Europe's Mirror Image

"Will Russia Again Be Perceived As Europe's Mirror Image?" asks a Jamestown Foundation article:

Today, there appears to be a consensus among European and Russian analysts that the concept of Russia's Europeanization has failed. Unlike the Central European states, Russia has proved utterly reluctant to have its social transformation guided and monitored from Brussels. As a result, Russia's post-communist development took a specific and clearly un-European course. Now, both the Putin administration and the EU leadership have to admit, experts argue, that the present-day Russia and the European Union represent two absolutely different politico-economic systems.

The Beslan debacle and the political moves the Kremlin took in its aftermath dramatically revealed the alarming trends that have been developing for several years but that no one was eager to analyze in detail. It has suddenly become clear, one prominent Russian commentator notes, "Despite all the official declarations, Moscow and Brussels are guided by a different logic of behavior and by different value systems; they pursue absolutely different goals and build different socio-political models."

This view, which is obviously shared by the overwhelming majority of European politicians, prompts both sides to make a policy shift. The EU appears to increasingly regard Russia as a country that "cannot be integrated in principle" and that will remain forever a natural partner or competitor beyond the easternmost limits of the European space. Such a reassessment means, some Russian political strategists predict, that the EU will act more aggressively in the western parts of the CIS, seeking to limit Moscow's influence in Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova. "In the immediate future, the EU will likely pursue policies aimed at undermining Russia's integrationist projects in the western parts of the CIS," argued a commentary in the influential foreign policy journal Rossiya v globalnoi politike.

The whole of the article, by Igor Torbakov, is here

Kavkaz Center Director's Son Shot?

On the website of the Finland-Chechnya Society, an appeal from Kavkaz Center, whose website closed again on Monday, after being hosted for a few days on a Finnish webserver:

The son of the director of Kavkaz has been shot and is in a critical condition (received via an intermediary)

We are desperate. If you can please inform local mass-media or anyone who can do it about this message:

On Monday, October 11th, there has been an assault made by unknown criminals on the son of director general of Kavkaz-Center news agency Visami Tutuyev. As a result son of Tutuyev was very badly injured and now is in one of the hospitals of Baku (Azerbaijan) in unconscious state. Medics said that his state of health is critical.

After renewal of website's work Visami Tutuyev himself has got under unexampled psychological pressure from the side of georgian authoritites.

Editorial of "Kavkaz-Center" declares that this terrorist attack against family of Tutuyev has direct connection with the recent threats from Moscow and personally Putin towards chechen representatives abroad.

"Kavkaz-Center" calls upon international human rights and journalistic organizations to interfere without delay in the fate of director general Visami Tutuyev and his family and to protect them.

Via Chechnya-SL

Connected

from Novaya Gazeta 11 October 2004 (my tr.)

CONNECTED

The best agents of the special services are terrorists, murderers and extortionists…


Last week, in an exclusive interview for NTV, the director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev , described the very important role of agents in the fight with terrorism. The thesis is beyond dispute. But the special services are unscrupulous in their choice of agents, and often steer by the principle of “the ends justify the means”, using natural criminals – murderers and terrorists – to carry out their tasks.

Barayev’s Protector

Many inhabitants of Chechnya have been struck by the fact that the well-known terrorist and murderer Arbi Barayev travels calmly about Chechnya, lives in an enormous private house in Alkhan-Kala, and passes through the checkpoints of the federal troops with ease. He also continues to rob and murder people, and not even the fiercest “moppings-up” of the federal troops affect him.

The reasons for this immunity for a terrorist who from 1997 to 2001 brought terror to the inhabitants of Chechnya and the whole of the Northern Caucasus are simple. His “guardian angel” was the FSB agent Yunus Magomadov.

Magomadov hails from a neighbouring village – Alkhan-Yurt. In the mid-1990s he was enlisted as an officer of the special section of the Nazran pogranotryad (border rangers).

Using his FSB identity document, Magomadov got Barayev through all the checkpoints without difficulty. Magomadov also had prior information about any possible “mopping-up” operations.

Even during the period when federal troops were occupying Chechnya, Arbi Barayev held hostages in his house. On his conscience are three beheaded British citizens and a New Zealander, cruel reprisals against Russian soldiers and officers, including members of the FSB and GRU.

Barayev has earned millions of dollars by abducting people. His “protection”, like that of the cut-throat Akhmadov brothers from Urus-Martan, came from FSB agent Yunus Magomadov.

In the summer of 2001, however, Arbi Barayev was killed. But not as a result of special services operations. It was done by his own Chechen blood brothers. After Barayev was killed, information about the whereabouts of his remains was sent to the Russian special services, whose representatives did not neglect to boast of their efficiency.

And, after some conflicts regarding his activity among the special services (there is no agreement there, as is well-known) – Yunus Magomadov is at work again. Presently he is back in uniform. He is in command of one of the sub-units of the regiment that guards the oil pipeline in Chechnya.


Babitsky’s Jailer


In January 2000 the federals arrested Andrei Babitsky, Radio Free Europe’s correspondent in Chechnya. They beat him up and sent him to the solitary confinement cells in Chernokozov, in the Naur district of Chechnya.

