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Apr 18, 2010

2 Leaders Vie for Loyalty in the Caucasus - NYTimes.com

By ELLEN BARRY

MAGAS, Russia — Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the president of the Russian republic of Ingushetia, was sitting in his gold-domed palace, a warren of cool, empty marble halls surrounded by rings of gunmen.

Bodyguards stood outside the door, and an aide delivered tea and honey. The place seemed sealed off from the muddy chaos of the Caucasus, to say nothing of the guerrilla war being staged in the wooded foothills to the southeast.

And yet he talked about Doku Umarov, who claimed responsibility for last month’s double bombing in Moscow’s subway, as if the rebel leader were standing in the room.

“His time will come,” said Mr. Yevkurov, 46, who is scarred from an assassination attempt last June that Mr. Umarov claimed to have organized.

“Whether it’s tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, whether he dies of natural causes in the woods or in a cave, whether he is blown up or shot up, or if he is caught and locked away in a death cell,” Mr. Yevkurov said. “If he is still alive and walking around, that does not simply mean he has managed to survive. The Almighty is giving him the chance to find the strength to acknowledge the evil he has brought to people.”

“But he is not using this chance,” he said. “Retribution will reach him sooner or later.”

Moscow suddenly focused on Mr. Umarov last month, after he announced that he had ordered the bombings that killed 40 people in the subway. Russian leaders scrambled to sever his links to the public by pressing Google to remove his video messages, and they circulated a bill in Parliament that would ban the media from quoting him.

But Mr. Yevkurov was addressing an old enemy. He and Mr. Umarov, 46, were born within months of each other, in closely related ethnic groups that share an archaic wariness toward Moscow. Both were in their 20s when the Soviet Union fell, forcing young men in the Caucasus to choose sides in a separatist war. There they diverged, and two decades later the loyal Russian soldier and the battered rebel are still fighting.

Now the prize is something more slippery than territory: the loyalty of a generation that grew up in the chaos of those wars.

“In the Caucasus, a leader’s personality really matters,” said Ramzan R. Ugurchiev, 29, the chairman of Ingushetia’s youth committee. “There is a saying: If the leader is a wolf, we will be a pack of wolves. If the leader is a jackal, we will be a pack of jackals.”

Mr. Ugurchiev, like any young man here, could reel off a list of acquaintances who had “gone to the forest,” or joined the rebels. He guessed that 15 percent of his classmates had done so, vanishing with so little warning that their parents could never accept that they left voluntarily.

In some cases, he said, a voice simply reached them at the right time. Rebel recruiters like Said Buryatsky, killed in a special forces operation last month, tapped into the sense of injustice seething beneath the surface here, where the official unemployment figure is around 50 percent and young men chafe at heavy-handed treatment by federal counterterrorism troops.

“The harder you press down, the more we will press up against you,” Mr. Ugurchiev said. “It’s the Caucasus. It was always this way.”

Mr. Yevkurov — one of 12 children born to a peasant family — seemed to address this resentment head-on. He refused a lavish inauguration, saying he preferred to greet the public at evening prayers, and combines the suit and tie of a Moscow-backed bureaucrat with a traditional skullcap. Though counterinsurgency operations continued, he won over much of the opposition with open-handed gestures like giving out his cellphone number and responding to complaints personally.

That was part of his strategy. A career military intelligence officer, he said he had long believed that counterterrorism was mainly a matter of soft power.

“The most severe punishment, that should make up 1 percent,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent should be persuasion, persuasion, persuasion.”

His project was interrupted by a roar of flames last June, when a suicide bomber swerved into his motorcade, killing two in his party and badly wounding his brother. Mr. Yevkurov was still in a coma when the rebel Web site Kavkaz Center published a letter saying the bombing was ordered by Mr. Umarov, a former separatist leader who has embraced global jihad as his new ideology.

The letter professed special hatred for Mr. Yevkurov because he fought for Moscow in the second Chechen war, calling him “the faithful dog of Russia.”

“From the moment Yevkurov came to power,” the letter read, “we wanted to kill him.”

The attack gave Mr. Yevkurov a reason to hate Mr. Umarov — but he had reasons already. The Ingush people share a religion and a language with Chechens but have traditionally been more loyal to the federal center; they bristle when Chechens try to take control of their territory, as Mr. Umarov has. He also attended school in Beslan, where in 2004 separatists took more than 1,000 children and teachers hostage.

