Placing the Blame

From today's RFE/RL Newsline:

In a statement posted on chechenpress.org on 12 June, Akhmed Zakaev, whose title is special representative abroad of Chechen president Abdul-Khalim Sadullaev, accused the FSB of staging the bomb attack earlier that day on a Moscow-to-Grozny train in order to lend further weight to the Russian Foreign Ministry's appeals to the British government to "abandon double standards" and "take action against anti-Russian politicians " living in England -- a clear allusion to Zakaev himself, who was granted political asylum in the United Kingdom in early 2003. Zakaev expressed sympathy for all those injured in the bombing. In Grozny, pro-Moscow Chechen administration head Alu Alkhanov blamed the bombing on "forces that want to instill in the Russian people the conviction that Chechens are a nation of terrorists," newsru.com reported. LF

Update: A translation of Zakayev's statement has now been posted on chechnya-sl, together with the link to the Russian-language original:

Chechenpress, Department of Official Information, 12.06.05g.


Government Minister of the ChRI and Special Envoy of the ChRI President in Foreign Countries Ahmed Zakayev has issued a brief statement in connection with the explosion on the "Johar-Moscow" passenger train:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the RF and the FSB were thoroughly prepared for the forthcoming visit of British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Moscow: The MFA of the RF called London "to abandon dual standards" and "to suppress the activity of a number of anti-Russian politicians" who are located in the capital of Great Britain, and the FSB of the RF, in order to lend more political weight to this call, carried out a terrorist act against the "Jokhar-Moscow" passenger train.

One recalls the words of the first president of the ChRI, which he expressed in response to the charges made against him by the Kremlin: "Russia isn't operated by Johar Dudayev, and neither is it operated by the Chechen people". Actually, we have observed for a period of many years how the Kremlin is trying to decide its internal and external political questions by means of the propagandistic bugaboo of "Chechen terrorism", though for some reasons the victims of the terror are most frequently Chechens themselves, like in that terrorist act on the railway.

Fortunately, according to the arriving reports, there were no human victims this time. On behalf of the Chechen government and in my own name, I would like to express sympathy to the injured and their families and to wish the injured the quickest possible recovery.

http://www.chechenpress.org/events/2005/06/12/04.shtml