Then, realizing that he was a well-known journalist working for a foreign radio company, and could report on the conditions at Chernokozov, and indeed on everything that happened to him, they devised a nonsensical operation involving the exchange of the journalist Babitsky, supposedly at the request of the well-known Chechen resistance field commander Atgeriev, for three Russian soldiers and an officer (Andrei Astranitsa, a 3rd-rank captain from Kaspiisk). In fact, the 3rd-rank captain was indeed freed, but in exchange for money given to the Akhmadov brothers through the mediation of Yunus Magomadov.

The FSB major (now sub-lieutenant) Igor Petelin, who supposedly exchanged Andrei Babitsky for the servicemen – was simply placed under the direction of his own “office”.

In actual fact, Andrei Babitsky was not exchanged for anyone, but simply handed over ‘for safe keeping’ as a hostage to FSB agent Gazimagomed Deniev. Gazimagomed kept the journalist-hostage in his house in his native village of Avtura, in the Shalin district.

In this provocation by the special services to discredit a Radio Free Europe reporter. a personal part was played by the director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, the then Minister of the Interior Vladimir Rushailo, and Russia’s Deputy Procurator General, Yuri Biryukov, who announced on television that the fictive exchange of Babitsky was legal. This was followed by the story that is familiar to everyone, involving the “forged” passport…

As a result of the utter lack of talent of those who carried it out, the provocation against Babitsky failed. But at any rate, in order to cover up their own crime, at least externally, the leaders of the FSB and MVD, with the help of the Dagestan public prosecutor’s office and the Soviet district court of Makhachkala, Andrei Babitsky was fined several thousand rubles – and then immediately given an amnesty.

At the beginning of October 2000, when the legal farce with Babitsky was being played out, his jailer, FSB agent Gazimagomed Deniev, was killed in Moscow. He was shot in one of the Moscow banks: the FSB agent had been trying to extort money.






Arjan Erkel’s Abductor


Late on the night of 12 August 2002 in the outskirts of Makhachkala, in the presence of officials of the Dagestan Republic FSB, the head of the Swiss mission “Doctors Without Borders”, the Dutchman Arjan Erkel, was abducted.

He was kept for 20 months as a hostage. Throughout all this time “Doctors Without Borders”, the Dutch government, and the human rights worker’s friends and relatives were in despair: Erkel had been abducted on the orders of the Russian special services. The purpose: to give such a “fright” that no “humanitarians” would ever again want to work in the Northern Caucasus, or inform the international community about the lamentable state of human rights in that region.

The abduction of Arjan Erkel was organized by Kazimagomed Magomedov, nicknamed Kazimagomed Gimrinsky. Kazimagomed’s brother Ibragim was used by the FSB in March 2002 to liquidate the Arab terrorst Khattab.

Seven months after Erkel’s abduction killer Gimrinsky (involved in the attempt on the life of head of Dagestan RUBOP Colonel Ruslan Gitinov and the murder of his driver, and suspected, according to the evidence of the law enforcement agencies, of the murder of Dagestan’s Minister of Finance Gamid Gamidov and the abduction of his son Dzhamal) was elected as a deputy of the Dagestan National Assembly.

Kazimagomed Magomedov was personally presented to the former head of the Dagestan FSB General-Lieutenant Smirnov to the director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, as the man who saved Dagestan from the Wahhabites. Though in actual fact. Gmirinsky, together with Bagautdin Magomedov, Dagestan’s chief Wahhabite and organizer of the attacks by Basayev’s and Khattab’s gangs on Dagestan, made his business out of abducting people.

The Dutch government and “Doctors Without Borders” gave millions of euros to the benevolent fund for the veterans of foreign intelligence headed by Colonels Velichko and Ubilava, in order to free Arjan Erkel. Where did that money go?

As for Kazimagomed Magomedov, he continues to sit in the Dagestan National Assembly.


Basayev


The 27 year-old Shamil Basayev became known in 1992-1993 during the events in Abkhazia. Here future terrorist No. 1 was in command of an armed band (subsequently known as the Abkhaz Battalion), which consisted mainly of natives of Chechnya.

Help in the equipping of Basayev’s band, and also with all questions relating to its relocation on to Georgian territory, to the region of Abkhazia, was provided by the Central Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation in agreement with the Federal Counter-intelligence Service (FSK) and the leadership of the Russian MVD.

But it is not widely known that as long as a year before the Abkhaz events, Shamil Basayev had already become a terrorist – as an aerial hijacker.

At the end of August 1991 Russian President Boris Yeltsin declared a state of emergency in Chechnya (a day later he revoked his decision). In response, a group of Chechens who were commanded by a former civilian arline pilot, Said-Ali Satuyev (he had left flying as the result of a mental illness, schizophrenia), hijacked a passenger plane on its way from Mineralnye Vody to Turkey. One of the terrorist hijackers in this group was the 26 year-old Shamil Basayev.

The terrorist Basayev, who was under investigation from August 1991 for his part in the hijacking of the airplane, was shortly afterwards enlisted in the GRU and sent with his armed band to the Georgian territory of Abkhazia.

“All special services, including us (the FSB), make use of sources of information – we naturally have to work with agents,’ Nikolai Patrushev, head of the FSB, told a journalist for NTV.

To the director’s words it remains for us to add that the best agents of the Russian special services in the post-Soviet period are the terrorist Shamil Basayev, the terrorist Barayev’s accomplice Yunis Magomadov, the extortionist Gazimagomed Deniev, and the killer and abductor, National Assembly deputy Kazimagomed Magomedov.

