From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 1/25/2007 11:48 AM
Chechnya Weekly - Volume VIII, Issue 4
January 25, 2007

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Kommersant: Kadyrov Will Soon Be Chechnya’s President
* CPJ: Chechen Police Targeted in Politkovskaya Murder Prove
* Rights Abusers’ Videos Are Once Again in the Spotlight
* Russia’s Supreme Court Upholds Friendship Society Closure
* Briefs
* Still Betting on Kadyrov: The Kremlin’s Strategy in Chechnya
By Mayrbek Vachagaev
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KOMMERSANT: KADYROV WILL SOON BE CHECHNYA’S PRESIDENT

Kommersant wrote on January 25 that Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov’s elevation to the post of the republic’s president may be imminent. The newspaper reported that Kadyrov had ordered a “comprehensive check” of all of the republic’s ministries and agencies and started reshuffling posts in the republican Interior Ministry, all of which will be completed in a month. At that time, the newspaper wrote, “Mr. Kadyrov may become president.”

Kommersant noted that according to procedure, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Southern Federal District, Dmitry Kozak, would have to send the president the names of two candidates for the post of Chechen president, and that Kadyrov himself, during a republican government meeting on January 19, had put forward Minister of Labor and Social Protection Magomed Vakhaev as the second presidential candidate. “It was a regular meeting, during which the realization of national projects in the republic was discussed, and no one expected this turn of events,” Vakhaev told Kommersant. According to the newspaper, Kadyrov declared at the end of the meeting: “Here is the only minister who is doing good work. I have proposed his candidacy to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for nomination to the post of Chechen president.” The newspaper commented: “In Chechnya, it is not only uncustomary to challenge Ramzan Kadyrov’s statements, but even to discuss them. No questions about Mr. Vakhaev’s candidacy arose among those who participated in the meeting. Everyone perfectly understood that Ramzan Kadyrov, in fact, does not plan to cede the presidential post to anyone. Mr. Vakhaev himself has no presidential ambitions. ‘To compete with Ramzan Kadyrov for the post of president - I don’t have that in mind,’ Mr. Vakhaev told Kommersant.” The newspaper quoted an unnamed source in Kozak’s office as saying that Vakhaev had been nominated as a second presidential candidate to make it appear as if there are alternatives, but that Putin would ask Chechnya’s parliament to confirm Kadyrov as president.

Alkhanov, who said in late December that he had no intention of resigning as Chechnya’s president, told journalists in Rostov-on-Don on January 24 that he had “no desire” to remain in the post for a second term after the first ends in 2008, RIA Novosti reported. However, he added: “If I am destined to be the republic’s leader for a second time, I will.” Kommersant reported that he has already been offered a high-level position in the federal Interior Ministry.

Moskovsky komsomolets correspondent Vadim Rechkalov, for his part, reported in the newspaper’s January 22 edition that Chechen Minister of Labor and Social Protection Magomed Vakhaev will in fact replace Alu Alkhanov as the republic’s president. Rechkalov wrote, however, that Vakhaev will simply be another “technical” president who is in fact “controlled by Premier Kadyrov.” According to Rechkalov, the reason why the federal authorities want to replace Alkhanov with Vakhaev is that even though Alkhanov has thus far has been a stabilizing factor in the republic, he could eventually “lose patience and revolt against his humiliating role as a respectable wedding general [“svadebny general” is a Russian expression meaning ceremonial bystander] under a spoiled heir” and possibly even dismiss Kadyrov.

Rechkalov said that while such a scenario is “theoretically possible” but unlikely, an even bigger potential problem is Kadyrov himself, given that he is too “energetic,” “hot-tempered” and ambitious to remain in the post of prime minister and thus could initiate a conflict with Alkhanov. While the federal authorities could replace Alkhanov with Kadyrov, this would be “dangerous” from their point of view, particularly in the run-up to Russia’s presidential election in 2008, when the Kremlin will have a particular interest in ensuring that Chechnya remains quiet.

