Chris Doss:
Aren't Chechnya and Tibet pretty much over?
US Divestment from Russia wouldn't do a whole lot. The Russian economy would barely notice it. There's more trade with Turkey than with the US.
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I add: Coincidentally, there is an interview in this week's issue of Vlast' with Vice Premier of Chechnya (and head of the Chechen cops, the MVD) Ramzan Kadyrov: http://www.kommersant.ru/k-vlast/get_page.asp?page_id=2006628-9.htm
I translate a short excerpt below. I don't have a dictionary with me, so if there's a word I don't know I'll just put a question mark.
(Interview by Musa Muradov)
You announced recently that the republican MVD is working for maintenance of order in the republic without the military. Were generals offended at this?
Absolutely not! I have had good relations with the military for six years, because I grew up with them. But I am not a liar and so when I am asked how our MVD is doing, I answer: excellently! And not only in Chechnya.
Where else?
Everywhere. In any region they tell us. We've already dealt with our Wahhabis. They scattered out to here, to there -- to Dagestan, Ingushetia, Ajerbaijan.
Do you know who organized the attack on Nalchik?
Chechens have nothing to do with it. If there had been Chechens there, it would not have been over so quickly. They were there own guys. They were a bunch of wimps, and so it was over fast -- they were taken out in just 2 hours. And 90% of our MVD are patriots of their people and true patriots of Russia. Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich has said it, and we emphasize: yes, in 1999, 2000 and 2001 we couldn't have managed without the military, and thank you to them, but today we don't need any soldiers. Just the MVD of the republic, the FSB and that's all.
Are the generals also of that opinion, do they have such a position?
Why not? They need to. Say, a soldier dies in Chechnya in an accident -- a crash ot an accidental shot. The coffin is taken to somewhere in Russia -- to Siberia or Volgograd. There, people see that a coffin has come from Chechnya and they think that Chechens have killed the soldier. It is for this reason that relations are difficult between Chechens, on the one hand, and Russians, Bashkirs or Tatars, on the other hand. The army has to be pulled out of Chechnya so that Chechens are not thought about in this way. Soldiers are not dying from bullets today in Chechnya. Only from accidents, heart problems and whatnot. Because they do not participate in military actions. And what the generals think is their problem.
What happened to the fighters? They have hardly been heard from for some time. Have they been killed, or have they gone somewhere?
Killing them is not our job. We try to pull them out of it, talk to them. We have worked a lot with the families of fighters, and they convinced their family members to stop fighting. And it worked. The people have decided that they want to be with Russia. In the last war nobody surrendured, but now thousands of fighters have quit. We convinced them.
(Then he goes on to talk out how he kicked Danish NGOs out of Chechnya after the cartoon scandal, and says they should thank him, because otherwise they would have been kidnapped and put on trial.)
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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