Note: Some readers may possibly doubt the reliability of the information I have presented here. But in the period in which I have studied the freeing of hostages from Chechen captivity, I have personally encountered many of the anti-heroes and heroes of my article, and also witnesses to all the events I have described.


Vyacheslav Izmailov, military correspondent for Novaya Gazeta

Bio-weapons

Photographs of Ukrainian opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko published in the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita raise the question of what happened to him between July 4, when the photo on the left was taken, and October 10, the date of the photo on the right.

The newspaper comments:

Polish experts on biological weapons with whom we talked yesterday, didn't want to describe what kind of substance had caused such serious health problems of Yushchenko, just by looking at these photos. - On the base of these changes, it can only be said that this was a very strong agent, which influenced metabolic processes, by increasing of aging and ravaging Yushchchenko's organism in a similar way, as for ex. - cancer disease ravages ill people - we had heard. - If for so many weeks, the Austrian doctors couldn't established what kind of agent it was, then certainly this was not some agent that is used often. It can only be assumed, that special services had used the most favourite weapon of the KGB - ricin toxin.

The denial from a Ukrainian security official doesn't exactly make reassuring reading:

Oct 11 2004 3:59PM
No bio-weapons used against Ukrainian candidate - official

KYIV. Oct 11 (Interfax) - Deputy head of the Ukrainian Security Service Ihor Drychazhny said that stories claiming the illness of opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was caused by biological weapons are unfounded.

"From the scientific point of view, there are no reasons to suspect that biological weapons were used," Drychazhny said at a Kyiv briefing on Monday.

He noted that Ukraine did not have and has not manufactured any biological weapons in modern times, or when it was part of the Soviet Union. "Those who make such statements do not fully understand the meaning of the term biological weapons," Drychazhny said.

He said that it is impossible to use a biological weapon against a single individual. "It is a virus that spreads uncontrollably," Drychazhny said.

(Via Marius)

See also in this blog:


Poisoned Letter

State-sponsored Terrorism

From Finland

According to a new poll conducted by Gallup International, some 62% of Finns have a negative view of Russia - that's quite a lot higher than the figures obtained for West European countries, and even higher than those for most former Eastern Bloc countries, outdone only by Kosova, at 73%.

Finland's President, Tarja Halonen, isn't worried: "We Finns are always critical of everything, but that doesn't prevent friendship," she says.

According to the poll, Finns are even more critical of the United States - and in that respect, they fall into line with other European nations.

No Putin

In the Moscow Times, Yevgenia Albats on the real reasons for the intense anti-Georgian campaign presently being conducted by the Russian government:

So what's behind this campaign, which includes open cooperation between the Kremlin and separatist regimes in the Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? I now believe that it has nothing to do with military matters, and little if anything to do with U.S. interests in the region. At issue, in fact, are the reforms proposed by Saakashvili, which could be defined as "de-communization."

The Georgian president is attempting to introduce reforms, similar to those implemented in Central Europe's post-communist states in the early 1990s, aimed at bringing to heel the bureaucracies inherited from previous, totalitarian regimes. Of the former Soviet republics, only the Baltic states have undertaken such measures. Saakashvili knows that to succeed he must earn the trust and backing of both the Georgian elite and the man in the street. If he can do this, Saakashvili would be in a position to lead his nation through the painful period of transition.

Saakashvili started with administrative reform aimed at getting rid of the corrupt bureaucrats who have been robbing Georgia blind for decades. He first cut the number of government agencies from 28 to 15. At the head of eight key agencies he installed outsiders -- ethnic Georgians who have lived, and who were educated, abroad, helping to disrupt the culture of corruption that has thrived since the Soviet era. Next, he cut the size of Georgia's corrupt police force in half. He has announced an amnesty on all tax and customs violations committed prior to Jan. 1, 2004, a gesture aimed at acknowledging that no one -- neither the state nor the business community -- played by the rules in the past, and that the entire country now needs to make a fresh start.

Finally, the government is drafting a new tax code that would create favorable conditions for foreign and domestic investors as well as forging a relationship based on trust between the government and those businessmen who are ready to put their talent and resources to work -- legally -- in building a new Georgia.

In short, Yevgenia Albats adds, "Saakashvili is no Putin."

KC back online

Kavkaz Center is back online: after being closed by the Lithuanian authorities, it has now reopened on a server located in Finland. Reuters reports that "Nordic telecom operator TeliaSonera said on Saturday it was hosting the site... and that there were no grounds on which it could be closed down."

Update 11/10/2004: the site has now been closed. According to
YLE uutiset in Finland it was probably removed from the host by the site's maintainer.

The closure has been accompanied by the usual fuming from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian Duma, with Lavrov claiming that the site was closed down after Russian authorities contacted Finnish authorities - though the Finnish Foreign Ministry disputes this.

Via Chechnya-SL.

How The School Was Stormed

On October 7 the Russian daily newspaper Novaya Gazeta published a commentary by its columnist Pavel Felgenhauer headed Как штурмовали школу (How The School Was Stormed). The article makes the claim that right from the start, the Russian authorities wanted to solve the issue of Beslan by military means, in complete disregard for the number of victims. Felgenhauer backs up his assertion with detailed evidence, including photographs of the housings of grenade launchers, which bear an extremely close resemblance to "Shmel'("Bumblebee")rocket flamethrowers, that were found on the roof of a house opposite the the school. It seems that the firing at the school, full of hostages, was done with projectiles that cause volumetric explosions. This may explain, the article suggests, how a number of hostages "disappeared without trace".

