A Step At A Time

YNET News's Guy Benyovits, on the world's reaction to what happened at Qana:

The British tie-wearing commentator set at the studio, wearing an expression of well made-up revulsion, while displaying the screaming newspaper headlines. All of Europe is united today, so it seems, in the opinion that all of us – all Israelis – are guilty over what is characterized as "the second Qana massacre."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz have apologized. So did the defense minister, and this even before an investigation was carried out, before the whole truth came to light. Because that's the way we are.

It is not my place to stand by their side at this time, but with your permission I would like to add a few apologies of my own, the day after the bombing.

Sorry, world. Sorry for again being bad, and barbaric, and pulverizing. Sorry for again realizing your wild anti-Semitic fantasy, to view us as a real thorn in the flesh of the Middle East, not to mention the entire world.

And all this so that next time there's a bloody terror attack in Spain, Britain, or anywhere else, you can self-righteously sigh and "understand" the motives, because after all the Israelis are at fault for everything.

"It's not us," you'll utter with glee, "it's them." They were the ones who actually also sent the Americans to Iraq, no? They have some group there of the Elders of Zion, which rules the world. We read it somewhere.

Read the whole thing.

RFE/RL has an interview with Inna Khodorkovskaya, wife of the imprisoned Russian businessman:

Khodorkovsky is now incarcerated in a prison camp deep in Siberia. Inna is permitted to visit once every three months. But getting there is a major effort in itself: a nine-hour flight, followed by a 15-hour train journey, followed by a 40-minute car ride.

She is allowed to stay with her husband for three days in a prison hostel that some Russian papers suggest borders on the luxurious. In fact, she insists, they share a simple room furnished with a bed, a chair and a cupboard.

Khodorkovskaya finds her husband much changed -- a consequence, she says, of the psychological, and sometimes physical pressure he is subjected to.

"They raise the pressure, then they reduce it and then they raise it again. So there's no straight upward line, they're just trying to drain him.""They're trying to break him, nothing more, nothing less," she says of the prison authorities. "These are methods that have probably long been worked on and refined. I would say that it works on the principle of amplitude. They raise the pressure, then they reduce it and then they raise it again. So there's no straight upward line, they're just trying to drain him."

His biggest difficulty, she says, is the isolation and the mental vacuum caused by his inactivity. But he is finding other ways to fill the gap.

"He reads a lot of religious literature. He's not a religious fanatic, he's not completely mad about religion," she says. "His interest is analytical. He doesn't push faith away, but he has begun to experience it in a new way. If before he approached the subject from a sort of historical point of view, now he feels closer to it."

Khodorkovskaya says she has no doubt that her husband is a political prisoner, sentenced to satisfy the ambitions of the men who now rule the Kremlin.

The Australian newspaper Herald Sun has published photographs taken by a journalist and smuggled out of Lebanon by an Australian citizen, which show Hezbollah waging war in the middle of a residential suburban area of Beirut.

The Melbourne man who smuggled the shots out of Beirut and did not wish to be named said he was less than 400m from the block when it was obliterated.

"Hezbollah came in to launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was blasted by Israeli jets," he said.

"Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis. Then it was totally devastated.

"It was carnage. Two innocent people died in that incident, but it was so lucky it was not more."

The only thing that is disproportionate – and grotesquely, obscenely so – is the way in which so many in Britain and the west are determined to prevent Israel from defending itself against this terrible threat. And in doing so they fail to see that how gravely it threatens themselves, too. If Israel loses this fight against Iran’s proxy, those western imbeciles will have handed Iran and Islamist fascism a stunning victory against the entire free world. Every poisonous distortion in the British media brings that dreadful outcome one step nearer.

Melanie Phillips, on the media campaign against Israel.

The Kremlin has kept a rather low profile during the last few weeks of tension in the Middle East. In EDM, Pavel K. Baev examines Moscow's position, and sees it as an extension of Russia's traditional Middle East policy, which is now evolving once again, as during the Cold War, into a game of posing as "mediator", while in reality aiming to sidestep and weaken the power of the United States. This time, however, Baev believes, Moscow plans to play big, taking advantage of U.S. weakness in Iraq, and striking out with an independent Middle East policy of its own:

Three weeks after the eruption of hostilities in Lebanon, Russia has remained uncharacteristically cautious and reserved. President Vladimir Putin took a very active stance in the debates on the conflict at the July 15-17 G-8 summit in St. Petersburg and claimed credit for “softening” the joint statement in such a way that Syria was not mentioned, which prompted a few acrimonious “off-the-record” comments by U.S. President George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair (Vremya novostei, July 18). A central point in Putin’s message was that the G-8 should not try to allocate blame or advance an initiative, because management of this conflict properly belongs with the UN Security Council. In the Security Council, however, Russia assumed a rather low profile giving ample chance for the United States to fall into the usual trap of having to veto a resolution condemning Israeli actions and then leaving it to France to outrun Washington in proposing a draft resolution on the plan for resolving the crisis (Lenta.ru, July 30).

The coverage of the ongoing combat operations in the Russian media has remained remarkably balanced, so that interviews with outspoken Israeli Ambassador to Russia Arkady Milman appear as often as rather graphic reporting from Beirut (Izvestiya, Moskovskie novosti, July 28). Demonstrations in Moscow were of such miniscule scale that only the Iranian press agency noticed them (IRNA, July 21). The official line has been formulated in particularly diplomatic words, and, when holding a meeting with Saud Al-Faisal, foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, Putin chose to emphasize, “The state of Israel has the right to and should live in security.” These words were interpreted in Israel, perhaps optimistically, as “a strong message of friendship” (Jerusalem Post, July 27). What was certainly more significant in this context was the publication by the FSB of Russia’s list of 17 terrorist organizations; the omission of Hamas and Hezbollah was explained by the lack of any threats to Russia’s security on their part (Rossiiskaya gazeta, July 28).

Such a position invites accusations of applying “double standards” and being egoistically selective in the global war against terrorism (see EDM, July 20). Moscow shrugs off such “insinuations” without even bothering to refer to selfish motives in the contributions of other partners in the U.S.-led anti-terrorist coalition. There is more to this self-confidence than just the gradually accumulated knowledge that politics is not only the art of possible, but also the science of applying the right standards to different conflicts. It is based on the newly arrived certainty that Russia’s own long and painful war with terror has been finally brought to a decisive victory with the death of Chechen warlord Shamil Basaev (Expert, July 17). There is still the unresolved business with the extradition of Akhmed Zakaev from the U.K., but it is more about tidying up the last loose ends of the irritating problem (Gazeta.ru, July 26).

Moscow’s self-confidence is also supported by the assessment of the conflict dynamics in the Middle East that suggest a very probable strengthening of its quietly advanced position in a matter of a few weeks. This position is by no means moral but entirely pragmatic: No international framework for Lebanon could be negotiated without involving Syria; no agreement with the government of Lebanon could be implemented if Hezbollah is not a part of it; no stable arrangement for Gaza could be hammered out against the resistance of Hamas. The Kremlin calculates that it would take a few weeks for Israel to recognize that the spectacular devastation of Southern Lebanon could not significantly weaken the military capabilities and political influence of Hezbollah, much the same way as the full-blown invasion in 1982 did not bring about the destruction of the PLO. Meanwhile, the outrage in the Arab states and the indignation in Europe about the scale of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe would predictably reach such levels that a ceasefire becomes imperative whatever reservations Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might state. That is why Moscow was not in the least upset by the failure of the Rome conference last week, where Syria was not represented, expecting that the forum would be reconvened when Washington is forced to swallow its objections against sitting at one table with a representative from Damascus

These assessments go significantly further than just reserving for itself a role of mediator who is on speaking terms with all parties to the conflict and can “sell” them the plan developed by “great powers.” Back in July 2000, Putin arrived at the G-8 summit in Okinawa full of enthusiasm after visiting Pyongyang and announced that he had secured a nuclear deal with North Korea, which in a few days fell apart as a “misunderstanding.” After the unquestionable triumph at this year’ G-8 summit, Putin does not want to be a messenger of any kind; the ambition now is for playing a major and independent role in the Middle East. As Dmitri Trenin pointed out, this claim is underpinned by the conclusion that the flawed U.S. intervention in Iraq has already failed and the inevitable retreat would deeply undermine Western influence across the region (Polit.ru, July 27). The present-day military overstretch reduces NATO’s ability to deploy a meaningful peacekeeping force in Lebanon, while Russia, facing only limited residual tasks in Chechnya, could usefully contribute a couple of battalions and not worry much about putting the troops in harm’s way.

It is quite clear that these ambitions are not limited to advancing narrowly defined “national interests”; for that matter, the value of arms that Russia sells to Syria is pitifully low compared with exports to China or even the new deals signed with Venezuela. Fundamentally, Russia’s interests in the Middle East are focused on keeping oil prices as high as possible, and the deepening disaster in Iraq is taking care of that. Putin now wants to experience the thrill of a big political game where he does not even need to play against the United States, but could take advantage of its every misstep.

There will not be a full ceasefire until the proposed UN stabilization force is in place. Of the 48-hour suspension of air activity, Stratfor notes that

This does not halt ground operations. The end of air attacks is subject to Israel's interpretation of Hezbollah's actions. It is not clear at this moment that this is as significant as it might appear. It depends partly on Hezbollah's actions and partly on Israel's intentions. Forces that we think are moving forward are exempt from this cease-fire, and may or may not have to move without air support.

The latest Stratfor special report on the Lebanon conflict considers that a major shift appears to be taking part in the war. It points to an engagement in wider and more intense ground operations, and the report speculates that Israeli forces may soon go beyond southern Lebanon. In particular, the report focuses on Qana:

There are reports of new areas involved in fighting and new Israeli units being engaged. For example, Israeli forces are now fighting in the area of Qana. This is a few miles southeast of Tyre and deep into southern Lebanon. We have heard that the Qana action consists of engineers, armor and infantry, indicating a more traditional combined arms effort. The engineers would be clearing mines, bulldozing fortifications and clearing roads damaged by Israeli airstrikes. Infantry would be clearing the area of anti-tank teams and opening the way for broader armored thrusts to destroy rear infrastructure and isolate forward Hezbollah positions. There are additional reports of engagements near and to the west of the Israeli panhandle in the Dan-Dafna-Metulla region, along with heavy artillery fire in this region. This would be the jump-off point for an attack both westward along the Litani and northward into the Bekaa Valley. There were extensive reports of a major armored buildup in this area over the past 48 hours. This would also explain the decision to disengage temporarily at Bent Jbail in preparation for the new phase of operations.

The information available to Stratfor says that the attacking force at Qana is from the IDF's Nahal Division, which is apparently involved in a westward movement which would take it through the village of Taibe - a critical location, and one that would be needed for any move north into the Bekaa Valley.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Some 150 rockets were fired from the Lebanese village of Qana over the past 20 days, Air Force Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Amir Eshel said on Sunday evening.

Speaking to reporters, Eshel added that Hizbullah rocket launchers were hidden in civilian buildings in the village. He proceeded to show video footage of rocket launchers being driven into the village following launches.

And from YNET News:

An IDF investigation has found that the building in Qana struck by the Air Force fell around eight hours after being hit by the IDF.

"The attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear," Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters told journalists at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, following the incidents at Qana.

Eshel and the head of the IDF's Operational Branch, Major General Gadi Eisnkot said the structure was not being attacked when it collapsed, at around 8:00 in the morning.

The IDF believes that Hizbullah explosives in the building were behind the explosion that caused the collapse.

Another possibility is that the rickety building remained standing for a few hours, but eventually collapsed. "It could be that inside the building, things that could eventually cause an explosion were being housed, things that we could not blow up in the attack, and maybe remained there, Brigadier General Eshel said.

A video of Hizbullah using Qana residents as human shields can be seen here. Via GIYUS.ORG

The Global Jewish Assistance Relief Network (GJARN) is organizing a petition to bring home to Israel Corporal Gilad Shalit and reserve soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who were abducted by Hizbullah and are being held hostage on enemy territory.

The petition can be signed here.

It looks as though the Khodorkovsky family face eviction from their home in the Moscow suburbs, RFE/RL notes:

Inna Khodorkovskaya, Khodorkovsky's wife, told RFE/RL's Russian Service in a July 25 interview that authorities in May froze a housing complex in the Moscow suburb of Zhukovka where Khodorkovsky and other former executives of the Yukos oil company he founded have homes.

Khodorkovskaya said the authorities did not explain the action.

RFE/RL July 29, 2006 -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said at the start of a two-day visit to Tehran that Venezuela will stand behind Iran in "every time and occasion and under every circumstance."

Stratfor's latest analysis of the Lebanon conflict concludes that the war is becoming routinized:

Israeli aircraft fly daily air strikes in Lebanon. Hezbollah rockets strike at Israel. Ground combat takes place among small units just north of the Israeli-Lebanese border. It is a situation that appears, on the surface, to have settled into a sustainable routine. Neither side is clearly making military progress; neither side is under military compulsion to end hostilities; neither side appears to be changing the military equation. Such a war can continue for a long time from a military standpoint. The political dimension determines what happens next. That can range from indefinite continuation of the current pattern of conflict, to an attempt by one side to change the pattern in some decisive way, or the suspension of conflict by means of a political resolution.

Continuing some reflections from earlier reports, the analysis considers that an unconditional cease-fire - also now sought by the Lebanese government - would suit the forces of Hizbullah, which "can't do better than it is doing now", though it will not invade Israel and will at some point be worn down by the continuous Israeli air attacks. Israel, on the other hand, has not achieved its strategic goals in the conflict, and has suffered some political losses. There appears to be some uncertainty about the effectiveness of the air campaign, and an ambivalence shown in the mobilization of ground reserves coupled with official assertions that no ground campaign is planned. Whether the uncertainty is due to an intelligence failure, to correct intelligence of the enemy's capabilities, or to apprehensions about the costs of an occupation of Lebanon, there is little doubt that the current situation, in which Hizbullah has achieved a military draw and a certain political advantage, cannot be allowed to continue.

A perception is gaining sway in the Arab world that the IDF may after all not be invincible - this, in the aftermath of Israeli withdrawals after relatively large casualties were sustained by Israeli troops. If this perception gains wider credibility, it will profoundly affect the political landscape in the Middle East. Israel needs to go on fighting, for any cease-fire now would be immensely damaging to it politically. Given the fact that a widening of the war is simply not an option, and that Israel has neither the reach for Iran nor the will to occupy Syria, Israel

must, given its options, try to inflict a decisive defeat on Hezbollah, and a cease-fire would deny Israel that opportunity. The political effect on the region would be dramatic. It may well be that the Israelis have no appetite for casualties or counterinsurgency. It may be that their view of Hezbollah is that it is more an irritant than a threat. Nevertheless, the current evolution of this conflict forces them to make some dramatic decisions.

We note that the war is routinized. That should not be taken as proof that more dramatic events are not being planned. If it turns out that Israel declines major ground operations and accepts a cease-fire, the political map of the region -- geographically and psychologically -- would change decisively and to Israel's massive disadvantage. Thus we must assume that with cease-fires approaching and no decision on the ground, Israel will shift its strategy.

This latest Stratfor report was, of course, issued before today's cancellation by the Lebanese government of Secretary of State Rice's visit to Beirut.

From Chechen Society Newspaper, No. 16 (81), July 25, 2006.

(my tr.)

http://www.chechensociety.net

George Bush: "The fate of the people of Chechnya is a matter of deep concern to the people of America"

The very first official event on Russian soil to have the participation of U.S. President George Bush, who had arrived in Petersburg to take part in the G8 summit, was his meeting with representatives of Russian civil society. On July 14 activists of the most varying orientations - from human rights to ecology - told Bush about Russia’s problems. The subject of Chechnya also came up at the meeting, were it was discussed by the director of the “Demos” human rights centre, Tatyana Lokshina. Timur Aliyev reports.

-Tanya, how did you come to be in such company? How were the participants selected for this meeting with Bush?

On July 7 I got a phone call from the American Embassy asking me what I was doing on the 14th. Tired after the "Citizens’ G8", I said I going to the Caucasus. "If you can revise your plans, George Bush would like to meet you,” they told me. "What kind of meeting will it be?" I asked. "It will be a round table with young activists of civil society,” they replied. “We’ve already held one in Turkey." It’s true that they immediately qualified this by saying that the representatives of Russian authorities who were organizing the G8 Summit were opposed to the plan. Already a month before the summit, Russian “sherpa” Igor Shuvalov had said that the Russian leadership would not want its partners to hold meetings of this kind within the framework of the G8.

As a result I only went to Chechnya for a week and then, interrupting my visit, left for St Petersburg.

- Who else was at this round table?

Only 15-20 people. Mainly, apart from Yasina, Chestin and myself, they were beneficiaries of USAID grant programs or participants in IREX education programs. Masha Gaidar from the youth movements was there, there was a representative of the St. Petersburg organization "Doctors to Children", Svetlana from “Prospect” (they help disabled people to obtain education), two young regional lads from the “Voice” Association for the defence of the rights of electors, Ivan Pavlov from the Institute for the Development of Freedom of Information, and some others.

- And from the Americans, who was present?

Officially - only George Bush and the US ambassador to Russia, William Burns. They were seated in the presidium. Unofficially, but de facto, there were Condoleezza Rice, her deputy Barry Lowenkrohn, Bush’s adviser on Russia and the Caucasus Tom Graham, and the US President’s press secretary. They sat against the wall. Rice was directly behind me.

- Were there any Russian officials?

No, there weren’t. Only people from NGOs.

-What was the meeting like?

We waited for Bush for about one and a half hours. During that time we were told about the "rules of etiquette" in the presence of the President of the USA – how to greet him and how to get up.

Then Bush entered the room, loping along with a sort of springy gait, and he said: "Hello. I’m George Bush."

We sat down at the U-shaped table, Bush in the centre, Irina Yasina on his left and the ambassador on his right. And Bush said he was glad to see young people here who to him looked like children, that the future of Russian democracy depended on young people, that it was very important for him to hear us before his private meeting with Putin.

