From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24 (Original Message) Sent: 3/8/2007 4:06 PM
Chechnya Weekly - Volume VIII, Issue 10
March 8, 2007
Inside This Issue:
* Ramzan Gets Presidential
* Analysts Ponder the Kadyrov Presidency's Implications
* Umarov Calls Muslims to Jihad
* Gambling Houses Trashed in Adygeya and North Ossetia
* Pacifying Chechnya with Artillery: The Never Ending Campaign
By Andrei Smirnov
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RAMZAN GETS PRESIDENTIAL
Chechnya’s parliament confirmed Ramzan Kadyrov as the republic’s president on March 2, just one day after he was nominated by President Vladimir Putin (Chechnya Weekly, March 1). According to Reuters, 56 of the parliament’s 58 deputies cast their ballots for Kadyrov, with one voting against and one abstaining. “We will continue the great course started by my father and president of the country Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,” the news agency quoted Kadyrov as telling Russian television after the vote. “If not us, who will restore our republic?” The separatist Chechenpress news agency, for its part, on March 2 quoted residents of Chechnya as saying that all the members of what the website called the “puppet parliament” were in danger until Kadyrov’s “secret opponent” turned himself in. At the same time, Chechenpress wrote that following Kadyrov’s “inevitable elimination,” all of the pro-Moscow parliament’s deputies would claim to be the one who voted against him.
In Moscow, meanwhile, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, who spent several days in Chechnya and attended a controversial human rights conference in Grozny sponsored by the Chechen government and boycotted by several leading rights groups, sharply criticized the human rights situation in Chechnya. According to Reuters, Hammarberg told reporters in the Russian capital on March 2 that while the economic situation had improved in Chechnya, torture to extract confessions was widespread. He said a commission should be set up on the model of those in Latin America - where thousands people also disappeared as a result of political violence - to discover the fate of the estimated 2,600 people who disappeared in Chechnya without trace during two wars since 1994. “This is a serious human rights matter not only for those who actually disappeared, maybe killed, maybe alive somewhere, but also for the relatives who have no knowledge of what happened,” Reuters quoted Hammarberg as saying.
Immediately following his confirmation as president, Kadyrov lost little time in assuming his new role and exercising his new formal powers. Kommersant reported on March 3 that immediately after the previous day’s parliamentary session confirming him as president, Kadyrov had taken part in an outdoor celebration in the capital marking the event (which, according to one estimate, was attended by about a thousand people). He was joined by Ingush President Murat Zyazikov and Dmitry Kozak, President Putin’s envoy to the Southern Federal District, who had come to witness Kadyrov assume Chechnya’s presidency. “The newly-fledged president of Chechnya dragged Mr. Zyazikov into a circle of dancers, after which he himself danced,” the newspaper wrote. “After the dancing, Ramzan Kadyrov sat Dmitry Kozak and Murat Zyazikov in his automobile and drove the guests to Magas (the Ingush capital) for a meeting devoted to the prospects for cooperation between Ingushetia and Chechnya.” Interfax quoted the Ingush president’s press service as saying that the meeting focused on “issues of socio-economic and cultural cooperation” between the two republics and was also attended by Ingush elders.
On March 4, Kadyrov called for another amnesty for rebel fighters, saying it would help strengthen peace and stability in Chechnya. “If such a decision is taken, then there will be hundreds of more lives saved,” he told the Vesti 24 television channel. He said a new amnesty should be aimed at those who were in “illegal armed formations” for a time but then decided to drop out of the fight and leave Chechnya. Such people, he said, are not guilty of having “unleashed” the war. “These people … who run (abroad) are not guilty; they didn’t start the war,” he said, adding that “certainly they must be forgiven and given the possibility to return to peaceful live” and that “we will be asking for this.” Kadyrov said his government also plans to return refugees living abroad, and that “informational video material” will be sent to Chechen refugees living Poland, France, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia to convince them that positive changes are taking place in Chechnya.
Kadyrov said he plans to reduce the number of checkpoints in the republic, that his government will give priority to housing construction and job creation, as a result of which all temporary housing for displaced persons will be closed down by the end of the year. He also vowed that Grozny would be 80% rebuilt this year. Asked about the issue of delimiting power between Moscow and Grozny, Kadyrov told Vesti 24 that what is most important is to ensure Russia’s unity. “I am for a powerful Russian state,” he said. “There must not be a differentiation between Russia and Chechnya.”
