Basayev - VIII

Some further excerpts from the new Basayev interview:

(my translation)

Q. International public opinion was shocked by the events in Beslan. Do you consider yourself partly to blame for the outcome, or do you blame President Putin for it all?


A. IN THE NAME OF ALLAH THE MERCIFUL AND ALL-FORGIVING!

Praise to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, who has created us Muslims and has favoured us with Jihad on his Straight Path!

Peace and Blessings to the Prophet Muhammad, his family, his associates and all those who folllow the Straight Path to the Day of Judgement!

And then:

I admit the extent of my responsibility, but do not consider myself to blame for such an outcome. I am responsible for having made Putin show the world his true face. But in its fear the world is trying to pretend that it noticed nothing and today, like the “wise gudgeon”, desires only its own welfare, refusing to understand that in the 21st century everyone is dependent on everyone else.

The Russians have been holding the entire Chechen people hostage for five years, and nothing has happened! Yet we had only to take a thousand people hostage in order to stop the genocide of the Chechen people, and “the whole world is shocked.” If that is not hypocrisy, what is?

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Q. Were you hoping in this instance [Beslan] for a repetition of Budyonnovsk, when the Russian leadership asked you for peace?

A. I was really stunned by what happened in Beslan, and never expected such an outcome of events. I considered that if we didn’t leave the Russians a single chance to launch a bloodless assault, they would not go in an murder the children. Especially the children of Ossetia – the principal outpost of their empire in the Caucasus. And especially at this moment, when the leadership of Rusnya has reached a deadlock in the resolution of the “Chechen problem”, when with each day that passes the war is creeping onto the territory of Rusnya itself.

I thought I was doing the Russians a favour by pointing to a way out of the deadlock for them. But Putin is a revanchist who only cares about the strengthening of his own power, and who also suffers from an inferiority complex. Just look at the measures he took right after Beslan – he strengthened his personal power and not a single Russian objected. But what does the appointment of governors have to do with the “war on terror”? One might think that the majority of governors and senators weren’t appointed by him as it is.

Or take his silovik ministers: how is the professionalism and indispensable role of Patrushev, the FSB’s director, manifested? Merely in his personal devotion to Putin. That’s all!

Is it possible in Canada to keep for five years as a minister of security a man who has permitted dozens of acts of sabotage on the territory that has been entrusted to him, carrying off the lives of thousands of people? I think not. But it is possible in Rusnya, and also in gangs where all the members are blood-related.


Q. Don’t the explosions on the metro and the aircraft go beyond the limits of what is permitted in war?

A. Permitted, in what war? After all, in Putin’s own words there is no war, but rather a “counterterrorist operation” in which there are no rules of engagement with the “terrorists”, and anything is permitted. Even an interview is “complicity and terrorist propaganda”. By the way, you too are now an “accomplice” and in Rusnya you have a good chance of disappearing without trace or, if you are lucky, of ending up you’re your pockets empty and your health ruined.

It wasn’t we who broke the rules first, but Russia. In the last war, to take just one example, I alone returned more than 400 Russian soldiers who had been taken prisoner, after taking from them a promise that they would never fight against us again. Now you give me an example from the two wars of where the Russians ever observed international law in relation to even one Chechen who fell into their hands. I repeat: even one Chechen.

If Putin starts observing international law, we will automatically observe it too, but we don’t play “football with one set of goalposts”. I talked about this in January this year, and I say it now. And I also say that if Putin had said he would adhere to international law, and “shocked international public opinion” had demanded that of him, there would have been no Beslan, no explosions on the aircraft and the metro.

As for my attitude to war and its laws, it changed after I pulled two theatre tickets for an evening performance from the pocket of a pilot we had killed. Five minutes earlier, at 15.30, he had carpet-bombed a village where in one cellar alone 17 women and children had perished, and at 19.00 on the same day he was going to the theatre. He had flown from the town of Eysk in the Krasnodar region, hundreds of kilometres away from us.

An interesting war, isn’t it? In the morning you slaughter women and children, and in the evening you go to the theatre with friends.


Q. When you say that you will wage war according to your own laws, are there any limits to such actions? Are there targets you will never attack?

A. In the Holy Koran, Allah says:

“And wage war against them as they wage war against you, but do not transgress. Allah does not love the transgressors.”

That is our law!

The limits to our actions are set by our enemy. And we are free to use the methods and actions that the enemy uses against us first. But can does not mean must, and so we have determined never to attack places of worship and mental hospitals, and not to violate women, children and men, as the Russians do.

I also want to point out that the Russians have used chemical and bacteriological weapons and poisons of various types against us on many occasions, and we are free to use them in retaliation.

We are also free in our actions against those persons who support the Russian occupiers with their property, their bodies, their words, their advice, and so on. In particular, the leaders of other countries must know that in obliging Putin and declaring war on us indiscriminately, they thereby expose their own citizens. Although we are not waging a war of retaliation against such countries and our enemy is the Russian Empire, I assure you that in the broader scheme of things it does not make much difference to us whether we wage war against a hundred million or a billion – on the contrary, it gives us more opportunities. And anyway there isn’t room for more than 500,000 enemy soldiers in Chechnya . When their numbers rise above 350,000 they will start trampling on one another.

We are well aware that even if the whole world unites with the Russians against us, it will not be able to do anything to us that has not been preordained by Allah. We also know for certain that our fate is in our hands, and each of us will answer to God for himself.

After all, Allah the Exalted says in the Koran: “Who goes by the straight path goes for himself, and who errs from it errs into harm to himself. No bearer of burdens can carry another’s burden and We never punish until We have sent a Messenger.”