"Tämä on jo toinen ohjelma Neuvostoliitosta tänään! Se on liikaa! Kohtuus pitää sentään olla kaikessa!"
"I mean, this is the second programme about the Soviet Union today! That is too much! There really should be moderation in all things!"
Monday, June 06, 2005
Red July
This summer Finland's YLE Radio 1 will hold a Punainen heinäkuu (Red July). From July 4 through August 1 it will broadcast features on the history, culture, literature, sociology, science, political reality and daily life of the Soviet Union from 1917 until 1991. Advertised programming includes a discussion of the concept of homo sovieticus (Soviet man), a feature on Soviet schools and education, and broadcasts of material from Finnish state radio archives, interspersed with such musical rarities as the 1945 recording of the Sibelius 80th birthday concert in Moscow. While it all sounds as though it could merely be the pretext for a long month of unhealthy nostalgia (and the fake Cyrillic lettering on the web page arouses one's worst suspicions), one should remember that until quite recently critical discussion of the Soviet Union was officially discouraged in Finland. Only since the publication of books like Esko Salminen's Vaikeneva valtiomahti? (The Silent Estate?) [1996], with its searching historical study of Finlandization, has it been possible for the many complex issues raised by Finland's relations with its giant neighbour to be aired in public. The series of programmes will also include work by younger Finnish writers born in the 1970s, and will feature a radio play by Sofi Oksanen (born 1977), Siniposkiset tytöt (The Girls With Blue Cheeks), about Estonia in the postwar years. Other items on offer, such as the feature on the poet Mayakovsky and his significance in Soviet life, look distinctly less promising, though it's hard to tell in advance. But for all the apparent tedium of some of the contributions to this month-long "carnival", in which the country will relive a large chunk of its recent past (independence was, after all, only achieved in 1917, when Soviet recognition was granted), the fact that such material can be re-broadcast at all in this way, and especially with an editorial commentary, is encouraging. As a footnote to the advertised items, it's amusing now to read a Finnish radio listener's exasperated comments, reproduced from 1979:
Propaganda
The BBC reports that two of Vladimir Putin's "key media advisers" are putting together a 24-hour English-language television news channel, to improve Russia's image in the world. Former Information Minister Mikhail Lesin is one of the prime movers (the other is Putin spokesman Alexei Gromov), and the report comments that "the project has been a long-standing aim of Mr Lesin, who once warned that Russians - in his words - 'must do propaganda for ourselves - or else we'll always look like bears'."
The Demands of Music
The proliferation of classical music radio stations and resources on the Web has to be experienced to be believed. A visit to one blog which takes this development very seriously is On An Overgrown Path. Recently I posted a link to the Arnold Schoenberg Jukebox discovered by Bob Shingleton. Now on his blog, he considers the question: Is recorded classical music too cheap?
The whole of his post is well worth reading, as it raises many varied and fascinating questions about recorded music in general, and also draws attention to the relatively unnoticed but extraordinarily comprehensive Naxos Web Radio.
I'm particularly taken by a quote from the composer Benjamin Britten, cited in the post. Long before the advent of Internet classical music radio, Britten was pointing to the dangers inherent in recorded music:
The whole of his post is well worth reading, as it raises many varied and fascinating questions about recorded music in general, and also draws attention to the relatively unnoticed but extraordinarily comprehensive Naxos Web Radio.
I'm particularly taken by a quote from the composer Benjamin Britten, cited in the post. Long before the advent of Internet classical music radio, Britten was pointing to the dangers inherent in recorded music:
Anyone, anywhere, at any time can listen to the B minor Mass upon one condition only - that they possess a machine. No qualification is required of any sort - faith, virtue, education, experience, age. Music is now free for all. If I say the loudspeaker is the principal enemy of music, I don't mean that I am not grateful to it as a means of education or study, or as an evoker of memories. But it is not part of true musical experience. Regarded as such it is simply a substitute, and dangerous because deluding. Music demands more from a listener than simply the possession of a tape-machine or a transistor radio. It demands some preparation, some effort, a journey to a special place, saving up for a ticket, some homework on the programme perhaps, some clarification of the ears and sharpening of the instincts. It demands as much effort on the listener's part as the other two corners of the triangle, this holy triangle of composer, performer and listener.
Carnival
The Carnival of Revolutions is up at Publius Pundit. While one might wonder about the use of the word "carnival" in some of the contexts referred to, there's no doubt that this is a good way to keep track of developments in the pro-democracy movements around the world. Robert Mayer has put in some hard work on this issue, and the result is both useful and enlightening.
Lukashenka on Belarus Air Forces
from RFE/RL Newsline, June 6 2005
BELARUSIAN PRESIDENT CONSIDERS INCREASING AIR FORCES TO FEND OFF 'ANTI-BELARUSIAN HYSTERIA.' Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka said at a fighter air base near Byaroza, Brest Oblast, on 3 June that Belarus may increase its military aircraft fleet in response to increased "anti-Belarusian hysteria" in neighboring countries and NATO's eastward expansion, Belarusian Television and Belapan reported. "We're considering very attractive offers for purchasing Su-30 planes for our armed forces," Lukashenka said. "A decision has been made to buy [Czech-made] L-39 fighter-trainers to train future pilots theoretically and practically on the territory of Belarus." According to Lukashenka, foreign countries may be harboring
military-intervention plans against Belarus under the pretext of spreading democracy. "A great military potential is being amassed on Belarus's borders," Lukashenka said. "We have no right and we cannot light-heartedly ignore today's realities and real threats to [our]security." JM
BELARUSIAN PRESIDENT CONSIDERS INCREASING AIR FORCES TO FEND OFF 'ANTI-BELARUSIAN HYSTERIA.' Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka said at a fighter air base near Byaroza, Brest Oblast, on 3 June that Belarus may increase its military aircraft fleet in response to increased "anti-Belarusian hysteria" in neighboring countries and NATO's eastward expansion, Belarusian Television and Belapan reported. "We're considering very attractive offers for purchasing Su-30 planes for our armed forces," Lukashenka said. "A decision has been made to buy [Czech-made] L-39 fighter-trainers to train future pilots theoretically and practically on the territory of Belarus." According to Lukashenka, foreign countries may be harboring
military-intervention plans against Belarus under the pretext of spreading democracy. "A great military potential is being amassed on Belarus's borders," Lukashenka said. "We have no right and we cannot light-heartedly ignore today's realities and real threats to [our]security." JM
Take Belarus Back from Lukashenka
On May 30, the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita published an account of an historic meeting on the Poland-Belarus border:
Take Belarus back from Lukashenka(tr. by M.L., my minor editing)
Politicians who met during the weekend in Bialowieza (Poland) will attempt to change the EU policy towards Belarus. They signed the Bialowieza declaration. They demand, amother other things, the international isolation of people who fight actively against democracy in Belarus.
The declaration states that the Lukashenka regime holds power illegally. It also announces aid for Belorussian society - scholarships, support of NGOs and the establishment of radio stations on the border zone of Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine.
The conference was attended by European deputies from Poland and Lithuania, parlamentarians from Latvia and Ukraine, and some representatives of the Belorussian opposition.
The participants of the conference will try to introduce motions from the Bialowieza declaration to a resolution of the European Parliament on Belarus, which may be voted on in the next session of the Parliament.
The European deputies drew attention to the fact that the states of "Old Europe" do not understand politics beyond the Eastern border, and this is the reason for the collaboration of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, which want to play the main role in the EU policy towards Eastern Europe.
”’Eurasia’ is a terrible word. We must return Belarus to Europe,” commented Vytautas Landsbergis, the first president of free Lithuania, presently a Euro MP.
Before signing the declaration, Vintsuk Vyachorka, leader of the Belarusian Popular Front, talked about this symbolic place - Bialowieza. Close by, in the village of Wiskuly, on the other side of the border, the Soviet Union was dissolved. “Not long ago, the president of the state to the east of our eastern border said that the Soviet Union's collapse was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century. We, in our naivety, thought it was the greatest good fortune,” said Vyachorka.
Elżbieta Poludnik
Khodorkovsky Case Not The Last
RFE/RL reports that Russian Deputy Prosecutor-General Vladimir Kolesnikov said on NTV television on 5 June that more cases will be brought against Russia's so-called oligarchs.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Gulags and Governments
Bjørn Staerk has strong words for some on the right of U.S. politics in connection with the recent furore over Irene Khan's use of the word "gulag" in her widely-reported comments on Amnesty International's annual report:
"It was dumb of Amnesty to compare Guantanamo to the Gulag. Dumb in the way it was dumb of Bush to call the war on terror a crusade," he begins. But, he notes:
"It was dumb of Amnesty to compare Guantanamo to the Gulag. Dumb in the way it was dumb of Bush to call the war on terror a crusade," he begins. But, he notes:
Among Bush-friendly bloggers, healthy media skepticism and appeals to a higher standard than diplomatic relations seems to have degenerated into little more than a need to deflect and minimize criticism of the Bush administration. The rhetorics is now on autopilot, and it's as shallow as that of those once so ominous Chomskyites.
The war on terror has spawned a whole gallery of fallacies and rhetorical tricks:
1. Don't defend, counterattack. "That's the left for you, what do you expect? They hate America because they're transnational progressives whose failed deconstructionist utopian thingamabobs have turned them into moral degenerates." Remember to pile on with the buzzwords - the more of them there are, the smarter you look.
2. Always choose the most favorable interpretation compatible with undeniable facts. When there is no hard evidence of torture, assume it doesn't happen. When photographic evidence is presented, call it an "isolated incidence". Never admit to the possibility of any abuse that hasn't been photographed or admitted by the perpetrator.
3. When morality fails, go for legality. Show how this sort of thing is perfectly legal, so you have no idea what people are getting so worked up about.
4. Finally, if you can't deny abuse, and you can't defend it, accept it as a "deeply unfortunate" side effect of war. Act tough and adult-like, bow your head solemnly as you contemplate the horrible things war forces us to do, but protest wildly any suggestions that we should just stop doing them.
How can we fix this? We should start by not using the flaws of human rights organizations as an excuse to ignore everything they say that we don't like. If Amnesty makes 1 idiotic claim about the US in their annual report, and 10 well-founded ones, don't forget the 10 in all the excitement over the 1. There's no reason to be defensive about criticism, even when some of it is unfair. We won, remember?
It's also time to accept that the war on terror has a war part and a judicial part. Invading an al-Qaeda stronghold is war, and should be judged by the standards of war. Arresting suspects, interrogating and imprisoning them is a form of police work, and should be carried out by the standards of the justice system. When a civilian is accidentally shot on a battlefield, that's a deeply unfortunate side effect of war. When a civilian is arrested and held for years without trial, or sent to another country to be tortured, that's not "deeply unfortunate", it's injustice.
Governments are inherently abusive, they will abuse any unchecked, unobserved power we give to them. Agreeing with some politician about foreign policy should not mean throwing centuries of democratic experience overboard. By looking for any excuse to ignore legitimate criticism of the war on terror, that's exactly what many Bush supporters are doing.
EU Airspace Violated
On June 3, Finnish MP Jari Vilén gave a forthright and candid interview [audio link] to the OBS news show on Finnish TV's Swedish-language channel, in which he discussed the 11 violations of Finland's airspace by Russian jets that have taken place since last October. As he pointed out, the violations are being ordered by the Russian government in an apparent attempt to test Finnish reaction and public opinion, and they are a matter of concern not only to Finland, but also to the EU, of whose airspace Finland's is a part. Barroso and Solana have agreed that the matter needs to be brought into the open, but the official Russian government reaction is still to deny that the violations have taken place at all (an old Soviet practice). In the interview, Vilén speculates that Russia doesn't really know how to orient itself to the new European Union, which now contains states that were formerly under Russian and Soviet control - he also points out that the rhetoric employed by official Russian spokesmen has changed radically since the days of Yeltsin, with issues like the Winter War and the Continuation War being brought up by the Russian side in bilateral discussions with Finland in a way that was unthinkable before. Russia is stronger than it was in Yeltsin's time, the economy is doing better - and so there's more confidence on the Russian side, bordering at times on aggressivity, Vilén believes.
An Invitation
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 9, No. 105, Part I, 3 June 2005
INGUSHETIAN AUTHORITIES DENY DETAINING POLISH JOURNALISTS.
Ingushetian Interior Ministry acting spokesman Murad Zurabov denied on 2 June that three Polish television journalists were detained in Ingushetia, ITAR-TASS reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 2 June 2005). Zurabov said all three were invited to Interior Ministry headquarters "for their own safety" after a threat was received to take foreign nationals hostage. According to gazeta.ru, the three men were detained on 29 May in Nazran following an official visit to Chechnya last week during which they shot unauthorized footage of Russian forces. They had hoped to return to Grozny to interview Chechen officials. LF
At chechnya-sl, a poster comments:
INGUSHETIAN AUTHORITIES DENY DETAINING POLISH JOURNALISTS.