Then Bush said that in this connection he had to stress that Putin was his friend, and that he respected him, since Putin had two daughters and that he, Bush, also had two daughters of 24, and that he understood it was very important for Putin that everything should be okay in the family, and consequently that everything should be okay in Russia too.

After that, Irina Yasina, director of the charity "Open Russia", was asked to speak first. She said that when she was young, perestroika had started, and she had had many hopes, but 21 years had passed and now democratic institutions were falling apart, there was no freedom in the business world or the justice system. Then she went on to talk about Khodorkovsky and Svetlana Bakhmina, said that with the introduction of the new law on non-profit organizations all the groups that had not yet been closed down would be closed down, and she asked for help. And when she mentioned the fact that after the closure of "Open Russia" they now called themselves "’Closed’ Open Russia ", Bush laughed for a long time.

- When you did start to talk about Chechnya?

After the discussion moved to the new law on non-profit organizations, Bush himself turned to me and asked me what I thought about it. I replied that it was a real problem, that the Rosregistratsiya officials were saying in private conversations that organizations that don’t deal with political matters will not he closed down, that the criteria had been eroded and that this affected all the people, for example, who were now in this room.

Then Bush asked - "Who are you, and what do you do?" A bit angry now about the talk of “children”, I replied "I’m so-and-so, I do this and that, I’ve just arrived from the Chechen Republic". "Straight from Chechnya?" – Bush asked in astonishment. "No, I changed trains in Moscow", I said. "I see," he said.

Then I handed him an envelope containing two photos I’d earlier printed out from the Memorial website, and opened it One of the photographs was of Rigakhoy, showing the corpses of children and one small boy running against the background of a ruined house. The other showed the view from a hill, horses, a kind of Chechen Switzerland. I explained to Bush - "You said a lot about children, well, here is a Chechen mountain farm, In 2004 it was bombed, six children and their mother were killed, and no one has been punished for it."

I went on to say: "I am often asked why I go there. But I reply that as a Christian and as a Russian I can’t look at this calmly." And to him: "I think that you as a Christian will also not be indifferent.”

Then I passed on to the situation in general: "Terrorism is a huge problem and it must be fought. But sometimes the side effects of counter-terrorist measures are counter-productive. I don’t know how that balance is kept in Iraq, there’s simply no information, but in the Caucasus and in Chechnya – it’s a big negative. In Daghestan and Kabardino-Balkaria, where there has been no war, the actions of the law enforcement agencies have provoked an increase in terrorism.".

-And what was Bush's reply?

He nodded, wrote something in his notebook, said he agreed that in Russia there's a problem with security. But you must understand that in Iraq we’re supporting democracy. And he went on - "Recently the US Supreme Court took a decision on Guantanamo Bay and we will carry out that decision – a law is a law".

I turned to him again: "The new generation of terrorists in Chechnya is motivated not by separatism or radical Islam, but by personal revenge. And although you are partners with Russia in the war against terror, these facts need to be analysed too."

Bush’s reply was: "My friend Vladimir and I are going to discuss all these problems." And he continued: "The fate of the people of Chechnya is a matter of deep concern to the people of America. The United States are ready to help, taking into consideration the Chechen people’s sufferings,” and so on.

-What happened then?

Bush spent several minutes talking to each person. Of course, it was his conversation with Irina Yasina that lasted longest - some fifteen minutes – she was first, after all. But the others too were able to say to him what they wanted. For the last five minutes the journalists who had been accredited for the event were let into the room, and Bush told them he was happy.

- Tanya, what do you think, did this meeting produce any result? Was it written about in the newspapers?

The information output was completely “wild”. During that day the entire Western press wrote about nothing else. I left the room at 5.30 and gave my story over the telephone until 9.30 – until I got on the plane. Two of the details were written about – the photos I had shown and Bush’s statement about the American people’s concern.

Tom Gross's Mideast Media Analysis keeps a file documenting MSM news reports on the present conflict in Lebanon that show an open anti-Israeli bias. The sources range from left to right, covering most areas of the political spectrum. Some recent examples:

1. Olmert as “Nazi commander in Schindler’s list”
2. Nobel Prize for what?
3. Is Kofi Annan listening?
4. “Disproportionate”
5. CNN’s senior reporter admits Hizbullah “had control” of his footage
6. Et tu, Telegraph?
7. No respect
8. The BBC: A hammer to whack Israel
9. BBC News supporting anti-Israel protests
10. Suzanne Goldenberg returns

(via Melanie Phillips)

From Prague Watchdog, a new PW/RFE/RL broadcast on a Chechnya-related issue that doesn't go away (my tr.):

July 28th 2006

Following is a part of programme broadcast by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty's North Caucasus Service on June 27, 2006. For more programmes see http://www.watchdog.cz/rferl (in Russian only).


Authorities to give disabled status to Shelkovsky district children affected by strange illness

Baudi Martanov, presenter: While the republic’s authorities are occupied with politics, declaring an amnesty and making statements about Putin’s third term, the residents of Chechnya are living with the problems that have appeared as a result of those politics and the war. One of the problems is a previously unknown illness which has affected children in Shelkovsky district. The local authorities now intend to give twenty children of the group disabled status. However, it’s not known what name will be given to the illness when the documents are drawn up. Suryana Martanova reports:

Suryana Martanova: Of the more than one hundred children who contracted the unknown illness in Shelkovsky district back in December, it’s these twenty who are in the most serious condition. Doctors still don’t know what illness will appear on the official papers when they’re ready.

Last year, schoolchildren in five villages of Shelkovsky district fell ill. They were mainly girls, and a few teachers. The first village where the illness appeared was the village of Starogladkovskaya, where several girls fainted at a school parade. After being brought round, they experienced nausea, weakness of the legs, panic attacks and crying for no reason. Similar cases were subsequently recorded in four other villages. And by mid-December some 80 people had been admitted to various hospitals in the republic suffering from the same symptoms.

The doctors thought it was food poisoning and began to treat the patients accordingly. However, by late December the number of people affected by the illness exceeded 100. The analyses sent to neighbouring republics gave no answer to the question of what the illness was. A team of doctors headed by Zurab Kikabidze, deputy director of the Serbsky psychiatric hospital, arrived from Moscow. They stated that no toxic substances were found, and that consequently the children’s illness originated in the stress caused by military operations. The doctors concluded that it had a psychological basis, and resembled asthma.

After this, the children were rushed to various sanatoria in the North Caucasus. An official statement appeared in the public media, saying that the children felt well. No further announcements about their condition were forthcoming. Zinaida Magomadova, deputy head of the Chechen Parliament’s Committee of Public Health has stated that the problem has not been solved, and is being hushed up by the authorities. According to her, the children are still suffering from the illness, pointing to the fact that it is unlikely to have a psychological basis, while the injections of dimedrol and other medications are of no benefit – some of the children still lack sensation in their legs.

Suryana Martanova, Radio Liberty, Chechnya.


The transcript, and its translation into Russian, were made jointly by Prague Watchdog and Radio Liberty. English translation by David McDuff.

Avraham Tal, in Haaretz:

Contrary to what the critics are arguing, the IDF is not fighting a small guerrilla organization. It is dealing with a trained, skilled, well-organized, highly motivated infantry that is equipped with the cream of the crop of modern weaponry from the arsenals of Syria, Iran, Russia and China, and which is very familiar with the territory on which it is fighting. In such a showdown, even when you have tanks and fighter planes, the going is very slow, and, sadly, you must also pay a heavy price in terms of casualties.

One of the claims being made by critics is that Israel is serving the interests of "American imperialism," and that our children are shedding their blood in the name of those interests. Is there no limit to malicious cynicism? There is a genuine congruence of Israeli and American interests in the war against world terrorism. Without America's political, economic, military and moral support, Israel would never have been capable of waging its war of survival against the evil axis of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and in the face of an indifferent world.

Russia's Foreign Ministry does not consider Hamas and Hizbullah to be terrorist organizations.

This is made clear by the publication in Rossiyskaya Gazeta of a list of 17 terrorist organizations recognized as such by Russia's Supreme Court.

Lenta.ru writes that Yury Sapunov, the FSB's head of counter-terrorism, explains the omission of Hamas and Hizbullah from the list by stating that "firstly,not all states acknowledge these organizations as terrorist, and secondly, their activity is not directed at the overthrow of the constitutional order in Russia and they are not connected with North Caucasus extremists." [my tr.]

MosNews has a report in English here.

From the JP:

In a highly symbolic gesture of friendship, the central Polish city of Lodz has offered to host a group of 15 youngsters from northern Israel for a two-week vacation in Poland to give them a respite from the war in the North, Polish officials said Thursday.

Something of a breakthrough appears to have been achieved at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Russia has been found to be responsible for the disappearance and presumed death of a Chechen man, Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev, in a case brought by his mother, Fatima Bazorkina. The Russian state's guilt has been established. From the ruling:

The presumed death of Mr Yandiyev

The Court recalled that detained persons were in a vulnerable position and that the authorities were under a duty to protect them. The obligation on the authorities to account for the treatment of a detained individual was particularly stringent where that individual died or disappeared after being taken into police custody.

The Court observed that it was undisputed that Mr Yandiyev was detained during a counter-terrorist operation in the village of Alkhan-Kala on 2 February 2000. It further took into account the videotape and numerous witness statements contained in the criminal investigation file confirming that he was interrogated by a senior military officer who, at the end of the interrogation, said that he should be executed. It finally noted that there had been no reliable news of the applicant’s son since that date.

In the absence of any plausible explanation submitted by the Russian Government, and taking into account that no information has come to light concerning his whereabouts for more than six years, the Court was satisfied that Mr Yandiyev had to be presumed dead following unacknowledged detention. Noting that the authorities did not rely on any ground of justification in respect of use of lethal force by their agents, it followed that liability is attributable to the Russian Government. Accordingly, the Court found that there had been a violation of Article 2.

The judgment sets an important precedent, as more than 200 cases of grave human rights abuses committed by Russian forces in Chechnya are currently under consideration by the court.

lgf links to the blog of Australian journalist Andrew Bolt at the Herald Sun:

Read the UNIFIL press releases for yourself to learn that Hezbollah has not just shot at and seriously wounded UNIFIL observers - without any protest from Kofi Annan or The Age. You’ll also learn that UNIFIL has repeatedly reported Israeli shelling and bombing near UNIFIL outposts because Hezbollah fighters were shooting from right beside them.

Judging from the reactions on the Arab street, there are still too many young Arabs who sincerely believe that Israel can be eliminated. Throughout the Arab and Islamic world, hatred for Israel is so immense today that, if given the chance, tens of thousands of women and men would join Hamas and Hizbullah almost immediately.

But for now, most of the anger on the Arab street is being directed against corrupt monarchs and presidents, many of whom are seen as obstacles on the road to launching a full-scale war against Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh, writing in the Jerusalem Post about how the Arab world views the present conflict in Lebanon.

Mikael Storsjö writes that the Russian authorities have apparently changed track in their persistent attempts to have Akhmed Zakayev extradited from the UK to face trial in Russia.

Instead of branding him as a terrorist, they are now accusing him of expressing opinions about current political issues which run counter to those of the Russian State. The charges now go along these lines:

“During June-July this year Russian citizen Zakayev who is staying in the territory of the UK gave several interviews to various mass media where he made statements to the effect ‘to expel the Russians from Chechnya,’ ‘throw out the Russians,’ ‘inhumane methods of the Russian aggressors,’ and so on and so forth,” representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office pointed out.

“These statements contain the signs of incitement of hatred and animosity towards persons of Russian nationality, form a negative thnic stereotype - bad image of the Russians.”

As Mikael points out, the Russian authorities seem to have forgotten that expressing opinions critical of or hostile to the government of the day is not yet a crime in democratic societies.

In a move to placate the groundswell of anti-Israel - and anti-American - public opinion in Britain, the British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett has protested to the US about its use of Prestwick Airport near Glasgow to transport bombs to Israel for its fight against Hizbullah in Lebanon.

It looks as though someone wants to cause problems for Prime Minister Blair on his visit to meet President Bush at the weekend.

According to a UNIFIL press release, Hizbullah has been using UN observation posts and their staff as human shields:

Another UN position of the Ghanaian battalion in the area of Marwahin in the western sector was also directly hit by one mortar round from the Hezbollah side last night. The round did not explode, and there were no casualties or material damage. Another 5 incidents of firing close to UN positions from the Israeli side were reported yesterday. It was also reported that Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of four UN positions at Alma ash Shab, Tibnin, Brashit, and At Tiri. All UNIFIL positions remain occupied and maintained by the troops.

(via lgf)

Watching the press conference after the international crisis meeting on Lebanon today, one might have wondered why there was no representative of Israel on the platform. The explanation appears to be that pressure from Arab states led to the withholding of an invitation to Israel.

As Israeli vice premier Shimon Peres has pointed out, this was a mistake.

From today's RFE/RL Newsline:

RUSSIA REPORTEDLY ASKS SYRIA NOT TO USE RUSSIAN MISSILES IF ATTACKED.

Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Saltanov, who is a senior envoy to the Middle East, told Syrian leaders in Damascus recently that Moscow does not want them to use Russian-made missiles to retaliate if Israel attacks Syria, Reuters reported from Damascus on July 25, citing unnamed diplomatic sources (see "RFE/RL Newsline," July 20, 21, and 24, 2006). The news agency quoted one diplomat as saying that "Saltanov told them Syria can use Russian antiaircraft missiles to thwart Israeli air attacks, but that Russia objected to using Russian Scuds to retaliate." A second diplomat added that "the Russians don't want their missiles to hit Israeli cities. Syria, however, has more advanced North Korean missiles." Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Syria has diversified its sources of arms beyond Russia to include China and North Korea. It reportedly has a large arsenal of surface-to-surface missiles. PM

...Annan heads an organization that is so anti-Israel that as the late Abba Eban, the early Israeli ambassador to the UN, once put it: "If Algeria proposed a resolution that the Earth was flat and that Israel has flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 120 to 3, with 27 abstentions."

Alan Dershowitz, on how the UN legitimizes terrorists.

In Britain, rampant anti-Americanism and hatred of Israel prevent many from understanding just what is at stake in the Lebanon crisis. But something is nevertheless shifting in Britain. There are now two reactions running simultaneously alongside each other. On the one hand, hatred of Israel — particularly among the educated classes —has reached an unprecedented pitch of hysterical distortion, even by the degraded standards of the past six dismaying years. But on the other hand, a heartening number of citizens who are neither Jews nor evangelical Christians — until now, the only constituencies which have defended Israel against the collective libels and scapegoating— are now saying that they support Israel in this great battle, that they understand very well that it is the front line against an Islamic threat that menaces all of us, and that they are astounded by the savage distortions of the BBC and other media.

Melanie Phillips, on some signs of hope - amidst many signs of its opposite - for a change in British public attitudes towards Israel in the present conflict,and hence a movement towards a clearer understanding of what the conflict is actually about.

Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have held a discussion on the Middle East crisis and the tensions over Iran's nuclear program, AP reports from Moscow.

Meanwhile, the manner and wording of Annan's response to the deaths of four UN observers at a UN post in Southern Lebanon gives the impression that he does not consider a peaceful resolution of the conflict as one of his priorities. This is not an auspicious start to the crisis talks in Rome.

Stratfor analyst George Friedman's assessment of the current state of Israel's strategy in the present conflict focuses on Israel's stated goal - the destruction of Hizbullah.

He writes that if Israel can bring the conflict to an end without making any political concessions, Israel will have won.

As missiles continue to rain down on Israel from Lebanon, in JWR Frank J.Gaffney Jr. discusses the burgeoning missile threat throughout the world, in North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, China, and - Russia:

Vladimir Putin has personally helped market new Russian spiraling and maneuvering missile reentry vehicle technology as breakthroughs that will allow attackers to defeat American missile defenses. He has also presided personally over simulated massive nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missile strikes on the United States. George W. Bush deserves great credit for putting an end to the insane policy he inherited of leaving the United States absolutely vulnerable to ballistic missile attack. He withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that codified that vulnerability and he began deploying limited missile defenses, mostly ground-based ones in Alaska and California.

Just in case there was any doubt: the "strategic alliance" is a Chávez-Belarus pact against the United States.

RFE/RL has more details here.

Just in case there was any doubt: the "strategic alliance" is a Chávez-Belarus pact against the United States.

RFE/RL has more details here.

Update: from the Newsline, July 26:

VENEZUELAN LEADER SEEKS ARMS, ENERGY DEALS IN RUSSIA

President Hugo Chavez arrived in Volgograd from Belarus on July 25 at the start of a three-day visit that is expected to yield a $1 billion deal for at least 24 Sukhoi-30 fighter jets and a good deal of anti-American rhetoric, the Moscow daily "Kommersant" reported on July 26 (see "RFE/RL Newsline," June 20 and 22, 2006, and "Russia :Chavez To Seal Arms Deal," rferl.org, July 25, 2006). Chavez elivered an impromptu speech from the balcony of city hall, which began with "Long live Lenin" and went on to hail "Volgograd, [President] Putin, and the Russian government." Chavez's schedule on the first day of his visit included meetings with LUKoil President Vagit Alekperov and Dmitry Pumpyansky, who is chairman of the board of TMK, which makes steel pipes for oil and gas transport. Venezuelan Ambassador to Russia Alexis Navarro Rojas told the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina on June 15 in connection with Chavez's trip that Venezuela is dependent on foreign companies for 87 percent of its exports of hydrocarbons. He added that "our country wants to solve this problem." Navarro told reporters in Moscow on June 21 that his country would welcome Gazprom's participation in constructing a planned 8,000-kilometer gas pipeline to Argentina. Carlos Mendoza, who was Navarro's predecessor and is now an adviser to Venezuela's Central Bank, told the "San Francisco Chronicle" of July 23 that unnamed Russian companies are investing "heavily" in Venezuela's oil and gas fields. He added that "Russia is a key element of Venezuela's ambitions to become a global player on many levels." PM

U.S. WARNS RUSSIA OVER VENEZUELAN ARMS DEALS.