Some excerpts (in my translation):

In Russia today it is practically impossible to keep anything secret for very long. Local inhabitants and military personnel in Beslan, having talked to the [Beslan parliamentary] commission, continue to talk as they did then, in rather open terms. The information and rumours flow on, and get into print. The official version of the events of 1-3 September, which right from the outset was full of inner contradictions and incongruities, is falling apart before our eyes.

After it became clear that some 90 percent of the hostages were wounded or killed, the authorities began to claim that in fact no storming had been prepared, that the Spetsnaz had merely hung about around the school for three days, and then been compelled to act according to the situation, hence the casualties – including those among fighters of the FSB “Vympel” and “Alfa” units. It was stated that the terrorists “shot children in the back”, although no proof of this was ever presented. The nature of the battle, in which anyone who felt like it could take part, makes it impossible to determine precisely who was hit “in the back” and who simply fell in the crossfire. This does not, of course, justify the terrorists, who exposed children to death and bullets.

More and more proof is emerging that right from the start what was prepared in Beslan was not a special operation to free the hostages, but a military operation to destroy the fighters at any price. According to the official chronology of events, at 2.02 pm on 3 September several explosions occurred in the school, apparently by accident, and some of the hostages made their escape. The Ossetian militiamen and “home guard volunteers” [opolchentsy] began firing, but phone calls to the terrorists continued to come from the operational command, offering a ceasefire, and only at around 3pm did the Spetsnaz of the FSB launch a storming of the building. And by 3pm on 3 September the operational command was already boldly informing the news agencies that the school had been taken by the Spetsnaz, and that the hostages were free. In reality, however, the battle continued for a whole 12 hours.

Felgenhauer gives some details about the appearance of the Mi-24 assault helicopter which appeared during the siege, suggesting that it must have been prepared in advance:

The heavy armed helicopter could not have appeared on the scene so quickly if it had not been prepared for flight at a definite time, and the crew previously instructed about the location and order of the battle. Now, according to the testimony of local people, it emerges that the Mi-24 did not simply launch a barrage, but also carried out air-strikes around Beslan on 3 September.

The Mi-24 is only able to fly and fire accurately during the daytime and in good weather. So tanks of the 58th Army, which were used for point-blank firing, were brought to Beslan, most probably in advance. Anyone who has seen the footage of the battles in Moscow in 1993 will be able to imagine what point-blank tank fire in an urban environment is like.

Felgenhauer claims that “Shmel’” (Bumblebee) rocket flame throwers with thermobaric warheads (the RPO-A) were used by the Russian troops attacking the school, and concludes:

In using the “Shmel’” the Spetsnaz obviously supposed there was no one left alive in the building. The chances of saving anyone in a besieged school during the course of an operation that involved the use of tanks, air power and flamethrowers were truly small.

The whole of my translation of the article can be read
here. There are also some messages on the board that supply some supplementary text that wasn't included in the translation.

Nuclear Power

From today's RFE/RL Newsline:

U.S. OFFICIAL SIGNALS CONCERN OVER RUSSIAN NUCLEAR AND FOREIGN POLICIES...

Visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker told a Moscow news conference on 6 October that the United States and Europe are concerned by some aspects of Russian nuclear policy with respect to outstanding commitments, local and international media reported the next day. Rademaker said the number of Russian tactical nuclear missiles deployed in European Russia and their targeting worries the European public. Washington is also concerned that Russian companies might have aided a purported Iranian attempt to acquire strategic, long-range missiles, Rademaker added. He then reportedly said the West is troubled over Moscow's failure to abide by a 1999 commitment laid out in the so-called Istanbul Agreement whereby Russia was to have withdrawn fully its troops from Moldova and negotiated a similar pullout from Georgia. "I must say, it's inexplicable to me why we don't see more progress,"Interfax quoted Rademaker as saying. VY

...DRAWING QUICK RETORTS FROM RUSSIAN COUNTERPARTS.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Yakovenko shrugged off the U.S. criticism over nuclear issues and said on 7 October that as far as Europe is concerned, "the word 'commitment' in this context [of nuclear missiles] is incorrect," Interfax reported 7 October. In a separate statement the same day, Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Alekseev said Russia "will continue to cooperate with Iran on the peaceful use of nuclear energy," Interfax and other media reported. Washington has opposed the roughly $800 million in Russian participation in the continuing construction of a nuclear power plant at Bushehr in southern Iran. "It doesn't matter if there is pressure or not, but what does matter is that we will comply with all legal commitments in cooperation with Iran," Alekseev said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is scheduled to visit Tehran on 10-11 October and is expected to discuss bilateral nuclear cooperation, "Izvestiya" reported on 7 October. VY

Mark My Words

Via Marius, a chilling resumé of what really lies behind recent developments in Europe, including the Beslan siege, the rise of Putin, Franco-German ambitions, the revival of Russian imperialism, and the projected withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany. And all this seen from the perspective of modern Poland - a country historically well-acquainted with the plans and designs of its Western neighbour, and its Eastern one.