On March 6, Kadyrov ordered that five checkpoints in Grozny and on its outskirts be closed down, according to Chechnya.gov.ru, the Chechen government’s official website. The new president gave the order after taking an inspection tour of checkpoints with Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov, Chechen Deputy Interior Minister Aslambek Yasaev, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the law-enforcement agencies Adam Delimkhanov and Mikhail Shepilov, the first deputy commander of the Joint Group of Forces in the North Caucasus. According to Chechnya.gov.ru, the officials inspected checkpoints in Grozny, at the entrance to Urus-Martan and at the crossroads of the villages of Shali, Mesker-Yurt and Argun. They found them to be in an “unsanitary” state. “In addition, there is no need to have them [checkpoints], and checkpoints look rather unattractive while we are restoring the capital city,” Kadyrov said, according to Chechnya.gov.ru. The website reported that a checkpoint on the road to the Grozny airport would also be closed in the coming days.
On March 6, President Kadyrov announced that Chechnya will build an oil refinery with an annual output capacity of five million tons. “Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Khusein Dzhabrailov has prepared an industrial policy draft plan for 2007-2015, which will be part and parcel of the republic’s social and economic development strategy in the years to come,” he told journalists, Itar-Tass reported. “First of all, we should guarantee security and we have necessary institutions and mechanisms for that. We also need to build ties with (the Russian state oil company) Rosneft. The republic’s leadership is working on this. I hope we will come to agreement and start cooperation on mutually advantageous conditions at the earliest possible date.” According to the news agency, Kadyrov said his government will also support small and medium-sized businesses, allocating 400 hectares of land for a complex of business centers, offices and hotels that will be serviced by a railway line.
On March 7, Kadyrov, together with Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov, the chairman of the People’s Assembly of the Chechen parliament, and Sultan-Khadzhi Mirzaev, Chechnya’s mufti, held a meeting with the heads of district administrations and qadis (local Islamic judges) on the issue of public morality and what needs to be done to improve the moral state of Chechen society, Chechnya.gov.ru reported. The meeting’s participants said that apart from secular institutions, the republic’s religious leaders should play a leading role in this effort and that, to this end, the administration heads and qadis in Chechnya’s districts should intensify their work with youth. “Our nation has always had strong traditions, and we should bring up our young people in the spirit of ethnic self-consciousness and in accordance with our national traditions,” Kadyrov said. “After the victory over Wahhabism, we should fight against new threats to our youth such as drug addiction and prostitution. This horrible evil should be defeated immediately.”
Kadyrov called on district heads to increase their collaboration with clergy. “Throughout the years of hardship the clergy has been carrying out necessary public work, and those administration heads who do not support the qadi of the district will lose their posts,” he said. He also said that the administration heads should give financial assistance to religious leaders and provide them with transportation means so they can carry out their work. According to Chechnya.gov.ru, at the end of the meeting, the participants agreed to hold an expanded session that will be attended by village imams and representatives of high school faculties.
Kadyrov made a number of changes in the republic’s government. On March 7, he removed Movsar Temirbaev as Grozny’s mayor, replacing him with Muslim Khuchiev, who was previously in charge of the republic’s governmental and presidential apparatus and was one of the republican presidential candidates that Southern Presidential District presidential envoy Dmitry Kozak had suggested to Putin. Gzt.ru reported on March 7 that upon becoming mayor of Grozny, Khuchiev would resign as head of the Chechen branch of A Just Russia, the recently-formed pro-Kremlin political party. Kadyrov also named Magomed Vakhaev chairman of the republic’s Constitutional Court. Vakhaev served for six years as the republic’s minister of labor and social development. In addition, Kadyrov named Khalid Vaikhanov as the republic’s new Security Council secretary, replacing German Vok, who was a close ally of former Chechen president Alu Alkhanov, Itar-Tass reported on March 7. Vaikhanov previously served a vice premier of the Chechen government in charge of social issues.
ANALYSTS PONDER THE KADYROV PRESIDENCY’S IMPLICATIONS
Observers in Moscow continued to mull over the significance of Ramzan Kadyrov’s elevation to the post of Chechen president. The daily Vedomosti on March 2 quoted an anonymous Kremlin source as saying that no special demands had been made on Kadyrov in return for his being picked as Chechnya’s formal leader, but that Kadyrov himself knows there are limits to how far he can go. The newspaper noted that just a few days before being appointed president, Kadyrov has said he would not demand the conclusion of a treaty on delimiting power between Chechnya and the federal center. The Vedomosti source also predicted that Kadyrov would not try to place the republic’s oil industry, which is 51% controlled by the state oil company Rosneft, under Chechen government control.