According to Rechkalov, Kadyrov could enjoy undisputed power as prime minister with Vakhaev as president, and this could be even more advantageous to Kadyrov than assuming the presidency immediately. “Premier Kadyrov under President Alkhanov has looked like an underage prince for whom an older, more respectable and indulgent colleague is holding the presidential seat,” Rechkalov wrote. “The same Premier Kadyrov under President Vakhaev will look like a power broker, an influential vizier under a khan-puppet.” Unlike Alkhanov, Vakhaev would be “fully” under Kadyrov’s control, Rechkalov wrote, and, at the same time, Kadyrov would not have to worry about term limits since his formal assumption of the presidency would be well off in the future. Such an arrangement would have the added benefit of making it look like Kadyrov’s main concern is working for “the rebirth of the republic in any post” rather than simply seeking the presidency as a career move.

Rechkalov reported that along with Vakhaev’s assumption of the presidency, Ruslan Alkhanov would soon be removed as Chechnya’s interior minister and replaced by Surkho Demilkhanov, the brother of Adam Demilkhanov – the Chechen deputy prime minister who “took an active part in the removal of the last serious opponent of Ramzan Kadyrov – Movladi Baisarov.” Baisarov was shot to death in Moscow last November (Chechnya Weekly, November 22, 2006). “According to our information, Adam personally shot Movladi, and now his devotion will be rewarded in full with a key post for his younger brother,” Rechkalov wrote.

CPJ: CHECHEN POLICE TARGETED IN POLITKOVSKAYA MURDER PROBE

Members of a delegation from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) who were in Moscow this week to push for more aggressive investigations into the murder of Russian journalists, and particularly Anna Politkovskaya, raised eyebrows when they claimed they were told by Foreign Ministry officials that Chechen policemen were being investigated for the crime. “Russia’s prosecutor general has opened a criminal investigation into several police officials in Chechnya who may have killed reporter Anna Politkovskaya because she was about to publish an article alleging their involvement in torture,” CPJ stated in a press release posted on the group’s website (CPJ.org) on January 23. “The information was disclosed to a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists in a meeting on Monday with Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov.”

The Moscow Times reported on January 24 that the CPJ officials said during a press conference in the Russian capital the previous day that Malakhov, who is the Foreign Ministry’s deputy spokesman, had told them about the probe of the Chechen police during a meeting on January 22. The English-language newspaper quoted Nina Ognianova, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, as saying that the meeting with Malakhov was in English and that the ministry’s statement was put in such unambiguous terms that clarification was not required. “We reported to you what we heard: that the Prosecutor General’s Office has launched a criminal investigation into several Chechen police officers,” Ognianova said, adding that Malakhov said he had obtained the information directly from the Prosecutor General’s Office. “We were just pleased to hear the investigation was making progress,” she said. Paul Steiger, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and CPJ board chairman, said he had asked the Foreign Ministry officials to confirm their statement, which they did. CPJ executive director Joel Simon said the ministry officials had stressed that Chechen police involvement was just one of several theories being pursued by investigators.

Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Boris Malakhov subsequently denied that he had told the CPJ representatives about a possible Chechen police role in Politkovskaya’s killing. “Absolutely nothing like that was said at the meeting,” the Moscow Times quoted him as saying in a telephone interview on January 23. “I don’t know where they got that information from.” Instead, he said he had told the CPJ delegation that prosecutors in Chechnya were investigating a link between Politkovskaya’s last article, about torture in the region and her death.