Mr. Umarov, meanwhile, has good reason to fear Mr. Yevkurov and his experiment in persuasion, said Sergei M. Markedonov, a Caucasus expert at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis, in Moscow. To survive, the insurgents need the support of 15 or 20 percent of the public, combined with a mood of “passive neutrality,” he said. Mr. Yevkurov is bidding for this percentage — and, critically, for the allegiance of people in their teens and 20s.

“That is the main force, of course,” Mr. Markedonov said. “Whoever wins over the young generation will win.”

That competition goes on, invisibly, in the pauses between explosions. When a counterterrorism operation in February killed four civilians who were in the forest gathering wild garlic, Mr. Yevkurov expressed regret over the deaths. He said that 180 garlic pickers had been evacuated in a sincere attempt to avoid killing civilians and that 18 militants had been killed in the attack.

But he was not the only one who recognized a public-relations moment. Moscow was still reeling when Mr. Umarov announced that the bombings there were revenge for the garlic pickers, “mercilessly destroyed, killed by those bandit groups under the name of the F.S.B.,” Russia’s security service.

Mr. Yevkurov responded with disdain, saying Mr. Umarov “portrays himself as a kind of Robin Hood, who defends people.”

“An opponent is an opponent,” he said.

“Had he been some enemy who came from outside I might have valued him, respected him,” he continued. “But this is an enemy who kills his own people and covers it up with ideas. I have no respect for him, despite all his abilities to hide.”

Apr 6, 2010

Global Voices Online » Russia: War Reporter Blogs on Trauma and Politics of the Subway Attacks

Posted By Veronica Khokhlova On 2010-04-06

^[1]

Flowers at Park Kultury subway station in Moscow - April 3, 2010 (image by Veronica Khokhlova)

Olga Allenova (LJ user allenova) is a special correspondent for the Kommersant daily, author of Chechnya is Close: War Through the Eyes of a Woman ^[2] (RUS), a collection of the 1999-2007 war reportage from Russia's North Caucasus region. In the blog post ^[3] (RUS) translated below, she writes about the March 29 subway bombings in Moscow ^[4] and the 2004 Beslan school siege ^[5], the subsequent pain and trauma, and the resulting political and media responses.

Today a friend of mine […] suddenly told me that she had been [avoiding subway and taking buses and other means of land public transportation] to work this whole past week. She works at [Kolomenskaya ^[6] subway station], and lives at [Rechnoy Vokzal ^[7]]. It takes her only 40 minutes to get from home to work. But since Tuesday, she's been leaving home two hours earlier - at 6 AM, that is - to be at the office by 9 AM.

I didn't get what she meant right away. That is, I could guess she was stressed out, like many other Muscovites, as a result of [last Monday's subway blasts]. But I didn't know her condition was that serious. And when I asked her why she was so sure something similar couldn't happen on [a bus], she started crying. And I suddenly realized that I had just told her a very cruel thing. The imaginary safety of land transportation was keeping her afloat, allowed her to continue going to work, to somehow plan her life. And now she was sobbing, saying this: “I can't live! I can't live! I can't descend into the subway! I can't look at the people!” And now I could understand her. I was in a similar state in 2004, in and after Beslan. Everything that used to give my life a sense of some universal justice had collapsed then. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat or go out into the street. In front of my eyes stood black plastic bags, and the black women screaming above them. It's impossible to express this, the words that I'm writing now seem absurd. Even now I have a lump in my throat. I don't even remember how I got out of that. Many hours, weeks, I'd been talking to all kinds of people, friends, a priest, my husband, colleagues. It was then that I decided I wouldn't be seeing psychologists - they aren't of much help. They are just doing their job, staying outside - outside your pain.