Aleksei Makarkin of the Center for Political Technologies predicted Kadyrov would carry out a “systematic siege” of the federal center, but only in order to extract economic dividends without provoking an open conflict. Gleb Pavlovsky of the Foundation for Effective Politics called Kadyrov’s accession to the presidency a “symbolic and political end to the war in Chechnya” and said Kadyrov deserved his new position more than some other Russian regional leaders. Another pro-Kremlin political analyst, Sergei Markov, said that if Kadyrov worked hard and avoided mistakes, he could remain in power for 40 years.
However, Aleksei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center told Kavkazky Uzel that Kadyrov’s elevation to Chechnya’s presidency was dangerous for Moscow because a situation in which everything depends on one person is always dangerous. “Because if he vanishes for some reason, then the situation will become absolutely unpredictable,” Malashenko said.
Sergei Markedonov, head of the International Relations department at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis, said in an interview published by Kavkazky Uzel on March 2 that Kadyrov’s assumption of Chechnya’s presidency and the removal of Alu Alkhanov represented a challenge to both “state patriotic values” and “the values of democracy.” “In accepting Alkhanov’s resignation, President Putin showed that elections mean absolutely nothing to him as a procedure, that the will of the top person is more important than any elections,” Markedonov said. “I understand the degree to which the elections of Alkhanov himself fell short of, say, elections in France, but, nevertheless, such a decision by Putin unquestionably deals a blow to the institution of elections – buries it once and for all. The fact of the matter is that the only means of legitimizing power that works here is still [the] electoral [one]. And by destroying electoral legitimation, we are destroying, in general, the state system and striking precisely at the state. They are unable to understand this in the Kremlin.” Markedonov also said that Alkhanov was loyal to the Russian state, while Kadyrov is loyal to Putin personally. “It turns out that the Russian president puts personal loyalty higher than state loyalty,” he said. “That’s a very dangerous step. In the future, this can turn Russia, let’s say, into an Afghanistan, in which regional leaders will simply ‘reach understandings’ with the federal center.”
In an article published by Politkom.ru on March 6, “The Chechenization of Russia and the Kadyrovization of Chechnya,” Markedonov wrote: “There is currently an informal agreement between the Kremlin and the new Chechen president. Kadyrov … lets the Kremlin preserve the appearance of a ‘pacified Chechnya.’ For that he is granted significant freedom. … But to what degree will Kadyrov stay within the bounds of his current demands when, in 2008, the post of Russian president is occupied by a different politician?”
UMAROV CALLS MUSLIMS TO JIHAD
In a statement posted on the separatist Daymohk and Chechenpress websites on March 5, Dokka Umarov, president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI), called on Muslims in the Caucasus to join the “jihad” against Russian forces and Chechnya’s pro-Moscow government. In response to the deaths last year of rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev and field commander Shamil Basaev, the rebels have reorganized some of their “military structures,” Umarov said.
“Plans have been adjusted and tactics have been changed, links and coordination between individual mujahideen units, directions and sectors have been strengthened,” he said. “The autumn and winter have been devoted to significant preparations and work is being completed on reorganizing activities abroad. Every day our sub-units are carrying out scheduled military operations, inflicting damage on the occupation forces and the traitors. This activity is stronger in some areas than others but there is no let-up anywhere. The positions of the mujahideen of the Caucasian Front are being strengthened and the activities of the Povolzhsky and Uralsky Fronts are being organized. Thousands of young people are turning to us and asking if they can be allowed to take part in the jihad. Unfortunately, our limited means do not allow us to grant their wishes. Therefore many young Muslims, both in Ichkeria and in other regions of the Caucasus (as well as in Russia), are organizing themselves into fighting jamaats and operating independently. We understand and welcome their initiative.”
Apparently referring to Chechnya’s government and other pro-Moscow authorities in the Caucasus, Umarov stated: “As far as the traitors are concerned, these people are more afraid of the FSB than God’s wrath. They have completely forgotten about the fate of millions of their loved ones and their fellow tribesmen who were killed by Tsarist troops and exiled abroad, who froze and died of hunger in communist exile in Siberia and Kazakhstan, or who were burned by napalm in their own homes in Chechnya by the bombs of democratic Russia, or were tortured to death in Russian concentration camps, were abducted, mutilated and abused. They speak about the restoration of popular customs while sowing depravation and decay. They go on about the dignity of people as they drive them into the shameful slavery of occupation. They talk about law and order as they kidnap, rape, murder, mutilate and torture people. They speak about a good life and a bright future as they turn the country into one huge concentration camp.”