Interfax, meanwhile, quoted the Chechen Interior Ministry as saying on January 23 that it had no information that any of its officers were in any way involved in Politkovskaya’s murder. Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, for his part, called reports about the possible involvement of Chechen Interior Ministry personnel in Politkovskaya’s murder “a carefully planned provocation.” Interfax quoted him as saying reports that a criminal case had been opened against two Chechen Interior Ministry employees on suspicion of involvement in Politkovskaya’s murder were also untrue. “Anna Politkovskaya was a journalist - a person of a peaceful profession - and Chechen policemen do not wage war against peaceful people; their task is to fight terrorists, members of illegal armed formations [and] Wahhabis, and they cope with that task successfully,” Kadyrov said. Still, as Kommersant noted on January 24, Kadyrov also ordered the Chechen Interior Ministry’s leadership to “liven up” its battle against so-called “werewolves in epaulettes” – the term coined in 2003 by then Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov for corrupt and criminal law-enforcement officers. According to Kommersant, Kadyrov ordered the ministry officials to report to him on their efforts in this area no later than February 18.

RIGHTS ABUSERS’ VIDEOS ARE ONCE AGAIN IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Kommersant reported on January 24 that Russia’s Foreign Ministry had told the delegation from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that an investigation was conducted in Chechnya in connection to several Interior Ministry officers who had appeared in four videos allegedly showing Chechen Interior Ministry personnel committing rights violations. An article by Anna Politkovskaya published in Novaya gazeta last March included her descriptions of and some clips from footage sent to her that was apparently shot by someone using a cell phone camera. One clip appeared to show the aftermath of a road accident involving a car belonging to Chechen siloviki and a Russian armored personnel carrier. Several Russian servicemen could be seen lying on the ground, apparently either dead or unconscious. The clip then showed, as Politkovskaya described in the article, “people in Kadyrovite uniforms” beating another federal serviceman, who apparently had also been traveling in the APC. Another clip showed a group of men wearing the camouflage uniforms of the Kadyrov-controlled Chechen security services forcing two men into the trunk of a car. Ramzan Kadyrov appeared to be among this group of uniformed men (Chechnya Weekly, March 23, 2006).

Acting Assistant Chechen Prosecutor Nadezhda Nazarova told Nezavisimaya gazeta last October that the republican prosecutor’s office was working on identifying the individuals who appeared in the video recordings that Politkovskaya had written about, including the person described as resembling Ramzan Kadyrov. Nazarova told the newspaper that her office had examined the videos, but that “there was no confirmation of Ramzan Kadyrov’s presence on them,” that he “could not have been on them anyway” and that there was “no confirmation of the presence of members of his entourage on them either.”

The newspaper further quoted Nazarova as saying: “In the files it says that personnel from the Nevsky Internal Affairs Ministry regiment – the regiment guarding the oil complex – were at the scene of the incident (the episode involving the abduction). The regiment is comprised of former members of Akhmad Kadyrov’s security staff, but at the time it was officially part of the republican Internal Affairs Ministry structure.” Since no individuals were identified, the case had been “suspended,” Nazarova said. “I cannot say whether the case will go any further,” she said. “I can officially say that work on the identification of the individuals is still proceeding. The suspension of a case does not mean it has been closed” (Chechnya Weekly, October 26, 2006).

However, Kommersant, on January 24, quoted Chechen Prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov as saying that criminal cases had been launched on the basis of only two of the four videos. “There were four videos of very poor quality, shot on a mobile phone,” Kuznetsov told the newspaper. “On one of them, some person was pushed into a car trunk, on another, there was someone who looked like Ramzan Kadyrov in a sauna with girls, on the third, there was the incident of the beating of servicemen, and on the fourth, there was the beating of a Chechen girl, whose head was shaved and painted green for marital infidelity. We examined all of these cases: in the first two, no criminal charges were filed, but in the second and third, criminal charges were filed in May of last year.” Kuznetsov said, however, that the criminal case involving the beating of the servicemen was dropped because it was impossible to identify the apparent perpetrators shown on the video. The case involving the abuse of the girl, however, was investigated and will be sent to a court in the next two weeks, the Chechen prosecutor said. When asked whether Chechen Interior Ministry personnel were involved, Kuznetsov answered: “Let’s wait a little while: as soon as we transfer the case to court, I’ll tell you everything. For the time being, I’ll say that it concerns at least one employee of the Chechen MVD.”