Then a year passed, and I went to Beslan again. And again, there was this terrible hurt, and these symbols - white balloons over the school, white birds over the cemetery, an old woman saying tender words to a dove that chose to sit on her granddaughter's grave, children's faces on the cold gravestones, their teddy bears, their chocolates and cola. I'm a strong person, I know that. I've seen a lot in my 33 years. War, dirt, terrorist acts, corpses that no longer looked like people. I know that I've survived all that. But I know that deep inside I still haven't recovered from Beslan. I don't like to talk about it. I try not to think about it. Because when I do, I sob from despair, from fear. I sob because I still haven't understood why it happened. I sob the way my friend did today. She's just scared. There are many people like her now. People are scared to go inside subway. They are scared of women in headscarves, even though many of these women are Moscow natives. They are scared of their own fear. Fear is an enemy that destroys a person from within. If you are scared and you give up, the fear will take full hold of you. When I'm scared to go to the Caucasus, I realize that if I give in to fear and don't go once, I'll stop going there altogether - and I'll end up stuck at home, behind the closed doors, and I'll be scared even to pick up a phone. I know people to whom this happened.

I don't understand why they aren't discussing this problem on TV. Why there are no psychologists who would talk in prime time to people about the problems that are bothering them a lot. Not every person would agree to see a psychologist. Not everyone understands that it's a disease that requires treatment.

They'd tell me - what TV discussions do you expect when on the day of the attacks they didn't even air special newscasts on TV. I live in this country, so I'm not surprised. A year after Beslan, exactly on the anniversary, Moscow was celebrating its birthday. And when I wrote a text about it, outraged readers responded to me: “What, do you want us to forget our own birthdays, anniversaries, weddings?” My friend, by the way, was also celebrating her birthday on that day. And now she is sobbing from fear. It's just that at that time it all seemed too distant. And now it's very close. […] And I'm not surprised by how the federal channels were covering the subway attacks. If you remember Nord-Ost [theater hostage crisis of 2002 ^[8]] and the live broadcasts on [NTV ^[9]] - and what they did to NTV afterwards - it becomes clear that no live broadcasts are possible in this country under this regime. I'm not gonna get hysterical and scream about why the officials aren't showing me the truth - the way Beslan mothers did at one point. I simply despise this regime. I don't see them as authorities. For me, they are a cowardly bunch of people who couldn't even get out of the Beslan airport, but were sitting there, in the hastily set up headquarters (just in case, so that they could get out if the terrorists suddenly besiege the whole city) - at the time when the children were being shot at by tanks and grenade launchers. These same cowardly people were trying to convince the citizens whose relatives were taken hostage in the besieged Nord-Ost [theater]: “Colleagues! Calm down! All the terrorists are waiting for is for you to hold a rally on Red Square! We won't allow this!” A quote from [Valentina Matvienko ^[10]]. They, of course, couldn't allow such a blow to their image. A rally against the war in Chechnya, and right on Red Square. Against the sacred and on the sacred.

I don't expect anything from these people. I even understand why they disliked the publications in the media claiming that the Moscow attacks were acts of revenge for the Caucasus. [Boris Gryzlov] is very displeased with hearing all the time about the regime's cowardliness. And about the mistakes they had committed but wouldn't admit to. […]

But - again - this isn't what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that people need help. Professional psychological help as well as simple moral support from [family and friends]. If you have a friend who is scare to take subway, talk to him about it. Help him. Maybe you'll save him from trouble. We can only rely on ourselves, on our dear ones, on fellow citizens. Because there's no one else in this country that we can rely on.

Article printed from Global Voices Online: http://globalvoicesonline.org

URL to article: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/06/russia-war-reporter-blogs-on-trauma-and-politics-of-the-subway-attacks/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/park-kultury.jpg

[2] Chechnya is Close: War Through the Eyes of a Woman: http://www.kommersant.ru/Library/books-authors.aspx?AuthorID=51

[3] the blog post: http://allenova.livejournal.com/3340.html

[4] the March 29 subway bombings in Moscow: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/05/russia-reflections-on-the-subway-bombings-and-politics/

[5] the 2004 Beslan school siege: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis

[6] Kolomenskaya: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolomenskaya_%28Metro%29

[7] Rechnoy Vokzal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechnoy_Vokzal_%28Moscow_Metro%29

[8] theater hostage crisis of 2002: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis

[9] NTV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTV_%28Russia%29

[10] Valentina Matvienko: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Matviyenko

Apr 5, 2010

Masha Lipman - How Russia nourishes radical Islam - washingtonpost.com

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By Masha Lipman
Monday, April 5, 2010; A11

MOSCOW

After the bombings in this city's subway system last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that we all "face the same enemy." No one -- whether in Moscow, London, Madrid or New York -- can be fully secure against acts of terrorism. In Russia, however, the problem of terrorism is arguably more difficult than in Europe or the United States. We have radical Islam right inside our borders, in the North Caucasus. There is no getting away from it: People who live in this territory are Russian citizens; its provinces are financed by the Russian federal budget. It is as though Afghanistan, with its insurgent activity, were a U.S. state within the borders of the Lower 48.

