The Russian original appeared in Vlast’, no. 27 [630], June 11 2005
“WE SERVE ISLAM AND THE LAW OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION”
First Vice-Premier of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov met with Vlast’ correspondent Olga Allenova in a luxurious presidential suite on the top floor of the Moscow hotel Golden Ring. Ramzan Kadyrov’s conversation began with the question “Why do you dislike me so much?”
There were five guards in the suite. I did not count how many were outside – a few passed me in the hall while accompanying other people. Kadyrov had on an expensive, classic suit, and the guards also had suits. No weapons were visible. In Moscow, Chechnya’s first prime minister looks completely different than he does in Chechnya.
“Why do you dislike me so much? You write bad articles about me. I’m a normal person. Why did you write about me that way in Kizlyar?”
I understand that he is speaking about articles that were printed in Kommersant and the last issue of Vlast’ on the return of refugees to the village of Borozdinovskaya.
“It seemed to me that you and the president of Chechnya did not behave correctly with the refugees,” I answer. “And the guard behaved incorrectly. Very rudely.”
“The guard has to behave like that. Are you offended that the guard behaved like that to you personally? But who killed Masud (the leader of the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan Akhmad-Shakh Masud – Vlast’)? Journalists! There’s no need to be offended by the guard. It’s their job. But it seems that you wrote bad things about us because the guard behaved badly.”
“It’s not a matter of the guard. I wrote that way because I considered your coming to the refugees a political act, and not out of concern for them. I have a right to my own opinion.”
“Of course. I respect that. But there’s no need to see Kadyrov as a villain. I am for peace in Chechnya. Everything I do is for the sake of peace. That’s why I went there. Do you know what kind of poems my daughter reads? Here, listen.”
Kadyrov pulls his mobile telephone from an inside pocket and dials his home number in Tsentoroe. His wife picks up the line. Kadyrov says something to her in Chechen and switches the telephone to “loud.” The voice of a little girl comes through the line. “Aishat, read about peace,” her father says to her. At first, the five-year-old Aishat does not understand what is wanted of her, but after the second request she readily starts to read verses.
“Our planet really needs peace,” comes through the line. “Adults need peace, children need peace, everyone needs peace!”
“I taught her that myself,” Kadyrov says with pride. “It’s the most important thing. Adults need peace, children need peace. Is it really a bad thing that we want peace?”
“IF WE HAD FORGIVEN BASAEV, BASAEV WOULD HAVE COME BACK A LONG TIME AGO”
“They sent you to return the refugees to Borozdinovskaya, and they returned. How did you succeed in doing that?”
“It came about thanks to the efforts of our entire team. Thanks to the Russian leadership and the leadership of the Republic of Chechnya, and leaders of the Avar people helped.”
“You solved the problem personally.”
“No, I did it only thanks to the Most High.”
“President Alkhanov said that you are given the most difficult tasks ”
“That is because I am his most loyal aide.”
“And what tasks does he assign you?”
“Vedenskii district, in which no one had been able to restore order for five years. We restored order there in four months. We restored the roads, built a mosque, schools and hospitals started to function. He assigns me complicated tasks like this.”
“Your security service worked in Vedenskii district?”
“Yes, 700 people worked there for four months. They carried out special operations and took many .???? [CD – the word is “skhronok.” I neither know this word, nor can find it in the dictionary]. Eleven people nobody had been able to take came out of the forest to us themselves. They have been amnestied.”
“They amnestied people who had come out of the forest as late as that?”
“Yes, nobody had been able to convince them, but I was able to. I was able to do it using our traditions, customs, thanks to our tarikat (a form of Islam spread throughout the North Caucasus – Vlast’). I gathered elders, and the elders persuaded these people that they were wrong. That they need to live a peaceful life and work for the restoration of the republic, not run after Basaev. Basaev has to be killed.”
“These people were amnestied with your help. The military often say that fighters who should have been punished are now in the security service.”
“This is not a secret to anybody. The division specially named after my father is almost 90% former fighters. These fighters were defenders of the people, but were simply incorrectly used. As you know, it was Russia, not Chechnya, that created Dudaev. He was a Soviet general. Specific people sent him to Chechnya in order to start a war. Maskhadov was their colonel, Basaev was an employee of the secret services. And now, the leadership of Russia has changed—praise to the Most High, that President Putin is now in that position, who wants to end the war. In 1991 and 1992 the then-leadership organized this war. Putin is not indifferent to the fate of Chechnya. Therefore he supported the law that amnesties these people. War is killing them. And we do not want to kill them. We want to preserve our people, the whole, united Chechen people.
“They used them incorrectly. And we use them in a correct way. If they want to defend the people, if they want to walk on the path of Allah, they need to be with us. We explained to them that they had been used contrary to our customs. They understood this. And people in the military who say that fighters who have come out of the forest to us need to be punished---they are speaking wrongly. The State Duma passed a law on amnesties. These people have rights like everybody else. We need to forget about the labels we have imposed on them: fighters, terrorists. They are normal people, citizens of the Chechen Republic, who want peace.”
