FEBRUARY 2008

From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 2/8/2008 12:35 AM
CAUCASIAN KNOT / NEWS

7/2/2008
Residents of Chechnya complain against officials who give out compensations for destroyed houses for bribes

Residents of Chechnya continue complaining that compensations for the houses lost during the conflict can be received, only if one pays back a half of the sum to bureaucrats as the so-called "otkat" (kick-back).

The Newspaper "Gazeta GZT.ru" writes today that the residents of Grozny, who have already received compensations, told about two options of how to get the money. The first variant - not quite reliable - is to bribe by giving 30 thousand in advance. The second one is more reliable: it is necessary to halve the money right after reception. The frequent intermediaries in the "transaction" are the officials themselves who are engaged in making payments, the paper writes. The money is usually split right nears the branches of the "Rosselkhozbank", which makes ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 2/8/2008 12:39 AM
CAUCASIAN KNOT / NEWS

7/2/2008
Picket in memory of "zachistka" victims in Novye Aldy held in Moscow

In the Pushkin Square in the centre of Moscow, a picket was held in memory of the victims of the clean-up ("zachistka") conducted eight years ago in Novye Aldy settlement located in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. On that day, on February 5, 2000, Russian OMON (Special Militia) fighters killed, according to different sources, from 56 to 115 residents of the settlement, including old men, women and children.

Despite the rain, the action was attended by more than 30 persons.

The picketers suggested the passers-by to sign individual appeals to the General Public Prosecutor of Russia with a demand to investigate the events in Novye Aldy that took place on February 5, 2000.

The demonstrators were disseminating free of charge CDs with a documentary film "Novye Aldy: Crime against Humanity", made ...
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From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 2/8/2008 9:46 AM
Chechnya Weekly - Volume IX, Issue 5
February 7, 2008

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Gunmen Shoot Up Home of Zyazikov's Chief Bodyguard
* Putin Pays a Surprise Visit to Botlikh
* Newspaper Describes How Chechen Officials Get Compensation Payment
Kickbacks
* Briefs
* Counting Chechnya's Rebel Fighters: Kadyrov's Fuzzy Math
By Mairbek Vatchagaev
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Gunmen Shoot Up Home of Zyazikov's Chief Bodyguard

On February 6, unknown attackers fired automatic weapons and grenade
launchers at the home of Khusein Medov, the head of Ingushetian
President Murat Zyazikov's personal bodyguards. An anonymous source
in Ingushetia's "power structures" told Kavkazky Uzel that the
attack took place on the evening of February 5 at Medov's home in
Nazran's Nasyr-Kortsky municipal district and that the attackers had
approached the home in a car and escaped after firing on it. There
were no reports of any fatalities or injuries in the attack. On
February 4, bomb disposal experts defused a large improvised
explosive device on the Caucasus federal highway. ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 2/7/2008 2:40 AM
Chechnya’s Theatre of War
Akhmed Zakayev – actor, politician and former resistance fighter – talks to Vanora Bennett

IT might seem counter-intuitive for a military resistance movement with a reputation for bloodthirstiness to choose a classical actor as its representative in the West. But Akhmed Zakayev, whose current incarnation is as foreign minister of Chechnya’s separatist government-in-exile, sees no incongruity.

What many would call an unusual career arc has taken the urbane, trimly bearded and faultlessly ambassadorial Zakayev from successes as Hamlet and Coriolanus in the Grozny theatre of the 1980s, to victories as a separatist field commander during the Russian-Chechen conflict of the 1990s, to failures as a peace negotiator with Moscow after the war resumed in 1999, and to exile in London after Russia accused him of terrorism (a British court rejected those allegations and granted Zakayev asylum). Today, he counts as friends ...
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From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 1/28/2008 3:40 PM
German TV channel shows Kadyrovans, who fled to Poland
Publication time: 28 January 2008, 16:08
According to sources from Germany, last Friday German TV channel ZDF showed a video footage of the hundreds of Chechen refugees who are seeking illegally to enter Germany from Poland.

The television broadcast itself was devoted to the question of border security of Germany in connection with the entry into Schengen of several new countries of Eastern Europe.

A few days ago, border guards detected a group of Chechens who were trying to cross the Polish-German border, but were stopped and deported back to the refugee camp in Poland.

The German journalists shoot coverage of the Chechen refugees in a Polish camp. A group of young people in the black baseball cap, who had arrived not long ago were showed in the coverage. The journalists reported that these young men are former ...
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