Ingushetian Interior Ministry acting spokesman Murad Zurabov denied on 2 June that three Polish television journalists were detained in Ingushetia, ITAR-TASS reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 2 June 2005). Zurabov said all three were invited to Interior Ministry headquarters "for their own safety" after a threat was received to take foreign nationals hostage. According to gazeta.ru, the three men were detained on 29 May in Nazran following an official visit to Chechnya last week during which they shot unauthorized footage of Russian forces. They had hoped to return to Grozny to interview Chechen officials. LF
At chechnya-sl, a poster comments:
Just for the record, a few remarks on this story when reading some articles about it in the Polish press. M.L.
Russian Interior Ministry couldn't explain to the media why the Polish journalists were detained. On the questions from the media, the Russian MVD anwered that the Poles filmed military objects, then that they didn't have valid documents, then that they left their organized tour-group.
Nobody takes seriously explanations of Ingush FSB that this detention had to save the Poles from kidnapping. My understanding is that the journalists wasn't happy with materials filmed during their official trip with their minders, and took some
extra video-clips on their own.
And btw according to the Polish paper Rzeczpospolita, as of Saturday, the Polish consul who went to Nazran, hasn't been able to get back those video-cassettes recordings confiscated by the FSB from the Poles.
The Happiest Man In The World
At Social Change In Contemporary Latin America, the account of a realization:
As I was teaching today it came to me. Of course, the happiest guy in the World now that Europe has imploded is George Bush.
Hacker Call
RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 9, No. 105, Part I, 3 June 2005
IS GOVERNMENT LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD HACKERS?
At the beginning of this month, announcements began appearing in the specialized press and on the Internet saying that the Interior Ministry is looking to hire former computer hackers, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported on 3 June. The daily speculated that the announcement could be connected with the government's concern about a possible "colored" revolution in Russia and its desire to control the spread of oppositionist information via the Internet. It reported that hackers shut down the anti-Putin site Walking Without Putin in January, replacing it with a call to show greater respect for the president. The daily quoted the Federal Security Service's (FSB) Information Security Department director, Dmitrii Frolov, as saying the FSB's authority in the area of Internet control "must be significantly broadened." The Internet, he said, is becoming increasingly influential and could be used "to mobilize political forces against the authorities." In January 2002, the FSB refused to press charges against hackers who violated the Kavkaz-Tsentr website, which supports the Chechen resistance, saying that the hacking did not violate the law and was merely a way for the students to express their views as Russian citizens (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 1 February 2002). RC
(via chechnya-sl)
IS GOVERNMENT LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD HACKERS?
At the beginning of this month, announcements began appearing in the specialized press and on the Internet saying that the Interior Ministry is looking to hire former computer hackers, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported on 3 June. The daily speculated that the announcement could be connected with the government's concern about a possible "colored" revolution in Russia and its desire to control the spread of oppositionist information via the Internet. It reported that hackers shut down the anti-Putin site Walking Without Putin in January, replacing it with a call to show greater respect for the president. The daily quoted the Federal Security Service's (FSB) Information Security Department director, Dmitrii Frolov, as saying the FSB's authority in the area of Internet control "must be significantly broadened." The Internet, he said, is becoming increasingly influential and could be used "to mobilize political forces against the authorities." In January 2002, the FSB refused to press charges against hackers who violated the Kavkaz-Tsentr website, which supports the Chechen resistance, saying that the hacking did not violate the law and was merely a way for the students to express their views as Russian citizens (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 1 February 2002). RC
(via chechnya-sl)
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Sadulayev Transcript
Chechenpress has now published a transcript of ChRI President Sadulayev's interview with Radio Liberty (my tr. from Russian):
On 3 June this year ChRI President Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev gave an interview to the Chechen editorial staff of "Radio Liberty". It is published in a translation from the Chechen language.
Baudi Martanov: Almost three months have passed since Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov perished in Doykur-Evle [Tolstoy-Yurt]. The calculations of the Russian leadership that with Maskhadov’s death the war in Chechnya would start to die down were not justified: the war continues, the strikes of Chechen soldiers against the Russian troops do not weaken. The Chechen resistance was headed by Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev. In his first interview he replied to questions from Radio Liberty. The material was prepared by Aslan Ayubov.
Aslan Ayubov: Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev never thought that he would become a leader of Chechen soldiers. But what happened during March of this year changed his entire life. On 8 March Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov perished in combat with the Russians. Some time after this the military committee SDC-Madzhlisul Shura of the ChRI, created by the decree of Aslan Maskhadov, was assembled in Urus-Martan for the election of a new leader. One of the participants of this conference told us that initially Shamil Basayev was proposed for the post of leader of the resistance. But he refused, referring to the fact that Aslan Maskhadov had appointed Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev as his successor. So the 38-year-old scholar became head of the Chechen resistance. A.- Kh. Sadulayev describes how he was appointed Vice President.
Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: In 2001 Aslan Maskhadov wrote a decree about my appointment to this post, but for a long time he did not publish it, because I several times rejected the appointment. I was ready to carry out any commission from the President, but did not want to take upon myself this inordinate responsibility. However, in 2002 Aslan Maskhadov issued a decree appointing me as Vice President for the consideration of the State Defense Committee, and after the GKO-MSh affirmed my candidature, he made arrangements for me to begin the discharge of my new responsibilities. I never even dreamed that I would ever replace Aslan Maskhadov in the post of President, because I have never aspired and do not aspire to leadership. But today, in time of war, we must all fulfill our duty and the responsibilities that have been placed on us. When we cleanse our land of occupiers, our nation will choose for itself in conditions of freedom the leader whom it considers most deserving.
Aslan Ayubov: The loss of Aslan Maskhadov is a heavy blow for the Chechen soldiers, says Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev. But the war does not depend on one person, and the death of Aslan Maskhadov will not stop it.
Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: Today Maskhadov's death is a great loss for us, it is a heavy blow for us, and everyone knows that. But this war and the liberation of the people do not depend on one name. However glorious a hero the man was, he is only one small part of the people, not the whole people. Therefore the jihad will not stop because of the death of leaders. Those who will remain alive will continue the struggle.
Aslan Ayubov: We asked A.- Kh.. Sadulayev what changes he intends to make to the course followed by Aslan Maskhadov.
Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: There will be no changes to our cause, we consider that our path is correct. Aslan knew and highly valued the cause, which he headed, and he was ready to live and to die for it. And for that cause he gave up his life, without blinking an eye. There will be no readjustments or changes in our course, and I see no need for them.
Aslan Ayubov: A.-Kh. Sadulayev sees only one prospect for the Chechen people – the attainment of national independence. Only in an independent state of their own will Chechens be able to defend their honor and their rights.
Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: We have one path – the attainment of independent statehood, and for our state to be free. Because only in a free state can people ensure their rights and freedoms. In a tyrannical state the people have no rights, and the entire history and present of Russia proves that. I frequently focus attention on this, as in the crime reports on Russian television Russian militiamen are seen beating the legs of those who have been arrested. In Russia they do not even have enough sense to conceal these beatings, which show the entire world that no human rights are observed there. Indeed: why do they beat those who are arrested and show this to the entire world? Here there is either stupidity or contempt for the people. In truly democratic states if they put handcuffs on an innocent person he will take the police to court for violating his rights, and those policemen will be punished. But for Russia the deprivation of rights is the norm. Therefore Russia has neither the moral nor the juridical foundations for asserting that it attacked the Chechen state in order "to introduce order" and "to ensure the rights" of our people. How can Russians give to others what do not have themselves, and never have had?
Aslan Ayubov: A.- Kh. Sadulayev says that his foreign and internal policy will be directed toward achieving agreement in Chechen society, because, as he says, the Chechen people are few in number, and therefore they must be monolithic.
Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: Today I will not turn my back on anyone who supports our cause in some way. We must direct our efforts into a united course. The point is not my tolerance for people, but the fact that we are a small nation, and it more than any other nation needs cohesion and unity on its historic path.
Aslan Ayubov: Soon it will be 10 years since Shamil Basayev took more than 1, 500 people hostage in Budyonnovsk. And in the second war Basayev seized unarmed people. There can be no doubt that terrorism harms the image of the Chechen resistance in the entire world. Aslan Maskhadov understood this well, and in his interviews for our radio he repeatedly condemned terrorism. We asked A.- Kh. Sadulayev what his attitude to such actions is.
Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: Today we not only have the right, we also have the duty, based on military necessity, to inflict maximum political and ideological losses on the enemy. But the targets of our attacks must be the enemy’s military and economic objectives. Not long before his death, we discussed this with Aslan Maskhadov. Aslan categorically insisted that the mujahadeen must select for their strikes the military targets, economic objectives and state institutions of our enemies. That is our right, those are legitimate objectives in any war. However, it is inadmissible to make peaceful, unarmed people who do not participate in military actions, and especially women and children, the object of attacks. Our position is straightforward and immutable: we categorically condemn terrorism! That is not our method, not our way.
However, one ought not to forget that such actions are provoked by the limitless cruelty of the Russian occupiers with respect to the inhabitants of Chechnya. Torture, the seizure of hostages, the mass murders of people who are not guilty of anything – that is what the Russian occupiers of our land have created every day for a period of many years. Of our children alone they have killed some 50,000! There is not a single Chechen family to which the Russians would not bring grief, pain and bitterness.
Aslan Ayubov: Alu Alkhanov often states that the situation in Chechnya is becoming normalized. We asked A.- Kh. Sadulayev whether it does not seem to him that the Chechen people are accepting this authority?
Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: The things these Russian puppets are doing in the Chechen land, against the Chechen people, do not make it possible for people to accept and support them. They have brought people to such a state that they rejoice in every blow we inflict on those puppets and traitors. For example, recently there was the "mopping up" in Samashki. What happened there? The Munafiki ruined and destroyed people’s property, as if competing among themselves in cruelty, and each group of traitors was supervised by Russians, who were testing their zeal. And this was seen not just by one person – it was seen by all the inhabitants of Samashki. There is nothing that is Chechen, nothing that is Moslem left in these Ramzans, Sulims and so forth. How can people support them, their executioners and tormentors?
Aslan Ayubov: We asked A.- Kh. Sadulayev about the prospects for peace in Chechnya. He replied that the Kremlin is destabilizing the situation not only in Chechnya, but also in the entire North Caucasus.
Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: Putin and his generals see their potential enemies in all Caucasians. Fearing that somewhere new forces of the mujahadeen will appear, they, so they imagine, are beginning to inflict "pre-emptive" strikes against people who are entirely peacefully disposed, but in doing so they embitter them and create new centers of military conflict all over North Caucasus. Apart from punitive instincts, Putin has no policy in the Caucasus. The proof of this is that there are almost more explosions and mujahadeen attacks in Makhachkala than there are in Dzhokhar [Grozny]. In Ingushetia, too, there are almost more attacks on Russian troops than there are in Chechnya. Kabardino-Balkaria, where the occupiers, after killing one mujahadeen, trumpet that they killed ten, does not lag behind in this regard. Military actions are occurring in Karachayevo-Cherkesia with increasing frequency. Adygeya is not yet drawn into the conflict, but the Russians trying their utmost to bring that about. Next in line will be Kalmykia, where Putin, using the new law on the appointment of governors and heads of republics, intends to aggravate the situation and, using this as a pretext, to oust Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and replace him with his protegé.
Aslan Ayubov: All wars come to an end some time. But A.- Kh. Sadulayev considers that Putin himself has, by his statements and actions, deprived himself of ways toward peace. But, however that may be, A.- Kh. Sadulayev is convinced that the war will not be end in the subjugation of the Chechens.
Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: Putin began this war, but has left himself no ways to end it. Because the Chechens will never end their resistance, they will never submit, and Putin has no other way toward peace. If he were a cleverer politician, he would not bind himself with categorical statements and would leave open the possibility to step back without losing face. The high prices of oil still make it possible for him to send his mercenaries into Chechnya, though with each year that passes there is increasingly less cannon fodder in Russia. It will wage war until we break its back. But we have not weakened, have not grown tired, have not lost our strength, for as long as the enemy is in our land our resources of resistance do not grow exhausted, but merely grow.
Beslan Without the Vultures: the Follow-Up
The three-part article published May 24-26 in Moskovsky komsomolets about what really happened at Beslan on September 1 2004 has had predictable consequences. Lenta.ru reports that the author of the article has now been interrogated by a state investigator:
On the Ekho Moskvy radio station, Moskovsky Komsomolets journalist Aleksandr Minkin reported on the interrogation of Svetlana Meteleva, author of the article entitled "Beslan without the vultures" [Beslan bez grifov]. According to Minkin, an investigator is demanding that the woman journalist divulge her information sources.(via chechnya-sl)
Minkin described how he became a witness to the beginning of this questioning. "The investigator came to the editorial office and suggested to Svetlana Meteleva that she should agree to divulge her sources in an amicable fashion, saying 'we will find them, we will punish them'," Minkin reported. He added that the investigator came to the editorial office "apparently in an informal capacity", and did not take any written statement.
