The following is a very quick translation of a recently-published article by Novaya Gazeta correspondent Alexander Nekrasov about the U.K. Channel 4 documentary "The Dirty War", which was screened in July. It contains some interesting remarks about the apparent links between Russian intelligence services and Arab extremist organizations.
"THE DIRTY WAR"
British television crew meets with Chechen fighters in the very heart of Chechnya
Oh, how the word will fly to someone in the FSB and MVD! Is it a joke? A film crew from the British Channel 4 TV program “Dispatches” arrives in Grozny in May this year, with authorization from the Russian authorities, to make a film about “the restoration of normal life in the republic", but at odd moments meets up with Chechen field commanders and even films their annual assembly at which they take a decision to extend military operations to the entire territory of Russia.
As if in mockery of the Russian and Chechen security services, the documentary film "Chechnya: The Dirty War", shown recently on British television’s Channel Four, opens with the following words by the presenter: "The military conflict in Chechnya has now been dragging on for more than ten years. During this war Moscow has tried every means possible to prevent it being reported in the press. And so all contacts with members of Chechen resistance are considered illegal... "
The makers of the film "A Dirty War" lost no time in informing their viewers that they began to gather material about Chechen fighters as long as three years ago, when they established contact with field commander Gelayev and his men during a visit to Chechnya in the winter of 2003. And although in the film itself Gelayev appears only as an extra, as he leads his fighters through the mountains on a routine operation, his closest companion-in-arms, field commander Alman Bakayev, talks about the situation.
Among other things, Bakayev tells of how in late November 2003 he sent *his men” to Moscow with the task of "meeting Putin". "At the last moment he turned down the meeting,” Bakayev asserts. “The pretext was that they had to wait until the elections were over." Bakayev also said: "Because of the Chechen war they (i.e., Russia. - A.N.) lost the positions they had had in the USSR, beginning with influence in the Arab countries and ending with the countries of the former Union, including the ones in Europe. Certainly, they want to find some way out, but it’s not one that suits us."
The film crew of the program “Dispatches” visited the Middle East, where they were able to find some leaders of the Chechen fighters, who, as it was said in the film, are occupied there in collecting money. "The guerrilla war is always a deep underground,” said an unnamed leader of Chechen fighters. “This deep underground irritates the Russians more than the open war. I do not know how this war can be stopped, but I know that our purpose is to go to the end. No one in history has ever got back their territory without war. After the disintegration of the USSR, Russia was not yet a state, but were a state already then. At the time, Yeltsin said: take as much as you can. We took, and created are state more quickly than the Russians. But then they realized what had happened and thought that if Chechnya were to secede, then the entire Caucasus would follow. And if the entire Caucasus were to secede, then the whole of Russia would come crashing down."
Later in the film, Alman Bakayev was shown in Paris, where he has spent the past year through the invitation of the French government. But the most curious thing here was Bakayev’s assertion that he went to France in order, together with the French authorities, "to study the strange interrelation between the Russian special services and the Arab extremists". In France, according to Bakayev, "live very many of our people and many officials of Russian intelligence". And here he made one completely unexpected admission, after referring to the fact that some officials of the Russian special services work "at the level, let us say, of our representatives". "Bakayev told us,” said the presenter, “that the French authorities were greatly interested in the assertions of Chechens about the fact that Russian intelligence used its contacts from the times of the USSR in order to mobilize Arab extremists for its purposes". According to Bakayev, Russian special services were able to inject their agents into the radical organizations of the Arab world, which support the Chechen movement for independence. "All this is true,” said Bakayev. – “Unfortunately, it’s true."
In the film it was acknowledged that the seizure of the school in Beslan deprived the Chechen independence movement of support in the world. Immediately after the Beslan tragedy the authors of the film put questions to Aslan Maskhadov, who in response to this gave them a cassette with his answers. Maskhadov, in particular, said the following: "Without removing responsibility from those people who took children hostage at the school in Beslan, I would like to tell the truth about the main reason for what happened – it is the human-hating, barbarous policy of Russia in the Caucasus. The second reason is the continuing war in Chechnya. A war which in its cruelty has no analogs. In the last five years all Chechen children, the entire people of Chechnya have been held hostage. They are all undergoing state terrorism from the side of Russia ".
"Our film crew returned to Chechnya during May of this year,” said the presenter. “As before, Russian troops were in complete control of the situation in Chechnya. We were taken to the ceremony of the first anniversary of President Akhmat's Kadyrov’s death. This ceremony was not announced in public and was held a day early for reasons of security.”
“In the course of the ceremony the fountains were turned on. And this in a city where the majority of people do not have running water in their houses. All the filming was done under the indefatigable supervision of Russian soldiers. And this in spite of the fact that Russia insists that the Chechens are managing their own affairs and that the republic is attempting to return to a normal course of life. However, according to the latest report to the human rights organization "Human Rights Watch", in 2004 1700 disappeared in the republic without trace, and illegal killings became commonplace."
According to the makers of the film, no one from the "Pro-Moscow Chechen government" was willing to meet with them or to give them an interview. And so, the presenter quietly explained, the film crew of the program "Dispatches", itself went off in search of fighters, as it had done in the past. As a result, the meeting of British journalists with the group of field commanders took place in the mountains: they included Alman Bakayev, who, as it was explained, on this occasion was dealing with the creation of small forces capable of delivering blows against government forces and targets.
The film makers also met with Doku Umarov, vice-premier of the Chechen government in exile. The meeting took place at one of the bases of the Chechen fighters. "Never in my life have I seen the Chechen people in such humiliation and fear", Umarov said in the “Dispatches” interview.
Kusama Maskhadova – Aslan Maskhadov’s widow – also appeared in the film.
"For the Russians this was a great victory,” said the film’s presenter. “After enticing Maskhadov with promises to begin negotiations, they killed him. With his death, the last vetiges of faith among the Chechen resistance in the possibility of negotiations disappeared."
"In order to preserve Russia’s influence in Chechnya, President Putin is ready to support Ramzan Kadyrov, a man who, in the view of human rights organizations, bears responsibility for many disappearances of people and illegal killings. It even awarded Kadyrov with Russia’s highest award – the title of Hero of Russia."
But the creators of film saved up the biggest bombshell for the end. After complaining about the fact that the West no longer supports the Chechen resistance, Doku Umarov declared that from now on the war will be conducted by Chechen fighters using different methods. "We will now divide the regions of Russia between the commanders, so that this commander will deal with the western regions, this – with the Siberian regions, this – with the eastern ones. We will now set this work into implementation."
"Maskadov's death”, said the film’s presenter, “convinced the leadership of fighters of the that it would be expedient to transfer the war to Russia’s economic centres. This solution was communicated to all fighters who were located outside the territory of Chechnya."
And at the very end of the film the presenter drew this conclusion: "President Putin was able to convince the West of the fact that Chechnya is Russia’s internal problem and that the West has no right to interfere. At the same time he says that it is part of global war with terrorism. What began as a fight for the independence of a small republic may go far beyond its boundaries. This war now helps to feed the wider movement of an Islamic Jihad in the world, which threatens both the West and Russia."
Alexander Nekrasov, our own correspondent, London
04.08.2005
No comments:
Post a Comment