Venezuelan President Chavez cancelled planned visits to several Volgograd-area arms actories on July 25 "because he was running late," the daily "Kommersant" reported on July 26. On July 26, he toured arms factories in Izhevsk, the capital of Udmurtia, which is a major weapons-producing center and home of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Interfax reported. Russia's Rosoboroneksport arms exporter already plans to supply Chavez with 100,000 AK-103 Kalashnikovs, which Washington and some Latin American countries fear will be used to consolidate his rule at home and export trouble to Colombia and throughout the region. Chavez said in Izhevsk on July 26 that he will sign an agreement with President Putin on July 27 to build a factory in Venezuela to make Kalashnikovs under license, which would be the first such plant in the Western Hemisphere. On July 25 in Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that "we've repeatedly talked to the Russian government that the arms purchases planned by Venezuela exceeded its defensive needs and are not helpful in terms of regional stability," international news agencies reported. "I think on this issue, we've got a very clear opinion and we certainly hope that the Russians will reconsider this sale because we don't think it's in the best interest of Russia or Venezuela," he added (see "RFE/RL Newsline," June 19, 2006). PM

The UK Times's Jeremy Page discusses the arrival of Hugo Chávez in Moscow today:

Hugo Chávez, the ardently anti-American President of Venezuela, arrives in Russia today to sign a billion-dollar arms deal that has infuriated and alarmed the US. The self-styled leftist revolutionary will sign an agreement with President Putin to buy 30 Sukhoi Su30 fighter jets and 30 military helicopters worth $1 billion (£540 million).

The two leaders will also discuss plans to build two Kalashnikov factories in Venezuela — to add to the 100,000 Kalashnikov AK103 assault rifles that Venezuela has bought from Russia in the past year. The arms deals — and the visit by Señor Chávez — are the latest evidence of Mr Putin’s drive to re-establish Russia as a counterbalance to the West in international affairs.

Re yesterday's meeting between Chávez and Lukashenko, Page notes that Chavez "proposed forming a 'combat team' with President Lukashenko, whom Washington calls 'Europe’s last dictator'.

Update: Apparently the deal may be worth up to $3bn, and include surface-to-air missiles and a submarine.

Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has discussed with Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko the founding of a strategic alliance in the fields of energy, foreign policy, science, technology and agriculture, RIAN reports.

J.R. Nyquist has a sombre prognosis for the worsening crisis in the Middle East. In particular, he points to Moscow's support for Syria and Iran:

Russia’s senior Middle East expert, Yevgeny Primakov, publicly offered his opinion that Syria and Iran “probably” did not encourage Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel. As a former KGB general and head of Russia’s SVR (Foreign Intelligence), Primakov feels a protective impulse toward his Syrian and Iranian friends. The Russia alliance with Syria goes back many decades. The Syrian government buys most of its weapons from the “former” Soviet Union, and receives technical help from the Russians. At the same time, the Iranians purchased more than $1 billion worth of military equipment from Moscow. Some of these weapons are undoubtedly passed on to Hezbollah.

It is well known that Iran is developing nuclear capabilities with Russian assistance, and everyone can see that neither the United States nor Israel have bombed the Iranian nuclear industry. The United States and Israel cannot safely attack Iran without risking a larger conflict in the Middle East, including the disruption of oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, and an oil embargo organized simultaneously by Venezuela. Furthermore, it is believed that Iran can push Iraq’s civil strife into outright civil war. Iranian agents pepper the Shi’ite majority leadership in Iraq while Shi’ite militias stand ready to embarrass the Bush administration by demolishing the frail superstructure of Iraqi democracy.

Nyquist predicts that either Israel or the United States will eventually have no option but to bomb Iran - and the energy crisis that this is likely to precipitate will reveal the strategic dead end towards which he believes the U.S. is headed. The U.S. will suffer not a military but a financial catastrophe

due to military-related disruptions. The Iranians cannot defeat the U.S. Air Force, but they can damage the U.S. economy by triggering a financial implosion. The timing of a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran depends on the progress of Iran’s nuclear program. If the Israelis determine that the Iranians are dangerously close to becoming a regional nuclear power, the Israelis will insist on a strike. The United States will have to support the strike with silence, or participate in the strike – and ultimately take the consequences of a strike.

David Horowitz, on why Lebanon is not innocent:

The Lebanese army has not lifted a finger to obstruct Hezbollah's aggression, but the Lebanese prime minister has been out front in attacking Israel. Who, watching the Lebanese interviewed by reporters during the war — including the Lebanese Americans evacuated to safety — can doubt that their hatred is for Jews and not for the Islamic killers of both the Jews and the Lebanese.


The last stand of Western imperialism is the patronizing attitude displayed by Western radicals and liberals toward Third World Muslims and Arabs. If Americans taught their children to murder Muslims as a quick pass to heaven, the left would regard this as a crime against humanity. But if Palestinians are the perpetrators of such crimes and Jews are the targets, it's a different story. In this case terror is the only means (and therefore the understandable means) of a "desperate" people. Jews who have been told by the leader of Iran that their extinction is imminent of course aren't desperate.


Hassan Nasrallah is not a victim, let alone a helpless one; nor is he stupid, or unaware of what he is doing. He knows just what his agenda is. "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel" he told a crowd of supporters. "I promise Israel that it will see more suicide attacks, for we will write our history with blood." His supporters responded with chants of "Death to Israel, death to America." Counseling the Israelis to lay down their arms in the face of these threats and negotiate with a movement that seeks their destruction is a not so surreptitious support for the malignant agendas themselves.


Making excuses for Lebanese appeasement of these agendas while directing moral outrage against the intended victims repeats a familiar pattern among leftist critics of America and Israel. In weighing in on the frontline battles against the terrorists in Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq, critics attribute civilian casualties not to the terrorists but to their opponents; liberation and self-defense are denounced as "occupation." This is not even moral equivalence; it is sympathy for the devil.

In early June there was a series of reports - officially denied in Moscow, but confirmed from several other sources - that Russia plans to relocate its Black Sea warships from Ukraine to Syria. At the end of June, PINR discussed some of the details of the plan, noting that it involves

the installation of an air defense system with S-300PMU-2 Favorit [anti]-ballistic missiles. The missiles have a range of 200 kilometers (124 miles), allow a larger warhead and are equipped with a better guidance system than the previous version. The air defense system would be operated by Russia for the defense of the Tartus base and would provide potential protection for a large part of Syria.

Perceiving this as part of an ongoing attempt by Moscow to strengthen its political role in the Middle East, a role diminished from the days of the Soviet Union, but by no means defunct. PINR pointed out that

Russia's February 2006 meeting with Hamas is a clear example of this policy. Through that meeting, Russia tried to seize the initiative from the United States and the European Union, with the latter two's decision-making about the future of the peace process paralyzed by Hamas' election victory.

Given the present unstable situation in Lebanon, the pressure from Western public opinion for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, and the corresponding need for governments to align themselves with this direction, it's likely that Moscow will start to emphasize this area of its foreign policy in international fora.

Throughout the Cold War Syria was a client state of the Soviet Union, and it is reasonable to suppose that with the Kremlin's current reversion to Cold War thinking and tactics, the relationship with Syria will once more figure high on its agenda, as Moscow seeks to weaken the efforts of the United States and Europe to find a political solution that is favourable to Western interests.

Via Daymokh

Ahmed Zakayev: Negotiations mean mutual compromise



This interview of Ahmed Zakayev, the Foreign Minister of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, is presented by DAYMOHK News Agency

22 July 2006



Question: The Manifesto "For peace in Chechnya", published recently in the Chechen media, has caused some controversy. First of all, may I ask you: were the contents of this Manifesto agreed with the ChRI President?

Ahmed Zakayev: Yes, this document was cleared by the legal department of the ChRI Presidential Administration, and was approved personally by Umar Dakayev, the Head of Administration. I would like to add that, as the Foreign Minister, I am responsible only to the President, and agree all the political questions with him.

But when the statement of the Presidential Administration was published, many had an impression that it criticised some points of the Manifesto. In particular, this statement says that "some wording is unreasoned" in the Manifesto.

On the contrary, the Administration's statement itself has some unreasoned wording in it, and is a bit too emotional. Perhaps, this is because the authors of this statement do not have enough experience of political work. Only the ChRI President may give assessment to the work of the Foreign Ministry. However, these details are not very significant. In general, the Administration's statement was a reply to FSB Director Patrushev, who had offered an "amnesty" to the soldiers of ChRI Armed Forces, which is simply a propagandist farce.

The Manifesto discusses the ChRI's preparedness for peace negotiations with Russia.

It never was the position of ChRI leaders that we can defend our statehood only by military means or that we utterly reject any political negotiations. In other words, we are not at all against a peaceful conclusion of war. All our martyr presidents – Djokhar Dudayev, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, Aslan Maskhadov and Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev – always said that the problem of Russian-Chechen relations could not be settled by war, that it was necessary to reach a political solution by negotiations. Our attitude to the problem of war is still the same, because it does not contradict our Constitution, nor, of course, our religion.

A different matter is that we are not going to "ask" Russia for negotiations anymore, because Russia takes such offers for our weakness. What is said in the Manifesto about the necessity of peaceful solution to the conflict is addressed to the Western leaders, the participants of G8 summit in St. Petersburg. But of course, we do not mind if the leaders of Russia – the country we are fighting a liberation war against – also pay attention to our proposals.

Do you believe there are conditions now for a peaceful conclusion of the war between Russia and Chechnya?

Yes. It is obvious to anybody who observes the real situation in Caucasus rather than propaganda spread by Russian television or newspapers. We have proven to the whole world, including Moscow, that we cannot be suppressed by military force and by repression. Of course, we had bitter losses in the leadership of the Resistance recently. President Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, and then Vice President Shamil Basayev, were killed. But our combatants are fighting not for personalities (although the leaders may enjoy a high authority), but for the right cause. The strength of our Resistance is that the volunteers are attracted to our Armed Forces not by names, but by ideas. If this was not true, our armed struggle would stop long ago, in 1996, with the death of Djokhar Dudayev, the first ChRI president.

Please specify, why do you think that real conditions for peace negotiations with Russia have emerged now?

To judge about the conditions for peace, we should look at each side's war objectives.

For the Chechens, the sovereignty is not the end, but the means to provide security and prosperity for the nation. This is what our leaders are saying ever since the state independence of Chechnya was restored.

In the beginning of the Second war, Putin once said that the Kremlin did not care about Chechnya's status. The most important, he said, is that Chechnya must not be a base for Russia's enemies. This means that the problem of security was the top priority for Russia.

Now we should ask ourselves: has either of the sides achieved its goals during this war? The obvious answer is no.

Unfortunately, our Armed Forces cannot fully ensure the security of the ChRI population. It suffers deliberate genocide, massacres, tortures and kidnappings conducted by the Russian militaries. The country is in ruins.

But Russia, too, with every year is getting further and further away from ensuring its security. The war has spread all over North Caucasus long ago. This year, two new fronts of the ChRI Armed Forces were created in Russia itself – the Urals Front and the Volga Front.

Therefore, we can see that the goals for which the both sides are fighting are not becoming nearer as a result of the military conflict. On the contrary, they are getting ever further. Therefore, the political solution would be logical, and the only right one. We do understand this. Undoubtedly, the responsible Russian politics, who care about their country's future, also understand this. What we need now is to overcome the ambitions and to start peace negotiations, on the basis of the real situation and the interests of our nations. We know what war is, and therefore we are always prepared for peace.

The most controversial question in the Chechen media is this. Does the formula "negotiations without preliminary conditions" mean that the ChRI leaders are prepared to abandon Chechnya's state sovereignty?

There are no reasons to question the Chechen leadership's devotedness to the idea of independence. Nobody can have such doubts about President Dokka Umarov, or about his predecessors who have sacrificed their lives for our country's freedom.

We know, and can easily predict, the unhealthy reaction of some our politicians to any peace initiative. But this is not the case for them being upset because the war is under threat. The manifesto we are talking about is not a "peace plan", nor even a governmental declaration. This document was written and published in connection with a particular political event, namely the G8 summit. As I have already said, it is addressed to the Western leaders.

If the peace negotiations with Russia start, is the Chechen side prepared to compromise?

Negotiations between two sides of a war always mean some mutual compromise. Otherwise, these are not negotiations, but an exchange of ultimatums. If the both sides start negotiations with preliminary conditions, which are tough and directly opposite to each other, such negotiations would make no sense and be simply a waste of time.

We are quite prepared to discuss with the Russian side the political contents of our sovereignty, in order to respect Russia's legitimate interests, to the extent which our Constitution and our religious convictions allow.

Let the blame fall where it belongs: on the terrorists who deliberately seek to kill enemy civilians and give their democratic enemies little choice but to kill some civilians behind whom the terrorists are hiding.

Those who condemn Israel for killing civilians - who are used as human shields and swords for the terrorists - actually cause more civilian deaths and make it harder for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank.

Alan Dershowitz, in the Jerusalem Post.

Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro have visited the childhood home of Che Guevara in Alta Gracia, Argentina.

Chavez is at the beginning of a two-week world tour, the next stages of which will be Belarus and Russia. The dictator is also scheduled to visit Iran and Vietnam.

Akhmed Zakayev, addressing Britain's House of Lords on July 18:

News of the death of Shamil Basaev has evoked mixed responses from around the world. I knew Shamil from the start of the first anti-Chechen war. At that time he was a fearless, tireless and ingenious commander, motivated by high ideals of freedom, independence and human rights. Although he accepted responsibility for the tragedies of Nord-Ost and Beslan, those directly involved in the hostage-taking were dozens of other young men and women.

If we want to seek an explanation, we shall have to acknowledge that these people decided to commit suicide because of the horrors in the life around them. The limitless cruelty of the Russians in Chechnya and its neighbouring republics was the main instigator both of Nord-Ost and Beslan. The crime of these people is that they mistakenly imagined that the Russian military machine could be halted if faced with the prospect of the public killing of thousands of their own civilian population or children.

There is absolutely no basis for the optimism of those who imagine that the death of Shamil Basaev will bring the conflict in the North Caucasus to an end. When that conflict began in the early 1990s nobody had heard of Shamil Basaev, because he didn’t exist. He emerged in the course of the conflict. The person we are talking about today was born in June 1995 during the events in Budyonnovsk. If the first war, which by any measure was less cruel than the present one, gave birth to Basaev, you can be quite certain that we now have hundreds of young people throughout the North Caucasus who value their own life and the lives of others no more highly than did Basaev. It is not individuals who have been radicalised, but generations. Violence is the companion of conflict, not its cause.

Today, Hizbullah forces have boasted of firing 100 rockets into Israel.

Free Thoughts posts a link to a Powerpoint slideshow which gives an illustration of what a Katyusha rocket does.

Comparing the BBC News 24 coverage of the Middle East crisis with that of Sky News (two channels I watch here in the UK), it's hard not to come to the conclusion that the BBC is once again showing a degree of partisan bias that one - perhaps naively - might not expect from a publicly-owned corporation that's supposed to be accountable to its viewers. The BBC's reporting of the crisis seems decisively slanted against Israel, with most of the emphasis being placed on the evacuation from Lebanon of British citizens, the hardship endured by Lebanese civilians, the consequences of the Israeli bombing, and the allegedly "disproportionate" nature of the Israeli counter-offensive. There is hardly a word about the root cause of the conflict - the long-persisting murderous incursions and rocket attacks from Hizbullah, which have eroded the security of Israel's peaceful civilian population to such an extent that any country faced with a similar predicament would have to react, and react decisively. In the attitude of the BBC presenters there is a tone of barely disguised hostility towards the state of Israel and its official representatives - a tone that the medium of television reveals all too plainly.

The BBC coverage of the conflict is slanted in other ways, too. At Biased BBC, Ed Thomas documents the case of a recent statement by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The statement was reported in international media, including Reuters, and it condemned Hizbullah for using Lebanese civilians as human shields. The BBC, however, substantially altered the emphasis of the Archbishop's remarks, leading the story as

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has joined calls for the UK to press for a ceasefire in the Middle East.

As Ed Thomas shows, there were further adjustments in the original version of the BBC report - his conclusion is that "they are not responding to a changing news situation but are gerrymandering the headlines for the coming 24 hours."

On a related note, Michelle Malkin links to a blog that's sharply critical of the BBC's recently-screened report on the Israeli bombing of South Beirut,

which clearly blames Israel for destroying part of Beirut, then notes Israel’s assertion that Hezbollah centered its military planning in these civilian areas and thus had to be struck to take out legitimate military targets. The Beeb’s man fails to note how typical that is of terrorist groups–they attack civilians and then hide among them. By hiding among Lebanese civilians while attack Israeli civilians, isn’t responsibility for Beirut’s destruction on Hezbollah? Not according to the Beeb’s man in Beirut, who insists that Israel has to prove its actions were proportional to the threat.

In the Moscow Times, Lynn Berry writes about how making jokes about Vladimir Putin could soon become a very dangerous form of entertainment in Russia:

There are no jokes about Putin, and if there were, they would be in bad taste, snapped an art historian, an old friend.

But Russians also have reason to be afraid of making fun of their president. For one thing, if a bill working its way through the parliament becomes law, slandering the president would be a crime. Political candidates and their parties could be barred from elections. Journalists could be jailed and their news organizations shut down. Even without this law, the editor of an Internet newspaper was called in for questioning and had his site closed down in May after satirizing Putin's plan to encourage families to have more children.

A new blog discussing the subject of Shamil Basayev's death and its implications for the future of Russia's relations with Chechnya has been created as part of the Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Fellows Initiative (www.bftf.org). The blog's introduction announces that

As part of the program, we divided into task forces discussing current global issues such as Iran or global warming. Our group, consisting of students from Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Minneapolis, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden, chose the topic of Russia. With this blog and its podcast, we hope to spark international discourse and the presentation of a wide range of opinions on the topic at hand.