As Minkin says, Meteleva's article contains no secret information. "Just now the trial of the only surviving hostage-taker is in progress, and the court is open to the public. It's hard to understand why sources are being sought, as these materials are being heard in the criminal case," the journalist said.
According to the existing law regarding the media, journalists are not obliged to reveal their sources of information. Minkin said that the investigator threatened to open a criminal case if Meteleva refuses to name her sources.
The article "Beslan without the Vultures" was published in three issues of Moskovsky komsomolets which appeared on May 24, 25 and 26 this year. According to Minkin, the article "describes in detail what happened in Beslan at the moment of the seizure and assault and who was to blame for the fact that it all ended in the deaths of hundreds of people."
Friday, June 03, 2005
Sadullaev Interview
Liz Fuller at RFE/RL presents a comprehensive account of the interview given to RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service today by Abdul-Khalim Sadullaev, the successor to slain Chechen President and resistance leader Aslan Maskhadov. In the interview, which consisted of replies to questions put by RFE/RL, Sadullaev appears closely to follow the line of Aslan Maskhadov, condemning terrorism:
Sadullaev [..] said that while the resistance will continue to try to inflict the maximum damage on the Russian armed forces and military targets, they will not attack peaceful civilians, women, and children, and will not take them hostage.The last part of the interview, where Sadullaev gives his comments on the policies of Vladimir Putin, is particularly noteworthy,and contains some shrewd and realistic political analysis:
Asked to comment on the policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sadullaev said he [Putin] seeks to create new points of tension in the North Caucasus by provoking "people who are living peacefully" to the point that there is a backlash against Moscow. Sadullaev said explosions and killings in Daghestan have become as frequent as in Grozny because Putin has no cohesive North Caucasus policy. He said the situation is just as bad in Ingushetia, and only a little better in Kabardino-Balkaria. Adyegya, for the moment, remains comparatively quiet, but Moscow is trying to provoke unrest there, too, he said.
Sadullaev predicted that Putin will move against the long-time president of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, as "he wants to install his own people everywhere." Sadullaev went on: "It was Putin who began this war and he has no way to end it. The war cannot end with us being forced to our knees and capitulating, and Putin has left himself without an alternative. With his loud pronouncements, those of a stupid and shortsighted person, he has cut off the only path to ending the war." Sadullaev predicted that the war will continue "as long as the price of oil remains high, as long as Russian kids are ready -- despite the demographic crisis -- to put on Russian uniforms and serve in the army, and until something breaks Putin's back." But he continued: "I do not think this can go on for much longer. There will have to be an end, especially as our forces are not becoming weaker, and we are prepared to go on fighting." Sadullaev went on to predict that "Putin will try to get rid of those people who witnessed massive human rights violations and genocide. He will try to destroy anyone" who could record what happened for posterity.
Soros on Ukraine and Uzbekistan
Mosnews quotes U.S. businessman George Soros as saying that Vladimir Putin urged Ukraine's President Kuchma to use armed violence against pro-democracy demonstrators during the Orange Revolution. Putin apparently also offered the same advice to President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, who followed it.
Balkar Protests
IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service has a report on recent relatively large-scale protests in Kabardino-Balkaria, following the murder of a local leader:
Hundreds of people from the Balkar ethnic minority defied a security crackdown at the weekend to hold a rally in Nalchik, the capital of the North Caucasian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, in protest at what they describe as persistent discrimination by the authorities.
Some of the 1,500 people at the May 28 demo called for the recreation of Balkaria within its 1944 boundaries – a time when the Balkars were deported to Central Asia en masse by Stalin, shortly after the mass deportation of the Chechens and Ingush. The demonstrators also complained about police intimidation and abuses in Balkar villages in Kabardino-Balkaria.
The immediate trigger for the protest was the murder of a leading Balkar politician who had opposed a new law which redraws all the territorial boundaries inside the republic. The legislation is encountering mass opposition.
More trouble broke out on May 30 in the town of Tyrnyauz when a spontaneous rally was held to protest against attempts to sack Elbrus district head Khizir Makitov, another strong opponent of the territorial law. A delegation of ministers arrived in the town to announce the dismissal of Makitov and the appointment of his successors, but failed to persuade deputies in the local assembly of their decision.
Balkars, a Turkic ethnic group, currently comprise around ten per cent of the population in Kabardino-Balkaria, being outnumbered by Kabardins and Russians.
The authorities made strenuous attempts to obstruct the initial rally, cutting off access to mountain villages from the early morning of May 28 and even cancelling public transport. The square in front of the government building was surrounded by a triple cordon of police and interior ministry troops. The spot where the protest actually took place - a memorial to victims of political repression - had an even higher concentration of troops.
The residents of the Balkar village of Khasanya, on the edge of Nalchik, got through the cordons with difficulty and walked into the centre of the city. “The actions of our authorities cannot be explained,” said Ramazan Friev, deputy head of administration of Khasanya. “You can’t call it anything but provocative.
“We made an application to hold the rally ten days in advance, as is required by law, and met the interior minister on the day before. He promised that they would not obstruct us. We are capable of providing our own security and we have a group of 250 trained sportsmen who keep an eye on things.”
Scapegoating
The Russian government is now trying implicate "Chechen terrorists" in the May 13 Andijan violence:
(from today's RFE/RL Newsline)
LAVROV DENIES REPORT OF KYRGYZ TROOP REQUEST, HINTS AT 'CHECHEN' TIES TO UZBEK VIOLENCE. Sergei Lavrov on 1 June dismissed reports that the political leadership of Kyrgyzstan has raised the possibility of expanding Russia's military presence in that country (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 25 May 2005), Interfax reported. Lavrov was speaking to journalists in Vladivostok after talks with his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing. Moscow has received no such official request from Kyrgyzstan, Lavrov said. He noted that the "Kyrgyz leadership has a sovereign right to decide how to ensure the security of its territory," Interfax reported. Lavrov also suggested there might have been "Chechen terrorist" involvement in the violence in Uzbekistan's eastern city of Andijon on 13 May (see also Uzbek item below). Pro-Moscow Chechen administration head Alu Alkhanov rejected as unfounded Lavrov's allegation, according to RIA Novosti as cited by yufo.ru. Alkhanov said that while some of the people involved might have been Chechens, they have no ties to his administration or to the Chechen people. VY/LF
(from today's RFE/RL Newsline)
Beslan: Kulayev's version
A Beslan hostage-taker accuses Russia
At his trial, the only member of the group to escape alive contradicts Moscow's version
By Lorraine Millot
Thursday 02 June 2005 (Libération - 06:00)
Moscow
from our own correspondent
It was actually an "assault" by Russian special forces that started the massacre in Beslan on September 3, Chechen Nurpashi Kulayev, the only hostage-taker to escape alive, claimed before the law-court in Vladikavkaz, where he has been on trial for the last two weeks. On the third day of the hostage-taking, the "colonel" who led the group suddenly "rushed" into the gymnasium where more than 1,000 children, parents and teachers were huddled, 24 year old Nurpashi Kulayev said on Tuesday.
According to Kulayev, the colonel shouted: "The assault is beginning", announcing that a sniper had just cut down one of his men. He then called the headquarters of the police force on his mobile phone and yelled: "What are you doing? Have you started an assault? Don't you know how many children there are here?" Then, enraged, he threw the phone [on the ground] and gave the order "to fight till the end".
According to this account, Russian snipers succeeded in killing the two hostage-takers who were holding two large mines placed in the gymnasium, which then detonated, causing the first two very loud explosions, heard just after 1 p.m..
This version contradicts that of the Russian authorities, who have always claimed that the outcome of taking of hostages of Beslan had been caused by Chechens themselves, in a completely "unexpected" way . The account of the defendant, who claims "not to have killed anybody", must, of course, be taken with caution. But the official version was never very plausible. The authorities themselves had indicated on September 3 that at 1 p.m. precise, i.e. just before the two large initial explosions, they had sent three "first-aid workers" close to the school, to collect corpses from the courtyard. The later course of the events and Nurpashi Kulayev's testimony give to think that those "first-aid workers" were in fact snipers charged with preparing the assault.
The Beslan hostage crisis, for which Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility, officially caused 330 deaths, 186 of which were of children, mostof them killed during this final assault.
Ce fut bien un «assaut» des forces spéciales russes qui a déclenché le massacre de Beslan le 3 septembre, a assuré le seul preneur d'otages rescapé, le Tchétchène Nourpachi Koulaïev, devant le tribunal de Vladikavkaz qui le juge depuis deux semaines. Au troisième jour de la prise d'otages, le «colonel» qui dirigeait le commando a soudain «accouru» dans le gymnase où étaient entassés plus de 1 000 enfants, parents et professeurs, a raconté mardi Nourpachi Koulaïev, 24 ans.
«L'assaut commence», aurait crié ce colonel, annonçant qu'un sniper venait d'abattre l'un de ses hommes. Il aurait alors appelé avec son portable le quartier général des forces de l'ordre et hurlé : «Qu'est ce que vous faites ? Vous donnez l'assaut ? Vous ne savez pas combien il y a d'enfants ici ?» Puis il aurait rageusement jeté son téléphone et ordonné de se «battre jusqu'au bout». Selon ce récit, les snipers russes auraient réussi à abattre les deux preneurs d'otages qui tenaient en main deux grosses charges placées dans le gymnase, qui auraient alors explosé et provoqué les deux premières très fortes détonations, entendues juste après 13 heures.
Cette version contredit celle des autorités russes qui ont toujours assuré que le dénouement de la prise d'otages de Beslan avait été provoqué par les Tchétchènes eux-mêmes, de façon totalement «inattendue». Le récit de l'accusé, qui assure n'avoir jamais «tué personne», est bien sûr à prendre avec précaution. Mais la version officielle n'a jamais été très plausible. Les autorités elles-mêmes avaient indiqué le 3 septembre qu'à 13 heures précises, c'est-à-dire juste avant les deux grosses explosions initiales, elles avaient envoyé trois «secouristes» près de l'école, pour ramasser des cadavres dans la cour. Le déroulement ultérieur des événements et le témoignage de Nourpachi Koulaïev laissent à penser que ces «secouristes» étaient plutôt des tireurs d'élite, chargés de préparer l'assaut.
La prise d'otages de Beslan, revendiquée par le terroriste tchétchène Chamil Bassaïev, a fait officiellement 330 morts, dont 186 enfants, la plupart tués lors de cet assaut final.
(via chechnya-sl)
At his trial, the only member of the group to escape alive contradicts Moscow's version
By Lorraine Millot
Thursday 02 June 2005 (Libération - 06:00)
Moscow
from our own correspondent
It was actually an "assault" by Russian special forces that started the massacre in Beslan on September 3, Chechen Nurpashi Kulayev, the only hostage-taker to escape alive, claimed before the law-court in Vladikavkaz, where he has been on trial for the last two weeks. On the third day of the hostage-taking, the "colonel" who led the group suddenly "rushed" into the gymnasium where more than 1,000 children, parents and teachers were huddled, 24 year old Nurpashi Kulayev said on Tuesday.
According to Kulayev, the colonel shouted: "The assault is beginning", announcing that a sniper had just cut down one of his men. He then called the headquarters of the police force on his mobile phone and yelled: "What are you doing? Have you started an assault? Don't you know how many children there are here?" Then, enraged, he threw the phone [on the ground] and gave the order "to fight till the end".
According to this account, Russian snipers succeeded in killing the two hostage-takers who were holding two large mines placed in the gymnasium, which then detonated, causing the first two very loud explosions, heard just after 1 p.m..
This version contradicts that of the Russian authorities, who have always claimed that the outcome of taking of hostages of Beslan had been caused by Chechens themselves, in a completely "unexpected" way . The account of the defendant, who claims "not to have killed anybody", must, of course, be taken with caution. But the official version was never very plausible. The authorities themselves had indicated on September 3 that at 1 p.m. precise, i.e. just before the two large initial explosions, they had sent three "first-aid workers" close to the school, to collect corpses from the courtyard. The later course of the events and Nurpashi Kulayev's testimony give to think that those "first-aid workers" were in fact snipers charged with preparing the assault.
The Beslan hostage crisis, for which Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility, officially caused 330 deaths, 186 of which were of children, mostof them killed during this final assault.