From the Polish daily newspaper Zycie - 20 September 2004 issue

[Excerpt from article by right-wing, independent journalist Krzysztof Czabanski: "Bringing What To Government?"]

http://www.krzysztof.czabanski.net

Meanwhile, despite what various, chiefly left-wing politicians and commentators have indoctrinated into the public opinion in recent years, our problem remains what it has been for centuries: Germany and Russia. German expansionism, although reigned in by the Americans, by the law, and by democratic state institutions, nevertheless does let itself be felt, as we recently experienced on the issue of expellees' claims and the European Constitution. When the United States reduces its presence in Europe, Berlin can demonstrate even more clearly who really runs things on our continent. Germany and France's unconcealed love for Russia, something menacing for Poland, is after all these countries' desire to divvy up power in this region of the world and to push away the United States. The leaders of France and Germany are criticizing President Bush up and down for the fact that in fighting against terrorism, he invaded Iraq and overthrew the dictatorship there. They support President Putin, on the other hand, for the fact that he is waging a genocidal war in Chechnya, the aim of which is to eliminate an entire nation. It would be hard to come by greater hypocrisy. What people won't do for the sake of realizing their own political ambitions!

The tragedy in Beslan, which bears traits of a provocation in the style of the Tsarist okhrana [security forces] or the Soviet security services, has not changed the position of Schroeder and Chirac. Even worse, Beslan demonstrated that Putin only has a single goal: to rebuild the empire, to return to the international game, holding on to everyone by the mug. "Enough of being carried away, it's time to serve reason. And all this, and all this abroad, all this Europe of yours, it's all just a fantasy, and all of us, while we're abroad, are just a fantasy... mark my words, you'll see for yourself!" (помяните моё слово, сами увидите!) - So writes Fyodor Dostoyevsky at the end of The Idiot, about possible changes in Russia. Unfortunately, Russia is a completely different civilization than Europe's. Dostoyevsky described this mentality best. Spiritual needs are satisfied in sentimental, drunken disputes over God and values. Actions, on the other hand, are ordinary, cruel, and cynical. People consider themselves to be nothing, and they want to be treated in such a way. A nation of slaves. Putin is a true son of Russia.

Nevertheless, practical political conclusions must be drawn from the fact that the border between light and darkness runs along the Bug River [Poland's eastern border]. Our foreign policy, torn between the world aspirations of the United States, the European ambitions of Germany in France, and reviving Russian imperialism, should set objectives and develop tools for the effective defense of Polish state interests in this new situation. This will not be done by state authorities who beg at the doors of the powerful of this world. This is the first task for the future governing coalition -- and who knows whether it is not the most important one.

National Poetry Day

For National Poetry Day, I'm linking back to Yevgeny Yevtushenko's School In Beslan.

Nick Barlow
is co-ordinating blog contributions to the event.

(via Norm)

Basayev - V

Timur Aliev, in IWPR:

some of Basayev’s opponents... firmly believe that he is being protected by the Russian special forces. Some say he keeps connections he made with the Russians when they fought on the same side in the war in Abkhazia.

“If they really wanted to take Basayev they would have done it long ago,” said Aslanbek Dubzaev, a member of the Chechen OMON. “Chechnya is not that big. The federals need him to keep the war going in Chechnya. That’s why they forewarn him of any danger.”

Dubzayev believes the incursion of Basayev into Dagestan was provoked by the Russian special forces in order to have a reason to invade Chechnya, “I don’t know whether they paid him to do it or just took a gamble, but many people saw how Basayev was accompanied by Russian helicopters when he was given an escape corridor to get out of Dagestan.”

“Somebody is covering Basayev, someone from the military or the GRU [Russian military intelligence],” said Pavel Solodovnikov, a captain with the FSB, the main civilian intelligence service.

Poisoned Letter

With the rise of ex-KGB policeman Vladimir Putin as Russia's president, old KGB methods have also been resurfacing - and not only within Russia's borders. The apparent interference of Russian security services in the Ukrainian election campaign has led to some authentic old-style skullduggery, according to a report in the Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor:

The attempted poisoning of opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko last month has taken a new turn that suggests a return to Soviet-era KGB methods. A fake letter from the Austrian clinic that treated Yushchenko was sent to Reuters news agency and then widely disseminated abroad and by pro-presidential media in Ukraine.

Yesterday [October 5], Reuters issued a statement that denied the authenticity of the information it had distributed on September 28, which had been based on the fake statement purportedly drawn up by the clinic. Also on October 5, pro-presidential parliamentary factions issued a joint statement that drew on the fake clinic statement and subsequent news reports to call upon Yushchenko to withdraw his candidacy because he had misled everybody about his poisoning. They also called for adjourning the parliamentary commission established to investigate the poisoning (Ukrayinska pravda, October 5).

Yushchenko became extremely ill on September 6, with symptoms that resembled acute food poisoning (see, EDM September 20). His symptoms grew so severe that Yushchenko traveled to a clinic in Vienna, which stated that the mortality risk, had he arrived at the clinic 24-72 hours later, would have been 80%. After he returned from Vienna, Yushchenko spoke to the Ukrainian parliament where he accused the "authorities" of organizing an attempt on his life.

The rest of the report can be read here.

See also, in this blog:

State-sponsored Terrorism

Coalitions

In the Moscow Times, two very different views of Mr Putin's leadership of Russia. First, Pavel Felgenhauer:

Rather than rebuilding the past, Russia is evolving into a fascist state along the lines of Benito Mussolini's Italy. As was the practice in Mussolini's fascist corporate state, Putin on the one hand is dismantling representative democracy, while on the other he has announced the creation of an unelected "public chamber" that would oversee the government bureaucracy. The new chamber would partially replace the State Duma, now dominated by a single party, helping to create an illusion of pluralism.