Today, July 21, the blog will record and present a podcast of the debate, which will then be followed by an open discussion in the comments boxes.

Melanie Phillips, on the bankruptcy of the British Left, which is now peddling imagery more reminiscent of the crude "lampoons" that characterized Soviet journalism of the 1960s,than of anything else:

The anti-Israel Guardian has lived up to its vile reputation. Its cartoonist Martin Rowson depicts a huge mailed fist with Stars of David as knuckledusters hammering down upon a bloody child while a wasp, representing Hezbollah, buzzes ineffectually around.

This loathsome image accurately conveys the disgusting mindset of the British left: that Israel is a brutal and gigantic oppressor, that Hezbollah is a minor irritant and that Iran and Syria are simply not in the picture at all. Furthermore, by using Stars of David it also crosses the (mythical) line between ‘criticism of Israel’ and vilification of the Jewish people and takes its place in the hideous pantheon of Judeophobic images.

Last week Russia's defence minister Sergei Ivanov announced plans for the deployment in Russia of new intercontinental ballistic missiles, citing the necessity for these as a means to counter what he called foreign "blackmail" - widely interpreted as a reference to the United States.

Now, AP reports that during a visit to Russia's nuclear test site on the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, Ivanov has also announced that Russia is ready to resume nuclear weapons testing at any time, if countries that have not signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty do so. Only 34 countries have signed the treaty. Those that have not include China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel and the United States.

It's reported that Russian authorities have failed to identify what is alleged to be the body of Shamil Basayev.

In the UK Times, Derek Brower interviews Robert Amsterdam, lawyer of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian businessman who was recently sentenced to 9 years' imprisonment in a labour camp for defying the will of the Kremlin. Rosneft, the giant Russian oil and gas company, is launching its $11 billion IPO (initial public offering) on the London stock exchange this week, and Amsterdam has some unambiguous words of warning:

The Kremlin is attempting, according to Amsterdam, to “whitewash Khodorkovsky’s history, his phoney criminal prosecution and the history of Yukos”. The IPO is nothing less than “state theft” and anyone buying stock will be colluding in a climate of impunity that allows the Kremlin to operate with little regard for international law.

-----------------

The morality argument might not wash with hard-nosed investors, but the “dangerous precedent” of this IPO is a threat to any other investor in Russia, claims Amsterdam. By prosecuting the Yukos case, which was based on retroactive tax claims against the company, and proceeding with the flotation, Amsterdam says that the Kremlin has “taken away any security of property” in the country.

(hat tip: Jeremy Putley)

Update:

U.K. COURT GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO ROSNEFT.

A London High Court judge refused on July 18 to grant a judicial review or injunction on behalf of the embattled Russian oil company Yukos regarding the initial public offering (IPO) of Rosneft on the London Stock Exchange, Britain's "Financial Times" reported on July 19 (see "Russia: Rosneft's Successful Gamble," rferl.org, July 13, 2006). The decision enabled Rosneft shares to begin unconditional trading in London as well as Moscow on July 19. Yukos challenged the IPO on the grounds that 70 percent of Rosneft's value came from the forced sale of Yukos' core assets and that the flotation is tantamount to money laundering under U.K. law, RIA Novosti reported. PM

(RFE/RL Newsline, July 19 2006)

From the Prague Watchdog (my tr.):

Caterpillar armour now moves through village streets in Chechnya

By Umalt Chadayev

CHECHNYA – The July 4 ban on the movement of federal caterpillar armour along asphalt-surfaced roads in Chechnya has made the military move it through the streets of populated areas.

According to information received from a resident of the village of Prigorodnoye, Groznensky district, Russian soldiers recently "took over" the streets of this populated area for moving their caterpillar armoured vehicles. As the man asserts, caterpillar-mounted armour is being moved almost daily through the streets of the village, causing extreme disturbance to the local residents.

"Recently Russian soldiers travelling to and from Khankala (the main Russian military base in Chechnya) in caterpillar armoured vehicles have been moving them exclusively through the streets of our village.

People are extremely worried and angry about it", says Musa, a 40-year-old Prigorodnoye resident. "Children are playing in our streets, people are walking in them, and then a BMP (infantry fighting vehicle) or whatever comes charging along!"

"What's more, the constant movement of armour has led to the roads in our village being almost completely ruined. Driving along them in a passenger car is already getting to be a problem, and when the rains come all we'll have left here are some ruts and potholes," he says.

"I don't know where the military command were looking when they issued this order. In order to preserve the asphalt on the roads, they're creating problems for the human beings! Is it really impossible for these soldiers just to stay in their barracks and stop rushing to and fro in armoured vehicles, especially since they're constantly saying that the war in Chechnya is over?"

It should be recalled that at a meeting with the heads of law enforcement agencies held on July 3, Ramzan Kadyrov, Premier of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, spoke of the need to restrict the movement of military armour along municipal streets.

"There have been no military operations in the republic for a long time, and the unwarranted movement of military equipment must be restricted," Kadyrov said. "The question of the observance of social law and order concerns everyone in the Chechen Republic."

On the following day (July 4) the military commandant of the republic, General Grigory Fomenko issued an order banning the movement of military caterpillar armour along asphalt-surfaced roads. According to this instruction, armoured vehicles mounted on tracks must be moved solely along country roads or along the sides of asphalted main roads.

In addition, it was stipulated that in cases where it was necessary for military caterpillar armour to be brought in for carrying out urgent tasks, the commanders of the Russian military units stationed in Chechnya must come to an agreement on this question with local administrative and police heads. At the same time, the order
established a single route for the movement of both military and civilian caterpillar-mounted equipment throughout the entire territory of Chechnya.


Translated by David McDuff.

'When nothing else works, there is always Israel!" This is how the late Egyptian journalist Lutfi al-Khuli liked to describe the motto of Arab radicalism decades ago. The analysis was apt because the Arab obsession with Israel did work on countless occasions.

Amir Taheri, writing in the Jerusalem Post on why trying to use war to divert attention away from their problems may not work for Iran, Syria and Hizbullah.

Cherie Blair, human rights lawyer and wife of Britain's prime minister, is to offer free legal aid to Russian NGOs which are challenging the recently introduced law that restricts their work. The UK Times says that

She began the meeting yesterday by saying that she had informed the other leaders’ wives, including Lyudmila Putin, that she was going to meet some NGOs.

“I know the organisations here represent a broad spectrum of the kind of work civil society is doing in Russia — issues in relation to tolerance, to mutual respect and, of course, ensuring that the state fulfils its human rights obligations,” she said.

- - - - - -

Reporters were denied access to the rest of the meeting, and Mrs Blair’s only comments afterwards were that it had been very interesting. But participants said that she had expressed particular interest in the new law, under which NGOs must re-register with a new regulatory body that can shut them if it deems them a threat to national security.

Yuri Schmidt, a lawyer who defended Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon who is in jail, said that he had told Mrs Blair that Russia was not a democracy. “We have an authoritarian regime here,” he said. “There is no separation of powers. The Kremlin rules the country. The Duma is a rubber-stamp body and there is no real discussion there.”

Among the participants were representatives of the most famous human rights groups in Russia, including Memorial and the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers.

An article in the FT pinpoints the real reason for the failure of the United States Senate to ratify the 2003 US-UK extradition treaty:

The prime minister’s push last week for ratification succeeded in boosting the profile of the issue in Washington and increased optimism among its supporters that the pact would be approved this year.

Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, quickly announced he would hold a hearing on Wednesday, the first public attention to the matter on Capitol Hill since a November 2005 session.

Nevertheless, groups such as the Irish American Unity Conference and the Ancient Order of Hibernians fear the treaty will enable the UK to prosecute Irish-Americans who support separatists in Northern Ireland.

Francis A. Boyle, law professor at the University of Illinois, said: “The text of this treaty is primarily designed to go after the Irish-American community” which opposes the “continued illegal British colonial presence in Northern Ireland”.

He will testify against the treaty before the foreign relations committee, along with several supporters of the pact, including officials from the US departments of state and justice.

Mr Boyle, an outspoken critic of President Bush, says the new treaty violates the rights of Irish-American citizens and fails to protect people who express support for northern Irish independence.

The existing treaty, which dates from the early 1970s and was supplemented in 1985, protected such people by including exemptions for certain categories of “political offences.” But the new treaty, Mr Boyle will tell the Senate, eliminates these protections “in all but name”.

Mr Boyle says Irish-American lobbying groups and citizens “will oppose this treaty to the death”.

Update: It seems that the ratification issue is to receive priority treatment after all.

Hugo Chavez will make an official visit to Belarus on July 22-24 at Lukshenko's invitation, RIAN reports.

According to a RIAN report, Putin has told the G8 that he wants ChRI foreign minister Akhmed Zakayev extradited from the United Kingdom. In a statement remarkable for its open hypocrisy, Putin announced that

some countries had complicated legal systems and many criminal elements embroiled in terrorism used them to "destroy civilized countries and those fundamental principles on which today's civilization of democratic countries is founded."

Via chechnya-sl, where Mikael Storsjö has a critical response:

A lie repeated enough times becomes truth, as all alert observants of the Chechen fight have noticed in the Western society and media.

This became the fate of Shamil Basayev, who got a reputation of being the most notorious "terrorist" in Caucasus, although his unethical deeds caused fewer corpses among innocents than the Russian terror killed civilians, children and women already in Basaev's own family, not to speak about the 200.000+ of other victims.

According to Russian demagogy, Zakaev is also a terrorist. Every now and then we can read this statement in Russian media, soon it will become a legitimate statement in the West too. The power of Russian propaganda shall not be underestimated.

Mikael wants the evidence - if there is evidence - to be made public:

The accusations against Zakaev are apparently public documents? Does anybody have copy of these documents and "video footage". It might have a healthy impact upon media and Russian efforts if this material could be published comprehensively.

Probably there will be no proof at all regarding any guilt of Zakaev, but instead a revealing study of Russian justice in Putin's Russia.

Postimees reports that Finland is sending a 25-man firefighting team to Estonia to help to put out the forest fire at Agusalu, in the east of the country, not far from Lake Peipsi near the Russian border. The forest blaze is at present out of control. Other forest fires have broken out in recent days. 13 fires were being countered by Estonian firefighting teams yesterday - 5 of the fires have been put out, and work is proceeding on the 8 others today.

From AP and Jerusalem Post:

Syria's government on Sunday promised Israel a firm and immediate retaliation for any possible attack on its territory.

"Any aggression against Syria will be met with a firm and direct response whose timing and methods are unlimited," Syria's official news agency quoted Information Minister Mohsen Bilal as saying.

Israel earlier accused Syria and Iran of supporting Hizbullah.

Meanwhile, martial law has been declared in Northern Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reports that following the rocket attack on Haifa more rockets have hit Israel's coastal cities, from Nahariya to Haifa.

The weaponry used by Hezbollah does not hide its provenance - the "Grad" (Russian for "hail") missiles have an old Soviet lineage, as do the Katyushas.

There is also the Iranian-made Fajar-3 missile.

Israel's transportation minister Shaul Mofaz has stated that the rocket which hit the train station in Haifa and killed eight people was made in Syria.

The divide between Moscow and Washington over the current crisis in the Middle East is deepening:

There is a growing chasm in the international community watching the crisis unfold. President George Bush yesterday angrily rounded on Hizbollah for starting the violence and demanded Syria intervene.

At a joint press conference with Vladimir Putin at the G8 summit in St Petersburg, he said: 'In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place.' Bush, visibly angry, added: 'And that's because Hizbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel and because Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. The best way to stop the violence is for Hizbollah to lay down its arms and to stop attacking. And therefore, I call on Syria to exert influence over Hizbollah.'

There's an interesting discussion in Frontpage Magazine between Jamie Glazov, David Horowitz, Norman Geras and Nick Cohen on the subject of the possible evolution of a "new" New Left. One of the points of interest in the debate is the clearly evident barrier of communication between Right and Left, with Glazov and Horowitz apparently unable to comprehend the position of their interlocutors, who believe that there's a Left that has not historically aligned itself with, or supported, totalitarianism, and who have written a manifesto to promote that point of view.

Perhaps one of the reasons for the lack of understanding is the fact that for so many decades the vast majority of left-aligned politicians, journalists and debaters in the West supported the cause of Western nuclear disarmament. In 2001, Christopher Hitchens wrote:

There's no pleasing some people, but as a charter supporter of the nuclear disarmament campaign, I can remember a time when the peace movement was not an auxiliary to dictators and aggressors in trouble. Looking at some of the mind-rotting tripe that comes my way from much of today's left, I get the impression that they go to bed saying: What have I done for Saddam Hussein or good old Slobodan or the Taliban today?

The problem is that by supporting the nuclear disarmament campaign, the Western Left acted as an auxiliary to some very nasty dictators and aggressors indeed - the ones in the Kremlin. And it's the Left's inability today to come to terms with that past and that responsibility which makes it hard to believe in the possibility of a Left that will no longer take such options.

This is really the point that Glazov and Horowitz are making, though it's never actually stated in the discussion.

According to Haaretz, Israel has taken a decisive step in the new conflict that is breaking out in the Middle East:

The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported Saturday that Israel issued an ultimatum to Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to which a regional war would erupt within 72 hours if Damascus does not prevent Hezbollah attacks.

According to the report, a Pentagon source said that if Syria does not try to influence Hezbollah, Israel could bomb essential installations in Syria. The source neither confirmed nor denied rumors that Israel had given Damascus 72 hours to comply with international demands.

The Friends Extradited website has the latest press coverage of the NatWest Three, now in Texas facing trial, but granted a week's bail. From the U.K. Times:

They must return to court on Friday, where Judge Stephen Smith will hear more arguments from the US Justice Department and the men’s lawyers before ruling whether they will be free to return to Britain before their trial begins on September 11.

The three were wearing casual dress rather than the green jumpsuits, chains and shackles with which the state of Texas usually adorns those passing through its law enforcement system. During last night’s hearing Leo Wise, one of the US Government prosecutors, told Judge Smith that the three had “absolutely no ties” to the US and represented a serious flight risk.

He said that the Government proposed a package of bail conditions including residence in Texas, electronic tagging, a lien to be placed on each of the former bankers’ homes, and each to put up a “significant amount of cash” as a bond.

"Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaida are creations of the KGB."

- Akhmed Zakayev


July 6, 2006

Britain "continues to oppress our mothers and children, brothers and sisters from the east to the west in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya."

London bomber Shehzad Tanweer (on video)

July 10 2006

Death of Shamil Basayev

On July 9, the day before his reported death, the separatist Kavkazcenter.com website posted a statement from Basaev expressing the “enormous gratitude” of “the mujahideen of the Caucasus” toward “those who destroyed the diplomat-spies in Iraq” and calling the murder of the five Russian embassy employees in Iraq a “worthy response” to “the murder by Russian terrorists” of former Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev in Qatar in February 2004. The Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq claimed responsibility for the killing of the five Russians.

(Chechnya Weekly, July 14)

July 11 2006

Mumbai bombings, in which at least 200 people died and over 700 were injured.
India suspects that operatives from Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) are behind the train bombings. Pakistan has long been a client state of the People's Republic of China, which in turn is strategically allied with Moscow.
See

Once Upon a Time in the West


July 12 2006

Hezbollah attack on Israel

See AIA's Michael Elbaz's study of The Great Secret of Russian Middle Eastern Policy, which among other things gives a history of the relations between Russia and the Shiite religious leadership in Lebanon.


July 12 2006

Al-Qaeda-linked Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq eulogizes Basayev

“As Emir Ibn al-Khattab and Abu al-Walid al-Ghambi were killed before him, Basaev is considered one of many within a ‘prolific’ nation, the Russians and ‘apostates’ are warned to not find happiness in his death.” (Chechnya Weekly, July 14)

July 13 2006

The Russian newspaper Izvestia claims that "a tiny transmitting antenna had been placed in a piece of plastic explosives that was part of a weapons shipment, which originated in Iraq and arrived in Ingushetia via Turkey and Georgia. According to the newspaper, the entire operation was assisted by U.S. forces in Iraq and neither employed—nor required the placement of—any agents within Basaev’s inner circle." (Chechnya Weekly, July 14)

Prospect Magazine has published Jeremy Putley's review of the John B. Dunlop's book The 2002 Dubrovka and 2004 Beslan Hostage Crises: A Critique of Russian Counter-Terrorism (ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart), under the heading "Russia's Colluders":

John Dunlop’s book covers the September 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis in southern Russia and the October 2002 Dubrovka theatre siege in Moscow, giving objective yet controversial accounts of both tragedies. While the chief responsibility obviously remains that of the terrorists, the book amounts to a severe indictment of the conduct and morality of the Russian authorities.

At the end of an illuminating and closely-argued analysis of the book, Putley asks:

In today’s Russia it seems as if the heirs of evil still occupy positions of power—just as if Nazis had been permitted to remain in office in the postwar period. One must ask: how many years will it be before they are finally gone?

From Die Presse, Austria (my translation from German):

Zakayev: "Putin wants to annihilate us"

By our correspondent AXEL REISERER (Die Presse) 12.07.2006

Interview. Chechen leader Zakayev accuses Russian president of genocide.

Step by step, the Russian security forces are hunting down one Chechen resistance leader after another. At last it came to the notorious field commander Shamil Basayev, Russia’s "public enemy number one". Back in March 2005, Moscow’s secret service assassinated Chechen president Aslan Makhadov, who had been elected in 1997 under the supervision of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Today his culture minister Akhmed Zakayev (46) is the last high-ranking representative of the Chechen resistance. Since 2003 he has lived in London, where, despite Moscow’s violent protests. he was granted the status of political refugee. "Die Presse" got hold of him for an interview.

Die Presse: What does the death of rebel leader Basayev mean?