Umarov concluded his statement by saying that every Muslim who has reached adulthood is obliged to join the jihad. “Muslims are obliged to set up combat groups (military jamaats) and units in the regions (in Russia and in the North Caucasus) to carry out military actions. They must organize communications, coordination, define their objectives and strike blows. If they are unable to organize a combat group, Muslims must work alone, relying on God, to plan and strike blows at accessible military, political-administrative, information and financial-economic targets. Muslims who have the material means at their disposal are obliged to fund the jihad and supply the mujahideen with everything they need to wage war. These Muslims must also help the families of the mujahideen and the shahids, and help to treat the wounded and the sick. Muslims serving in the power-wielding structures of the enemy, who do not fear God’s wrath, must abandon their service [to the enemy]. If for some important (before God) reasons, a Muslim cannot abandon this service he must help the mujahideen, to warn them about danger, to supply necessary information, expose the enemy's weak points, help the movement of the mujahideen and to cover their activities and to expose the more avid enemies of the Muslims. Muslims who are articulate or have the appropriate technical means or professional skills and knowledge are obliged to explain the situation of the jihad and to make the call to Islam and to wage an information jihad by all accessible ways and means. And for the weak and sick Muslims, and also for children, the least they can do is to pray to God for success for the mujahideen and victory for Islam. And I call God to witness that I have issued this explanation, warning and instruction.”
GAMBLING HOUSES TRASHED IN ADYGEYA AND NORTH OSSETIA
Nearly 10 gambling establishments were vandalized by unknown persons in Maikop, Adygeya, Kavkazky Uzel reported on March 5. The website cited the city’s prosecutor, Andrei Fatin, who told Itar-Tass that more than 100 people were involved in the attacks on the gambling establishments on March 4. The perpetrators, he said, had traveled around the city in automobiles without license plates. The Associated Press reported on March 5 that more than 100 people wielding baseball bats and metal bars had wrecked 10 gambling halls in Maikop and smashed dozens of slot machines, and that police had arrested 12 people for allegedly instigating the vandalism. The news agency quoted police as saying that groups of people aged 20 to 25 had traveled to several districts in the city in unmarked cars and on foot and smashed slot machines, destroyed electronic gambling games and ransacked halls over the course of an hour. Some wielded rubber-bullet-firing guns, police said. Adygeya’s Interior Ministry said preliminary damage totaled up to 10 million rubles ($381,000).
According to the ministry, the violence may have been instigated by Adygeya-Khase, a radical group that earlier called on Adygeya’s leadership to get rid of all gambling facilities in the region. But the ministry also said the vandalism may have been perpetrated by someone who lost a lot of money gambling. Kavkazky Uzel on March 6 reported that a meeting of public groups organized by Adygeya-Khase condemned the vandalism, but also said it was provoked by the republic authorities’ inaction in closing down gambling establishments. Last year, eight gambling establishments and two of Adygeya’s 54 casinos were closed down for various infractions.
On March 5, Kavkazky Uzel quoted an unnamed eyewitness as saying that bystanders, who watched the attackers smash up one gambling establishment, had expressed approval of the vandals’ actions. Kommersant reported on March 6 that police in Maikop the previous day had broken up an unauthorized demonstration in support of those arrested for involvement in the attacks on the gambling establishments.
Meanwhile, RIA Novosti reported on March 1, that 10 people entered a casino in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, asked the patrons and guards to leave and then proceeded to smash up the gambling machines and other gambling equipment. In February, North Ossetian President Taimuraz Mamsurov introduced a bill into the republic’s parliament that would ban gambling in North Ossetia. In February 2006, three homemade bombs exploded almost simultaneously in casinos and gambling clubs in the center of Vladikavkaz, killing two people and wounding 25. The Islamist Ossetian Jamaat organization claimed responsibility for the attack (Chechnya Weekly, February 9, 2006).
Pacifying Chechnya with Artillery: The Never Ending Campaign
By Andrei Smirnov
In November 2001, Akhmad Kadyrov, then head of the pro-Russian administration in Chechnya, declared that “there is no more need to use aviation and artillery in the region” and that “the police should fight with the remnants of the rebels” (Newsru.com, November 12, 2001).
Five years have passed since that time. Akhmad Kadyrov had been killed, the Kremlin has declared the war over and Kadyrov’s son Ramzan, who is now the new Chechen president, promises to bring a stable peace to Chechnya.