Russia's transformation to fascism is superficially connected with the Beslan tragedy and the need to close ranks in the fight against terrorism. But the idea of creating a permanent national unity in addition to the pro-Kremlin United Russia party arose long before Beslan. In a number of major speeches, Putin has called for the unification of Russia in order to build a strong, modern state. It is now clear that Putin's conception of unity does not include political pluralism or representative democracy.

And, Felgenhauer goes on:

Many in the West once advocated a working relationship with Adolf Hitler and Mussolini. Left-wing journalists and academics supported Stalinism. Today, a pro-Putin coalition has emerged, made up of wealthy Western businessmen interested in exploiting Russia's natural resources along with left-wing journalists and academics. Their main argument is this: If Josef Stalin, the totalitarian monster, was a key ally in defeating Hitler, why should Putin not be a key ally in the war against terrorism? They often add that close cooperation with the West could lead Putin to restrain his penchant for authoritarianism.

U.S. President George W. Bush expressed this Western ambivalence during last week's presidential debate. Bush boasted of his good relationship with "Vladimir," and announced: "He's a strong ally in the war on terror." At the same time, Bush criticized Putin's undemocratic policies: "I don't think it's okay and said so publicly."

After 9/11, Putin phoned Bush to offer his condolences and tacitly agreed not to oppose the U.S. operation in Afghanistan. Putin has since claimed that the ugly war in Chechnya is Russia's main contribution to the anti-terror alliance. Direct command and control links between Chechen rebels and al-Qaida have never been confirmed, however. Chechen terrorism is fueled mostly by internal causes, but Islamists worldwide have used Russian repression in the region to stoke enthusiasm for their cause -- and to attract new recruits.

In fact, the Kremlin's version of the anti-terrorist coalition and "eliminating double standards" amounts to a modification of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: The West supports Russian policy in the Caucasus and recognizes the entire former Soviet Union (excluding the Baltics) as Russia's zone of special interests. We concentrate on establishing our dominion in this zone, and Bush can do whatever he likes elsewhere.

On the other hand, today (October 6) we have Eric Kraus, chief strategist of Sovlink Securities, offering a robust defence of Putin, and excoriating the signatories of the recent Visby Open Letter, which criticised Putin's recent lurch towards an abandonment of the demcratic process in Russia:

Not surprisingly, lurking among this eminent group of European "useful idiots" -- many of whom have never set foot on Russian soil -- we find some of the most notorious exponents of the American far right; in particular, representatives of those institutions most generously funded by Yukos. There is Bruce Jackson of the Project on Transitional Democracies, an outspoken Mikhail Khodorkovsky advocate who so greatly helped the George W. Bush administration sell the Iraq invasion to the Eastern European presidents. We also find a good 25 members of neocon organizations such as the openly imperialistic Project for the New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute and Freedom House.

Not surprisingly, both the Yukos-funded Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Fund for Open Society (a Yukos-sponsored outfit that stole the name of George Soros' hugely valuable Open Society Foundation) number prominently among these independent thinkers.

So there we have it: the "pro-Putin coalition" consists of:

1) Wealthy Western businessmen
2) Left-wing journalists and academics

While the "anti-Putin coalition" consists of:

1)The most notorious exponents of the American far right
2)Wealthy Russian (and Western) businessmen
3)"useful idiots" - who, in Mr Kraus's estimation, include Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik and Francis Fukuyama...


Hm.

Man's Chief End

"I asked my fourth question: 'What, then, is the chief end of man?'
"The answer was already obvious: 'The pursuit of freedom.' He paused, and then added, 'Volumes could be written classifying the various kinds of freedom that we pursue: adultery, murder,the Holocaust, and genocide in general. All these principles of conduct have been created by man in pursuit of freedom. They are, therefore, in terms of expedience, related to morality.'"

Howard Mumma, describing to Albert Camus a conversation with Jean-Paul Sartre, in The Wearied Existentialist.

The Politics Of Grief

Norman Geras writes:

> From an article on the aftermath of Beslan by Nick Paton Walsh:

[A]round them are signs of how their grief has been internationalised, appropriated by the various "wars on terror" fought worldwide. The Israeli government has sent hundreds of bouquets that now line the walls along the gym.

It couldn't just be that they were sent in sympathy; it's an appropriation of their grief

I think that Paton Walsh,in his article, rather than trying to suggest that the Israeli government is somehow responsible for "appropriating" the grief of the people of Beslan, is merely pointing to how, because of the shadowy nature of the whole horrific event, that grief has become subject to manipulation from other sources - including the Russian government, which is keen to "internationalize" the Chechen conflict (though only in propaganda terms). Genuine human sympathy, the expression of which the Israeli government was trying to help and facilitate, becomes a political weapon in the hands of ex-KGB operatives such as Putin, whose own regard for human life is almost zero - witness his treatment of the people of Chechnya. It's a tactic that was practised by figures like Beria and Himmler.

Resistance

THE RESISTANCE OF AN ORGANISM

[Izvestia.ru 17.03.04]

http://www.izvestia.ru/life/45386_print

My quick translation:

60 years ago the deportation of the peoples of the Northern Caucasus was completed


From a report by General Bochkov, commander of the NKVD escort troops:

“To Comrade L.P. Beria. I wish to report that… for the convoy operation 180 special trains have been dispatched – with 65 box-cars on each, and a total of 493,269 persons to be resettled… Dispatch of the trains to the points of destination began on 23.2.44 and ended on 2 March…

“The causes of mortality during the journey are: the advanced and immature ages of those who are being resettled, resulting in the lack of the necessary resistance of their organism to altered atmospheric and social factors.”