Akhmed Zakayev: The situation in Chechnya will not change as long as there are no universally accepted relations between Chechens and Russians. Basayev’s death changes nothing at all. Before the recent deaths (one month ago rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev was assassinated, Ed.), Chechnya had become calm. After a visit, the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner Alvaro Gil Robles even talked of “a positive dynamic in the area of the human rights ". Nothing could be more mistaken.

Even according to official figures, 15 to 20 people “disappear” every week, dozens are killed, and the situation of the more than 300,000 refugees is desperate. Only Russia’s President Putin, whose aim is to annihilate us, could see a positive development in that.

Do you accuse Putin of genocide?

Zakayev: Yes. That is also the view of all human right organizations. More than 250,000 people have been killed, including 40,000 children. Our cities, towns and villages have been destroyed. To this very day, Chechens are being killed because of their nationality. If that is not genocide, I don’t know what genocide is.

But Chechens also commit crimes.

Zakayev: In the Nazi concentration camps Jews were appointed Kapos. Today we have three groups in Chechen society: underground fighters, refugees and collaborators. Putin and his government are trying to shift the responsibility for their war crimes onto the criminal elements in Chechen society.

Your analogy with the Kapos is only convincing if one views Chechnya as a concentration camp.

Zakayev: Absolutely. Today Chechnya is a concentration camp.

What are you fighting for after nearly 15 years of defeats?

Zakayev: For survival. Putin says that South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria have a right to self-determination. And we? Are we less worthy? I wish the West would ask Putin that question. Why are we discriminated against in this way, not only by Putin, but also by the international community?

Could it have something to do with the fact that Chechens like Basayev have committed terrible crimes?

Zakayev: Putin portrays Chechnya as a question of international terrorism, but it’s a terrorism which he and his government created. Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaida are creations of the KGB. There will be many more Beslans, because all of that is useful to Putin.

You still haven’t said a word about Chechen terrorism.

Zakayev: When the decision for the second Chechen war was taken in Russia in 1998, criminality and violence increased in our country. Those were provocations, but it happened under our government, and so we bore the responsibility for it.

Later our republic was infiltrated by Islamic extremists who are opposed to everything we believe and think. Strangely, all those extremists spoke very good Russian. And this was at a time when Moscow wanted nothing better than to brand us as terrorists.

Do you at least dissociate yourself from Basayev, who among other things admitted responsibility for Beslan?

Zakayev: Categorically. Russia has caused us less harm all round than Basayev with his actions.

Then why didn’t you stop him and his men?

Zakayev: Who do they recruit as fighters? Orphans, widows, women who have been raped: desperate people who have lost everything and are out for revenge. Putin is lying when he says that the terrorism comes from outside.

But what have you and your fellow guerrillas brought the Chechens except war and misery?

Zakayev: Our struggle has a long history. If we didn’t believe in our independence, our people would not exist any more. Stalin wanted to annihilate us, and Putin wants it again. What we give are human beings who are ready to die for our independence. One cannot do more than that.

It caused a stir in Austria when Chechen refugees who tried to enter the country via the Czech Republic were sent back at the border.

Zakayev: I know that. It was easier for us before the enlargement of the EU. But I must say that Chechen refugees in Austria are better off than in most countries of Europe.

Belarus opposition leader Alyaksandr Kazulin has been sentenced to 5½ years in prison for his part in March's anti-government rallies.

A Prague Watchdog report by Ruslan Isayev (my translation):

Views of Grozny residents on Basayev’s death almost equally divided

GROZNY, Chechnya – No matter what the separatists’ representatives maintain, Basayev’s death is a serious blow to the resistance movement. It is possible that this loss is equivalent to the loss of all those commanders who have been killed in different situations over a period of the last one and a half years. And it is a loss from which the guerrillas will not quickly recover. Basayev was the uniting core around which the so-called Caucasian armed underground grew, and it is possible that after his death there will be some changes in the strategy and tactics of the way the struggle is conducted.

There is no doubt that the struggle will be continued. Knowing this, the Russian special services will increase the pace of their counter-terrorist operations, in the belief that they have achieved a success which has at long last put paid to Russia’s most dangerous enemy. That the danger is indeed still there is confirmed by the fact that on Tuesday counter-terrorist exercises began in the North Caucasus. The zone of the exercises will encompass several republics and regions. During the week the troops and special services will wage war on imaginary terrorists in Volgograd Oblast, Stavropol Region, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia and Ingushetia.

For the present, no one is even able to predict how events in the North Caucasus will develop. Many political analysts forecast a worsening of a situation that is already complex enough. There are also not a few who consider that the resistance movement’s morale is now broken.

The views of Chechnya’s inhabitants, who have experienced and are experiencing the results of the confrontation between federals and guerrillas, can be said to be almost equally divided. It is possible that those who believe that the guerrilla movement is now broken are slightly more numerous than those who are certain that the war is not over. This proportion is probably caused by the depression that is felt about Basayev’s death. Shamil Basayev was a human version of Chechnya: limping on both legs, patient, lonely, devoted and cursed, but not broken, though he knew his fate in advance. These are the kinds of views that can be heard in Grozny just now:

Taus Altemirov, official in one of the ministries, 35: Basayev’s death will of course radically change the situation in the whole of the North Caucasus and Russia. The guerrillas will no longer be able to wage war effectively. I think that the number of shoot-outs, attacks and explosions will be sharply reduced. I personally welcome Basayev’s death, even though I consider myself a believing Muslim, and it’s not nice to talk like that even about the death of a bad Muslim. I’m sure that everyone will be better off because of this.

Anzor Galayev, unemployed, 22: I don’t know whether Basayev’s death will make things better or worse. He himself was looking for death, and he’s surely glad about this in the next world. I’m pleased that he didn’t fall into the hands of the Russians, and that he didn’t have to stand trial. He lived like a soldier and died like a real soldier. There’s no room for pacifists in Chechnya. The Russians pick the pacifists off at once. In order to survive in present-day Chechnya, you must have many armed friends and always wear a wolf’s grin. I think he was a real man.

Mansur Idrisov, teacher in a Grozny secondary school, 50: In a hundred years’ time all the politicians and military leaders will be assessed. This will also happen in relation to what Basayev did. Yes, he took people hostage. But haven’t the Russian troops done that, too? And what were they doing at the police station in Grozny's Oktyabrsky district? Right now it’s pointless either to blame or to praise Basayev. He had no option but to wage war against Russia in this way. Russia by its action forced men such as him to take extreme measures. Time will put everything in its place. Do you remember how history dealt with Pavlik Morozov, and the other "heroes"? Those who are now called terrorists may be officially recognized as heroes, while today's leaders call them traitors.

Malika Khamzalatova, secondary school teacher, Grozny, 30: Those who want to wage war should not have done it by sheltering behind women and children. When Basayev started to do that, the people turned away from him. He had no support at all. All the men who were left up there in the mountains should have come down from there, surrendered, and helped Ramzan Kadyrov to build a peaceful Chechnya.

Anonymous minibus driver, about 20: For some reason I don’t believe that Basayev was killed. He’s not such a fool as to let himself just get blown up like that. Why didn’t they show his body, or what was left of it? And why didn’t they say right away that it was him who’d been killed? If he’s really dead, then I’m sincerely sorry. He was a real leader, and I know how his peers felt about him. They were very proud of Shamil and admired him for his courage and rejoiced in the Russians’ every failure. I would also add that I’m sure the guerrillas are broken, but that they’ll go on fighting. I admire them, though I wasn’t brave enough go and wage war myself. Many Chechens think that way.

Ayshat Gabuyeva, stall-holder at the market in Grozny, 48: They say that Basayev’s been killed. It doesn’t make me feel one way or the other. He was asking for it. Why did he have to go and seize a school, a hospital, a theatre? He will answer before the Almighty for all that. They were right to kill him. There’s been enough fighting. They must go home, to their children, to their wives. They’re waiting for them. If they have no pity on themselves, then at least let them have pity on their wives and children. I mean, they’re tormenting them as well. Why must Chechens always go leaping out ahead of everyone else, when other nationalities stay at home and lead a normal life? There must be something wrong with our minds. Or do we think we’re better than others? I don’t think we are. I think we’re worse than others.

Supyan Abdulkadyrov, police official, 34: I just feel sorry for this man, as one human being for another. But he was bound to end up like this. He’s guilty of many crimes which were committed in Russia and the North Caucasus. It would have been better, of course, if he had been caught and put on trial. But they didn’t want him alive. He could have told the court a great many things about who gave the green light for the whole North Caucasus, who were the people in the police and the other law enforcement agencies who helped to arrange the terrorist acts, who sold the weapons. I am certain that very serious forces in Russia itself were mixed up in it, and that meant that he couldn’t be caught. And if he hadn’t blown himself up accidentally, he would have gone on irking people.

Iliskhan Azimov, unemployed, 44: This came as a shock to me. I always felt that while Basayev was there the Russians would somehow reach a settlement with Chechnya. But now it seems to me that things will get worse and worse. A person who defends his home is called a bandit, and a person who fights for his faith is called a fanatic. Shamil was a true Chechen, and I have no words except these: May All Mighty Allah accept his Gazavat!


Translated by David McDuff.

The "NatWest three" have surrendered to U.S. marshals at Croydon police station, and are now in the air on the way to the United States.

The Law West of Ealing Broadway notes that

The first difference from the British system that they are likely to encounter on arrival in the USA will be the American habit of chaining prisoners hand and foot. This is largely a symbolic humiliation in their case, as it is in many cases, because having reported to Gatwick and got on the plane they are hardly likely to attack their guards and escape.

See also:

Friends Extradited
Friends Extradited - II
Friends Extradited - III

The Friends Extradited website is here.

Author and journalist Thomas de Waal, who is Caucasus editor of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London, was recently refused a visa to visit Russia in connection with the publication of one of his books. He has covered the conflict in Chechnya since 1994, and his reporting evidently displeased the Kremlin to the point where it decided to ban him completely. In today's Financial Times, de Waal reflects on the short-sightedness of Moscow's Caucasus policies, noting in the aftermath of Shamil Basayev's death:

Now rid of such a major enemy, Vladimir Putin, Russian president, and his advisers will be full of confidence that their policy in Chechnya is finally working. At first glance, the situation in Chechnya is indeed much improved compared with the situation a few years ago. The level of violence has fallen, some basic services are operating, rebuilding work has begun and Chechnya has a few new signs of ordinary life, such as a mobile phone network. All this is very precarious, however, and there are many reasons to be anxious about the future of Europe's most volatile and violent region.

First of all, the big reason for relative peace is sheer war-weariness. Chechens have suffered a catastrophe in the past decade-and-a-half, seeing their main city bombed to ruins, tens of thousands of their citizens killed and wounded, young men tortured and disappeared. They now face mass unemployment and intractable health problems. If they no longer support armed resistance or dream about independence it is not because they have started to love the government in Moscow. Their alienation and bitterness is still real and strong.

Second, Mr Putin has won his provisional victory in Chechnya by relying on an extremely brutal local Chechen government, led by the 29-year-old former boxer Ramzan Kadyrov, who has monopolised all power and enforces his writ in gangland fashion. Mr Kadyrov's security services are comprised mainly of former rebel fighters, whose loyalty could change instantly should his own chequered career come to an end. The reliance on one group is extremely divisive, as other Chechen politicians of authority have been marginalised or exiled, excluding them from a role in a post-war rehabilitation process.

Third, although Moscow says that the violence in the region is caused by "international terrorism", it does everything in its power to block international debate and monitoring of the real situation on the ground. Examples of this are legion. No international organisation has any office in the north Caucasus with a mandate to hear human rights complaints from locals. One international aid official working in the region told me he had found it easier to deal with North Korea than with the Russians over Chechnya.

In a very rare public dispute with a major government, the International Committee of the Red Cross has suspended its visits to detainees in Chechnya because the Russian government will not give it unrestricted access to places of detention. A recent investigation by Memorial, the Russian human rights organisation, suggests why: Memorial's researchers uncovered grisly evidence of torture chambers run by the Kadyrov government.

A couple of points related to the death of Shamil Basayev on July 9-10.

1) A lengthy and detailed article in Kommersant indicates that the only positive identifying feature of the decapitated and mangled remains of Shamil Basayev (pictured here) is his artificial leg, which police say they found at the scene of the explosion.

The most likely cause of the explosion still seems to have been carelessness with explosives on the part of the guerrillas. The article also ventures a second hypothesis that the group of four men may have been blown up by a Russian military patrol using a remote control device, as part of a routine operation, but that the patrol would not have been able to see in the darkness that Basayev was one of the group.

2) The separatist Chechenpress website has issued a statement condemning the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article about a supposed interview with ChRI foreign minister Zakayev, published on July 10. The statement says that the German text of the article was further distorted by the Inopressa.ru Russian translation, which added quotation marks ("foreign minister", "government", etc.). The site says that the authentic version of Foreign Minister Zakayev's reaction to the death of Shamil Basayev is here.

I had better make it clear that the version that appears in this blog is the Inopressa.ru one, though minus the quotation marks. The German text ("Bassajew hat uns geschadet...") has now disappeared from the FAZ website, and can't even be retrieved by Google Cache or Wayback Machine.

Update: There is now a partial translation of the long Kommersant article referred to above on the Kommersant English-language site. A new article which appeared on the site today - July 13 - confirms that there is still no positive evidence that the dead guerrilla alleged to be Basayev is in fact him.

Russian opposition figures and NGOs have been gathering at the "Other Russia" conference being held in Moscow ahead of Saturday's G8 summit, which is also being attended by representatives of some Western governments, including those of the United States and Britain. RFE/RL has a roundup of the day's events, including an address by veteran rights activist Ludmila Alekseyeva, who heads the Moscow Helsinki group. RFE/RL has also posted a link to a 90-minute radio discussion broadcast last October from Washington, D.C., in which Lyudmila Alekseyeva and Tanya Lokshina of the DEMOS Centre for Information and Research talk about the human rights situation in Russia, and give some prognoses about future developments there in the approach to the 2007-2008 elections, which seem to be a political marker beyond which those currently in power in the Kremlin are unable or unwilling to look:

According to Alekseyeva, who is a regular contributor to RFE/RL's Russian Service, the time in office of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin is considered a "golden age" for Russian NGOs -- even though this is "not [because] Yeltsin was a strong democrat," but rather because "society was left to its own devices and we managed to build civil society" while the "power elites" struggled among themselves and ignored the lower strata. Alekseyeva said Russia has emerged from its economic crises under President Vladimir Putin, but there is "no division of power in Russia under the model of executive vertical controls," where regional governors, a "puppet parliament," and a judiciary "stripped" of independence are under the Kremlin's control. Nonetheless, according to Alekseyeva, Russia is "not returning to Soviet times," because "today the attacks are selective" and "there is now a civil society" to resist the pressure.

Alekseyeva expressed concern that "Western democratic states don't react to attacks on human rights." She said that "in Soviet times, we few dissidents felt enormous Western support." She called that support "our shield," which she said is now missing. The supporters of civil society feel "now abandoned by Western allies," Alekseyeva said.

In the broadcast, Alekseyeva also says that she has serious misgivings about the fate of democracy in Russia - she believes that the country is heading towards a nationalistic, authoritarian and fascist future. She does not look forward to a revolution in Russia, for she fears that it would not be an orange, but a brown one. There are references to a leak from the FSB about a "nightmare scenario" that is scheduled to make its appearance during 2007.

The recorded discussion also contains many points of interest in connection with developments in Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria, and what appears to be the deliberate fanning of Islamist extremism in Russia's south.

Sounds (realaudio) from the floor of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada today, as a new pro-Moscow majority coalition is formally announced. RFE/RL has the details.

Manifesto for Peace in Chechnya

(This Manifesto has been written with the aim of attracting the attention of the World Leaders of the G-8 in view of their meeting in St. Petersburg mid July 2006)

Considering, that Russians and Chechens, during their shared history over the last 2 centuries, have been in an ongoing conflict, which has endangered the mere existence of the Chechen people through wars and deportations,

Considering that since the agreements in Moscow, Nasran and Khasavyourt – followed by the peace agreement of 12 May 1997 - ten years have passed - ten years during which resumed hostilities have caused the death of more than a hundred thousand – according to other source over two hundred thousand - people, forced an even greater number of refugees to leave the republic, brought further destruction of the material basis of
society and made life for the remaining population extremely hard,

Considering, that the ongoing conflict has led to increasingly barbaric violations of human rights - torture, seductions, illegal imprisonments and terrorist acts - and has weakened or destroyed moral values in society; religious traditions have been undermined by the influence of foreign ideologies and youth has lost any perspective for a decent life in future,

Considering, that this conflict has serious effects on the entire region, destabilizes the whole of Northern Caucasus by aggravating ethnic conflicts and by jeopardizing its potential of becoming a prosperous zone where all different ethnic and religious groups could live together in peace,

Considering that the late President Maskhadov who had been elected in the free and fair elections, officially recognized by Moscow, has launched in early 2005 a substantial peace initiative, proposing unconditional talks with Moscow and declaring a one-sided one-month-ceasefire for the month of February 2005 – this initiative
remained without any reaction from the Russian side and Maskhadov was killed on March 8, last year;

Today we declare that urgent action is needed for a peaceful solution of this conflict as the only way out for bringing stability and progress to the whole region. In this perspective we define our goals as follows:
- To guarantee the security in the life of the people of Chechnya, the respect of human rights and of law,
- To establish political power structures, based on free and fair elections,
- To create the conditions for economic and social development for normalizing life and allowing the return of the refugees.

For achieving these goals our means are the following:
- Our people have been fighting for defending independence during all these years through the first and the second war. In view of Russian aggression against our Republic, we always have considered independence as the fundamental means to achieve our goal of peace for the Chechen people and as guarantee for its security. However, if based on international law, any other solution for peace with the Russians can be found, for achieving the above mentioned goals, we are open for according negotiations.
- Through our conflict with the Russians a lot of violence has been brought into our society, the consequences of which constitute a heavy burden for future internal peace. Therefore, all efforts for general conciliation and internal peace in Chechnya have to be brought about.
For this not only amnesty measures are necessary but also means - like truth commissions – , with allow an active participation of the family members of the victims of violence.
- For reconstruction of the Republic foreign assistance has to be mobilized.