The girl whose head was shaved was Malika Soltaeva, a 23-year-old resident of the town of Argun. As Kommersant noted, the incident was detailed by the Memorial human rights on its website. It was also described by Tanya Lokshina, chair of the Demos Center for Information and Human Rights Research in Moscow, in an interview she gave to the Caucasus Times just a week after she returned from a trip to Chechnya last May (Chechnya Weekly, May 25, 2006). New York Times correspondent C.J. Chivers wrote about the incident and posted the video on the newspaper’s website last August 30.

According to Kommersant, Soltaeva was kidnapped by unknown persons in Argun in February 2006 and returned home a month later, after which her husband left her, accusing her of infidelity and taking their child. After that, people in camouflage beat her, shaved her head and painted it green, painting a green cross on her forehead. As the New York Times noted in its report about the incident, she was forced to confess, ordered to strip, and was beaten with wooden rods and hoses on her buttocks, arms, legs, hands, stomach and back, with one of the attackers demanding that she “turn and be condemned by Allah” so he could strike her more squarely.

Kommersant reported that relatives of Soltaeva said her attackers were members of Chechnya’s Anti-Terrorism Center (ATC), a unit controlled by Ramzan Kadyrov that has since been disbanded, and that the victim herself claimed that these same people had kidnapped her at her husband’s request. The perpetrators then seized an apartment from Soltaeva’s family, whose members were threatened when they complained to the Argun police. Memorial reported that the threats were made by the former commander of the ATC’s Argun branch, Magomed Israpilov, also known as “Mamak,” along with his brothers Akhmed and Ramazan and five of their friends. They allegedly told Soltaeva and her relatives that they (the perpetrators) had “committed many crimes” and were not afraid either of the police or the prosecutor’s office. An investigator with the Argun police, identified only as Makhmudov, who had allegedly witnessed Israpilov threatening the victim and her relatives, told them that after the New York Times ran its article and posted the video of the incident, Kadyrov had called “the entire police” onto the carpet “demanding action” and that relatives were supposed to “take Malika away” so that no further clamor would be raised.

“Which of the persons mentioned will…be accused by the prosecutor of Chechnya for persecuting Malika Soltaeva is as yet unknown; however, considering that this criminal case was launched directly after the article by Anna Politkovskaya was published, it is not surprising that her American colleagues connected it to the journalist’s murder,” Kommersant wrote. “It is also not surprising that the Chechen authorities deny the fact of a criminal investigation in connection with the employees of the local MVD on the basis of Ms. Politkovskaya’s material – the members of the ATC had a special status; in Chechnya, they were simply called kadyrovtsy. However, after that service was dissolved, the majority of its members became policemen or soldiers of the ‘Sever’ and ‘Yug’ battalions of the Internal Troops controlled by the Chechen authorities.”

RUSSIA’S SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY CLOSURE

On January 23, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled to uphold the Nizhegorod Oblast Court’s decision of last October 13 to support the closure of the Nizhny Novgorod-based Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (ORChD) by the regional prosecutor’s office, (Chechnya Weekly, October 19, 2006). The Supreme Court, Interfax noted, thereby rejected an appeal filed by ORChD head Stanislav Dmitrievsky challenging the Nizhegorod Oblast Court decision.

Dmitrievsky was convicted in 2005 for publishing two peace appeals by Aslan Maskhadov and Akhmed Zakaev in the society’s newspaper, Pravo-Zashchita, in March and April 2004 (Chechnya Weekly, November 10 and 17, 2005; January 26, 2005), with prosecutors originally charging him with terrorism and later changing the charge to inciting ethnic hatred. Last February, Dmitrievsky was found guilty of inciting ethnic hatred and given a two-year suspended sentence (Chechnya Weekly, February 9, 2006). When the Nizhegorod Oblast prosecutor’s office ordered the ORChD to be closed last October, it cited Dmitrievsky’s conviction for “extremist” activities and the fact that the ORChD had not dissociated itself from those alleged activities and that Dmitrievsky remained the group’s head.