Ce fut bien un «assaut» des forces spéciales russes qui a déclenché le massacre de Beslan le 3 septembre, a assuré le seul preneur d'otages rescapé, le Tchétchène Nourpachi Koulaïev, devant le tribunal de Vladikavkaz qui le juge depuis deux semaines. Au troisième jour de la prise d'otages, le «colonel» qui dirigeait le commando a soudain «accouru» dans le gymnase où étaient entassés plus de 1 000 enfants, parents et professeurs, a raconté mardi Nourpachi Koulaïev, 24 ans.
«L'assaut commence», aurait crié ce colonel, annonçant qu'un sniper venait d'abattre l'un de ses hommes. Il aurait alors appelé avec son portable le quartier général des forces de l'ordre et hurlé : «Qu'est ce que vous faites ? Vous donnez l'assaut ? Vous ne savez pas combien il y a d'enfants ici ?» Puis il aurait rageusement jeté son téléphone et ordonné de se «battre jusqu'au bout». Selon ce récit, les snipers russes auraient réussi à abattre les deux preneurs d'otages qui tenaient en main deux grosses charges placées dans le gymnase, qui auraient alors explosé et provoqué les deux premières très fortes détonations, entendues juste après 13 heures.
Cette version contredit celle des autorités russes qui ont toujours assuré que le dénouement de la prise d'otages de Beslan avait été provoqué par les Tchétchènes eux-mêmes, de façon totalement «inattendue». Le récit de l'accusé, qui assure n'avoir jamais «tué personne», est bien sûr à prendre avec précaution. Mais la version officielle n'a jamais été très plausible. Les autorités elles-mêmes avaient indiqué le 3 septembre qu'à 13 heures précises, c'est-à-dire juste avant les deux grosses explosions initiales, elles avaient envoyé trois «secouristes» près de l'école, pour ramasser des cadavres dans la cour. Le déroulement ultérieur des événements et le témoignage de Nourpachi Koulaïev laissent à penser que ces «secouristes» étaient plutôt des tireurs d'élite, chargés de préparer l'assaut.
La prise d'otages de Beslan, revendiquée par le terroriste tchétchène Chamil Bassaïev, a fait officiellement 330 morts, dont 186 enfants, la plupart tués lors de cet assaut final.
(via chechnya-sl)
Pro-Democracy Series
A Nationalist "No"
Arnaud Leparmentier, writing in Le Monde on May 31:
Le non français est un non nationaliste, isolationniste, un refus de faire le saut fédéral rendu indispensable par l'élargissement. Cette hésitation française n'est pas nouvelle. Elle a accompagné toute l'aventure européenne.
Depuis cinquante ans, ils se croient européens, mais n'ont accepté l'Europe qu'à condition qu'elle soit une grande France,un levier d'Archimède qui lui permette de recouvrer sa puissance d'antan et de se protéger de l'Allemagne.
[...] les Européens ménagent le souverainisme qui sommeille chez les Français. L'Europe avance prudemment,dans un subtil dosage de supranational et l'intergouvernemental. Rien ne se fait contre la France, que l'on veilleà ne jamais mettre en minorité.
Cet équilibre favorable à la France tombe avec l'élargissement. [...]Ainsi,avec la crise irakienne de l'hiver 2003, Paris découvre que, même alliée à Berlin, elle peut être mise en minorité et qu'elle n'a aucune chance d'imposer sa vision d'une "Europe-puissance".
Skinhead Attacks
Window on Eurasia:
Russian Nationalist Skinheads Attack Mari Cultural
Figures
Paul Goble
Tartu, May 31 - Less than a month after the European Parliament
condemned the Mari El authorities for human rights abuses, a group of 30
Russian skinheads shouted racist epithets at and then beat up 15 leading
Mari cultural figures Friday night in that Middle Volga republic's capital
city of Yoshkar-Ola (http://www.mari.ee, May 29-30).
Mari opposition groups say that several of the skinheads involved had told
them that Mari El officials had asked the notorious Russian National Unity
(RNE) organization to carry out the attacks and promised them both immunity
and rewards for doing so (Press release from the Information Center of
Finno-Ugric Peoples, May 31).
According to the Mari opposition, the skinheads -- who number some 2,000 in
Yoshkar-Ola alone according to "Izvestiyia Mari El" in its May 20-26 issue,
added Markelov's right-hand man, Andrei Tsaregorodtsev, had promised to
give the RNE a plot of land on which the group could organize a base for its
future activities.
But republic President Leonid Margelov has denied that he or his government
had had anything to do with the attacks and promised a thorough
investigation to identify the "persons unknown" who had beaten the Mari
figures, some of whom his office said were government employees
(http://gov.mari.ru/main/news/rep/pres/2005/3005_1.html .
Markelov's denial, however, is not entirely credible. On the one hand, he
has repeatedly denied any responsibility for similar attacks in the past but
failed to bring their perpetrators to justice, and he has long had close
ties to Russian nationalist extremists, including Vladimir Zhirinovsky's
Liberal Democratic Party.
And on the other, Markelov has routinely attacked the Mari opposition in
terms that recall those used against dissidents in Soviet times. Less than
72 hours after the latest beatings, Markelov arranged a declaration by local
officials against them and their foreign supporters
(http://gov.mari.ru/main/news/rep/life/2005/3005_1.html).
That hastily prepared declaration, passed not by the parliament as a whole
but signed only by four of the five faction heads within it, went
significantly beyond what the Russian Foreign Ministry had said on May 20.
At that time, the Russian MFA simply suggested that the European Parliament'
s action was based on misinformation.
Yesterday's declaration by the Mari El parliament leaders, however,
condemned that international action in the broadest possible terms, arguing
that it represented "a crude interference in the economic, social-political
and cultural life" of the Republic of Mari El.
It said that such criticism of the Mari El government reflected the joint
efforts of a small group of Maris without support at home who are prepared
to cooperate with those "international forces" who seek to spark ethnic
tensions there to distract attention from "the violation of the rights of
Russian speakers in the Baltic countries."
And it concluded with a ringing assertion that both the actions of the Mari
opposition and those of its international supporters in the European
Parliament or elsewhere "are condemned to fail regardless of their source."
Given the international attention that the European Parliament's action of
May 12 attracted to the situation in Mari El, this latest round of beatings
and statements almost certainly raises the stakes for all involved -- the
Mari opposition, Markelov himself, and the international community as well.
For the opposition, this latest round of beatings and the parliamentary
declaration are clear signals that Markelov has no plans to back off from
his approach and that if anything he plans to increase the level of
repression that he has visited upon the Republic of Mari El since becoming
president there in 2000.
For Markelov, these events represent a turning point. If he gets away with
them, he will probably be able to crush any opposition to himself for
sometime to come. But if Moscow decides that he has gone too far and that
his actions are causing trouble for Russian foreign policy, then Markelov
might find himself out in the cold.
And for the international community, these beatings and the parliamentary
declaration also represent a test. If the European Parliament and other
groups concerned with human rights decide that they have done all they can
in a small republic far away, then Markelov will probably be able to claim a
victory.
But if they view his actions and those of the most notorious skinheads as
threats to democracy and the rule of law not only in Mari El but in the
Russian Federation as a whole, then such international groups and
organizations will have to consider what they might do in response to change
that situation.
As Markelov and his supporters in Moscow understand, the international
community does not have that a large number of good options. But that many
in that community have bitter memories about what can happen when it fails
to take action against those who are prepared to use fascist groups to
intimidate their opponents.
Russian Nationalist Skinheads Attack Mari Cultural
Figures
Paul Goble
Tartu, May 31 - Less than a month after the European Parliament
condemned the Mari El authorities for human rights abuses, a group of 30
Russian skinheads shouted racist epithets at and then beat up 15 leading
Mari cultural figures Friday night in that Middle Volga republic's capital
city of Yoshkar-Ola (http://www.mari.ee, May 29-30).
Mari opposition groups say that several of the skinheads involved had told
them that Mari El officials had asked the notorious Russian National Unity
(RNE) organization to carry out the attacks and promised them both immunity
and rewards for doing so (Press release from the Information Center of
Finno-Ugric Peoples, May 31).
According to the Mari opposition, the skinheads -- who number some 2,000 in
Yoshkar-Ola alone according to "Izvestiyia Mari El" in its May 20-26 issue,
added Markelov's right-hand man, Andrei Tsaregorodtsev, had promised to
give the RNE a plot of land on which the group could organize a base for its
future activities.
But republic President Leonid Margelov has denied that he or his government
had had anything to do with the attacks and promised a thorough
investigation to identify the "persons unknown" who had beaten the Mari
figures, some of whom his office said were government employees
(http://gov.mari.ru/main/news/rep/pres/2005/3005_1.html .
Markelov's denial, however, is not entirely credible. On the one hand, he
has repeatedly denied any responsibility for similar attacks in the past but
failed to bring their perpetrators to justice, and he has long had close
ties to Russian nationalist extremists, including Vladimir Zhirinovsky's
Liberal Democratic Party.
And on the other, Markelov has routinely attacked the Mari opposition in
terms that recall those used against dissidents in Soviet times. Less than
72 hours after the latest beatings, Markelov arranged a declaration by local
officials against them and their foreign supporters
(http://gov.mari.ru/main/news/rep/life/2005/3005_1.html).
That hastily prepared declaration, passed not by the parliament as a whole
but signed only by four of the five faction heads within it, went
significantly beyond what the Russian Foreign Ministry had said on May 20.
At that time, the Russian MFA simply suggested that the European Parliament'
s action was based on misinformation.
Yesterday's declaration by the Mari El parliament leaders, however,
condemned that international action in the broadest possible terms, arguing
that it represented "a crude interference in the economic, social-political
and cultural life" of the Republic of Mari El.
It said that such criticism of the Mari El government reflected the joint
efforts of a small group of Maris without support at home who are prepared
to cooperate with those "international forces" who seek to spark ethnic
tensions there to distract attention from "the violation of the rights of
Russian speakers in the Baltic countries."
And it concluded with a ringing assertion that both the actions of the Mari
opposition and those of its international supporters in the European
Parliament or elsewhere "are condemned to fail regardless of their source."
Given the international attention that the European Parliament's action of
May 12 attracted to the situation in Mari El, this latest round of beatings
and statements almost certainly raises the stakes for all involved -- the
Mari opposition, Markelov himself, and the international community as well.
For the opposition, this latest round of beatings and the parliamentary
declaration are clear signals that Markelov has no plans to back off from
his approach and that if anything he plans to increase the level of
repression that he has visited upon the Republic of Mari El since becoming
president there in 2000.
For Markelov, these events represent a turning point. If he gets away with
them, he will probably be able to crush any opposition to himself for
sometime to come. But if Moscow decides that he has gone too far and that
his actions are causing trouble for Russian foreign policy, then Markelov
might find himself out in the cold.
And for the international community, these beatings and the parliamentary
declaration also represent a test. If the European Parliament and other
groups concerned with human rights decide that they have done all they can
in a small republic far away, then Markelov will probably be able to claim a
victory.
But if they view his actions and those of the most notorious skinheads as
threats to democracy and the rule of law not only in Mari El but in the
Russian Federation as a whole, then such international groups and
organizations will have to consider what they might do in response to change
that situation.
As Markelov and his supporters in Moscow understand, the international
community does not have that a large number of good options. But that many
in that community have bitter memories about what can happen when it fails
to take action against those who are prepared to use fascist groups to
intimidate their opponents.
Two Faces of Putin
Window on Eurasia:
Two Faces of Vladimir Putin
Paul Goble
Tartu, June 1 -President Vladimir Putin's colorful suggestion
last week that if Riga continues to press its territorial demands against
the Russian Federation, Moscow won't give Latvia land but rather only "a
dead donkey's ears" attracted widespread attention not only in Moscow but
internationally as well.
And the Russian president added in equally emotional language
that such demands now were especially inappropriate and wrong because
"Russia at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Europe had given away tens
of thousands of square kilometers of its historical territories."
But during the very same media appearance, a May 23rd visit to
"Komsomol'skaya pravda" on the occasion of that paper's 80th anniversary,
Putin made an acknowledgement that is likely to prove far more important in
the long run -- but one that so far has attracted little attention even from
those who might be expected to care the most about it. .
Responding to a question from one of that paper's editors about
the withdrawal of Russian bases from Georgia and other former Soviet
republics, Putin again began with a colorful Russian saying about not crying
over the loss of your hair if you have lost your head but immediately became
serious:
"All the countries which you have named are former republics of
the Soviet Union. But I want to stress that these are former republics.
Today they are independent countries. This means that we recognize their
right to define independently their foreign, domestic and defense policies."
And the Russian leader continued: "All foreign bases, if they
are not occupation forces, are maintained there with the agreement and at
the request of partner countries. And if there is no such desire on the
part of our partners, then we have no choice" but to withdraw them, although
he added that he hoped no one would bring "pressure" to bear on Russia to do
so.