We know that there is no solution of the conflict by continued warfare and violence. Therefore, we declare that negotiations with Russia have to start without preconditions. We condemn all forms of violence against the civilian population, including terrorist acts.

Ahmed Zakayev, Foreign minister of the Chechen Republic of Itshkeria
5 July 2006

(via chechnya-sl)

From Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 10:

Chechen Foreign Minister Zakayev - No Weakening

(my tr.)

“Basayev has harmed us”

In the opinion of Akhmed Zakayev, foreign minister of the government of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the death of Shamil Basayev will not lead to a weakening of the separatist forces. Zakayev, who has lived in London since late 2002, observed in an interview for the newspaper that Russia has been trying to bring Chechnya to its knees from time immemorial. Despite the fact that many people have been killed during all that time, the national idea still lives in the minds of the Chechen people. According to Zakayev, peace will come to Chechnya if and only if Russia recognizes the Chechens’ right to self-determination. The reason for opposition will thereby be removed. Zakayev refutes information that the Russian army has recently achieved substantial advances in the fight against the separatists. In his opinion, the liquidation by the Russian special services of Aslan Maskhadov, elected President of Ichkeria in 1997, and then of his successor Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, can be considered "flukes".

Zakayev emphasized that the government of the unrecognized Chechen republic has never declared its solidarity with the actions and "methods" of Basayev. The crimes in which Basayev claimed his involvement discredited the Chechen resistance. Basayev harmed the Chechens. Commenting on the recent appointment of Basayev to the post of vice president of the government of Ichkeria, Zakayev said: "Basayev’s entering the government damaged our reputation." Basayev stopped giving orders for terrorist acts directed against innocent civilians after he became a member of the government last summer, when he took up the post of deputy prime minister. President Sadulayev, who was liquidated in mid-June, said it was necessary to accept this loss of reputation if it presented the Chechens with the chance of avoiding future tragedies similar to Beslan. Only at the end of last week, in interview for Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Zakayev said that he considered Basayev’s promotion a mistake.

Zakayev belongs to the moderately nationalistic, non-Islamic wing of the Chechen separatists. At the end of last week he published a "Manifesto for Peace in Chechnya", in which for the first time he renounced demands for Chechnya’s independence. " If, on the basis of international law, some other solution for peace with the Russians can be found” , and an end to the violence, "then we are open to negotiations about this." The Manifesto concludes with the sentence: " We condemn all forms of violence against the civilian population, including terrorist acts. “ So far Russia’s President Putin has decisively declined the possibility of talks with the government of unacknowledged Ichkeria.

In EJ, Yulia Latynina comments on the Kremlin's red letter day (my tr.):

FSB head Nikolai Patrushev reported to President Putin on the liquidation of “Terrorist No. 1", Shamil Basayev. As it turned out, Basayev had been blown up together with a Kamaz truck which was carrying explosives to the location of a terrorist act in Nazran. In the morning, when the explosion of the Kamaz was made public, there was still no talk of any special operation. Then, a few hours later, when it became clear that Basayev was among those killed, it felt somehow improper to acknowledge that the medal for liquidating “Terrorist No. 1" must be given not to Patrushev, but to a comrade who is united in three persons, and images of whom can be seen in any church.

An anecdote comes to mind in connection with this: at 8am on September 11, President Putin calls Bush and expresses his condolences. “What for?” asks Bush. “Oh, sorry,” says Putin, “I’ll call again later.”

A special operation is when it is known in advance who is going to be destroyed, and how. But when the Interior Ministry says first that a truck exploded, then says it will explain why, then starts to investigate who was actually blown up, and the finds out it was Basayev, that is not a special operation – that is luck.

Hat tip: Marius

From Tuesday's Times:

MINISTERS will be challenged by the House of Lords today to renegotiate Britain’s extradition terms with the United States as anger grows at the treatment of three former bankers facing jail in Texas.

Peers are likely to vote to reverse the Government’s move to make it easier to extradite suspects to America after the failure of the US to reciprocate under a 2003 treaty.

The Lords move is symbolic, because the amendment is unlikely to reach the Commons until October, but is designed to put extra pressure on ministers over the extradition of the NatWest Three, who face £11 million fraud charges.

David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby were told yesterday to report to police at 5.30am on Thursday for a transatlantic flight, on which they will be accompanied by US marshals.

See also: Friends Extradited
Friends Extradited - II

Edward Lucas takes a penetrating look at Vladimir Putin, his former neighbour:

Putin understands the way that corruption both fuels Russia and makes it manageable. When the rules can be bent and are impossible to observe, everyone is vulnerable.

He has unleashed the two most sinister forces of his country's Stalinist past: the totalitarian habits of the security services and the imperialist urge that lies deep in the Russian psyche.

Putin is trying to recreate an empire reminiscent of the Soviet Union -- feared by its own people, its neighbours and the West in equal measure.

And the tragedy is that we in the West are letting it happen.

RFE/RL's Russian Service talking to military analyst Aleksandr Golts:

RFE/RL: What about the date of Basayev's death? He was accused of preparing a major terrorist act on the eve of the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg. And in this regard, it is reminiscent of the death of former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov on March 8 last year, International Women's Day. Can we consider Basayev's death to be another specially prepared holiday gift? I mean, is it possible that they announced the death today, but it actually happened some time ago?

Golts: I think such a version is possible. Moreover, all the commentators reacted to the recent declaration of President Vladimir Putin of his intention [in the wake of the killing of four Russian diplomats in Iraq] to destroy terrorists everywhere in the world by saying, "Of course, you can give the order to 'destroy terrorists,' only for some reason they can't destroy Basayev." I think that a decision to destroy him "on a certain date" is definitely possible.

From one of the very first Interfax reports of the Ekazhevo explosion, in which Shamil Basayev was killed:

Jul 10 2006 9:45AM
Ingushetia's Security Department told Interfax that a KamAz truck carrying militants, exploded in a self-induced blast.

"The incident occurred at about midnight. The bodies of four militants were discovered at the scene of the explosion," it said.

Two bodies were identified as those of warlords Tarkhan Ganizhev and Isa Kushtov, a Security Department spokesman said.

The truck had been filled with weapons, ammunition and explosive substances intended to stage high-impact subversive and terror attacks in the North Caucasus," the department said.

The blast is believed to have been caused by careless handling of ammunition and explosive substances.

From Prague Watchdog (my tr.):

Shamil Basayev’s death may have been an accident

By Umalt Chadayev

INGUSHETIA - At night on July 10 four guerrillas were killed in Ingushetia as a result of a truck explosion and one of the men killed was Shamil Basayev, official Russian sources announced today.

"According to available information, a group of terrorists were blown up by their own explosives and ammunition which they were carrying on a ‘Kamaz’ truck. The explosion occurred near the village of Ekazhevo, Nazransky district. It was of such force that only the frame of the truck remained, and unexploded ammunition and mines were scattered in a radius of approximately 150 metres", said a source in the law enforcement agencies.

"The explosion also destroyed two Zhiguli passenger cars which were accompanying the truck of explosives", the respondent claims. "Four corpses were discovered at the site of the incident. Three of them have been identified. They are Shamil Basayev, his very close associate Tarkhan Ganizhev, and a man named Kushtov."

"Basayev was very probably in one of the passenger cars destroyed by the explosion. Although his body was decapitated, his identity has been established by a whole series of distinguishing characteristics. It appears that Basayev and his assistants were preparing to carry out a major terrorist action on the eve of the G8 summit in St Petersburg, in order to announce their presence once again."

A Chechen political analyst is of the opinion that Basayev’s death was most likely to have been an accident rather than by a successful operation by the special services. "Until it became clear that it was Shamil Basayev who had been killed as a result of the explosion of the ‘Kamaz’, the media were reporting that the guerrillas had been blown up by their own explosives, as a result of carelessness. Now they are saying it was ‘a successful operation by the special services’."

"I nevertheless incline to the view that Basayev died as the result of an accident. If a truck full of explosives blew up late at night, and the police and special services arrived there only some time later, and are only today announcing that Basayev is among the dead, one can suppose that this was not a special operation but rather an action by Basayev that went wrong," he says.

The Moscow-backed Chechen President Alu Alkhanov declared that "today’s date may be considered the logical completion of the most serious struggle with illegal armed units that has been undertaken by the special services, federal forces and law-enforcement agencies".

"The liquidation of Basayev in Ingushetia attests to the fact that for the terrorists there are no administrative boundaries, and that the terrorists must be fought everywhere they raise their heads," Alkhanov said. "Now the law-enforcement agencies and local authorities with the support of federal forces must employ a whole range of measures to ensure that the so-called lost ones may return home, and the gang of bandits who are unwilling to take account of reality are liquidated".

Moscow-backed Chechen Premier Ramzan Kadyrov expressed regret at the fact that he had not killed Basayev. "We are grateful to those who destroyed Basayev, but he is my blood enemy, and I promised to destroy him. I regret that it wasn’t me," Kadyrov said.

Throughout the "counter-terrorist operation", the Russian military has repeatedly announced that Basayev had been destroyed, but on each occasion the reports were not confirmed. Information concerning the death of Russia’s "Terrorist Number 1" made its most recent appearance last fall after the events in Nalchik. At that time, one of the slain guerrillas was mistaken for Basayev.

In late June Shamil Basayev was appointed vice president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria by a decree of Dokka Umarov, successor to Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev in the post of President of Ichkeria.


Translated by David McDuff.


(MD/T,B)

From the “Maidan” Alliance:

http://eng.maidanua.org/node/604

APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT, POLITICIANS AND ALL CITIZENS WHO CANNOT JUST SIT BACK

In view of the catastrophically ungoverned state of political processes in Ukraine, the culmination of which was the barefaced and brazen usurpation of legislative power by the socialist Oleksandr Moroz, which could very soon lead to Ukraine’s loss of sovereignty:

We demand that the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko uses all the powers vested in him by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine to ensure the immediate formation of a working Constitutional Court.

We call on the President to immediately use all his quotas to appoint to the Government, the Prosecutor General’s office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Security Service and other positions of state office people who will be to the utmost degree impartial in assessing the actions of the parliamentary majority and opposition, and will under no circumstances allow infringements of the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.

We turn to the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko asking that he fulfils his duty as Guarantor of the Constitution and prevents the illegitimate formation of the executive branch of power. Should the new government not be formed on time and in strict compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine and the Regulations of the Verkhovna Rada, we call on him to disband the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

We call on the Bloc “Nasha Ukraina” and Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko to stand in unyielding opposition to the anti-Ukrainian communist-criminal parliamentary majority, should it create and form the Cabinet of Ministers.

We suggest that the Bloc “Nasha Ukraina”, Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, other democratic and patriotic political forces create united headquarters to counter the communist-criminal comeback both at central and local level, that they ensure that the actions of these headquarters are well-coordinated, and that they involve wide layers of civic activists for their activities.

We call on the Bloc “Nasha Ukraina”, Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, other democratic and patriotic political forces to be resolute in clearing their ranks of those who have compromised themselves by collaborating with the forces for restoring the old, and to use all lawful means to deprive such people of the right to represent the interests of voters in the Verkhovna Rada and local councils.

We call on the original organization of the Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) to hold a special congress in order to expel from their party Oleksandr Moroz and the other State Deputies from the SPU for their cynical betrayal of their voters.

We demand that the President of Ukraine order the State Security Service to carry out an investigation into the possible bribing of members of the Deputy faction of the SPU in the Verkhovna Rada.

We call on people in the arts, journalists, as well as deputies of all levels to honestly and openly express their civic position, and inform society about any attempts at encroachments by the communist-criminals on freedom of speech, as well as about any incidents of blackmail or bribery.

We call on all civic activists and all citizens of Ukraine who endorse our credo A Free person in a free country! to recall the days on Maidan, to unite and to not let the communist-criminal brigade make a comeback.

We call on all who care about Ukraine’s future, to immediately stop bickering and unite in order to join forces countering the attempts to reinstate Kucmizm in Ukraine.

We call on the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko to support this civic-political movement and to join efforts in preventing the destruction of Ukraine.

WE ARE UNITED IN OUR FREEDOM!
ONLY UNITED WILL WE PROTECT UKRAINE,
ONLY UNITED WILL MAKE UKRAINE A FREE COUNTRY OF FREE PEOPLE!

The “Maidan” Alliance

--------
You can add your support for this appeal (in any language) by pressing the blue words натиснувши сюди at http://maidanua.org/static/mai/1152491637.html

Please pass this appeal on – if possible, so that Ukrainian politicians, deputies, journalists are aware of your concern.
THERE IS A WAY OUT AND LET ALL KNOW IT!

Basayev's death is confirmed. Via chechnya-sl, a link to an YLE (Finland) newscast, which shows footage of the dead Chechen vice-president and guerrilla leader.

Update (July 12): there was obviously some confusion here, as the images shown on the Finnish broadcast were actually from 2000, and show Basayev being operated on after he stepped on a mine during the resistance's withdrawal from Grozny.

Update: Now Kavkaz Center has also confirmed the death, following the view that it was the result of a military accident, and not of a "successful special operation" by Russian or Russian-backed forces.

This is also the view of a political observer interviewed by Prague Watchdog's Umalt Chadayev - more later.

FE/RL has some background details on the July 8 air crash in Irkutsk, Siberia, in which at least 124 people are now thought to have died:

The disaster is the fourth air crash in Irkutsk in the past 12 years.

In January 1994, a TU-154 aircraft crashed on takeoff, killing 124 people. In December 1997, an An-124 military transport aircraft crashed in a residential area of the city, killing 72 people.

Irkutsk airport was the scene of another fatal crash, in July 2001, when a TU-154 plane plunged to the ground as it was making its final approach to the runway. All 145 on board died.

This is the second Airbus crash in Russia in recent months.

In May, an Airbus A-320 belonging to the Armenian airline Armavia crashed in the Black Sea while trying to land at the Russian seaside resort of Sochi in bad weather. All 113 passengers and crew were killed.

In Mexico, as in Ukraine, a polarized electoral situation is giving grounds for national and international concern. That there are substantial differences between the two crises, it's hard to dispute. Yet they seem to have one thing above all in common: the use of money and influence to secure power, and the adverse consequences for democracy.

Gazeta.ru is reporting that 124 bodies have been recovered from the wreckage of the crashed passenger plane in Irkutsk, Siberia. 71 survivors have been taken to hospital. There were reportedly 11 foreign nationals on board the plane, from Poland, Germany, Moldavia, South Korea and China. The daughter of the writer Valentin Rasputin died in the crash.

Some reports say that a local Irkutsk FSB official, Sergei Koryakov, was on board the plane.

The NGO Reporters Without Borders is seeking a U.N. investigation of the murder of the U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov, who was shot and killed on a Moscow street two years ago tomorrow.

See also in this blog: Klebnikov: Chechens Freed

AP reports that Russian authorities have drastically curtailed the number of domestic radio stations broadcasting programs of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America:

News of the restrictions comes amid growing criticism about the state of democracy under President Vladimir Putin and a week before Russia hosts a summit of leaders from the world's wealthiest democracies.

Some European and U.S. lawmakers have called for Putin's government to be taken to task for closing down media outlets and squeezing opposition groups.

Russian officials say the matter is simply one of stations' conforming with their broadcast licenses.

But radio station owners said the restrictions close down an essential source of information, particularly in far-flung regions where media outlets are fewer than in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

"In Moscow, there's still freedom in some sense. But in the regions, freedom has ended. There is none," said Boris Mazin, programming manager for a broadcast holding company in Kazan, about 450 miles east of Moscow.

Between May 2005 and May 2006, the number of stations broadcasting programming by Radio Liberty fell from 30 to "no more than a handful," according to Jeffrey Trimble, the service's acting president. For Voice of America, the 42 affiliates that used its programs in August 2005 has dwindled to just five.

Update: The IHT has C.J. Chivers' story on the subject here.

At Maidan, Stephen Velychenko describes what is at stake in the present political crisis in Ukraine:

Although the Party of Regions is commonly called an "opposition" party this is a misnomer that carries with it erroneous implications and assumptions that will lead to erroneous assessments and judgments. The Party is rather a "restorationist" party that will destroy Ukrainian democracy and threaten European security if its leaders come to power again and turn Ukraine into another Belarus.

Read the whole thing.

This week's Chechnya Weekly has an exclusive interview with former Chechen President Sadulayev, obtained by the Jamestown Foundation through its sources in Chechnya before he was killed in Argun on June 17.

The interview contains some passages of considerable interest, including the following:

6. In your first appeal as president, you observed that "the Chechen leadership will continue to keep close contacts and friendship with the whole civilized world, but in doing so, its ideological base should take the worldview of the Muslim people of Chechnya into consideration." Could you explain whether this means that after the war, Chechnya will create a religious state based on Sharia law and not a secular one based on the constitution adopted in 1992? Or, do you think that a compromise between these two [options], combining religious and secular laws, is possible?

After the war, we will continue to create the state that we planned from the very beginning based on the constitution that was adopted in 1992. The point is that this constitution, according to the decision made not only by the executive and legislative organs of power of the ChRI, but also by the Military Committee of the Majlis-ul-Shura, [by] all the committees that are part of the Majlis-ul-Shura and also by the will of a vast number of the population, should reflect the Islamic essence of the Chechen people. Not a single regime, not even the Soviet regime, with all of its totalitarianism, with all of its misanthropic policy, could force either the Chechens or the neighboring peoples to abandon the practice of resolving their problems through Sharia courts. Naturally, they [the Sharia courts] could not function in full measure, but people resolved all issues through the Sharia courts, through [appealing to] the elders, and no one has been able to extirpate this system in the North Caucasus.