“There is no locality named Khaibakh in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR”

In 1944 705 people were burned alive in the horse stables of the mountain village (aul) of Khaibakh.

The old people, women and children of the mountain village were unable to get down the mountainside, and thereby disrupted the deportation plans. Their subsequent fate is described by the director of the Podvig Reconnaissance Centre of the International Association of War Veterans and Veterans of the Armed Forces Stepan Kashurko, who in 1990 headed a special commission of inquiry into the genocide in Khaibakh.

− Why were you chosen to head the special commission?
− On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the victory in World War II, Marshal Konev was appointed chairman of the Central Staff of the All-Union War Route Campaign. I was a naval captain-lieutenant, in the reserve, working as a journalist. I considered myself a pupil of Sergei Sergeyevich Smirnov, the author of the famous documentary narrative “The Brest Fortress” (http://lib.ru/PRIKL/SMIRNOW/brest.txt). Konev needed an assistant of this kind, and he took me as a special messenger on especially important matters concerning the search for and locating of war heroes.

− In the Soviet Union this tragedy was kept a secret. How did you learn about it?
− Its trace was discovered in the Ukraine, near the town of Novgorod-Seversky. During the flooding of the banks of the River Desna, the remains of cavalry soldiers dressed in Caucasian burkas (felt cloaks) were exposed. These were scouts of the 2nd Caucasus Horse Guards, killed on 12 March 1943 as they carried out a special operation in the enemy’s rear on the orders of General Rokossovsky. One of them was found to be carrying a waterproof envelope containing a death medallion, a personal photograph, a clipping from an army newspaper and a letter from his mother in Khaibakh. He was the platoon’s commander, Beksultan Gazoyev. I sent a report back to Russia on this war hero. The reply from Grozny was: “There is no locality named Khaibakh in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR”. But Gazoyev’s mother’s letter showed her address: “Khaibakh, Galanchozh District, Nachkhoy Village Soviet.” I flew to Grozny.

“You’re obsessed with this Khaibakh!” I was told by Doku Zavgayev, first secretary of the Grozny regional committee. “Well, it did exist before the war. But it disappeared during it.” I insisted: we must find the hero’s relatives. For a long time he evaded the discussion, but in the end admitted: “People were burnt alive during the deportation.” How could that be? A man gave his life for his country, but his relatives were – burnt? “Don’t get so worked up!” Zavgayev said. “Those were Stalin’s orders. It’s forbidden to talk or write about what happened.”

− And what did you do?
− I went back to Moscow, to find archive materials. Documents of the special commission of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party were kept in the office of the director of the Central Committee’s general department. I had to apply to Gorbachev. He gave permission. I went back to Grozny – and people started coming to the hotel. They begged me not to give up: “We’ll carry you to Khaibakh ourselves!” (All the roads leading into the prohibited zone had been blown up.) The chairman of the Chechen-Ingush Council of Ministers (Sovmin) Sergei Bekov proposed the creation of a special commission for the study of the genocide at Khaibakh. I was chosen to be its chairman.

− What did you see in Khaibakh?
− The ancestral minaret, the burned pillars of the stables. And old Chechens – it had taken them two days and nights to get there. We rushed to site of the fire. To my horror, my foot passed through the ribcage of a burned corpse. Someone shouted that it was his wife. I freed myself from that trap with difficulty. An eyewitness of the burning, Dziyaudin Malsagov (former deputy people’s commissar in the law court) told the weeping old people what he had experienced in this place 46 years ago, when he had been sent here to assist the NKGB. People were murdered. They talked of mothers, wives, fathers, uncles who had been burned…

− The beginning of the 1944 tragedy is well-known – people were loaded into box-cars and shipped to Kazakhstan.
− Yes, but the details are not so well-known. Units and sub-units of the NKGB and NKVD were stationed in the republic in the guise of front-line soldiers on leave. On the morning of 23 February the “Panther” radio signal was given for the entire population to be deported. At six a.m. 150,000 operatives of the NKGB/ NKVD and SMERSH, soldiers and officers of the NKVD troops, broke into the houses of the people, who were asleep. They were taken in trucks to the railway, and from there trains of goods and cattle wagons moved through the steppes of Kirghizia and Kazakhstan, leaving thousands of unburied corpses on the platforms. At 11 a.m. Beria sent a telegram to Stalin: “Resettlement proceeding normally. No incidents deserving attention.” In the evening Beria held a celebratory dinner in Grozny.

− Why were those 705 people not deported with the rest?
− The day before the deportation began, there was snow. It was impossible for the women with children, the sick and the old to come down the mountainside. All of the disabled were driven to Khaibakh, into that same kolkhoz horse stables named after Beria. The escort soldiers said: “If you don’t want to freeze to death, keep the warm.” And people spread the walls and flooring with straw and hay. The commander of the Galanchozh operative sector reported on his progress to Major General Gvishiani, the 3rd rank state security commissar in charge of the operation. He asked what they should do with the children: they were hungry. “We’ll feed them all!” the general replied. At 11 Beria came on the radio line – and all was decided. The incendiaries surrounded the stables, and Gvishiani gave the order: “Set fire to it!” There was a rattle of machine guns… Soon rain fell, extinguishing the flames – but the people were dead…

− Did you discover all that in Khaibakh?
− Yes. In addition to Malsagov, there were another two eyewitnesses – they observed from afar and did not dare to return. They remembered it all their lives, and didn’t believe that the culprits would be punished. We wrote up an investigative document. They admitted: the killing of people in Khaibakh was a genocide, and the culprits must be brought to justice. The Chechens asked that Gvishiani be brought to them, and made to look people in the eye. I promised to fulfil that request.