“But amnesty is offered only to those who have no blood on their hands, and many fighters from Vedensky region have killed people.”
“Who saw them do this? If they killed someone, why have they not been punished to this date, but were strolling freely through the forest? Often people, knowing some famous last name, ascribe all crimes that were committed in this region to this name. But when an investigation is held, nothing is proved. If the prosecutor proves that someone is guilty, he atones for his guilt. We do not dictate to the prosecutor.”
“Has anyone who tried to legalize himself gone to prison?”
“There have been cases. We have given appropriate sentences. There is even one person who has been in prison for two years. I said to him, ‘Choose, sit in prison two years or run in the forest for the rest of your life.’ He said, ‘I would rather be in prison two years.’ There were five such people in Grozny. They understood that they were guilty, that they had to serve time in prison, and gave up their weapons.”
“In all, how many fighters have you legalized?”
“Very many. You’d need to look at the figures. Some one comes out every month. I have each one recorded by name and by what date and the time he came to me.”
“And how many people in your security service?”
(Laughs.) “You journalists always ask that question. Do I have to answer? That’s a military secret. We have as many people as we need.”
“The security service is subordinate to you?”
“To the president of the Chechen Republic. Everything in the Chechen Republic is subordinate to our president. I am his aide, and I am subordinate to him. We are all subordinate to him. If someone doesn’t want to subordinate himself, we force him.”
“But it is you who controls the security service, because you are an authority for them.”
“No, I do not control them. I supervise a power bloc. If you read the law, everything is written there about my authority.”
“But the fact of the matter may be different from what is written ”
“No. I follow the law. I observe the Constitution.”
“But everybody knows that these people came out specifically to your father and now to you. For them, only the Kadyrovs are an authority.”
“Well, they may respect me, they may listen to me, and I tell them, we need to wage war against criminals, terrorists, Wahhabis, Satans. They came to me out of the forest on that condition.”
“You are not afraid that at some moment they will want to go back into the forest?”
“No, never. I don’t talk with such people. I speak with them personally, with their relatives, fathers, brothers. And they know that they will not let me down. There has not been such a situation, not one. He who has returned from there, never goes back. Because running in the mountains and forests, never having a minute of freedom, when our entire people are pursuing them—it is very hard on them. Everybody wants to go home. If we had forgiven Basaev, Basaev would also have returned a long time ago.”
“You will not forgive Basaev?”
(Laughs.) “If the leadership of Russia forgives him, what will we do? We are employees. They tell us what to do, and we do it.”
“One of greatest victories of the Kadyrovs was the legalization of Maskhadov’s Defense Minister Magomed Khambiev. What is he doing today?”
“He is today working with athletes. Freestyle wrestling. We have built a big sports hall next to his house, and he’s training guys. When he’s not working, he is obligated to participate with us in operations, telling us what and how to do things. Khambiev lives a peaceful life.”
“WHY DO WE HOLD THEM IN THE ???, IF WE HAVE A????”
“Who killed Maskhadov?”
“You must have seen it. It was on television.”
“The official version of events is that the FSB and your ???? carried out the operation.”
“Well, that’s what happened.”
“If you were really there, then explain why it was necessary to kill Maskhadov. He really could have said many interesting things
He could have been captured.”
“He should have been. But we met with resistance, and one person was fatally injured. What to do?”
“That is, it was an accident?”
“Yes, of course. An accident. We wanted to take him. We wanted for him to come out before the Chechen people and say that he is a devil, not a human being. That he started this war.”
“You remember how there was a big scandal: human rights workers maintained that you had detained seven of Maskhadov’s relatives and were holding these people in Tsenteroe. What really happened?”
“Prosecutors and journalists from NTV came. The prosecutors checked out Tsenteroe completely. They found nothing. You don’t just hide seven people like that, where could you do it? We have had hundreds of thousands of refugees. Two thousand of us have vanished without a trace. But this that was no concern of human rights workers. But when a few of Maskhadov’s or Basaev’s relatives disappear, everybody gets really worried. It’s wrong. Let them worry about everybody who has suffered. Wahhabis are continuing to commit crimes against us. They kill administration heads, civilians, school directors. And where are the human rights workers? Or are they human rights workers only when they need to protect the rights of Maskhadov’s relatives?
--- Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> from the WaPo's on-line SLATE magazine's daily news
> summary:
>
> >In Chechnya, the young leader of a paramilitary
> group [death squad?]
> accused of human rights violations has been
> appointed prime minister.
> Ramzan Kadyrov, 29, the son of an assassinated
> Chechen president, has
> been accused of corruption, torture, and ordering
> kidnappings.
> Vladimir Putin awarded him the Hero of Russia medal
> in 2004.<
> --
> Jim Devine / Bust Big Brother Bush!
> "Everybody gets so much information all day long
> that they lose their
> common sense." -- Gertrude Stein
>
> ___________________________________
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