For Putin, as for most Russians, any territorial claim against
their country is naturally a far more sensitive issue than the withdrawal of
Russian forces from the former Soviet republics, however disturbing that is
for many of them. Consequently, Putin's paired responses may be nothing more
than an accurate reflection of his feelings and theirs.
But there is another and more intriguing possibility, one that
was suggested by Moscow analyst Tat'yana Stanovaya a few days after Putin's
remarks. In an essay posted online, she suggested that Putin may have made
a self-sconscious choice to adopt these two different approaches in so
public a way (http://www.politcom.ru, May 25).
By using colorful language to condemn the Latvian demands, Putin guaranteed
the kind of media attention that will show himself to the Russian people as
a leader who shares their concerns and fears, even as his more measured but
less widely reported comments indicated that he is prepared to deal more
calmly with Russia's declining power.
If that analysis is correct, then Putin would appear to have accepted the
advice of Fedor Luk'yanov, the editor of the journal "Russia in Global
Politics." In an April 28 essay in "Izvestiya," Luk'yanov urged the Kremlin
to recognize that Russia's declining power in the former Soviet space is "to
a large extent not a political but a psychological" problem.
Pointing out that Moscow is not in a position to stop or reverse this
decline anytime soon and that suggestions to the contrary are dangerous and
counterproductive, Lukyanov urged that the Russian leadership study the ways
that other countries have dealt with a withdrawal from empire.
"It is no accident," he wrote, that the British carefully organized
ceremonies on the occasion of their departure from their colonies "lest the
impression be created that they had been forced to leave. [And because they
did so,] the British left with their head held high and a feeling of their
own worth."
"The psychological importance of such behavior is enormous," Luk'yanov
continued, and this is a lesson that the current leadership of the Russian
Federation must learn and use to help the Russian people get through this
particular and largely unprecedented phase of their national life
(http://main.izvestia.ru/print/?id=1695478).
Putin's comments at "Komsomolskaya pravda" suggest that he may be edging
toward just such an understanding, but of course, in the nature of things,
he can do so effectively only by not directly acknowledging publicly or
perhaps even to himself that that is precisely what he is doing.
Two Faces of Vladimir Putin
Paul Goble
Tartu, June 1 -President Vladimir Putin's colorful suggestion
last week that if Riga continues to press its territorial demands against
the Russian Federation, Moscow won't give Latvia land but rather only "a
dead donkey's ears" attracted widespread attention not only in Moscow but
internationally as well.
And the Russian president added in equally emotional language
that such demands now were especially inappropriate and wrong because
"Russia at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Europe had given away tens
of thousands of square kilometers of its historical territories."
But during the very same media appearance, a May 23rd visit to
"Komsomol'skaya pravda" on the occasion of that paper's 80th anniversary,
Putin made an acknowledgement that is likely to prove far more important in
the long run -- but one that so far has attracted little attention even from
those who might be expected to care the most about it. .
Responding to a question from one of that paper's editors about
the withdrawal of Russian bases from Georgia and other former Soviet
republics, Putin again began with a colorful Russian saying about not crying
over the loss of your hair if you have lost your head but immediately became
serious:
"All the countries which you have named are former republics of
the Soviet Union. But I want to stress that these are former republics.
Today they are independent countries. This means that we recognize their
right to define independently their foreign, domestic and defense policies."
And the Russian leader continued: "All foreign bases, if they
are not occupation forces, are maintained there with the agreement and at
the request of partner countries. And if there is no such desire on the
part of our partners, then we have no choice" but to withdraw them, although
he added that he hoped no one would bring "pressure" to bear on Russia to do
so.
For Putin, as for most Russians, any territorial claim against
their country is naturally a far more sensitive issue than the withdrawal of
Russian forces from the former Soviet republics, however disturbing that is
for many of them. Consequently, Putin's paired responses may be nothing more
than an accurate reflection of his feelings and theirs.
But there is another and more intriguing possibility, one that
was suggested by Moscow analyst Tat'yana Stanovaya a few days after Putin's
remarks. In an essay posted online, she suggested that Putin may have made
a self-sconscious choice to adopt these two different approaches in so
public a way (http://www.politcom.ru, May 25).
By using colorful language to condemn the Latvian demands, Putin guaranteed
the kind of media attention that will show himself to the Russian people as
a leader who shares their concerns and fears, even as his more measured but
less widely reported comments indicated that he is prepared to deal more
calmly with Russia's declining power.
If that analysis is correct, then Putin would appear to have accepted the
advice of Fedor Luk'yanov, the editor of the journal "Russia in Global
Politics." In an April 28 essay in "Izvestiya," Luk'yanov urged the Kremlin
to recognize that Russia's declining power in the former Soviet space is "to
a large extent not a political but a psychological" problem.
Pointing out that Moscow is not in a position to stop or reverse this
decline anytime soon and that suggestions to the contrary are dangerous and
counterproductive, Lukyanov urged that the Russian leadership study the ways
that other countries have dealt with a withdrawal from empire.
"It is no accident," he wrote, that the British carefully organized
ceremonies on the occasion of their departure from their colonies "lest the
impression be created that they had been forced to leave. [And because they
did so,] the British left with their head held high and a feeling of their
own worth."
"The psychological importance of such behavior is enormous," Luk'yanov
continued, and this is a lesson that the current leadership of the Russian
Federation must learn and use to help the Russian people get through this
particular and largely unprecedented phase of their national life
(http://main.izvestia.ru/print/?id=1695478).
Putin's comments at "Komsomolskaya pravda" suggest that he may be edging
toward just such an understanding, but of course, in the nature of things,
he can do so effectively only by not directly acknowledging publicly or
perhaps even to himself that that is precisely what he is doing.
Shooting Demonstrators
Window on Eurasia:
Moscow in 2002 Secretly Authorized Police to Shoot
Demonstrators
Paul Goble
Tartu, June 1 - The Russian Interior Ministry in October 2002
issued an order, restricted "for official use only," to militia offices
around the country permitting them in undefined special circumstances to use
lethal force against protesters even if the latter are unarmed and to
confine suspects of various kinds in "filtration points"
This order, numbered 870 and signed by Boris Gryzlov, who was
then Russian Interior Ministry and is now chairman of the State Duma, was
uncovered by human rights activists looking into police attacks in
Blagoveshchensk and reported by them at a press conference on Monday
(http://www.polit.ru/analytics/2005/06/01/prik_print.html).
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the longtime president of the Moscow Helsinki Group and
a leading specialist on Russian government violations of human rights, said
that she and her colleagues had long suspected the existence of just such an
order but that they had not been able to extract a copy from the authorities
until recently.
As she and other human rights activists examined the Blagoveshchensk
incidents, she continued, "local law enforcement organs themselves showed
[them] the order as a justification for their actions." They were, from
their perspective, simply following orders from above.
Georgiy Satarov, another leading human rights activist, pointed out at the
same press conference that this order had been issued long before the events
in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine that some have suggested were prompting
Moscow to take a new, harder line. Rather, he said, the country's force
structures were given a green light for cruelty much earlier.
And Valeriy Borshchev, the president of the Social Partnership
Fund, said that the order, being a normative act of the state, should have
been made public immediately rather than issued "for official use only." And
other participants said that the failure of the order to precisely define
the circumstances in which it could be used invited official misconduct.
Valeriy Gribakin, the head of the Interior Ministry's Public
Affairs Administration who attended the press conference, dismissed the
argument that Russian law somehow required that this order be made public.
He said that the issuance of orders "for official use only" was normal
practice within the Russian MVD.
But in response to questions from the audience and other
participants, Gribakin said that he personally was not in a position to
provide definitions of what constituted "extraordinary circumstances" that
would justify the use of force by the militia or to define "filtration
points" and the actions permitted against those confined in them.
For their part, human rights leaders Alexeyeva and Satarov said
that they were calling on General Procurator Vladimir Ustinov and Justice
Minister Yuri Chaika to explain just what this order actually means and also
to consider whether both its provisions and the way it was issued are in
conformity with Russian law.
But these human rights activists are not hopeful that the
Russian government will annul this 2002 order. Indeed, in an interview in
yesterday's "Nezavisimaya gazeta - Religii," Alexeyeva that she fears that
the Russian government now is more interested in restricting the rights of
its citizens than in defending those rights.
(http://religare.ru/print18186.htm)
Moscow in 2002 Secretly Authorized Police to Shoot
Demonstrators
Paul Goble
Tartu, June 1 - The Russian Interior Ministry in October 2002
issued an order, restricted "for official use only," to militia offices
around the country permitting them in undefined special circumstances to use
lethal force against protesters even if the latter are unarmed and to
confine suspects of various kinds in "filtration points"
This order, numbered 870 and signed by Boris Gryzlov, who was
then Russian Interior Ministry and is now chairman of the State Duma, was
uncovered by human rights activists looking into police attacks in
Blagoveshchensk and reported by them at a press conference on Monday
(http://www.polit.ru/analytics/2005/06/01/prik_print.html).
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the longtime president of the Moscow Helsinki Group and
a leading specialist on Russian government violations of human rights, said
that she and her colleagues had long suspected the existence of just such an
order but that they had not been able to extract a copy from the authorities
until recently.
As she and other human rights activists examined the Blagoveshchensk
incidents, she continued, "local law enforcement organs themselves showed
[them] the order as a justification for their actions." They were, from
their perspective, simply following orders from above.
Georgiy Satarov, another leading human rights activist, pointed out at the
same press conference that this order had been issued long before the events
in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine that some have suggested were prompting
Moscow to take a new, harder line. Rather, he said, the country's force
structures were given a green light for cruelty much earlier.
And Valeriy Borshchev, the president of the Social Partnership
Fund, said that the order, being a normative act of the state, should have
been made public immediately rather than issued "for official use only." And
other participants said that the failure of the order to precisely define
the circumstances in which it could be used invited official misconduct.
Valeriy Gribakin, the head of the Interior Ministry's Public
Affairs Administration who attended the press conference, dismissed the
argument that Russian law somehow required that this order be made public.
He said that the issuance of orders "for official use only" was normal
practice within the Russian MVD.
But in response to questions from the audience and other
participants, Gribakin said that he personally was not in a position to
provide definitions of what constituted "extraordinary circumstances" that
would justify the use of force by the militia or to define "filtration
points" and the actions permitted against those confined in them.
For their part, human rights leaders Alexeyeva and Satarov said
that they were calling on General Procurator Vladimir Ustinov and Justice
Minister Yuri Chaika to explain just what this order actually means and also
to consider whether both its provisions and the way it was issued are in
conformity with Russian law.
But these human rights activists are not hopeful that the
Russian government will annul this 2002 order. Indeed, in an interview in
yesterday's "Nezavisimaya gazeta - Religii," Alexeyeva that she fears that
the Russian government now is more interested in restricting the rights of
its citizens than in defending those rights.
(http://religare.ru/print18186.htm)
Tell The West
From the Time Archive, a short book review from the years just after World War II:
Apr. 19, 1948
TELL THE WEST (358 pp.) — Jerzy Gliksman—Gresham ($3.75).
When Jerzy Gliksman, a Polish Socialist, was about to be released, in 1941, from the Siberian forced labor camp in which he had been held for a year, he asked a fellow prisoner if he could help her in any way.
"You can do one thing for us, and one thing only," she replied. "Tell all you know about us. ... Tell the West. . . ."
The next day Gliksman repeated these words to another slave laborer, Professor Strovsky, an aging Russian scholar. Strovsky, with the fatalism of those who have suffered too much, doubted if telling the West would help much: "They won't want to believe you anyway. . . ."
Strovsky's bitter words are a damning comment on that double standard of morality by which large sections of the Western world, especially its intellectuals, have judged the Stalin dictatorship. Many of the same people who, in the 1930s, had been stirred by reports of Nazi concentration camps, refused to face the unpleasant fact that Russia used them too. Now Gliksman, who found himself in a Siberian labor camp after Poland was carved up by Hitler and Stalin, tells the story of that experience with a better chance of attention. The book is an unadorned record of human suffering devoid of literary flourish.
Gliksman was one of those Socialists who had thought that the Stalin regime would welcome non-Communist radicals. When he was arrested he tried to convince the NKVD it was making a mistake. The mistake, as others have discovered before & since, was his.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Airspace Violations in Finland - II
The international (English-language) edition of Helsingin Sanomat has a summary of news on this subject:
Russia has denied that its military planes had violated Finnish airspace over the Gulf of Finland, as claimed in a diplomatic note sent by Finland to Russia a month ago.
The response was presented by Russia’s Ambassador to Finland, Vladimir Grinin on Friday last week; he read the statement from a piece of paper, which he insisted on keeping himself. The official denial was followed by a tacit admission that violations of airspace may have occurred; the Ambassador said that Russia has now improved the organisational and technical aspects of its air traffic control system.