I myself was witness to how in Russia, in the former Soviet Union, three constitutions replaced one another in a short period and then came perestroika [and] then developed democracy and after that [came] the revanchist regime that once again is pulling Russia into wars and conflicts—a regime that has begun to fight once again for "Great Russia." It is not clear what is behind these words, but it is clear that when "Great Russia" is spoken of, neither freedom nor human rights is implied. It ["Great Russia"] means endless wars, death and the deception of millions of people.

Therefore, we do not want to pass such laws that would have to be changed every 10-15-20 years; laws that would only be good for one leader, calculated for some sort of temporary period. All laws should be based on the main principles of humanity that are found in religion—in the Quran, the Gospels and the Torah. The basic principles are expressed by the holy books, sent down by the Almighty Allah and humanity should not ignore them. When somebody tries to escape from this and introduce other values that contradict human nature, this ends in conflict, local or regional.

Islam has three enemies. The first one is the militant atheist. The atheist is a danger for any country, for any nation, because it is a person without any values. I want to be understood properly here: when Muslims use the word "infidel," they mean people who have not accepted Islam, but they are still Christians, Hebrews or representatives of other religions. That is, they are people who have norms that they follow. People who have such values, such norms, can find a common language.

The second enemy of Islam is fanaticism—the fanaticism of the theologian who incorrectly interprets Islam. That is what we are also seeing today in many Islamic countries where people are suffering under dictatorial totalitarian regimes instead of enjoying human rights and freedoms, which are values that ought to be protected for each person. This in no way conforms to Islam.

The third enemy is the fanatical ignoramus. Such people are a danger to any society.

As to my first appeal, I simply said that nobody should interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.

7. What, in your opinion, ought to be the policy of the world community and, in particular, the governments of Muslim countries, that could have a real impact and stop the war in Chechnya? Do you think it is possible that international mediators could take part in negotiations between Russia and the ChRI? What is your attitude to [Ilyas] Akhmadov's plan, which proposes temporary international trusteeship [for Chechnya] under the United Nations?

The policy of the world community should not deviate from the basic values that can be taken from the Quran, the Gospels or the Torah. The participation of international mediators is possible, but is not obligatory. Akhmadov's plan was given a green light over several years, but unfortunately it did not work. Not because the plan was bad, but because our opponents were not ready for any peaceful resolution of the issue. Today, the plan does not suit the current realities; we have held out and grown stronger. We no longer need this plan and there are other proposals and solutions to this problem. But the main thing is that the Kremlin ought to part with its militarism and become more pragmatic, correct and respectful of law—international law.

8. Would you personally accept direct negotiations with the pro-Russian leadership of Chechnya—Alu Alkhanov and Ramzan Kadyrov—and, if so, what format, in your opinion, should they take?

I would like to use an example understandable to everyone. Let's imagine that you are attacked by a pack of dogs belonging to your neighbor. You would have to talk to the dogs' owner, wouldn't you? There would be no point in talking to the animals, to the dogs. They [the pro-Russian leaders of Chechnya] fulfill the dishonorable, undignified role of ordinary puppets. If we pinned our hopes on them, we would injure not only the honor and dignity of the fallen shaheeds but also the honor of the whole Chechen nation. What can these puppets do? What problem can they solve? Everything they do, they do with the permission of the Kremlin and the Russian special services. They have never made a singe decision on their own. They have never decided anything on their own and never will. So this question must be properly understood. It is not a matter of our unwillingness to halt military operations; it is simply that it makes no sense to conduct negotiations with that pack.

9. In case of negotiations between the ChRI and the Russian Federation, what role could be played by emirs of the jamaats of the other republics of the North Caucasus? What is the ultimate aim of the struggle led by these jamaats? How does their struggle correlate with the war fought by the Chechens for their independence? Do you see the prospect of you becoming the political leader of the whole North Caucasus?

Certainly, if negotiations between the ChRI and Russia start, all issues will be resolved between us consultatively, observing the principles of the Shura. Not only will the emirs of the jamaats take part in the discussions, but also ordinary mujahideen will take part as equals. We all have one common goal—liberation from colonial slavery and achieving freedom and independence. Like the Chechen people, all the peoples around us have risen up and want freedom and independence. There are jamaats on the territory of Russia, some consisting of [ethnic] Russians, many of which have taken the oath of allegiance to me as emir of the Majlis-ul-Shura and have directly subordinated themselves to us. There are some Muslim groups that would like to remain within Russia on the condition that their freedom of belief is observed—a freedom that is guaranteed by the Russian Federation constitution.

There are such groups, but above all, it is the Chechen people who in the past have never had any desire to remain in Russia and do not have such a wish today. There are also the neighboring nations who share our demand for independence. All these questions will be decided consultatively, collegially and by mutual consent.

I am the leader not because I want to be, but because it is a universally recognized fact in the North Caucasus; the Majlis-ul-Shura is the legal body for all the Muslims of the North Caucasus and, as has already been said, not only for the North Caucasus, but also inside Russia, where there are many jamaats that that have taken an oath of allegiance to us. This is a fact, but it is not as if we ourselves have specially tried to bring this about.

10. Which position is more important to you—being a sheik and Emir of the Majlis-ul-Shura or being the president of the ChRI?

According to Islam, the word "sheik" expresses a respectful attitude to a scholar or to an elder in a family line. It is close in meaning to the English word "sir." The Emir of the Majlis-ul-Shura and the president have the same function and the same role. The only difference is that the Emir of the Majlis-ul-Shura has more rights and more duties. Naturally, the Chechen people have always behaved according to the constitution, where the position of ChRI president is assigned. "Sheik," as has already been noted, is just a respectful form of address in Islam.

11. Let us touch upon your attitude toward Western countries. Do you regard the United States as a potential friend of the ChRI or do you regard America as an enemy, like Russia?

I think that we can make friends not only with the United States, but with Russia as well. Despite this murderous, dirty, barbarous war that Russia has waged against us, we have never rejected good neighborly and friendly relations with Russia. Unfortunately, this has always hit a wall of misunderstanding, arrogance and imperial ambitions. Nevertheless, we are not people who can be made into slaves. It is better to have us as friends. If a nation [or] country, especially a world superpower like the United States, is ready to have a dialogue with us, we are always open and will be open to this. If we are ready to be good neighbors with Russia, then we cannot have any problems with America.

Poland is offering scholarships to help Belarusian students who have been expelled from their universities for opposition activities, RFE/RL writes.

The Konstanty Kalinowski scholarships, named after a 19th-century Polish-Belarusian journalist and revolutionary, pave the way for 300 Belarusian students to continue their studies in Poland.

Just in case there was any doubt, RIAN reports:

MOSCOW, July 5 - Russia's lower house of parliament passed Wednesday a draft law giving the country's president the right to use the armed forces and secret services abroad to fight international terrorism.

With 226 votes necessary to pass the bill, 429 State Duma deputies backed the initiative.

Bystander of The Law West of Ealing Broadway takes a personal view of the case of the NatWest Three, Camp Delta, and other matters:

I live in a prosperous community to the west of London, and we are accustomed to a storm of fireworks on what they call 7/4. Not a single bang has split the night. Odd, that.

See also in this blog: Friends Extradited

Via RFE/RL:

Putin Warns EU Over Human Rights Pressure

July 5, 2006 -- President Vladimir Putin today warned European officials against using human rights to exert "political pressure" on Russia.

Putin said Russia is "open to an honest, nonpoliticized dialogue about human rights... but it is unacceptable for us when human rights issues are used to exert political pressure and achieve short-term goals."

He also implicitly criticized Britain for giving refuge to an envoy of the Chechen separatists, Akhmed Zakayev, whom Russia has accused of terrorism.

Putin was addressing top European prosecutors, at a meeting in Moscow sponsored by the Council of Europe, the continent's top rights watchdog, which Russia is currently chairing.

(AP)

From Prague Watchdog (my tr.):

July 4 2006


Large scale special operation underway in Chechen village of Katyr-Yurt

By Umalt Chadayev

CHECHNYA - At dawn on July 4 Russian military and Moscow-backed Chechen police blockaded the village of Katyr-Yurt in the Achkhoy-Martanovsky district, with the support of a large quantity of armour. After closing off all routes in and out of the village, soldiers and police began a large-scale passport check.

"On Sunday evening several horses carrying packloads of food and ammunition were found between Katyr-Yurt and the settlement of Yandi (Achkhoy-Martanovsky district). There were rumours that guerrillas might have entered Yandi or Katyr-Yurt. People were extremely anxious about this, and it’s evident that their fears have proved to be not without foundation," said Salman Bakayev, a 47-year-old resident of the Achkhoy-Martanovsky district.

"In the morning soldiers and police closed off all roads leading into Katyr-Yurt. A large-scale mop-up is going on there right now. It’s not known exactly what is taking place there, because no one is being allowed into the village and no one is being allowed out of it. In the course of such ‘special operations’ the law enforcers frequently detain innocent people, whom they then declare to be either guerrillas or their accomplices," he asserts.

Local residents note that the number of all manner of “special operations” has sharply increased of late in Chechnya. In the past month alone, according to the data of the Information Centre of the Council of Chechen NGOs, no less than 15 operations of a similar kind have been conducted in the republic.

A source in the Chechen Interior Ministry says that the large-scale special operations in various regions of the republic are being conducted in connection with a certain mobilization of guerrillas in the republic’s south.

"The leaders of the bandit formations are not abandoning their plans to destabilize the situation in the territory of the republic. Therefore the law enforcement agencies are taking measures of a preventive nature in various regions of Chechnya. These measures are already producing results. In the past month alone 40 members of illegal armed formations and their accomplices have been arrested in the territory of republic," a police official asserts.

Translated by David McDuff.

British journalist Tom de Waal, whose reporting from Chechnya has done much to inform Western readers of the ongoing conflict there, has been refused a Russian visa, and therefore cannot attend the launch of the Russian translation of his book on another conflict, the one in Nagorno-Karabakh, Reuters and the Moscow Times report. From the MT:

De Waal said he believed he had offended Russian authorities by appearing as an expert witness for the defense at the extradition trial of Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev in London.

"On the other hand, I have been to Russia twice since then, including to the North Caucasus," he added.

The British court in 2003 declined to extradite Zakayev, granting himn political asylum instead. Russian prosecutors are continuing to try ton secure his extradition.

De Waal last visited Russia in January 2005.

From Latin America: Economy and Society:

If nothing changes in the coming hours, Mr. Calderón will be president and he will have weak but consistent support in the House and the Senate of the Mexican Congress. That will give Calderón an edge that neither Mr. Zedillo nor Mr. Fox have had in recent Mexican history, as both were confronted by powerful parliamentary groups of the PAN and the PRI, respectively, unwilling to collaborate with them.

Via Joachim Frank, Project Coordinator
International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
Wickenburggasse 14/7
A-1080 Vienna
Tel. +43-1-408 88 22 ext. 22
Fax: +43-1-408 88 22 ext. 50
Web: http://www.ihf-hr.org

Open Letter to the Leaders of the G8: New and Dangerous Amendment to the Russian Anti-extremist Legislation

Vienna, 3 July 2006

Dear leaders of the G8,

In the wake of the upcoming G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) would like to draw your attention to a draft law at the Russian State Duma, which represents a grave threat for civil liberties, in particular for associations and media in the Russian Federation. Despite the major importance of this piece legislation adopted in first reading on 28 June, no opportunity is left for a public debate because the second reading of this bill is due to be held on 5 July.

On 28 June 2006, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted in its first reading an amendment to the 2002 Federal Law “On Countering Extremist Activity”. The law as such has been severely criticized, by human rights defenders and experts as it combined an excessively broad definition of “extremism” in combination with excessively harsh sanctions provided against individuals, organizations, and the media. However, the new amendments proposed make the already broad and vague definition of extremism even broader.

Particularly worrisome are three amendments foreseeing that:
a) the definition of extremism shall include libel against state officials related to accusation in extremism or in a particularly grave crime;
b) any act of violence (incl. hooliganism) against an official shall qualify as extremism; and
c) not only calls to extremist activity but also “justifications” of extremist activity will be banned.

Together with our Russian colleagues, we ask for the second reading of the draft legislation to be postponed in order to allow for public debate, and urge for the above-mentioned dangerous provisions to be eliminated from the draft.


The international community, including the G-7 and the Russian Federation itself, should treat these concerns seriously. The existing Russian anti-extremism legislation has been increasingly used for disproportionate and illegitimate curtailment of civil rights, and the new proposed amendments further increase the gravity of the situation.

Sincerely,


Brigitte Dufour
IHF Deputy Executive Director

**********************************************************

Attachment: 29 June Statement by a Group of Russian Human Rights Defenders

Russian Human Rights Defenders Express Grave Concern over a New and Dangerous Amendment to the Federal Anti-extremist Legislation

Russian human rights defenders and experts have been persistently expressing their concerns in connection with the Federal Law “On Countering Extremist Activity” which was adopted in 2002. This piece of legislation combines an excessively broad definition of “extremism” and excessively harsh sanctions provided against individuals, organizations, and media. To note, in practice the harshness of the law hasn’t resulted in making the struggle against extremist more effective. At the same time, in the past four years, the anti-extremist legislation has been used with increasing frequency for disproportionate and even illegitimate curtailment of civil rights.

Hence, we are now gravely distressed over the fact that on June 28, 2006, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted in first reading an amendment to the aforesaid law, which makes the already broad and vague definition of extremism even broader

Some of the introduced sub-definitions are quite reasonable but three of them call for special concern:
1) In accordance with the new amendment, the definition of extremism shall include libel against state officials related to accusation in extremism (as defined by relevant federal law) or in a particularly grave crime. Libel is a criminal offense and a fact of libel must be essentially determined by a court of law within the framework of relevant criminal procedures. However, the Law “On Countering Extremist Activity” is not part of the Russian criminal law and it is quite likely that the fact of libel will be determined in administrative procedures against an organization or a media-body. Thus, de facto, public accusation of officials in corruption (which constitutes a grave crime) or in extending patronage to ultranationalists and many other such accusations may become banned.
2) Any act of violence against an official shall qualify as extremism. At the same time, it is quite evident that certain actions of that kind - although definitely illegal – perpetrated by a member of an organization or a group don’t always signify that the given organization or group is of any social danger. Those actions may be of purely common character (hooliganism, etc) or take place within the framework of forced dispersal of public rallies.
3) Thirdly, not only calls to extremist activity but also justifications of extremist activity will be banned. In connection with the continuously broadening definition of extremism, this means that non-violent acts of civil disobedience or justification of a priest/preacher who insists on uniqueness and superiority of the followers of his religion will qualify as extremism.

The aforesaid draft law represents a grave threat for civil liberties, and particularly for associations and media. And the recent state efforts to suppress such independent bodies force us to treat this threat very seriously.

It is evident that the second reading of this draft amendment should be proceeded by a broad public debate. There is no justification for such rush actions aimed to limit civil liberties. However, according to our sources, the second reading has already been scheduled for the 5th of July this year, which preclude the very possibility of relevant public discussion as well as the elaboration of some changes to the amendment.

We believe it imperative to have the second reading of the draft legislation postponed and to have the aforesaid dangerous provisions eliminated from the draft. Therefore, we call the attention of the international community to the given situation and hope that the G7 states will back our concerns on the eve of the St Petersburg Summit.

Alexander Verkhovsky, SOVA Center
Galina Kozhevnikova, SOVA Center
Tanya Lokshina, Demos Center
Oleg Orlov, Human Rights Center “Memorial”
Tatiana Kasatkina, Human Rights Center “Memorial”
Alexei Simonov, Glasnost Foundation
Yuri Dzhiblades, Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights
Natalia Taubina, Public Verdict Foundation
Andrei Blinushov, “Memorial” Society of Ryazan
Yulia Sereda, “Karta” Journal
Nina Tagankina, Moscow Helsinki Group
Alexei Simonov, Glasnost Defense Foundation
Arsenii Roginskii, “Memorial” Society
Sergei Lukashevskii, Demos Center
Andrei Kalikh, Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights
Ida Kuklina, Union of the Soldiers’ Mothers’ Committee

Writing about the barely concealed anti-Americanism that surfaced in Moscow following the kidnapping and execution of four Russian embassy workers in Iraq, Pavel K. Baev notes in EDM:

The point is not that the coalition forces are responsible for the safety of the diplomatic corps and, it might be possible to argue, did not do enough to rescue the Russians. In fact, through the weeks of silence regarding the hostage drama Russian officials kept dropping hints that their Islamic “friends” should secure the release of the diplomats who had been mistaken for “enemies.” It is unclear whether expectations were pinned on Iran, which should be grateful to Russia for protecting it against the threat of sanctions, or on Syria, which depends upon importing Russian arms, or perhaps on the leadership of Hamas, which was rescued from international ostracism by an invitation to Moscow (Kommersant, June 29). What is clear is that Moscow really thought that its demonstrated respect towards the Muslim world would make it safe against Islamic extremism.

The lack of any terrorist attacks in Moscow since summer 2004 has underpinned this wishful thinking, while the escalation of instability in the North Caucasus is commonly downplayed as a “local” phenomenon. For the Russian leadership, it was also much easier to see a growing reputation in the Islamic world as the tensions in relations with the Western world escalate. In the run-up to the G-8 summit, U.S. and European criticism of Moscow for curtailing democratic reforms is interpreted as “lecturing” or “interference,” and warnings about violations of human rights are seen as “ultimatums.” Vladislav Surkov, the chief ideologist of “Putinism,” has recently assured Western journalists that Russia firmly rejects the “standard model of inefficient and externally controlled economic and political regimes” (Vedomosti, June 29). Following this logic, it is not difficult to arrive at the proposition that Washington, worried about Russia’s “sovereign power,” is seeking to pull it into the U.S. “civilizational” conflict with the Muslim world. That is the real point in carefully channeling the public anger over the murders in Iraq towards the convenient and exploitable anti-Americanism (Ekho Moskvy, June 29).