Interfax quoted Dmitrievsky as saying during the Supreme Court session devoted to the ORChD closure that the oblast court’s decision had been “unlawful and baseless.” According to the news agency, he emphasized that after the ORChD was ordered to be closed last October, “In a sign of solidarity and support, more than 50 foreign citizens, among them deputies of the European Parliament and well-known writers, joined the organization.” He added: “I believe that my rights guaranteed under articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights – [the right to] freedom of expression and [to] freedom of assembly and association – were violated. Not only were my rights violated, but also those of other members of our organization, as well as those who joined it.”

Dmitrievsky’s lawyer, Anna Stavitskaya, said that one of the main bases for the ORChD’s liquidation was the fact that he had been convicted under Article 282 of Russia’s Criminal Code, forbidding the incitement of inter-ethnic, religious and racial hatred. “The court cited the law on opposing extremist activity,” she said. “In my view, the law says something different. According to it, actions aimed at inciting any hatred must be accompanied by violence or the threat of violence; however, there is no reference to violence in Dmitrievsky’s verdict.”

The Washington Post, on January 24, quoted Oksana Chelysheva, the ORChD’s deputy executive manager, as saying that the organization would fight the Supreme Court ruling. “We are going to take our case to the European Court of Human Rights and, possibly, our Constitutional Court,” she said. The newspaper quoted from an open letter from a group of Western politicians and intellectuals, including members of the European Parliament, written earlier this month to President Vladimir Putin asking him to allow the group to continue its work. “Neither the act of printing statements by separatist leaders, nor the content of the statements themselves, would be considered extremist in most Western countries, no matter how unpopular the cause involved,” the letter stated. “Moreover the flood of genuinely extremist material that appears almost daily in the Russian media, which has gone without comment from the Russian prosecutor’s office, makes it clear that the law is being selectively applied in order to silence the society.” As the Washington Post noted, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society was almost entirely underwritten by the European Union, the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.

Meanwhile, Ekho Moskvy radio reported on January 24 that a successor organization to the ORChD, the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship in Europe, had been registered in Finland.

BRIEFS

- EUROPEAN HR COURT FINDS RUSSIAN MILITARY GUILTY OF TORTURE

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled on January 18 that the Russian military tortured two Chechen brothers held in detention in 2000, the first such conviction of Russian servicemen, Reuters reported. Adam and Arbi Chitaev said that during their nearly six months of incarceration, they were beaten with full water bottles and rubber truncheons, nearly strangled to death with adhesive tape and gas masks, had dogs set on them and their skin torn with pliers. The brothers said that after being detained in April 2000, they were subjected to a week of beating at a local police station before guards drove them to the military-run Chernokozovo detention center in Chechnya, and that they had been forced to sign confessions stating that they had worked with Chechen rebels. “The conditions there were very tough,” Arbi Chitaev told Reuters by telephone from Germany where he now lives. “I think it’s possible to compare the conditions with fascist camps during the Second World War or with the conditions at Stalin’s Gulags.” He said he and his brother had not seen Russian guards kill anyone but they were asked to carry bodies out to waiting trucks. The brothers were released a few days after Anna Politkovskaya published a story about their plight in Novaya gazeta. They were also helped by the Memorial human rights group. “Politkovskaya’s interference and the Memorial people were the only thing that saved us,” Arbi Chitaev said. The Strasbourg-based court ruled that Russian authorities had “tortured the applicants and failed to provide a prompt and public investigation” and awarded each brother 35,000 euros ($45,280) compensation.