The Finnish government is sticking to its view that Russian planes have violated Finnish airspace eleven times between October last year and May this year.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) saw the Russian response as a de-facto admission of the violations. However, the government was not satisfied with it.
The issue was discussed on Wednesday at a meeting of the government’s committee on foreign and security policy, which was also attended by President Tarja Halonen.
Finland now expects a new explanation from Russia. Vanhanen said that he hopes that the matter can be cleared up before he visits Moscow on Tuesday next week.
The government also decided that in the future, it would report all territorial violations as soon as they are confirmed. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs says that the new practice would also apply to submarines and other vessels encroaching on Finnish territorial waters.
Previously Russia has appreciated Finland’s willingness to deal with such awkward issues in silence.
A statement issued after Wednesday’s meeting notes Russia’s denial of the territorial violations conflicts with information from Finnish officials, and that Russia has not presented any evidence to back up its version. Finland, meanwhile, has given Russia detailed information about the incidents.
After Wednesday’s meeting, Ambassador Grinin was summoned to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs where Undersecretary of State Markus Lyra gave him an oral account of the Finnish view. Grinin said that he would inform Moscow about the Finnish point of view.
"The ball is now in Russia’s court", Vanhanen said on Wednesday. He would not say if Finland wants an open admission and apology from Russia.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs believes that the violations were more the result of indifference on the part of the pilots than any deliberate tests of Finland’s ability to monitor its airspace.
The last such incident occurred over a month ago.
Spirit of 1937 - II
Writing in the May 30 edition of Novaya gazeta, Anna Politkovskaya, the bi-weekly's special correspondent covering Chechnya, compared the situation over the past few weeks in Chechnya and Ingushetia to 1937, the high point of Stalin's terror. She also said the rash of kidnappings in both republics was very similar to what happened just prior to the Beslan school seizure and the Dubrovka theater siege, and cited the case of the Gorchkhanov family, whose home in the Ingushetian village of Plievo was raided by unknown men in camouflage and masks on May 23. According to Politkovskaya, the raiders, who identified themselves as being "from the FSB," severely beat Magomed-Bashir Gorchkhanov after demanding to know where he was hiding weapons. They kidnapped his brother, Adam, who relatives describe as not being entirely mentally competent, as well as all of the brothers' documents and the family's photo album.
In Politkovskaya's view, such raids and kidnappings are something other than just another attempt to create the impression that the security services are conducting successful anti-terrorist operations. "‘They' are again concocting something," she wrote. "They are preparing ‘terrorist material'. And there are too many coincidences here: for example, those who were carried off prior to Nord-Ost and Beslan were also without fail kidnapped with [their] documents. When they simply want to destroy the latest ‘accomplice', they don't take documents. Passports are needed for lying in the pockets of neutralized terrorists – they must be shown on television later to demonstrate to us [that] the terrorists went on their business with identity cards. And it very much helps in quickly ‘determining the malefactors' identity'."
Politkovskaya reported that as the May 30 issue of Novaya gazeta went to press, Adam Gorchkhanov was taken to a hospital in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, practically dead. "The doctors do not doubt that he was tortured," she wrote.
(from Chechnya Weekly)
In Politkovskaya's view, such raids and kidnappings are something other than just another attempt to create the impression that the security services are conducting successful anti-terrorist operations. "‘They' are again concocting something," she wrote. "They are preparing ‘terrorist material'. And there are too many coincidences here: for example, those who were carried off prior to Nord-Ost and Beslan were also without fail kidnapped with [their] documents. When they simply want to destroy the latest ‘accomplice', they don't take documents. Passports are needed for lying in the pockets of neutralized terrorists – they must be shown on television later to demonstrate to us [that] the terrorists went on their business with identity cards. And it very much helps in quickly ‘determining the malefactors' identity'."
Politkovskaya reported that as the May 30 issue of Novaya gazeta went to press, Adam Gorchkhanov was taken to a hospital in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, practically dead. "The doctors do not doubt that he was tortured," she wrote.
(from Chechnya Weekly)
The Battle of Santa Clara
I've just read a remarkable and vivid account of the rise of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara by Henry Louis Gomez, a Cuban-American writer whose family was personally involved in the events of the Cuban revolution. The essay draws parallels between Castro and Hitler, and describes how Guevara worshipped Stalin. From the conclusion:
(via Babalu Blog)
The vast majority of the people who supported the Cuban Revolution initially were not communists or socialists. They simply wanted a democratically elected government that would reform and remedy some of the nation's pressing problems. Once Batista fled, Castro's evil genius was truly displayed. He consolidated this popular revolution by first eliminating supporters of the previous regime through farcical show trials and summary executions and then by jailing or executing potential rivals that had been previously cooperating with him. Fans of Fidel Castro usually gloss over this reign of terror that would have made Stalin himself proud. As far as the people, many of them wealthy, who helped fund Castro and his Revolution go, this should serve as a cautionary tale. Be careful what you wish for. These people thought that anyone other than Batista would be better. Castro ended up being their worst nightmare. He nationalized every industry and confiscated all private property. Many of Castro's harshest critics today were once on his side. That has to tell you something. Cuba's human rights abuses are well documented. There is no democracy and there are no individual rights in Cuba. 10% of the Cuban population lives in exile and if allowed there'd be a lot more than that.
After Castro took power, Che Guevara was placed in charge of the military fort known as La Cabaña. While there he supervised and personally participated in the torture and execution by firing squad of hundreds of Cubans. Click here to see a list of 158 confirmed victims of Guevara. El Che, to me, seems like the kind of guy who only felt alive when he had the power to kill a defenseless fellow human being in his hands. I doubt that he was ever really a medical doctor. I have yet to see one shred of proof that he ever graduated from medical school and have studied him intensely. In addition to the firing squads Guevara was responsible for setting up the gulag system in Cuba where people were imprisoned for such crimes as being homosexual and listening to rock and roll music. Just the kind of hero you'd want adorning the front of your t-shirt.
(via Babalu Blog)
Oppression in the Caucasus - II
The deteriorating human rights situation in Ingushetia, North-Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria
Vienna, 2 June 2005. Today the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) issued a new report on the human rights and humanitarian law situation in three neighboring republics of Chechnya: Ingushetia, North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. The report once again documents that the severe human rights violations by Russian and Chechen security forces are increasingly spreading across the borders of Chechnya into its neighboring republics.
Ingushetia has attracted the attention of human rights activists for over two years due to increasing numbers of human rights abuses. Initially there were reports of cars with dark tinted windows and no license plates arriving from neighbouring Chechnya and abducting people, then driving off in an unknown direction. The victims were primarily Chechen refugees. Since the end of 2003, these abductions have become more frequent, and increasing numbers of Ingush civilians are also being abducted. This criminal trend in Ingushetia is made evident by data from the Human Rights Center “Memorial,” which consistently monitors the situation in the region:
· 2002 - 28 abductions (27 Chechens and 1 Ingush) - Six persons remained
'disappeared' (5 Chechens, 1 Ingush)
· 2003, 52 abductions (41 Chechens, 9 Ingush, 2 Armenians) - Fourteen
persons remained 'disappeared' (11 Chechens and 1 Ingush).
· 2004, 75 abductions (38 Chechens and 37 Ingush) - Twenty three persons
remained 'disappeared' (12 Chechens and 11 Ingush).
The deputy prosecutor of Ingushetia, Rashid Ozdoev, attempted to investigate the role of the local FSB office in these abductions. As a result, on 11 March 2004 he too, was abducted, and then “disappeared.” More than a year has passed since his abduction, and while the facts surrounding his abduction and the abductions he was investigating received a good deal of publicity, no proper investigation has been conducted, and those who are guilty have not been identified and brought to justice.
Following the 21-22 June 2004 events, when fighters carried out an armed raid on the republic, a specially tasked group from the Office of the Russian Prosecutor General, headed by M.Lapotnikov, an investigator dealing with particularly important cases in the North Caucasus Prosecutor’s Office, arrived in Ingushetia. They disregarded the concept of “civilian”, and as a result, another Chechnya-like “anti-terrorist operation” was launched, this time in Ingushetia. Now, any resident of the republic can be detained, abducted, subjected to torture, beaten and even killed, and the perpetrators are not held responsible for their actions.
The extensive data provided in the given report shows that even in cases where the names of the perpetrators are known, none of them are brought to justice. The climate of impunity, which originated in Chechnya, has effectively spread to Ingushetia.
Furthermore, following the Beslan tragedy, Northern Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria also became “places beyond the rule of law”.
The varied and disturbing cases described, demonstrate that the wide range of gross and systemic human rights violations, which used to be localized in Chechnya have been steadily spilling out into neighboring Ingushetia and then into other republics of the Northern Caucasus. The worsening human rights climate and the impunity of security forces for their lawless actions contribute to the over-all deterioration of the security situation in the entire Northern Caucasus region. These developments represent a serious danger to the Russian Federation and, consequently, to the European community as a whole.
The IHF report may be found in English and Russian language at http://www.ihf-hr.org/index.php
See also in this blog: Oppression in the Caucasus
Vienna, 2 June 2005. Today the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) issued a new report on the human rights and humanitarian law situation in three neighboring republics of Chechnya: Ingushetia, North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. The report once again documents that the severe human rights violations by Russian and Chechen security forces are increasingly spreading across the borders of Chechnya into its neighboring republics.
Ingushetia has attracted the attention of human rights activists for over two years due to increasing numbers of human rights abuses. Initially there were reports of cars with dark tinted windows and no license plates arriving from neighbouring Chechnya and abducting people, then driving off in an unknown direction. The victims were primarily Chechen refugees. Since the end of 2003, these abductions have become more frequent, and increasing numbers of Ingush civilians are also being abducted. This criminal trend in Ingushetia is made evident by data from the Human Rights Center “Memorial,” which consistently monitors the situation in the region:
· 2002 - 28 abductions (27 Chechens and 1 Ingush) - Six persons remained
'disappeared' (5 Chechens, 1 Ingush)
· 2003, 52 abductions (41 Chechens, 9 Ingush, 2 Armenians) - Fourteen
persons remained 'disappeared' (11 Chechens and 1 Ingush).
· 2004, 75 abductions (38 Chechens and 37 Ingush) - Twenty three persons
remained 'disappeared' (12 Chechens and 11 Ingush).
The deputy prosecutor of Ingushetia, Rashid Ozdoev, attempted to investigate the role of the local FSB office in these abductions. As a result, on 11 March 2004 he too, was abducted, and then “disappeared.” More than a year has passed since his abduction, and while the facts surrounding his abduction and the abductions he was investigating received a good deal of publicity, no proper investigation has been conducted, and those who are guilty have not been identified and brought to justice.
Following the 21-22 June 2004 events, when fighters carried out an armed raid on the republic, a specially tasked group from the Office of the Russian Prosecutor General, headed by M.Lapotnikov, an investigator dealing with particularly important cases in the North Caucasus Prosecutor’s Office, arrived in Ingushetia. They disregarded the concept of “civilian”, and as a result, another Chechnya-like “anti-terrorist operation” was launched, this time in Ingushetia. Now, any resident of the republic can be detained, abducted, subjected to torture, beaten and even killed, and the perpetrators are not held responsible for their actions.
The extensive data provided in the given report shows that even in cases where the names of the perpetrators are known, none of them are brought to justice. The climate of impunity, which originated in Chechnya, has effectively spread to Ingushetia.
Furthermore, following the Beslan tragedy, Northern Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria also became “places beyond the rule of law”.
The varied and disturbing cases described, demonstrate that the wide range of gross and systemic human rights violations, which used to be localized in Chechnya have been steadily spilling out into neighboring Ingushetia and then into other republics of the Northern Caucasus. The worsening human rights climate and the impunity of security forces for their lawless actions contribute to the over-all deterioration of the security situation in the entire Northern Caucasus region. These developments represent a serious danger to the Russian Federation and, consequently, to the European community as a whole.
The IHF report may be found in English and Russian language at http://www.ihf-hr.org/index.php
See also in this blog: Oppression in the Caucasus
Letters to an Assassin
At Babalu Blog: emails to Fidel.
Val Prieto writes about a moving series of email messages written to the dictator in protest by, among others, relatives and friends of the victims of his repression.
Val Prieto writes about a moving series of email messages written to the dictator in protest by, among others, relatives and friends of the victims of his repression.