But while the challenge of terrorism cries for long-term, consistent strategy, Russia's system of heavy-handed and unaccountable governance precludes strategic thinking.

In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin's government responded to armed secessionists in Chechnya by waging a full-scale war. Russia's armed forces were undertrained and undersupplied; horrific atrocities ensued on both sides. The 1996 peace agreement was evidence of Russia's humiliating weakness: A former superpower failed to subdue its own tiny region.

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"Peace" in Chechnya entailed frequent kidnappings for ransom, hostage-taking and terrorist attacks. In 1999, a Chechen force invaded the neighboring province of Dagestan, about the same time explosions of apartment buildings in three Russian cities famously took the lives of roughly 300 people.

When Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, his solution was a new war. With it came more atrocities, deeper brutalization and, in Russia at large, growing xenophobia against "those from the Caucasus." This time federal forces defeated the Chechen fighters, but terrorist attacks continued through 2004. The most horrific of these was the seizure of Beslan school where more than 330 hostages, over half of them children, were killed that September.

By the mid-2000s, secession was no longer the issue in Chechnya, but a new problem was building: Militant Islam was on the rise all over the North Caucasus. In the early '90s Islam had still been weak in this traditionally Muslim territory; adults had secular Soviet educations, and the attraction of Russian culture was still strong. But the new generation growing up in the Chechnya devastated by the Russian army, and in neighboring provinces such as Dagestan and Ingushetia, were increasingly influenced by Islamic culture and Islam, not infrequently its radical strains. Clandestine extremist groups called for jihad across the territory of Russia. Training centers for suicide bombers reportedly operate in the North Caucasus.

The Kremlin shifted tactics a few years ago, installing pro-Moscow leaders in these Muslim provinces and reducing the federal government's mission to allocating funds and occasional anti-terrorist operations. It turned a blind eye to subversive attacks, explosions, and assassinations of area police and local administrators, which have become routine in Ingushetia and Dagestan. The central government also ignored the brutal practices local leaders used against Islamic radicals and other criminal or extremist groups. As long as violence was contained within the North Caucasus, the thinking went, the bulk of Russia remained relatively safe. But last week's attacks underscore just how flawed and shortsighted this policy is.

Today, the rise of radical Islam in the North Caucasus is inevitable, especially with such forces active in many parts of the world. Russia's only strategic option is a long-term and multi-pronged government commitment to the problem. It is critical that the Russian government and the nation treat the people of the North Caucasus as their fellow countrymen -- no easy task given that today they are seen as a suspect culture or simply unwanted intruders. Other urgent needs are to improve security in Russia at large as well as to increase the efficiency of anti-terrorism practices. But these missions will be next to impossible in a country where the violent behavior of police officers makes them a threat to the people, rather than a force from which citizens can draw protection.

Strains of official rhetoric echo the language of 1999: After the infamous blasts of Moscow apartment buildings, Putin pledged to wipe out terrorists in outhouses. Now he vows "to drag them out of the sewer and into broad daylight." But large-scale use of force is not an option. As happened in the '90s, it is bound to start another vicious circle of punitive measures and extremists' efforts to exact revenge.

Reasonable calls have also been heard. President Dmitry Medvedev spoke last week about the need to create in the North Caucasus "the right kind of modern environment for education, for doing business, for overcoming cronyism . . . and, of course, for confronting corruption." But corruption plagues more than the North Caucasus; it's the texture of the Russian system of governance, which is built on political monopoly and unaccountability. Unless Russia makes systemic reforms, good intentions will not translate into stronger policies.

Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra journal, writes a monthly column for The Post.

Apr 1, 2010

Chechen rebel leader asserts role in Moscow subway bombings - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post staff writer
Thursday, April 1, 2010; A08

MOSCOW -- An Islamist rebel leader asserted responsibility Wednesday for the suicide bombings in the Moscow subway stations that killed 39 people two days earlier and threatened more attacks to avenge what he called atrocities ordered by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Russia's volatile southwest.

