a trend among the Chechen combatants (including the Moscow hostage-takers) - and is less an expression of genuine radicalisation than a display of public image. The Chechens believe they have nothing more to hope for from the West and instead hope for advantage from the use of Islamist symbols. They are identifying themselves both with their self-definition and the image they project to the world. But in doing so, they risk justifying the claims of those who describe them as an extension of Osama bin Laden's network. The theatre hostage-taking by a Chechen commando was a gift to the Moscow authorities, who had always brandished the "terrorist threat", particularly after 11 September. It made it easier to sideline Maskhadov, relegated to the al-Qaida camp by Russian propaganda. At the same time it destroyed any prospect of political negotiations with the Chechen side - so much so that there have been suggestions of links between the hostage-takers and the Russian secret services. Journalist Anna Politkovskaya revealed in Novaya Gazeta (2) that a surviving member of the commando, Maskhadov's former representative to Jordan, now works for Putin's press service. Uncovering the truth is not encouraged: on 17 April Sergei Yushenkov, a member of the committee of inquiry into the theatre siege, was killed by persons unknown. There are unanswered questions about the September 1999 bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk. The Chechen resistance was blamed. Putin used the bombings as an excuse to relaunch operations in Chechnya. So far no Chechen has been convicted, though there is much evidence implicating the FSB. Determined to reject compromise, the Russian authorities had only one channel: they had to devise a political process without negotiations with the other side. On 23 March they held a referendum in Chechnya on the adoption of a new constitution and parliamentary and presidential elections later this year. According to the first article of the new constitution, the territory of the republic is an integral part of the Russian Federation. The referendum seems not to have been very democratic. On the day it was held the streets of Grozny were almost deserted. Only coloured banners on the ruins calling on people to take part expressed a - sometimes threatening - view: " our chance of survival", "if you want to be the master of your own destiny, take part" or "better fragile legality than total lawlessness". Only a few people furtively went to the polling stations. Along the desolate Victory Avenue, a group of brave protesters demonstrated disagreement with the referendum by holding up photos of dead or disappeared relatives. There was a strange atmosphere: the security services seemed relieved and the checkpoints were relaxed; but the people looked tense, fearful and threatened. There was a contrast between the ecstatic eu phoria as described by the Russian media and the reality of an empty city echoing with explosions and rounds of automatic fire. On the eve of the referendum several people were hit by mines and shells: the staff of a medical centre run in Grozny by Médecins du Monde treated a girl injured when a shell exploded in the courtyard of her surburban home. Hospital Number 9 treated four people injured when two armoured vehicles struck mines - one of the injured died shortly after arriv al. Several polling stations were targeted by the Chechen resistance. The referendum took place against continuing conflict. A ccess to Chechnya is still restricted for NGOs and independent journalists. The many checkpoints on major and minor roads make it difficult to move about. During the past three years people have learnt to fear moving around, but on 23 March the military were ordered to ease up on controls. Even so the buses were empty; people preferred to stay at home. People were pressured to vote in the referendum. There were threats of collective reprisals if the turnout was low, and personal intimidation. Promises were also made. It cannot be described as a "free vote". But none of that stopped the Russian authorities expressing delight at a "huge turnout". Official figures, made public on the evening of 24 March, gave a turnout of 85% and a huge vote in favour of the new constitution (96% ). Those figures are at odds with reality. The frightened population of Grozny hardly ventured into the streets, let alone the polling stations. There were blatant irregularities. A member of an electoral committee in a polling station in the Staroprmyslovski district said: "I was told to stay seated and not speak to anyone. I counted the people who came to vote. At 3pm I had counted 243 voters. But as early as 11am, the polling station committee told the central committee that 1,457 people had already voted. After 3pm, no more than 20 or so people came to vote, but at the end of the day, the committee announced that 2,185 people had cast their vote. Some people voted several times, and I saw people come in with a pile of identity papers and vote for 15 or 20 others. There were ballot papers marked 'yes' in advance." Chechen and international NGOs estimate the turnout at about 30%. Aside from the fraud, many Chechens see the failure to accept the will of the Chechen people in a process described as "democratic" as a humiliation, even an act of war. The aim was to break the will of the people. The official Russian statements look particularly grotesque. On 24 March Putin welcomed the "huge" turnout, declaring that Chechens had made clear their desire to remain within the Russian Federation, and that the problem of Russia's territorial integrity had been resolved. In his eyes, the referendum meant the presidency of Maskhadov could be at last officially ended. Putin said "all who have yet to lay down their arms are now battling for false ideals, and against their own people" (3). In reality Putin's solution means denying any popular sovereignty at any level. He refuses to give Chechens a democratic voice or to talk to their elected representatives. In what he conveys to the Russian public Putin claims to be both the defender of Russia's colonial interests in the Caucasus and the advocate of a political solution; but he will not agree to negotiate with "terrorists". In fact he has never been prepared to take up the peace plans proposed by Maskhadov's ministers in exile, including the proposal to establish an administration under a temporary international mandate in Chechnya. THE referendum is part of a process that has been under way for months. With the creation of the pro-Russian Chechen "government" and an increase in statements confirming "normalisation", two worlds exist side by side in Chechnya: the real state of war continues, with an occupying army retaliating against civilians in response to guerrilla attacks on military targets, while surrealistic Russian official statements are in turn incorporated into the Chechen daily reality. But will " normalisation" actually happen? The Russian authorities see the referendum as a step towards changing the situation. The deputy interior minister, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, announced on 21 April that responsibility for operations in Chechnya, given to the FSB in 2001, will be handed over to the ministry of the interior. The idea is probably to Chechenise the conflict, gradually withdrawing the federal army from operations and replacing them with a local police force, a process that has been going on for months. But in fact that risks worsening the situation. Armed groups representing the Chechen authorities would be criminalised and there would be sporadic attacks mounted by groups still active within the resistance, even though it is disorganised and lacks resources. This hardly seems like "normalisation". The strategy relies on the silence of the international community, which has never organised a meeting, conciliation or negotiation about or in the conflict. There are international missions observing events in Chechnya, but no political or diplomatic activity. The OSCE left in March at the request of the Russian authorities. The United Nations has never exercised coercion in Chechnya; UN agencies (the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme and World Health Organisation) provide only humanitarian relief. For the second year the UN Commission on Human Rights refused in April to adopt a resolution condemning Russia for crimes committed in Chechnya. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, after polite criticism (Russia was deprived of its right to vote from April 2000 to January 2001), has been silent for two years. At its last session it adopted a resolution calling for the creation of an international criminal tribunal to deal with crimes committed in Chechnya. This was a token decision since only the UN Security Council can ratify a decision of that nature, and Russia has a seat and right of veto on the Security Council. When will we see the independent international committee of inquiry that members of the European parliament have called for? The international community could at least call on the Russian authorities to see that those who are responsible for crimes against civilians, the main victims of this conflict, do not go unpunished. ________________________________________________________ * Gwenn Roche is a journalist based in Paris (1) See Vicken Cheterian, "Chechnya: Russia get out now", Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, April 2002. (2) 28 April 2003 (3) Putin said this to a meeting of the government on 24 March 2003. Translated by Julie Stoker
-- Michael Pugliese