- KADYROV SEEKS RETRIAL FOR MURTAZALIEVA

Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov said on January 25 that he would seek a retrial of Zara Murtazalieva, the Chechen woman sentenced to nine years in prison in 2005 for allegedly attempting to carry out a terrorist bombing in Moscow in 2004. Kadyrov said he doubted that Murtazalieva was guilty and that he plans to bring in “experienced legal experts and lawyers who will correctly and in strict compliance with the law, carry out all procedures connected to a retrial.” Russian and international human rights groups have charged that the case against Murtazalieva was fabricated.

Still Betting on Kadyrov: The Kremlin’s Strategy in Chechnya
By Mayrbek Vachagaev
Last year was a fairly successful one for Ramzan Kadyrov, even though his main goal – to become the republic’s president – has remained unmet. The conditions within the republic are such, however, that none can doubt that Kadyrov is the only man in charge. Kadyrov is currently the only significant political figure remaining in Russian-controlled Chechnya. He continues to be invincible and free from competition due to his special relationship with the Kremlin leadership, specifically the patronage of Vladislav Surkov and the benevolent attitude of Vladimir Putin. It is not surprising that Kadyrov’s personal website cites the endorsements of only these two men, since any other opinion would be largely superfluous [1].

Thanks to the influence of the Kremlin, all other Chechen politicians have gradually disappeared from the public eye, including such men as Beslan Gantamirov, the Yamadaev brothers, Kakiev and many others. Gantamirov’s attempts in 2006 to oppose Kadyrov, along with the petitions asking Moscow to reign in its pawn, led to naught. The insults directed at Gantamirov by Kadyrov’s men during a so-called roundtable discussion clearly revealed that Moscow is not interested in creating a political counterweight to Kadyrov within the republic (APN, September 14, 2006). Movsar Baisarov made the mistake of thinking that he could act as an official opposition while hiding behind the backs of his FSB backers. However, even these backers were unable to prevent the bloody resolution of the Baisarov-Kadyrov conflict [2]. It is even possible that certain circles within the FSB wanted to use the situation as a way of feeling out the Kremlin’s attitude toward the possibility of an opposition camp within Russian-controlled Chechnya. The result is now well known – murder on the streets of Moscow – and was a convincing demonstration to all those who continued to foolishly believe that it was still possible for someone except Kadyrov to secure Moscow’s backing.

The timid steps of Alu Alkhanov, the president of the Chechen republic, to pull together a coalition of those inclined to stand against Kadyrov (B. Gantamirov, S. Yamadaev, M. Kakiev, M. Baisarov, etc.), failed completely. It is worth remembering that Alkhanov was the only person to publicly express his condolences for the murdered Movsar Baisarov. It was a vague demonstration of independence, an attempt to show that Alkhanov could still have his own point of view, independent of Prime Minister Kadyrov. Yet, it was such an insignificant demonstration; a declaration so uncertain that it was drowned out by Alkhanov’s other statements, including one suggesting that the “law enforcement has yet to properly evaluate the actions of the Chechen OMON.” All of this has led certain observers to label the “incident on the Leninskii prospect of the capital as a demonstrative execution, something that Kadyrov’s men had never dared to do before” (www.gazeta.ru, November 20, 2006).

Sadly, certain serious western analysts have drawn far-reaching conclusions based upon articles published in the Russian media. For example, the works of journalists such as Vadim Rechkalov and Yulia Kalinina can only be treated as attempts at humor. One recent article penned by Rechkalov suggests that Alu Alkhanov may be replaced by Magomet Vakhaev, the Chechen minister of labor (Moskovskii Komsomolets, January 20). The article completely ignores the fact that Vakhaev has no real influence within the Chechen political elite and is simply one of Ramzan Kadyrov’s many pawns.