The video statement by the Chechen militant, Doku Umarov, was posted on the Internet hours after another double bombing killed at least 12 people in Dagestan, located east of Chechnya in the North Caucasus region, where the Kremlin has been battling a separatist insurgency.

"You Russians only see the war on television and hear about it on the radio, and this is why you are quiet and do not react to the atrocities that your bandit groups under Putin's command carry out in the Caucasus," Umarov said in the 4.5-minute video. "I promise you that the war will come to your streets, and you will feel it in your lives and under your skin."

Umarov, dressed in fatigues and sitting in what appeared to be a forest clearing, said he ordered the two subway bombings in retaliation for an anti-terrorism raid by security forces in February in which at least 20 people were killed, asserting that officers used knives to execute innocent, impoverished villagers.

Umarov said he could only grin when accused of terrorism because he has not heard people condemn Putin for such crimes, and he pledged new attacks on Russians "who send their gangs to the Caucasus and support their security services that carry out massacres."

There was no government response, but Chechnya's representative in the Kremlin-controlled parliament dismissed the threat. "It doesn't matter that he has claimed responsibility for those bestial murders," Ziyad Sabsabi told the Interfax news agency. "In any case, his days are numbered."

Russian forces have tried for years to capture or kill Umarov, who declared jihad in 2007 to establish what the rebels call a Caucasus Emirate.

But it is unclear how much power he wields over the insurgency, which analysts say is a loose network of groups that operate independently.

The militants have stepped up attacks over the past year in the North Caucasus, where bombings and shootouts with the authorities occur almost daily. But the timing of Wednesday's double bombing in Dagestan, occurring so soon after two female bombers struck the Moscow subway system, raised fears of a fresh wave of terrorism across the country.

Officials said the first blast Wednesday occurred as traffic police officers approached the bomber's car in the town of Kizlyar, near the Chechen border. As investigators and onlookers gathered, an assailant in a police uniform pushed through the crowd and set off another explosion. Nine police officers were among the dead, including the town's police chief.

In televised remarks, Putin said the attack may have been committed by "the same gang" responsible for the Moscow blasts. "It does not matter for us in what part of the country these crimes have been committed or who -- people of what ethnicity or religion -- have fallen victim to these crimes," he said, ordering police reinforcements in the North Caucasus. "We see this as a crime against Russia."

The subway bombings were the first suicide attacks in Moscow in nearly six years and raised questions about Putin's record of maintaining peace in the capital, as well as his brute-force approach to suppressing militants.

President Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's protégé, has pushed for a more balanced strategy in the North Caucasus, appointing officials there who have sought to improve economic conditions, open talks with critics and draw public support away from the rebels.

"The terrorists want to destabilize the situation in the country, to destroy civil society, and are driven by the desire to sow fear and panic among people. We will not let this happen," Medvedev said at a session of the Russian Security Council.

Gulnara Rustamova, head of Mothers of Dagestan for Human Rights, said conditions in the province seemed to have been improving since Medvedev appointed a new governor last month. Wednesday's attack, she said, may have been intended to undermine the governor's efforts.

"I hope he has the wisdom and enough strength to take the right steps and to continue building the dialogue in society," she said. "We are all so sick and tired of all these terrorist acts and unlawful murders. We want to live in peace and to be safe."

Mar 31, 2010

BBC News - Twelve killed by twin bombings in Russia's Dagestan

Image by Bolshakov via Flickr

BBC News - Twelve killed by twin bombings in Russia's Dagestan

Jan 2, 2010

Turkey, Georgia, UAE bankroll Caucasus rebels

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Created 02/01/2010 - 20:00

Militants in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region of Dagestan have received financing from supporters in Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates, television said Saturday, after a special operation yielded notebooks of expenses kept by rebels.

The notebooks seized during a special operation in Dagestan conducted by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on New Year's Eve show the rebels had received hefty donations from their foreign sponsors, national television said, airing footage from the press department of the Dagestan branch of FSB.

"Tens of millions of rubles came from the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Turkey and Azerbajan," NTV channel said. Rossia television channel added that supporters from Saudi Arabia were also among the foreign sponsors.

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"The sums are huge," Rossia channel said. "There was never any doubt anyway that militants in the North Caucasus have been generously bankrolled. But that generously...."

The notebooks show that rebels also extorted money from local businessmen and unscrupulous officials, television reports said.