Open Letter
To: Head of the North Caucasus Department of the Prosecutor General's
Office, Yessentuki Via facsimile + 7(8653) 460 700
Copy: Vladimir Ustinov, Prosecutor General of the RF
Via facsimile +7(095) 921-41-86
Vladimir Lukin, Ombudsman of the RF
Via facsimile +7(095) 207-76-30
Ella Pamfilova, Chair of the Human Rights Council under the President of the RF
Via facsimile +7 (095) 206-48-55
OPEN LETTER
Vienna, 2 June 2005
Dear Prosecutor,
I am writing to you on behalf of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) regarding two cases:
· the unlawful detention and the death of Adam Gorchhanov (born 1968), resident of the Ingush village Plievo, Gorchhanova street #6, on 23 May 2005. Gorchhanov died on the 30 May, after having been in the temporary isolator (IVD) in Vladikavkaz, and then allegedly in the building of the Russian Administration for Combating Organized Crime (RUBOP) in Vladikavkaz.His body evidences traces of torture.
· the unlawful detention of Ibragim Dzaurov (born in 1979), resident of Nasyr-Kort, Sovietskaya Street 63, Nazran, Ingushetia, who was abducted from his house on 27 May 2005. There are grounds to believe that he is held in Vladikavkaz.
Details:
According to his relatives, early in the morning of 23 May 2005, several cars (including a UAZ, a white Gazelle-minibus, and an armored troop-carrier) approached the house of Adam Gorchhanov, and more than forty armed and masked persons of an unknown power structure entered the house. Not showing any documents, they began to search the house, and to beat Adam Gorchhanov and his brother Bashir Gorchhanov (born 1970). They filmed everything with a video-camera, seized two photo albums and various documents, including the passports of the two men. They claimed to have
found two guns in the house, but provided no witnesses to confirm that weapons were found, as would have been the lawful procedure.
On that same day, the Gorchhanov family made inquiries regarding the abduction of Adam Gorchhanov to the republican and regional Offices of Public Prosecutor, Ingush branch of FSB, and also to Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Ustinov, the head of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev, and the Ingush deputy to the State Duma Bashir Kodzoev.
On 25 May, his family managed to find out via informal channels, that Adam Gorchhanov had been taken to one of the temporary isolators (IVS) of Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia). On 28 May, they learned, that Adam Gorchhanov was in the reanimation section of the Republican Hospital of Vladikavkaz in a very grave condition (he was in a coma). Svetlana Gannushkina, human rights activist and member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, called the hospital, and the senior doctor in the emergency ward confirmed that Gorchhanov was there with a serious skull injury. A policeman informed the family that Gorchhanov had allegedly been delivered to the hospital from the RUBOP of Vladikavkaz, where – again allegedly – he had jumped from the fourth floor. However, people who saw him in the hospital confirmed that Gorchhanov had no broken bones but many bruises and haematomas that were most likely the consequences of severe beatings.
On 30 May Adam Gorchhanov died in the hospital. His relatives who saw the body maintain that it bears numerous marks of violent treatment.
*******
On 27 May, the inhabitant of Nasyr-Kort, Sovietskaya Street 63, Nazran, Ibragim Dzaurov, was abducted from his house. It is believed that he is held in Vladikavkaz, but his family has not yet received a notification of his detention.
According to his relatives, on the evening of 27 May, a large group of soldiers and policemen approached their house in three armored troop-carriers, three Gazelle micro-buses, one UAZ (Tabletka) and a VAZ-21099. Without a search warrant, the armed men ordered that all inhabitants of the house stand against the wall. They broke some furniture in the house and stole 5,000 roubles and a mobile phone. The policemen took photos of all the tenants of the house and took some photos from their photo album. At the end of the search, they forced Ibragim Dzaurov into one of their cars and left with him in an unknown direction.
According to his father, Ibragim had been abducted once before. On 25 December 2004, he was unlawfully detained in broad daylight at the market “Markhab”, where he worked at the currency exchange counter. The abduction was presumably perpetrated by the Ingush branch of FSB. At that time, Ibragim’s relatives immediately contacted the police and asked them to inquire at the local FSB. The FSB answered that Dzaurov was not with them. Two days later, on 27 December, he was thrown out from a car near
Assinovskaya (Chechen Republic, close to the Ingushetian border). He had been severely beaten, and told his relatives that his abductors had put a black plastic bag over his head, and he therefore did not know where they had taken him. He had been held in a cellar the entire time, and was interrogated and severely beaten (hung by his feet and hands and beaten with an iron square). They demanded that he identify unknown persons in a photo, and repeatedly asked whether he participated in events on 21-22 June. Additionally, his abductors stole 1.000$ from him, which he was carrying when he was abducted. Because he was frightened, Ibragim Dzaurov did not contact law enforcement bodies about what had happened to him and from then until the date of his second abduction – 27 May 2005 -- stayed at home most of the time.
******
We appeal to you to conduct a thorough investigation into the reasons for the death of Adam Gorchhanov. In particular the evidence that he died due to torture should be considered, and the perpetrators should be identified and duly brought to justice. Further, the circumstances of the unlawful detention of Adam Gorchhanov should be clarified.
We appeal to you to investigate the fate and whereabouts of Ibragim Dzaurov and either to ensure that he is released immediately by those who hold them, or to provide a legal arrest warrant stating the reasons for his detention, which should be communicated to his family members.
We ask you to inform us about developments in this case.
Sincerely,
Dr. Aaron Rhodes (Executive Director)
cc OSCE Delegations
Council of Europe, Mr. Rudolf Bindig, Chechnya-Rapporteur for the PACE
Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights; Mr. Alvaro Gil-Robles,
Commissioned for Human Rights of the Council of Europe
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Mr. Stephen J. Toope, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
National Helsinki Committees
__________________________________________
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
______________________________________
Office, Yessentuki Via facsimile + 7(8653) 460 700
Copy: Vladimir Ustinov, Prosecutor General of the RF
Via facsimile +7(095) 921-41-86
Vladimir Lukin, Ombudsman of the RF
Via facsimile +7(095) 207-76-30
Ella Pamfilova, Chair of the Human Rights Council under the President of the RF
Via facsimile +7 (095) 206-48-55
OPEN LETTER
Vienna, 2 June 2005
Dear Prosecutor,
I am writing to you on behalf of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) regarding two cases:
· the unlawful detention and the death of Adam Gorchhanov (born 1968), resident of the Ingush village Plievo, Gorchhanova street #6, on 23 May 2005. Gorchhanov died on the 30 May, after having been in the temporary isolator (IVD) in Vladikavkaz, and then allegedly in the building of the Russian Administration for Combating Organized Crime (RUBOP) in Vladikavkaz.His body evidences traces of torture.
· the unlawful detention of Ibragim Dzaurov (born in 1979), resident of Nasyr-Kort, Sovietskaya Street 63, Nazran, Ingushetia, who was abducted from his house on 27 May 2005. There are grounds to believe that he is held in Vladikavkaz.
Details:
According to his relatives, early in the morning of 23 May 2005, several cars (including a UAZ, a white Gazelle-minibus, and an armored troop-carrier) approached the house of Adam Gorchhanov, and more than forty armed and masked persons of an unknown power structure entered the house. Not showing any documents, they began to search the house, and to beat Adam Gorchhanov and his brother Bashir Gorchhanov (born 1970). They filmed everything with a video-camera, seized two photo albums and various documents, including the passports of the two men. They claimed to have
found two guns in the house, but provided no witnesses to confirm that weapons were found, as would have been the lawful procedure.
On that same day, the Gorchhanov family made inquiries regarding the abduction of Adam Gorchhanov to the republican and regional Offices of Public Prosecutor, Ingush branch of FSB, and also to Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Ustinov, the head of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev, and the Ingush deputy to the State Duma Bashir Kodzoev.
On 25 May, his family managed to find out via informal channels, that Adam Gorchhanov had been taken to one of the temporary isolators (IVS) of Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia). On 28 May, they learned, that Adam Gorchhanov was in the reanimation section of the Republican Hospital of Vladikavkaz in a very grave condition (he was in a coma). Svetlana Gannushkina, human rights activist and member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, called the hospital, and the senior doctor in the emergency ward confirmed that Gorchhanov was there with a serious skull injury. A policeman informed the family that Gorchhanov had allegedly been delivered to the hospital from the RUBOP of Vladikavkaz, where – again allegedly – he had jumped from the fourth floor. However, people who saw him in the hospital confirmed that Gorchhanov had no broken bones but many bruises and haematomas that were most likely the consequences of severe beatings.
On 30 May Adam Gorchhanov died in the hospital. His relatives who saw the body maintain that it bears numerous marks of violent treatment.
*******
On 27 May, the inhabitant of Nasyr-Kort, Sovietskaya Street 63, Nazran, Ibragim Dzaurov, was abducted from his house. It is believed that he is held in Vladikavkaz, but his family has not yet received a notification of his detention.
According to his relatives, on the evening of 27 May, a large group of soldiers and policemen approached their house in three armored troop-carriers, three Gazelle micro-buses, one UAZ (Tabletka) and a VAZ-21099. Without a search warrant, the armed men ordered that all inhabitants of the house stand against the wall. They broke some furniture in the house and stole 5,000 roubles and a mobile phone. The policemen took photos of all the tenants of the house and took some photos from their photo album. At the end of the search, they forced Ibragim Dzaurov into one of their cars and left with him in an unknown direction.
According to his father, Ibragim had been abducted once before. On 25 December 2004, he was unlawfully detained in broad daylight at the market “Markhab”, where he worked at the currency exchange counter. The abduction was presumably perpetrated by the Ingush branch of FSB. At that time, Ibragim’s relatives immediately contacted the police and asked them to inquire at the local FSB. The FSB answered that Dzaurov was not with them. Two days later, on 27 December, he was thrown out from a car near
Assinovskaya (Chechen Republic, close to the Ingushetian border). He had been severely beaten, and told his relatives that his abductors had put a black plastic bag over his head, and he therefore did not know where they had taken him. He had been held in a cellar the entire time, and was interrogated and severely beaten (hung by his feet and hands and beaten with an iron square). They demanded that he identify unknown persons in a photo, and repeatedly asked whether he participated in events on 21-22 June. Additionally, his abductors stole 1.000$ from him, which he was carrying when he was abducted. Because he was frightened, Ibragim Dzaurov did not contact law enforcement bodies about what had happened to him and from then until the date of his second abduction – 27 May 2005 -- stayed at home most of the time.
******
We appeal to you to conduct a thorough investigation into the reasons for the death of Adam Gorchhanov. In particular the evidence that he died due to torture should be considered, and the perpetrators should be identified and duly brought to justice. Further, the circumstances of the unlawful detention of Adam Gorchhanov should be clarified.
We appeal to you to investigate the fate and whereabouts of Ibragim Dzaurov and either to ensure that he is released immediately by those who hold them, or to provide a legal arrest warrant stating the reasons for his detention, which should be communicated to his family members.
We ask you to inform us about developments in this case.
Sincerely,
Dr. Aaron Rhodes (Executive Director)
cc OSCE Delegations
Council of Europe, Mr. Rudolf Bindig, Chechnya-Rapporteur for the PACE
Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights; Mr. Alvaro Gil-Robles,
Commissioned for Human Rights of the Council of Europe
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Mr. Stephen J. Toope, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
National Helsinki Committees
__________________________________________
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
______________________________________
Russia Considering New Base in Kyrgyzstan
IN EDM, Roger McDermott writes that Russia is seriously contemplating sending as many as 1,000 troops to a new military base in Kyrgyzstan
Reports suggest that Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is open to the idea of an additional Russian base, while a recent visit to Kyrgyzstan by Andrei Kokoshin, Chairman of the Russian State Duma's CIS Affairs Committee, resulted in members of Kokoshin's delegation suggesting that officials on both sides were considering the prospect of expanding Russia's military presence in the country. It is interesting, however, to note that the same individuals said that nothing would be announced until talks on the issue are concluded (Interfax, May 25; Polit.ru, May 30).
That attitude may help explain why so many other Kyrgyz and Russian officials are busily denying that such plans are under examination. On May 31 Roza Otunbayeva, acting Kyrgyz foreign minister, stated that creating more military bases in Kyrgyzstan "has not been looked at or discussed at any level." She equally dismissed media reports that China is also interested in offering to deploy troops in Kyrgyzstan, falling back on statements familiar from the old regime that no one in the Kyrgyz government seeks to facilitate the country becoming home to a collection of foreign military bases (Itar-Tass, May 31). But the formation of a new base in the country under the aegis of the SCO is certainly a realistic option, though the entry of Chinese troops may complicate still further the dynamics of Kyrgyzstan's emerging post-Akayev foreign policy. A contribution to an SCO security body operating within the Fergana Valley might allow Chinese participation without the controversy of China sending troops abroad.
Ukraine News
From today's RFE/RL Newsline:
GOVERNMENT OFFERS $123,000 TO STOP 'GONGADZE VERSUS UKRAINE' LAWSUIT. The Ukrainian cabinet intends to settle amicably the "Gongadze vs Ukraine" case that is being considered by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and is offering to pay 100,000 euros ($123,000) to Myroslava Gongadze, the wife of slain journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, Interfax reported on 1 June. Myroslava Gongadze claims in the case that the death of her husband in 2000 was the result of a forced disappearance and that state authorities failed to protect his life (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 1 April 2005). According to Interfax, the Ukrainian government on 31 May adopted a resolution pledging to bring to justice all those responsible for the journalist's murder and offering the money to the widow in exchange for her waiving the right to make any complaints against Ukraine concerning the facts described in the current lawsuit in Strasbourg. JM
PROSECUTOR SAYS $1 BILLION LEFT UKRAINE DURING ORANGE REVOLUTION. Prosecutor Anna Tsyhanenko, head of the Prosecutor-General's Office's department to combat money laundering, told journalists in Kyiv on 1 June that some $1 billion was illegally transferred "through banks and other financial institutions" from Ukraine in November-December 2004 -- that is, during the period of the Orange Revolution, Interfax reported. Tsyhanenko said the illegal capital outflow involved "well-known people" as well as budgetary and private funds. She added that the Prosecutor-General's Office has already opened six criminal cases connected with those transfers. JM
Latvia Backs EU Constitution
Latvian MPs have backed the European constitution by a huge majority of 71 to 5, the BBC reports.
Litvinenko: Terror As Control Facility
The U.K.-hosted site of Chechenpress has published an extensive article by ex-KGB and FSB senior operational officer Alexander Litvinenko, who now lives in London, on the ramifications of Russia's "war on terror", which he sees increasingly as a facility for controlling Russia itself. The available translation of the article is very uneven from the point of view of English style, and it's not possible to present an edited version of it, as the original Russian text is not accessible. However, even in this rough and ready form, Litvinenko's analysis is worthy of attention. The opening paragraphs read:
Hardly less than a year has passed since the tragic events in a small North Caucasian city Beslan, but still the society has more questions about the reasons of the event, than the answers to them. Because this time everything happened the same, as it has always been, according to one devilish script written in the Lubyanka. I mean the explosions of apartment houses in 1999 and mass liquidation of hostages in the theatre "Northeast" in 2002. First the special services organized an act of terrorism and liquidation of citizens of their own country; then the main security officer Putin with a furious look was publicly telling lies, accusing Chechens in the massacre of people. And already after that, according to the same Lubyanka script security officers arranged judicial shows appointing innocent people for the role of the guilty ones. And once again, using the common fear, confusion and permissiveness of the special services, represented to us as a necessary measure for protection of the society against terrorism, Putin and his security friends cleaned off everyone, who with his reasoning about democracy and human rights prevented them to grasp the authority and business in the country.
As the result of this so-called struggle against the international terrorism, the Russian society has received a stable growth of number of victims of this terrorism acquiring more and more severe and mass forms. And meanwhile "the fighters against terrorism" strengthen own authority, increase personal well-being. And the quantity of money withdrawn from Russians by security officers is in direct ratio to strengthening of terrorism in the controlled by them territory of the country. The more terrorism we have, the more authority and money security officers "struggling" against it have. Here again, as well as in any business, everything develops according to the precisely made scheme of earning money: "The goods - money - the goods". However, in Putin's Russia this Marx formula has acquired a "creative development" with a gangster bias, or, speaking differently, got a kind of a classical racket, but with unprecedented hitherto scales.
This scheme is as primitive as effective: gangsters arrange explosion in a firm, and then they come to the frightened owners and offer their "protection"; "owners" agree and get in servitude to gangsters. Putin and his security gang, having got experienced in gangster "talks", have successfully applied it in whole Russia . So, in 1999, having blown up houses with people sleeping in them, security officers make a terrorist attack against their own people; then, using common fear, untwist an extreme anti Chechen hysteria and a psychosis among the population. The first stage of classical racket is reached: "The client" (that is the population of the country) is frightened, and he will already easily accept the security officers' protection. Using fear of the population before terror, Putin's security clique begins an aggression against the Chechen Republic Ichkeria, thus imposing their racket services, ostensibly, protection against Chechen "fanatics-Vahhabists" to the society. And, finishing the racket combination, on the quite of the war unleashed by them, they grasp the Supreme authority in the country and all its riches.
Beslan - More Details - II
The Jamestown summary reproduces without criticism that part of the Moskovsky komsomolets report which brings up again the claim, often repeated by the Russian state authorities, that the Beslan attackers were found to have been using heroin and morphine, traces of which were said to have been found in their bodies. As has been pointed out by a number of observers, both in Russia and in the West, this seems rather unlikely. On May 16 newsru.com published an account of a press conference given by Aleksandr Torshin, deputy chairman of the Federal Council and head of the Beslan Commission of inquiry. The press account refuted Torshin's claims and added new information:
The terrorists kept fighting because of "combat narcotics" from the arsenal of the Russian GRU
Let us recall that Torshin confirmed the data about the fact that the terrorists used narcotics all the time. However, according to him, what kind of narcotics they were is one more mystery.
"They assure us that these were traditional narcotics: heroin and morphine. I'm not a specialist, but I read a lot on this subject and I know: a combat-effective state can not be maintained for three days on heroin. Even less so on morphine, which acts as a soporific. Narcotics were found in the bodies of 20 fighters. But indeed for the terrorists it was necessary to control hostages around the clock, and there were more than 1200 of them, and on a large territory ".
"We suspect that this was a combat narcotic, invented by the Americans as early as 1943. By the way, the use of this narcotic in Beslan is one more reason to assume the possible participation of foreign special services in preparation for that act of terror. Fighters who received 4-5 bullet wounds continued to actively fire back. One of them was hit from an underbarrel grenade launcher and all his guts came out, but he got up again and almost took out two more of our men."
"There were some strange specimens among the bandits. One had lost his right hand two years ago, he shot with his left. Another had a foot missing, and no fingers on his left hand. Two of them only had one eye. They would hardly have been able to hold out, even for a short time, without this combat narcotic," says the head of commission.
In fact, however, the "Beslan" terrorists used a narcotic developed in Russia. What is involved here is a psychotropic substance, designated by the abbreviation of VIL. It has existed already for many years, and only the GRU Spetsnaz has it. According to completely reliable information, VIL was used in Chechnya in 1994-1995.
At the present time there are five modifications of it - with serial numbers from 1 to 5. If the use of this substance in Beslan is confirmed, the inevitable question arises: how did this combat narcotic from the GRU's arsenal turn out to be at the terrorists' disposal?
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Beslan - More Details
from Jamestown Foundation's Chechnya Weekly, June 1, 2005:
In a three-part series published May 24-26, Moskovsky komsomolets shed new light on the Beslan hostage tragedy based on investigative documents and testimony from officials who were involved in the hostage-seizure and its bloody aftermath. Among other things, the newspaper presented evidence confirming earlier reports that heavy weapons, including the cannon of a tank, were used in the assault against the hostage takers. It quoted from a report by an aide to the military prosecutor of the Vladikavkaz garrison, identified as Major of Justice Eminov, who stated that Shmel flamethrowers, RPG-25 rocket-propelled grenades and a T-72 tank were used during the assault on the school and the freeing of hostages on September 3, 2004, which may have killed hostages or caused them "bodily injuries of various degrees of severity." The newspaper quoted from a transcript of testimony given by the commander of the T-72 in question, a Sergeant Godovalov, who said that the tank was brought up close to the school cafeteria on the orders of an officer of Alpha, the elite anti-terrorist unit. The sergeant said that on the orders of the Alpha officer, the tank fired four times at a spot where one of the terrorists was believed to be located, and then was moved to another area, where, again on the Alpha officer's orders, it fired three "antipersonnel rounds" at three outermost windows on the school building's second floor. According to Moskovsky komsomolets, officers from Alpha and another special anti-terrorist unit, Vympel, also ordered armored personnel carriers to provide covering fire for commandos who were storming the building.
The newspaper also quoted an unnamed special services staffer who was an eyewitness to the Beslan events as saying that officials at the scene had reached a kind of agreement with the hostage takers, who from the start had asked for money and a "green corridor" by which to escape. According to the staffer, they asked for Aslan Maskhadov to serve as the go-between in negotiations, and the rebel leader was contacted through his representative Akhmed Zakaev. An agreement was reached that Maskhadov and Zakaev would come to Beslan with a safe passage guarantee from the authorities and leave with the hostage takers, who would release most of the hostages, starting with children. The terrorists would take the remaining hostages to Georgia, where they would be released. According to the source, such a deal was reached and "cars were prepared" for the hostage takers.
Moskovsky komsomolets also quoted from a report to Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev several days after the hostage crisis's bloody denouement, which stated that at 5 AM on September 1, 2004, police in the Chechen town of Shali detained someone named Arsamikov who told them that there was a plot to seize schools in Beslan. "And now simulate the situation," the newspaper wrote. "You have information that a terrorist act is imminent. The time and place of the future [terrorist act] is known. You have four hours and five minutes (they will seize the school only at 9:05) and special communications. Is it possible to report this to the Beslan special services? Is there time to avert this catastrophe? The questions are rhetorical, especially when you consider that this town in the North Caucasus is small: there are only four schools there. But absolutely nothing is done to prevent a terrorist attack." The paper also quoted a Beslan resident, Baliko Margiev, who said that when his car was carefully inspected by GAI traffic police on the edge of the town on August 28 – four days before the school seizure – he was told after asking why the inspection was taking place: "A group of militants have penetrated Beslan."
Among the newspaper's other findings from official documents and testimony: that forensic-chemical analysis of the bodies of the terrorists determined that 22 had injected heroin or morphine. It quoted unnamed specialists as saying that some of the hostage takers ran out of narcotics and became aggressive and behaviorally unpredictable as a result.
Nur-Pashi Kulaev, whom authorities say is the sole surviving member of the terrorists who seized Beslan's School No. 1, told the Vladizkavkaz court where he is on trial that federal troops began storming the school without any provocation from the hostage-takers inside and that the explosions in the school building took place when two hostage-takers who were standing with their feet on bomb detonators were shot, causing their bombs to explode. As the Moscow Times noted on June 1, Kulaev's testimony contradicts the claims by federal authorities that troops decided to storm the building only after the two explosions went off.
Meanwhile, Dmitry Kozak, the presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, told reporters on May 31 that North Ossetian President Aleksandr Dzasokhov had sent a letter to President Putin requesting that he be relieved of his duties early. Dzasokhov, whose term in office expires in January, has faced public protests in North Ossetia over his administration's handling of the Beslan hostage crisis.
Reputation
Writing in Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal, Aleksandr Ryklin expresses the belief that in the savage verdicts of the Yukos trial, Vladimir Putin has delivered an insult to the Russian people:
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev will remain behind bars for just as long as Vladimir Putin remains in power, and they will be released the day after the fall of the regime. But this sentence, I will repeat, has a highly exemplary relation (though is it appropriate in this case to use a juridical term?) to the fate of the Yukos directors. A most direct relation to you and me. Because the majority of us will spend all those years or months not in prison, but in freedom. Consequently, we will be able to influence what happens in the country. Yes, the decision of the Meshchansky law court means that THEY [i.e. the authorities] have spat in all our faces, that THEY do not consider us human beings. All right then, let us wipe ourselves off and set about restoring our own reputation.
Airspace Violations in Finland
from YLE
Government demands an end to territorial violations
(published 01.06.2005), 05.56 hrs(updated 01.06.2005, 13.01 hrs)
Finland demands that Russia cease its violations of Finnish airspace and that Russia acts according to international practice.
The government's foreign and security policy committees discussed the dossier in the morning. Russia's replies to the Finnish note about the Russian airspace violations are not satisfactory, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said yesterday.
Swedish-language version here
Government demands an end to territorial violations
(published 01.06.2005), 05.56 hrs(updated 01.06.2005, 13.01 hrs)
Finland demands that Russia cease its violations of Finnish airspace and that Russia acts according to international practice.
The government's foreign and security policy committees discussed the dossier in the morning. Russia's replies to the Finnish note about the Russian airspace violations are not satisfactory, Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said yesterday.
Swedish-language version here
Unwillingness to Share
At Social Change in Contemporary Latin America, a Mexico-related view of the French "no":
The worst aspect of the defeat of the European constitution in France is the fact that it was driven by the fear of the "Polish plumber," which is the same fear of the Mexican or Central American immigrant here in the United States. It is a fear based in the unwillingness of the relatively wealthy populations of France, Britain, Holland, and the United States to share some of the privileges that they have had for 100 or 150 years.
Khodorkovsky To Appeal
Prague, 31 May 2005 (RFE/RL) -- The legal team representing former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskii has vowed to appeal the conviction and nine-year prison term imposed on the former Russian oil tycoon by a Moscow court today.
Lawyer Genrikh Padva told reporters that the conviction on tax and fraud charges was politically motivated.
Yukos founder Khodorkovskii said the result of his trial was a "monument" to injustice and accused the Kremlin of ordering his conviction.
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