What has not changed since 2001 is the shelling and bombardment of the Chechen mountains and forests. On November 24 of last year, representatives of the Russian military command in Chechnya met with deputies of the local pro-Russian parliament. The parliamentary deputies wanted to ask the security officials (including deputy heads of the Russian military group in Chechnya, the officials of the Chechen branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Interior Ministry officials) when they would stop the air strikes and the shelling of Chechnya’s mountainous areas. The parliamentary deputies said that in 2006, livestock, land under cultivation and private houses had been damaged in five districts of Chechnya (Shatoi, Vedeno, Nozhai-Yurt, Shali and Itum-Kale) as a result of endless artillery barrages. There were also wounded civilians. According to the Chechen Forestry Department, bombardment and shelling have caused serious damage to the mountains’ natural environment (Vesti-Severny Kavkaz, November 24, 2006).
The security officials said during the meeting that they also cared about Chechnya’s future and promised to take measures against “unsanctioned shelling,” as they called it.
Nevertheless, nothing changed after the meeting. On December 1, the Russian Air Force bombed the village of Sharon-Argun, located high in the mountains. According to Kavkazky Uzel, one private house was totally destroyed and two locals (the Gaytamirov brothers) were seriously injured. A girl, Zulpa Akhigova, experienced shell shock (Kavkazky Uzel, December 4, 2006). On December 24, artillery shelled the outskirts of the village of Avtury in Shali District (Kavkazky Uzel, December 28, 2006).
Earlier this year, as Ramzan Kadyrov was promising a bright future for the Chechens, the artillery barrages and bombardment were significantly intensified. On February 21, the Russian –Chechen Information Agency (RCIA) reported shelling of forests near the villages of Stary Atagi, Novy Atagi, Duba-Yurt, Chishki, Yulus-Kert, Agishti and Selmentauzen. These settlements are situated in Vedeno, Shali, Shatoi and Grozny districts. On February 27, Russian artillery shelled southeastern Chechnya (RCIA, February 27). On March 7, the rebel Kavkaz-Center website reported shelling in the Urus-Martan District. It should be noted that the areas and villages mentioned above are not high in the mountains, but rather in foothills and even valleys.
Last October, the commander of the Russian military group in Chechnya, Colonel-General Yevgeny Baryaev, said the shelling was needed to prevent the rebels from penetrating the population centers and to disrupt the supplying of rebel bases in the mountains (Chechnya Weekly, November 9, 2006).
Late last year, Baryaev was dismissed from his post and replaced by General Yakov Nedobitko, who had been deputy commander of the North Caucasian Military District (Vesti-Severny Kavkaz, December 12, 2006). After taking office, Nedobitko declared that significant progress had been made by the Russian military in fighting the insurgency. At the same time he ordered intensified shelling and air strikes in southern Chechnya. On January 17, Yakov Nedobitko told RIA Novosti that “special measures to neutralize the militants allow them no opportunity to conduct large-scale terrorist acts.” On February 12, Leonid Krivonos, the military commandant of the Chechen Republic, said that the military had managed to prevent the rebels from organizing in large groups and that the insurgency could no longer mount a serious resistance to the authorities. However, despite Krivonos’ optimism, it is clear that the military is increasing its shelling of the mountains as spring approaches.
It is a moot question how seriously the rebels’ network in the Chechen woods can be damaged by the shelling. Yet there is no doubt that shells and bombs are very destructive to the natural environment and make civilians suffer. Last October, residents of the village of Serzhen-Yurt in Shali District met with Viktor Fomenko, the district military commandant, and demanded that he stop the shelling immediately. “People die of heart attacks, while livestock gets killed by shrapnel,” Imran Ezhiev, a local activist, told the commandant. According to Ezhiev, 78 private houses were destroyed or damaged in 2006 due to the shelling in Serzhen-Yurt alone (Kavkazky Uzel, October 13, 2006).
Fomenko gave a strange response, saying that “the political will of the federal center is needed to stop the shelling.” Fomenko certainly did not mean that each time the military in Chechnya wants to use artillery it asks the Kremlin for permission. He probably meant something else, something more global: that the shelling is just a part of the war and that the war can be stopped only on Moscow’s orders.
The current use of artillery and aviation in Chechnya means that the situation in the region has not changed much since the beginning of the war in 1999. Five years ago, Akhmad Kadyrov already believed that the Chechen pro-Russian forces were capable of fighting the rebels without help of the Russian army, but it seems that even now the Russian generals still do not believe this enough to stop the shelling and withdraw their troops from the republic.
Andrei Smirnov is an independent journalist covering the North Caucasus. He is based in Russia.
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