The Russian president may not succeed in apprehending the culprits, but “Comrade Wolf” will certainly not fool him. The day after the tragedy in Iraq was confirmed, Putin asserted that Russia “will not take part in any kind of ‘holy alliance’,” and he emphasized specifically that in relations with the United States, “There is still much to change.” The changes he seeks basically amount to closing the issue of Russia’s retreat from democracy, and the “holy alliance” he rejects so emphatically is in essence the community of liberal democracies. There is certainly nothing holy about this community, it is often disagreeable and has its share of poor leadership, but that is where Russia belongs, and al-Qaeda knows that. Seeking to prove the opposite, Putin makes himself an entirely forgettable figure in Russian history, and journalists might soon be asking: “Who was Mr. Putin?”

It will soon be two years since the Beslan siege and hostage-taking.

World opinion has mainly tended to classify the horrific massacre that took place along with other terrorist acts around the globe – Bali, Madrid, July 7, even September 11. Now the Western media are now mostly silent about the event – the world has moved on.

In Russia, the view promoted by the government authorities is that the matter of the Beslan school seizure has been definitively cleared up - the trial of what is claimed to be the only surviving hostage-taker, Nurpashi Kulayev, is over. Kulayev has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Islamic terrorists led by Shamil Basayev were responsible for the deaths of the 330 people who died in the siege – 317 of whom were hostages, and 180 of whom were children.

Yet in Russia also, questions continue to be asked, not least by the families of the victims. There is, for example, the fact that a majority of the hostages who died – more than 160 – perished not as a result of bomb explosions, but under the collapsed roof of School No. 1. There is also the admission by a representative of Russia’s Public Prosecutor that tanks and rocket flamethrowers were used by federal forces during the ending of the siege – these weapons were fired directly at the school.

Two major and detailed accounts the Beslan seizure are available in English. One is contained in Hoover Institution scholar John B. Dunlop’s The 2002 Dubrovka and 2004 Beslan Hostage Crises (2006). The other is an 18,000 word article, entitled ‘The School’, by the New York Times Moscow correspondent C.J. Chivers, who witnessed the hostage crisis and covered it for the newspaper. 18 months later, in March 2006, Chivers revisited Beslan to interview the survivors. ‘The School’ represents the results of this visit, and consists of an impressionistic reconstruction of the entire sequence of events.

There are obvious dissimilarities between the two accounts. While Dunlop’s approach is scholarly, meticulously listing sources and collating official and unofficial reports and materials, in an attempt to establish a precise log of what took place, when and why, Chivers opts for a much more emotional technique, emphasizing above all the human aspects of the crisis, the sometimes confused accounts of eyewitnesses, and the sufferings of the victims. For this he cannot conceivably be faulted – the horror of what took place goes beyond the parameters of even the most nightmarish imaginings. On the other hand, his essentially journalistic approach entails a certain loss of clarity, and a tendency to mix "official" versions of what happened with the reality itself. In this, it is not unlike certain kinds of war reporting.

The rights to Chivers’ article have been bought by Hollywood’s Universal Studios, and it seems probable that a film version will be made by Image Entertainment, the company behind The Da Vinci Code. While this is probably to be welcomed, as it will inevitably serve to keep the issue of Beslan from fading in the mind of the world’s public and media, one wonders just what the film’s approach will be – in other words, how much emphasis will be given to the sensational, and how much to the careful logging and analysis of the events themselves.

As mentioned before, the dissimilarities between the accounts of Chivers and Dunlop extend to more than matters of style. Dunlop’s version of what happened on the afternoon of September 3, when explosions were followed by a fire and the collapse of the gymnasium roof, is in line with the findings of the Kesayev commission and the Beslan Mothers. In its draft report, the Kesayev commission concluded that the first explosions

unquestionably had a behind-the- scenes dimension, both a legal and a political one. The possible ap­pearance in Beslan of Maskhadov and Zakaev placed the Kremlin before a complex choice: to permit the saving of the hostages and thus to legalize the figure of Maskhadov and to permit the possibility of a political regulation of the Chechen problem. An unprepared storm, as a variant of the develop­ment of events, by contrast, allowed such a situation not to be permitted.

There was also the claim by Nurpashi Kulayev at his trial that a Russian sniper had killed the terrorist whose foot was on a pedal controlling a powerful bomb:

Kulaev stuck stubbornly to his story. Russian deputy procurator general Nikolai Shepel' insisted, in sharp contrast, that, "the examination has shown that snipers present around the school could not have shot the rebel who was controlling the button [pedal], inasmuch as he was located behind plastic, non-transparent windows, and the sniper could not have seen him."

But you didn't see it?

[Kulaev responded:] It [the plastic] wasn't there. They re­moved it so that the people could breathe. They took away the plastic... The Colonel said that a sniper shot him from the roof, from a five-story building.

As Dunlop goes on to show, Kulayev’s statements seemed to be rather clearly backed up by testimony from former hostages. By contrast, Chivers’ version shows a sequence of events much more in accordance with the official Russian line:

The explosion was a thunderclap, a flash of energy and heat, shaking the gym. Twenty-two seconds later a second blast rocked the gym again. Their combined force was ferocious. Together they blew open the structure, throwing out the plastic windows, splattering the walls with shrapnel, and heaving people and human remains through the room. One of the blasts punched a seventy-eight-inch-wide hole through a brick wall twenty-five inches thick, cascading bricks and mortar onto the lawn. It also lifted the roof and rafters above the hole, snapping open a corner of the building like a clam before gravity slammed the roof back down. Much of the ceiling fell onto the hostages below.

Scores of hostages were killed outright. Their remains were heaped near the fresh hole and scattered across the basketball court. But most survived, hundreds of people in various states of injury. At first they hardly moved. Many were knocked senseless. Some were paralyzed by fright. Others, worried about another blast, pressed to the floor. At last they began to stir, and escape.

Dzera Kudzayeva, the first-grade girl who was to have been the bell ringer, had been near the blast that knocked out the wall. She had been asleep under her grandmother, Tina Dudiyeva, whose body had seemed to rise above her with the shock wave. The child stood now, and seeing sunlight through the hole, she scampered out, over the shattered bricks and onto the lawn. She began to run. She had arrived on Wednesday in a dress with a white apron and ribbons; she left now in only panties, filthy, streaked in blood, sprinting. She crossed the open courtyard and lot and came to the soldiers who ringed the school. She was free. The sound of automatic weapons began to rise.

The hole was only one route. The pressure of the explosions had thrown the windowpanes clear of their frames, exposing the room to light and air. The hostages reacted instinctually. A desperate scramble began. The sills were a little more than four feet above the floor, and throughout the room many of those who were not badly injured rushed to the sills, pulled themselves up, and dropped out to the ground.

This is only one example of a sequence where the versions differ. Although Chivers is sceptical of the official Russian reports, writing that “official lies have eroded public confidence, including the insistence during the siege that only 354 hostages were seized, and an enduring insistence that the T-72 tanks did not fire until all the survivors were out, which is false,” he goes on say that “it remains unclear, and a source of acrimonious debate, what caused the first two explosions and the fire in the gym, although the available evidence, on balance, suggests that the blast damage and the majority of the human injury were caused by the terrorists' bombs.”

The most logical conclusion that an outside observer can draw is that both accounts – Chivers’ and Dunlop’s – are equally deserving of attention. While Chivers’ article is particularly effective in registering the human dimension of the crisis, Dunlop’s book is better at sorting out what really took place.

Dunlop is also better at sorting propaganda from fact, and in noting the actual details of the “official lies” referred to by Chivers – lies which attempt to conceal, among other things, the fact that Khodov, the second-in-command of the mostly Ingush guerrillas who seized the school, was beyond any reasonable doubt acting as an agent of the Russian security forces.

See also: Amy Knight: The Kremlin Cover (TLS, May 2006)

Mexico has entered an electoral crisis, with both presidential front runners declaring victory.

From Yahoo! México' s Elecciones 2006 blog:

Por lo pronto, las instituciones políticas van a tener que enfrentar las 72 horas de tensión que habremos de vivir.

Si no optaron por el silencio cuando era más necesario, los partidos y sus líderes bien podrían hacerlo aún ahora y evitar continuar ahora, en una movilización artificial e innecesaria que a nadie beneficiará.

Esto es más importante porque, gane quien gane cuando este limbo finalmente se cierre, las ventajas de cualquiera de los dos candidatos no son superiores a los 2 puntos porcentuales. Se trata pues, como habíamos dicho en estos espacios, de una victoria mínima, pírrica que puede revertirse en cualquier momento.

For the time being, the political institutions are going to have to confront the 72 hours of tension that we must live through.

If they did not opt for silence when it was most necessary, the parties and their leaders could still do so now, and avoid continuing now in an artificial and unnecessary mobilization that is not to anyone's benefit.

This is most important because, no matter who wins when this limbo is finally over, the victory margin of either of the two candidates is no more than 2 percentage points. It's then a question, as we have said these columns, of a tiny, Pyrrhic victory that can be reversed at any moment.

Update: It looks as though Felipe Calderón may have a slight lead, after all.

As Mexico holds its long-awaited, divisive and fateful presidential elections, one commentator writes:

En todo caso, ojalá que el 3 de julio amanezcamos con un gobierno electo, que el ganador reconozca que su victoria será pírrica y que efectivamente avancemos en la lógica del consenso y la construcción de soluciones.

At any rate, let's hope that on July 3 we wake up with an elected government, that the winner recognizes that his victory will be a Pyrrhic one, and that we do in fact go forward in the logic of consensus and the building of solutions.

In June 2006 Esquire magazine published New York Times correspondent C.J. Chivers' 18,000 word essay The School, on the Beslan school seizure of September 2004.

The full text of the essay cannot be found online in open format. Only the first section, which is based on the statements of Kazbek Misikov, is posted. It seems that the whole text can only be obtained in hard copy format, and then only by Esquire subscribers. There appears to be an electronic copy at KeepMedia, but I'm unable to access it, for as far as I can ascertain it's only available to residents of the U.S. and Canada.

It's puzzling that an essay of such significance - it has been touted for a Pulitzer award - should be so hard to acquire. I'm wondering if anyone in the blogosphere has succeeded in obtaining the full version.

The recorded proceedings of the Kulayev trial seem to be at variance with some aspects of Chris Chivers' account, and the question has been raised of whether his logging of the details of the massacre was perhaps in some way influenced by the producers of the Image Entertainment film The School, which is based on his account, and is apparently still under consideration in Hollywood.

At all events, it would be useful to be able to compare the Esquire essay with the court records of the Kulayev trial that were maintained by the Truth of Beslan (PravdaBeslana.ru) website.

Update: It turns out there's a bootleg version of the text on the PravdaBeslana website. I'll be reading, and will hope to post something further soon.

Writing in the London Review of Books, Anna Neistat presents a Diary of her recent visit to Grozny, Chechnya.

Among other things, she notes:

Russia has done everything in its power to ensure that no accurate information about Chechnya gets out. On the rare occasions Russian TV crews go to Chechnya, they film Kadyrov against a backdrop of freshly painted walls, carefully keeping the rest of the ruined city out of the frame. Foreign journalists can enter the region without authorisation, risking at best their accreditation in Russia and at worst their life, or they can have an official tour, accompanied by Russian security. International human rights organisations do not have permission to enter Chechnya at all: `security concerns' are the excuse. Russia has methodically expelled international observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe.

The West should stop pretending it knows nothing of the daily reality of the Chechen war. Local human rights activists and a few journalists are risking their lives to report the situation in Chechnya. Organisations such as Human Rights Watch publish regular reports on abuses, briefing embassies and foreign ministries, as well as officials at the UN, EU and Council of Europe. But the international community chooses to accept Russia's claims of normalisation, because – and these are words we repeatedly hear – mentioning Chechnya might `make the Russian president angry'. An angry Russian president, they fear, might turn off the gas, leaving millions of European homes without heating. Besides, nobody wants to upset such an important ally in the `war on terror'.

Hat tip: Global Voices Online

Moscow is currently seeking to prepare the way for another gas war with Ukraine, intended to culminate during the coming winter. In a series of articles published in EDM, Jamestown analyst Vladimir Socor has been following this re-gearing of the Kremlin's energy designs on Ukraine and also on Europe as a whole. Socor's articles can be read here, here , here, here. and here.

Though the picture Socor paints is a gloomy one - in addition to capturing the most lucrative sectors of Ukraine's energy market through its RosUkrEnergo concern, Moscow is doing everything it can to block Ukraine's access to its traditional energy supplier, Turkmenistan - he is not without hope that disaster can be avoided. For one thing, it is all too blatantly obvious that what Moscow is seeking to do is to undermine and expropriate Ukraine's economy while at the same time portraying Ukraine as an unreliable energy supplier for Europe, and this will inevitably heighten European concerns about Moscow's intentions in the European energy market. And for another, if the chance is taken now, the recent Turkmen gas price hike may actually be to Ukraine's advantage, and also to the advantage of Europe as a whole:

At present, Russia uses most of its intake of Turkmen gas to supply Ukraine through the Kremlin-brokered RosUkrEnergo scheme. This took effect in January-February 2006 and is supposed to last for five years. Mixing large volumes of Turkmen gas priced at $65 with smaller volumes of Russian gas priced at $230, RosUkrEnergo sells the mix to Ukraine at $95 per 1,000 cubic meters. This is a deeply discounted price by any European standard, a heavy subsidy designed -- along with distribution arrangements in Ukraine -- to facilitate deep Russian inroads into Ukraine's industry and political system. In effect, Moscow maneuvered Turkmenistan into subsidizing Ukraine's economy, albeit in ways that advance Russia's own interest to pull Ukraine into a relationship of dependence.

The RosUkrEnergo scheme is only made possible by exploiting Turkmenistan. The deal buys economic and political leverage for Russia in Ukraine and enriches an obscure Gazprom-connected group in the process, all at Turkmenistan's expense. When Moscow got Kyiv to sign onto that scheme in January and February 2006, it brought at least 20 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas to the negotiating table just for the first half of this year, at the rock-bottom price of $65, as a decisive Russian "near abroad" asset, even as Russia sells its own gas in the "far abroad" at $230. Again, Russia's near-monopoly on the export of Turkmen gas made this possible.

From January through April 2006 (data for May are not available), RosUkrEnergo sold to Ukraine 15.6 billion cubic meters of "Central Asian" gas (presumably all of it Turkmen), mixed with 4.7 billion cubic meters of Russian gas (Concorde Capital [Kyiv], June 6).

Few governments or analysts asked in January-February whether Turkmenistan had freely consented to the RosUkrEnergo deal, let alone to colonial exploitation of its resources by Gazprom in perpetuity. Ashgabat's June 19-21 move suggests that it would not freely consent.

The Turkmen price hike could scuttle the Ukraine-RosUkrEnergo deal and, with it, a key instrument of Russia's policy in Ukraine. To be sure, Moscow has all along cautioned that it might raise the price of the gas mix it sells to Ukraine. It could either hike the price of Russian gas in that mix "in accordance with market conditions," or raise the price of the whole mix in the event that Turkmenistan hiked the price of its gas. But these cautionary notes are calculated to keep Ukraine's government and key economic interest groups uneasy. Moscow wants to reserve for itself the decisions on prices, volumes, and schedules of delivery, in line with its economic and political strategy in Ukraine. Instead of this, Turkmenistan's price hike would force Moscow to raise substantially the price on RosUkrEnergo's gas sold to Ukraine. Meanwhile, in Kyiv's view, Moscow has no right to do so as the January 2006 agreements with Gazprom and RosUkrEnergo set the $95 price for five years. Kyiv officials insist that any early increase above that level could mean collapse of the national economy (Vedomosti [Moscow], June 22).

Thus, Ashgabat's decision could nullify the value of a painstakingly assembled Russian mechanism of influence over Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine faces a quantitative deficit of 10 to 12 billion cubic meters in its gas balance for the second half of 2006. Kyiv seeks to activate the December 22, 2005, agreement of intent whereby Turkmengaz was to sell 40 billion cubic meters of gas to Naftohaz Ukrainy in 2006, at prices of $50 per 1,000 cubic meters in the first half of the year and $60 in the year's second half.

It looks as though there is still no shortage of misguided souls in the West who want to "save" the Russian government from itself. In the Independent, Andrew Osborn writes about the hiring of the New York-based PR company Ketchum, intended to help Putin and his government to overcome the mounting criticism around the world of Moscow's record on human rights and international policy - all in the run-up to the G8 summit which opens in St Petersburg in two weeks' time.

Osborn notes that an important role in the Ketchum operation will be played by British figures, including the BBC's former Moscow correspondent Angus Roxburgh and Tim Allan, an associate of Downing Street spin doctor Alistair Campbell. From the article:

Ketchum has up to 50 spin doctors and media specialists working round the clock in nine countries to ensure that at the end of this year people shed their stereotypical image of Russia as a bellicose country in which bears roam the streets and the Kalashnikov is mightier than the pen. The company has its work cut out, though Russia's moment in the limelight is also an opportunity for its critics to strike and Moscow does not want its moment spoilt by what it sees as Russophobes. It is the first time Moscow has chaired the G8 and it sees this year and the showcase summit in St Petersburg as an opportunity to show the world it is a confident yet reasonable power after the chaos of the 1990s.

Several US senators and human rights groups see things differently. They believe Russia should not be in the club of the world's richest industrial nations at all. Their greatest concern is about Russian democracy. Western critics allege that President Vladimir Putin has used the past six years to roll back the gains of the 1990s in favour of authoritarianism. The broadcast media is little more than a Kremlin mouthpiece, it is claimed, while any political opposition is starved of publicity, harassed, and sometimes jailed.

It is charged that Mr Putin has used his own "war on terror" - with Chechen militants - to push through legislation that appears to give people less say in their affairs, such as his decision to abolish direct elections for regional governors in favour of direct appointments by the Kremlin.

Meanwhile, the BBC is advertising a forthcoming Q&A session with Putin.