The Kremlin is still betting on Kadyrov, which means that 2007 will bring many more declarations about the increasingly stable situation in Chechnya. This makes Ramzan a juicy target for the Chechen resistance (which has shifted back to the tactics of Aslan Maskhadov, with its simultaneous attacks across all of Chechnya and away from the large, elaborately planned operations typical of Shamil Basaev), especially since it has no military victories to brag about since the ascension of Dokku Umarov to the post of resistance leader.

Kadyrov’s elaborate claims about improving life in Chechnya are demonstrably untrue. The exodus of Chechens from the Russian Federation continues and uncorroborated data shows the presence of over 100,000 Chechen refugees across Europe. 27,000 Chechens crossed the western border of Belarus during the past three years, though the main outflow continues though the Ukraine [3]. The numerous amnesties, intended to show that someone, somewhere is surrendering, have become a media spectacle, even for the Russian public. Not a single resistance fighter surrendered during the last several months, necessitating the use of Zelikhman Yandarbiev’s relatives to demonstrate the results of a “successful amnesty.” The fact that these people had spent years living in their village and working in official government institutions was simply ignored. This is just another example of Russia’s inability to improve the situation in the region, and the sort of activity that has been recurring in the republic for the past seven years.

The unsettled situation in Chechnya and the North Caucasus region as well as throughout the Russian Federation is exemplified by the recent alarm raised by the Russian security services about “the possibility of a massive terrorist attack in Moscow.” The juxtaposition of the amnesties and the images of guerrillas gratefully surrendering to Ramzan Kadyrov as well as the endless announcements of Chechnya’s recovery alongside the increasing security precautions in Russia’s capital is startling. Ahmed Zakaev nicely pointed out that “the supposedly super-successful amnesty has not impacted those Chechens actually fighting, something implicitly confirmed by (the head of the FSB) Mr. Patrushev himself, since who can be left to fight if all of the guerillas have surrendered?” (Kommersant, January 18). This idea was echoed by the editor-in-chief of the “Ekho Moskvy” radio station. “It was a strange sort of governmental warning. Let me explain what bothered me about it. Six months ago, Shamil Basaev is killed, along with several other influential and terrible guerilla leaders. Every day we are told that life in Chechnya is becoming ever more normal and peaceful. And then, thunder out of a clear sky! A serous terrorist threat! Hadn’t we sorted all of them out?” [4].

It is this constant expectation of possible attacks by the Chechen resistance movement that makes Ramzan Kadyrov indispensable to Moscow. Kadyrov is the Kremlin within Chechnya – its face and its flesh. Without the support given him by Moscow, Kadyrov is nothing. All of Kadyrov’s power and cruelty, the fact that no control is exerted over him by those who have the ability to do so, all shows that today, he is needed as a player in Chechen affairs. Yet, even Ramzan himself cannot ignore the fact that at some point (in the not-so-distant future), he will cease to become a necessity and his career will end badly. But that is still in the future. Today, he is needed and will be needed as long as the Chechen resistance movement is active, since he has managed to make himself into a “heroic figure.” That said, there is some truth to Russian analyst Ruslan Martagov’s view that the war-weary Chechens are willing to temporarily accept the rules of the game currently established by the Kremlin in Chechnya and thus tolerate Kadyrov (Radio Svoboda, October 5, 2006).

In the end, the issue is not that Ramzan Kadyrov is the Kremlin’s puppet. It is the fact that he is given limitless power within the republic, and that he has superiors who are willing to let him do absolutely anything he wants. This is not just the crux of the problem, it is the very reason behind all of his actions in Chechnya today.

Mayrbek Vachagaev is a PhD candidate in Social Sciences at the University of Paris. He is the author of the book, "Chechnya in the 19th Century Caucasian Wars."

Notes

1. www.ramzan-kadyrov.ru/position.php.
2. www.lenta.ru/lib/14163164.
3. “Sovetskaia Belorussia,” #12, 22667, 01/19/2007.
4. www.echo.msk.ru/programs/razvorot/48961.
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.jamestown.org