− Incredible. You were going to get Gvishiani to go to Khaibakh?
− We decided to kidnap him. With the help of Zviad Gamsakhurdia [Georgian dissident who became the first democratically elected president of the post-Soviet republic of Georgia, tr.] we reached his luxurious house. But fate kept the brute from being held responsible – we were too late: broken by paralysis, he had died. We went back to Khaibakh three days later. The mountaineers just said: “To a jackal a jackal’s death!” To the beat of a drum we burned a large portrait of him in the place where he had given the order to set fire to the stables.

− What happened after that?
− A week later Ruslan Tsakayev, the public prosecutor of the Urus-Martanov region, opened criminal inquiry No. 90610010. The proceedings lasted for three years. Finally the inquiry was handed over to the military prosecutor’s office of the Grozny garrison, and then transferred to Rostov on Don… But it was never concluded, and a judicial-legal evaluation of this most heinous crime has never been given – the criminals have remained unnamed and unpunished.

The Deportation

A poem by the Chechen national poet Ismail Kerimov, originally published in 1994 on the 50th anniversary of the deportation of the entire Chechen people, carried out in 1944 on the orders of Joseph Stalin. Via Marius L.


I ache
I am thousands.
Thousands of tears
Shed under the roar of the wheels in February 1994
I am a sea

I am hundreds
I am thousands of bodies collected in obscure stations.
I am a tombstone, a monument,
I am the despair of shattered mothers,
With frozen prayers.

I am the sky,
I am Khaibakh, Katyn and the GULAG
The bloody throne of a dictator,
I am glasnost,
I am the heart of a poet, nature, song
Swelling illness in the throat,
I am a voice and I command you
"Remember!"

The Dead Chechen

The sun had now risen, its parcelled beams illuminating the dewy green grass. The Terek seethed close by; in the awakened forest, greeting the morning, the pheasants called to one another from every side. Silent and motionless, the Cossacks stood around the dead man, looking at him. The brown body, dressed only in the darkened wet blue trousers, drawn in by a small belt over the sagging stomach, was well-formed and handsome. The muscular arms lay straight, along the sides of his ribs. The round, bluish, freshly-shaven head with the congealed wound on one side was thrown back. The smooth, sunburned forehead stood out sharply from the shaven part. The glassy open eyes with their low-frozen pupils looked upward – it seemed, past and beyond everything. On the thin lips, stretched at the corners and jutting from behind a red, trimmed moustache, a thin, good-natured and ironic smile seemed to have remained. The fingers of the small hands, covered with reddish hairs, were bent inward and their nails were dyed red. Lukashka had not yet put his clothes back on, his neck was redder and his eyes were gleaming more than they usually did. The broad cheek-bones quivered; the white, healthy body gave off a barely perceptible vapour in the fresh morning air.

‘He was a man, too!’ he said quietly, evidently admiring the corpse.

‘Yes, if you’d ended up in his hands, he’d have given you no quarter,’ one of the Cossacks responded.

The angel of silence had flown away. The Cossacks began to stir, began to talk. Two of them went off to cut brushwood for the shelter. Others took a stroll to the cordon. Luka and Nazarka ran to prepare to return to the settlement.


From The Cossacks, a Tale of 1852 by Leo Tolstoy.

An Open Secret

Above all, what the people of Beslan crave is answers to the countless questions that followed hard on the heels of the grief and shock. Who were these people who were prepared to turn a school into a charnel house? Why Beslan? Why our school? Why was the siege so catastrophically mismanaged? How on earth did it come to this?

Nick Paton Walsh in The Guardian




It is an open secret what is “the civil society” according to Putin. The other day his semi-official “mouthpiece” on the central Russian television, journalist Mikhail Leontyev discoursed on this issue: the “civil society” which accepts all the initiatives of the former KGB lieutenant colonel in excitement – is good. Those who dare to have an opinion of their own, which differs from the official one – are traitors and the “fifth column.” Such part of the society needs “emancipation of ”consciousness, in which, as Surkov puts it, “civil unions, the education system, mass media and law enforcement bodies” must take part. I shall also add, aviation and tanks – if necessary.

Sergei Karpov in The Chechen Times




The West has a clear choice. It can continue to support the KGB dictatorship of Mr. Putin, which sooner or later will turn against the West and side with its enemies through its strategic goal of undermining the "unipolar" world order and keeping oil prices high. Or it can change course and insist on resolving the Chechen conflict through negotiated settlement. This would stabilize the Caucasus, rid international terrorists of a powerful propaganda tool, and bring Russian democratic reform back on track.

This would also probably mean the collapse of Mr. Putin's regime. But what's wrong with that if it's good for Chechnya, for Russia, and for the rest of the world?


Ahmed Zakayev, in The Wall Street Journal




......How the face of the sky changes,
when the darkness roared with tanks in Beslan,
and with a premonition of the end
in that school, in that basketball hoop
trembled explosives, hung by Stalin.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko