From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24 (Original Message) Sent: 12/14/2006 2:20 PM
Chechnya News Weekly— Volume VII, Issue 48
December 14, 2006
IN THIS ISSUE:
* Twelfth Anniversary of Start of First Chechen War Noted
* Alla Dudaeva Describes being Interrogated by Litvinenko
* Security Situation Remains Unsettled in Chechnya and Ingushetia
* UN on Life in the North Caucasus: Improving but still Grim
* Politkovskaya Posthumously Honored
* Briefs
* Captured Documents Reveal Sources of Rebel Financing
By Andrei Smirnov
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TWELFTH ANNIVERSARY OF START OF FIRST CHECHEN WAR NOTED
December 11 was the 12th anniversary of the start of the first Chechen war. On that date in 1994, then President Boris Yeltsin sent 40,000 federal troops backed by armor and aviation units into the breakaway republic, ostensibly to “restore constitutional order.” As Kavkazky Uzel correspondent Sultan Abubakarov described in an article published on December 11 marking the anniversary: “From the first days of the hostilities, the Russian army in Chechnya widely used attack aircraft, heavy artillery and armor to launch strikes at residential areas of the city of Grozny and other population centers.”
Abubakarov quoted an unnamed former Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) parliamentary deputy as saying: “Actually, by the spring of 1994, it was already understood that the Kremlin was preparing to use military force in Chechnya. The constant small provocations, the imposition of economic and air blockades, the preparation of armed formations of the so-called ‘opposition’ – supplying it with weapons, armor and the rest – clearly indicated that Moscow did not want to compromise.” The ChRI ex-parliamentarian added: “The ChRI leadership, Djokhar Dudaev, did everything possible to halt the impending disaster, to prevent the outbreak of bloodshed. They tried to come to an understanding, but it was all in vain. The Kremlin needed a small victorious war to raise Yeltsin’s authority. In addition, certain rather high-level military officials were very interested in a war. Recall the quick withdrawal of troops from Germany. Military property worth millions and billions of dollars was stolen there. And afterwards, the generals wrote all of this off [as Chechen war losses].”
He concluded: “Dudaev repeatedly said that a 20-30 minute conversation with Yeltsin would be enough to resolve all of the existing problems and contradictions. But he wasn’t given the chance. Negotiations with the Russian side were set to take place in Mozdok on December 12, but on Sunday, December 11, troops were introduced into the republic. I am still convinced that it was the Kremlin’s greatest mistake. We are still feeling the results of that policy today. Hundreds of thousands killed, maimed and disappeared. Shattered cities and villages, destroyed infrastructure and a continuing war, whose slogans are far from those of the ‘first war.’ If, at that time, a majority of the republic’s inhabitants considered our struggle a national liberation war, today many are leaning toward the religious factor, believing that there’s a war going on between two religions – Christianity and Islam.”
In an item published by Prague Watchdog on December 11, Umalt Chadaev detailed the attacks by federal and pro-Moscow Chechen forces in Chechnya in the days that preceded the start of the full-scale Russian military intervention on December 11, 1994.
“On November 23 [1994], Russian aviation subjected the city of Shali and a tank regiment deployed on its outskirts to an aerial rocket bombardment,” Chadaev recalled. “Two days later, the Sheikh Mansur (Severny) Airport near the city of Grozny was also the target of an air strike. On the morning of November 26, armed detachments of the so-called Chechen Temporary Soviet (headed by a former officer of the USSR Interior Ministry, Umar Avturkhanov, the mayor of Chechnya’s Nadterechny district) attacked Grozny with the support of Russian helicopters and tanks. Dudaev’s units destroyed the opposition forces, which entered the capital, annihilating some twenty units of armor and taking approximately the same number of tanks, whose crews were made up of officers of elite Russian divisions – the Taman and Kantemirov [tank divisions]. On November 30, the Russian air force subjected the city of Grozny to a missile strike. On the same day, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a secret decree, ‘On Measures to Establish Constitutional Law and Enforce Laws in the Territory of the Chechen Republic,’ which provided for the introduction of a state of emergency and the disarming of Dudaev’s units. On December 1, a delegation of Russian State Duma deputies arrived in Grozny. During the same day, Grozny was subjected to another air strike.”
For its part, the separatist Chechenpress news agency recalled the start of the first Chechen war in an item posted on its website on December 10. “The main battles were launched on the approaches to the Chechen capital and in the city itself,” Chechenpress wrote. “After several weeks of fighting, the city of Grozny presented a horrifying picture: an entire sea of ruins, among which were scattered the bodies of thousands of Russian soldiers, which had been eaten by wild dogs and cats; endless rows of burned out armor in the streets. The bombardment and artillery fire went on around the clock, without letting up; there was fierce combat in all districts of the city.”
Chechenpress cited an estimate made by Sergei Kovalev, the veteran human rights activist who at the time of the first Chechen military campaign was the Russian government’s human right ombudsman and was in Grozny with other anti-war Russian parliamentarians at the conflict’s start. According to Chechenpress, Kovalev put the number of Russian troops killed in Chechnya during the first two months after December 11, 1994, at around 10,000. Aslan Maskhadov, who at the time of the first Russian military campaign was the chief of staff of the ChRI armed forces, estimated that around 12,000 Russian servicemen died during the first two months of fighting and that 1,200 Russian soldiers were taken prisoner. Chechenpress also cited an estimate made by Dmitri Volkogonov, the late Russian historian and general, that the Russian military’s bombardment of Grozny killed around 35,000 civilians, including 5,000 children and that the vast majority of those killed were ethnic Russians.
Meanwhile, the Agentstvo Natsionalnykh Novostei (ANN) quoted from a statement released on December 11 by Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov about the start of the first Chechen war. “Ordinary inhabitants, average citizens, did not want this carnage, and they indeed have no guilt in what took place,” said Kadyrov, who fought on the rebel side against Russian forces during the first war. “We were forced to go through ordeals that left an indelible mark on the memory of the people. I want to express my deep condolences to those who were victims of this drama, which touched practically every family, every home. Our enlightenment cost us dearly; praise to the Most High that all of this is now behind us. Thanks to the courage and wisdom of the first president of the Chechen Republic Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov and the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, we managed to stop this…war and proceed to peaceful construction, overcome disagreements and arrive at a mutually advantageous cooperation and accord.”
ALLA DUDAEVA DESCRIBES BEING INTERROGATED BY LITVINENKO
Alla Dudaeva, widow of the Chechen leader Djokhar Dudaev, gave an extensive interview to Sobesednik that was published on December 11, the twelfth anniversary of the start of the first Chechen war. Dudaeva, who is now living with her son in Lithuania, told the Russian weekly that after the death of her husband, who was killed in a Russian air strike in April 1996, she was interrogated by Aleksandr Litvinenko, the dissident Federal Security Service (FSB) officer recently murdered with Polonium-210 in London. “Djokhar had just been killed, and we were preparing to fly with the whole family to Turkey, but we were arrested in Nalchik [the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria],” Dudaeva recalled. “I was interrogated by a specially dispatched young officer, who introduced himself as ‘Colonel Aleksandr Volkov.’ He joked that it was not an accidental last name…After some time, I saw him on television next to [tycoon Boris] Berezovsky and found out his real last name – Litvinenko.” According to Dudaeva, during the interrogation, Litvinenko wanted to find out “the truth” about her husband’s death. “The special services were worried that he might have survived and escaped abroad,” she told Sobesednik.
In the Sobesednik interview, Dudaeva gave her version of how her husband was tracked down and killed. “Djokhar received his satellite telephone as a present from [then] Turkish Prime Minister [Negemuddeen] Arbakan,” she said. “As the phone was being assembled in Turkey, Turkish leftists with connections to the Russian special services, through a spy, placed a special microchip in it [the satellite phone]…A Turkish Internet newspaper wrote about this in 2001. In addition, a system of round-the-clock surveillance of Djokhar Dudaev’s telephone was set up in the Signet Super Computer Center located in the state of Maryland in the United States [an apparent reference to a putative NSA facility]. The U.S. National Security Agency transmitted information about the location and telephone conversations of Djokhar Dudaev to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on a daily basis. Turkey received that dossier. And leftist Turkish military officers handed the dossier over to the Russian FSB. Djokhar knew that a hunt for him had begun. When the [satellite phone’s] connection would be broken after a minute, he would joke: ‘So, they’ve already figured it out?’ But, all the same, he was sure his telephone wouldn’t be located.”
Dudaeva said that “Chechen oil” is the reason why the Chechen conflict continues. “As soon as the former Kremlin protégé Akhmat Kadyrov tried to take control of it [Chechen oil] and announced this publicly, he was blown up there and then,” she told Sobesednik. (The elder Kadyrov was killed in a bomb explosion in Grozny in May 2004). “And he was most likely killed by those whose ‘property’ he was encroaching on. The uncontrolled extraction of oil is possible only when a war is going on. Therefore, as soon as someone begins to demand peace talks, he is immediately killed. Those who are stealing oil are also sharing it with their associates at the top.”
SECURITY SITUATION REMAINS UNSETTLED IN CHECHNYA AND INGUSHETIA
The Associated Press reported on December 13 that a soldier committed suicide in Chechnya, while another serviceman deserted in neighboring Ingushetia. The news agency quoted regional police officials as saying that an investigation had been launched into the first incident, in which a contract soldier serving outside of Grozny fired a shot into his own head and died. In the second incident, a border guard in Ingushetia deserted his post carrying two Kalashnikov rifles. Police found a dead taxi driver outside Nazran, and they suspect the man could have been shot by the deserter as he was trying to flee the province in his car. Kavkazky Uzel reported on December 14 that the deserter had been apprehended.
Kavkazky Uzel, citing Radio Liberty’s Russian service, reported on December 8 that one Russian serviceman was killed and another wounded when an explosive device detonated three kilometers east of the village of Dargo in Chechnya’s Vedeno district. The incident took place during an operation to track down rebel fighters. One of the soldiers died on the spot while the other was taken to the hospital in grave condition. During the operation, sappers found and defused two other explosive devices.
Interfax reported on December 8 that one Russian serviceman was killed and five were injured the previous day when an explosive device detonated as two armored personnel carriers belonging to an engineering reconnaissance unit of the Interior Ministry’s Internal Troops were traveling on the road between Grozny and Argun. The news agency quoted Oksana Rogozina, a spokesperson for the Chechen prosecutor’s office, as saying that the blast occurred as the APCs were approaching a turnoff leading to the village of Berkat-Yurt. “Preliminary reports suggest that it was a pressure-fused explosive device,” she said. “One serviceman died from his injuries. Another five servicemen received fragment wounds of various degrees of severity. All of them were admitted to a military hospital and their lives are not in danger.”
Also on December 8, Kavkazky Uzel, citing the Nazran-based Council of Non-Governmental Organization, reported that an officer of Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry – identified only by his last name, Tarshkhoev – was seriously wounded along with his brother in Nazran that day when “a group of unknown persons in camouflage uniforms and masks” opened fired on their car.
Meanwhile, Kavkazky Uzel reported on December 12 that Salambek Omarov, a 20-year-old law student at the Gudermes branch of the Makhachkala Institute, had been seized in Grozny’s Staropromyslovsky district by “employees of one of the local power structures” and driven off to an unknown point. The website quoted relatives of Omarov as saying they had been unable to establish his whereabouts, and that he had never been involved in any unlawful activities.
UN ON LIFE IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS: IMPROVING BUT STILL GRIM
A document issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on December 12 paints a rather bleak picture of the general socioeconomic situation in the North Caucasus and particularly in Chechnya. “Current assessments of humanitarian vulnerability indicate that the overall humanitarian situation in Chechnya and its neighboring republics will remain serious throughout 2007, although gradual improvement is expected,” states the executive summary of the “Inter-Agency Transitional Work Plan for the North Caucasus 2007.”
The document continues: “There are at least 150,000 internally displaced persons in Chechnya (equivalent to 10-15 percent of the total population) and as many as 40,000 persons are also displaced in Ingushetia and Dagestan. They and the general population live in a post-conflict environment, in which the authorities recognize major weaknesses in the rule of law. Although there are signs of socioeconomic recovery, and the expectation is that this process will continue in 2007, the North Caucasus remains one of the poorest regions in the Russian Federation. Nearly 80 percent of the population in the North Caucasus region is estimated to live on an income below the national poverty level. Health indicators suggest deeper problems of poverty and inadequate social services. Maternal and infant mortality rates in Chechnya and Ingushetia, for example, are 24 times higher than the national average. The incidence of tuberculosis in Chechnya is ten times higher, and has increased nearly fivefold since 2001. Public infrastructure in Chechnya is mostly destroyed. For example, 40 percent of the residents of Grozny lack access to running water.”
OCHA called for a number of steps to be taken, including the provision of “basic food relief to the most vulnerable,” housing and employment for internally displaced persons and micro-credit and poverty-reduction assistance. It also noted that “because the North Caucasus remains a difficult operating environment in terms of the safety of humanitarian and development aid workers, the UN and most of its partners take exceptional security measures, including the use of armed guards and escorts.”
POLITKOVSKAYA POSTHUMOUSLY HONORED
Novaya gazeta was among the recipients of Reporters Without Borders’ annual media freedom prizes, the Associated Press reported on December 12. The Paris-based media advocacy group awards the annual prizes jointly with the Fondation de France, a private foundation, to a journalist, a media outlet, a defender of press freedoms and a cyber dissident. Each receives $2,900. This year’s media prize went to Novaya gazeta, which Reporters Without Borders said, “is known for its investigations which regularly criticize the corruption of the Russian administration.” As the AP noted, the bi-weekly’s award-winning correspondent Anna Politkovskaya, whose work focused on Chechnya and the North Caucasus, was shot and killed in Moscow on October 7.
Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin posthumously awarded Politkovskaya a medal on December 9, the day before International Human Rights Day. According to Interfax, Novaya gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitri Muratov received the medal for the slain journalist at the request of her relatives and the newspaper’s staff. Lukin said in a brief speech that over 40 criminal cases had been launched on the basis of Politkovskaya’s articles. “More efficient measures should be taken so that journalists dissenting with the government's position can work freely,” Lukin said at the ceremony.
On December 7, the Executive Board of the International Press Institute (IPI) announced that it had named Politkovskaya as one of its World Press Freedom Heroes. “Politkovskaya’s nomination as our 51st World Press Freedom Hero is a tribute to her bravery, but also an acknowledgement of the struggles of the many courageous journalists working in Russia,” IPI Director Johann Fritz said in a press release. “Over 20 journalists have been killed in Russia since 2000; most were killed with impunity. Her murder is a shock and a loss. IPI believes that she made a significant contribution to journalism and to the cause of human rights. We pay respect to her courage and her exceptional determination, and call on the Russian authorities to ensure that there is a thorough investigation into her murder.”
Sergei Kovalev, the veteran human rights campaigner who chairs the Memorial Society, was awarded France’s Legion of Honor in a ceremony held at the French Embassy in Moscow on December 11, Itar-Tass reported. President Vladimir Putin received the same award on September 22. On October 20, in the wake of Anna Politkovskaya’s murder, Reporters Without Borders called on the French government to strip Putin of the award.
The Moscow city authorities, meanwhile, denied permission for a march commemorating murdered Russian journalists that was scheduled to take place on December 17, MosNews reported on December 12. The organizers of the march – a group of Moscow-based journalists – told Ekho Moskvy radio that the march was meant to be a “civil action” to pay tribute to journalists killed while doing their job or expressing their opinion. City officials said the action would disrupt car traffic and hinder access to certain locations in the city center for ordinary residents who would not participate in the procession, thus violating their constitutional rights.
BRIEFS
- ULMAN AND CO-DEFENDANTS DENY CHARGES
Captain Eduard Ulman and three other Russian military officers accused of murdering six civilians in Chechnya four years ago have admitted involvement, but denied the charges against them, RIA Navistar reported on December 12. Ulman, Lieutenant Alexander Kalagansky, Major Aleksei Perelevsky and warrant officer Vladimir Voyevodin are accused of attacking a jeep, killing six locals and burning a car during a reconnaissance mission in the Chechnya in January 2002, according to an indictment read by the presiding judge at a hearing held on December 12. The judges have adjourned until December 14, when witnesses are set to start giving evidence, according to a provisional schedule. Prosecutors expect about 40 witnesses to appear in the court hearings. The four officers have been acquitted twice on charges of murder and abuse of office by the North Caucasus District Military Court in jury trials, but the acquittals were overturned by higher courts.
- NURGALIEV: 22,000 INTERIOR MINISTRY KONTRAKTNIKI IN CHECHNYA
Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev said on December 11 that his ministry had 22,000 professional soldiers in Chechnya, the Moscow Times reported on December 12. Nurgaliev said that as of December 1, all Interior Ministry troops in the republic were on a contract and that more than 6,000 conscripted soldiers were withdrawn from Chechnya during the first 11 months of this year.
- EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTS CRITICIZES ABUSES IN CHECHNYA
The European Parliament adopted a resolution critical of the human rights situation in Russia, including in Chechnya, the parliament’s website reported on December 13. The European parliamentarians noted that “the current situation in Russia gives rise to serious concerns regarding the respect for human rights, democracy, freedom of expression and the rights of civil society and individuals to challenge and hold the authorities accountable for their action.” In particular, the resolution expressed concern “about the use of torture in Russian prisons and police stations and in secret detention centers in Chechnya,” as well as about the “continuing series of murders of prominent persons, such as Anna Politkovskaya, who oppose the current Russian government.”
Captured Documents Reveal Sources of Rebel Financing
By Andrei Smirnov
On December 8, the Russian newspaper Rossiiskaya gazeta published an article about Abu Hafs, a Chechen rebel field commander of Arab origin who was killed in the Dagestani town of Khasavuyrt on November 27. The core of the article discussed the financial documents, which the Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed, were found among the slain field commander’s belongings. The newspaper said that these documents revealed the amount of money the rebels received this year. According to the Abu Hafs papers, the insurgents received a total of US$340,000 in 2006 from the Muslim communities of Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Europe.
However, one cannot trust this figure and other information reported in the Rossiiskaya gazeta article. The article is full of contradictions and apparent errors. It refers, for example, to the US$340,000 that the rebels received this year, but in the next sentence, the author informs his readers that US$200,000 and EUR195,000 came to the rebels from abroad in January 2006 alone. Clearly, the total of US$200,000 and EUR195,000 is more than US$340,000. Besides, it is difficult to ascertain from the article whether the insurgency received anything from the foreign Muslim community after January of this year or if the financial support stopped completely after that.
The article goes on to say that some unsent letters had been found among the papers of Abu Hafs. The FSB declared that these letters were to be sent to sheikhs – potential sponsors – but the author of the Rossiiskaya gazeta article provides no specific names. It is also interesting that Russian security officials said that Abu Hafs was the al-Qaeda envoy in the North Caucasus, and yet, even indirect evidence of this was not found in the papers. Rossiiskaya gazeta even confused its facts regarding Abu Hafs’ background. In another article, published on November 27, the newspaper said that Abu Hafs had come to Chechnya in 1995, but an earlier article had reported that Abu Hafs joined the Chechen rebels in 1999.
Immediately after the Arab commander’s death in Khasavuyrt, the FSB claimed that Abu Hafs controlled all financial resources of the Caucasian insurgency. Yet the recent Rossiiskaya gazeta article said that each Arab field commander in Chechnya had his own financial sources, which indicates that the financial system of the insurgency is decentralized.
Nevertheless, the most interesting part of the article was a reference to the US$5 million that Dokku Umarov, the Chechen separatist field commander who became the top leader of the Caucasian insurgency this summer, had received as a ransom for a rich hostage whose name was not mentioned in the article. According to the newspaper’s sources in the FSB, when Umarov received the US$5 million, he sent US$1.5 million to Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, who was the Chechen separatist president at that time. Sadualev then sent this money to Abu Hafs with an order to divide it between several field commanders – Rappani Khalilov (US$150,000), Sultan Khadisov (US$100,000) and Suleiman Imurzaev aka Hairullah (US$90,000).
Ironically, this fact disproves, rather than confirms, the FSB’s assertion that Abu Hafs, as al-Qaeda’s envoy, controlled the Caucasian insurgency’s cash flows. In fact, one can see that he distributed the money among other commanders but did not make decisions as to whom and how much. It should also be noted that the fact that Umarov and Sadulaev sent money to Abu Hafs, and not vice versa, suggests that the Chechen and Caucasian rebels have themselves been operating with large sums of money.
Unlike other facts mentioned in the Rossiiskaya gazeta article, the story of the $US5 million that Dokku Umarov received as a ransom for a hostage is likely to be true, because it was confirmed by other sources. Rossiiskaya gazeta said that the rebels received the ransom money last May. On May 3, the Ingushetia.ru website posted a report stating that US$10 million had been paid for a relative of Ingush President Murat Zyazikov who was kidnapped by insurgents (EDM, July 6).
If we compare the $5 million or $10 million dollars that the rebels received as ransom with the money that the FSB claims Abu Hafs had, we can see that foreign capital constituted a very small portion of the insurgency’s budget. It looks even smaller when compared with other sources of financing for the separatists, such as bank robberies. For example, last April, the rebels reportedly earned 24 million rubles by hijacking a bank vehicle in Dagestan. This sum (about $US1 million) is twice as much as Abu Hafs’ entire budget for this year, and this robbery is not the only instance (EDM, July 6).
Earlier this year Nikolai Shepel, who was the Russian Prosecutor to the Southern Federal District at the time, told Izvestia that the main sources of income for the terrorist groups in the North Caucasus were robbery, racketeering, kidnapping and drug trafficking (Izvestia, January 9). The prosecutor mentioned nothing about foreign support.
It is impossible to judge precisely the accuracy of the numbers mentioned in the Rossiiskaya gazeta article about Abu Hafs money, since there were too many errors in the article to trust it completely. However, what can be said about this article is that it was simply another clumsy attempt by the FSB to search for evidence that the Caucasian insurgency is linked to al-Qaeda – a claim that has yet to be proven.
Andrei Smirnov is an independent journalist covering the North Caucasus. He is based in Russia.
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