"The money was distributed among various groups" in Dagestan and was used to finance purchases of arms, medicine and cars, they said.

The notebooks belonged to the leader of Dagestan's rebels, Umalat Magomedov also known by his nom de guerre as Al-Bara, television reports said, adding he was one of four rebels killed during the December 31 operation in the town of Khasavyurt.

"In spring, Al Qaeda's emissary in the Caucasus appointed Magomedov commander of the Dagestan front," Rossia channel said.

Authorities have also seized machine guns, grenade launchers and 45 cell phones containing rebels' phone numbers.

Authorities have long said that Islamist rebels receive financing from abroad.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in August acknowledged "foreign" elements as a factor fomenting instability in the region, but stressed the root cause of the problem was within Russia itself, referring to corruption among law enforcement personnel.

Clashes between government forces and Islamist rebels are common in Dagestan.

Dagestan's neighbour Chechnya was the site of two bloody separatist wars after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, and a low-level insurgency persists in the region despite the end of major hostilities.

Aug 26, 2009

Boris Nemtsov: Putin Failed to Pacify the North Caucasus

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By Boris Nemtsov

One of the biggest myths perpetrated by Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine is that during his 10-year rule over Russia, the former president and current prime minister succeeded in “pacifying” the North Caucasus. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we are witnessing today is the start of the third Caucasus war in 15 years, following the two Chechen wars of 1994 and 1999.

There was the June 22 attack on Ingushetia's President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the recent murders of Chechen human-rights activists Natalia Estemirova and Zarema Sadulaeva, and last week's terrorist attack in Nazran, which killed scores and maimed hundreds. Add to these the near-daily attempted murders of police officers in Dagestan (according to the local interior ministry, there have been 128 murder attempts against law-enforcement officials since the beginning of this year alone) and the constant kidnappings in Chechnya (Russian human-rights watchdog Memorial documented 74 kidnappings and 16 killings of Chechen residents between January and June). And this is only an abridged catalogue of the blood spilled in the North Caucasus during the past few months.

There are several reasons why the "pacification" of the region has failed. Vladimir Putin committed a fateful mistake when he struck cynical deals with influential clans in the North Caucasus to keep the region under Moscow's formal control: Federal money and blank checks on lawlessness to often criminal and corrupt local leaders were exchanged for their personal loyalty and support during so-called elections. The result of such deals is that the laws of the Russian Federation no longer apply in the North Caucasus, which is ruled by increasingly repressive regimes.

According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, Chechen authorities practice extrajudicial killings and punitive house-burnings against the relatives of suspected insurgents. Memorial workers and other rights activists in Chechnya point to constant surveillance of their activities by the local authorities. Before she was herself kidnapped and murdered, Estemirova, who worked for Memorial, was investigating the "disappearances" of people in Chechnya.

Meanwhile, the Moscow-installed Chechen leader, Putin friend and former militant Ramzan Kadyrov, has built a veritable personality cult around himself since coming to power in 2007. Moscow continues to supply 70%-90% of the revenue to the regional governments there, but it has failed to extend the writ of Russian law to the Caucasus.

Another important reason for the Kremlin's Caucasus failure is the elimination of democratic procedures. "Elections" in which Mr. Putin and his party receive 100% of the vote on a 100% turnout in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan are a throwback to Soviet times. They have left citizens without any real influence over their governments. The Kremlin's stubborn insistence on retaining former KGB Gen. Murat Zyazikov as president of Ingushetia despite overwhelming local opposition has no doubt greatly contributed to the recent upsurge in violence in that region.

Finally, Russia's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (cheered on by separatists in the North Caucasus) after last year's Georgian war could come back to haunt Moscow. With this action, Mr. Putin and his successor in the Kremlin, Dmitry Medvedev, signaled that threats and blackmail can go a long way in achieving the separatists' goals. If and when the federal government, crippled by the economic crisis, stops its generous flow of money to the corrupt North Caucasus elites, Chechnya, Ingushetia and other republics of the Russian Caucasus may be tempted to follow the path of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The main lesson of recent tragedies is surely that cynicism, brutality and propaganda will not solve the very real political, economic and security problems of the North Caucasus. These problems can only be solved with honest policies based on the rule of law, democracy and respect for the rights of citizens.

—Mr. Nemtsov was deputy prime minister of Russia (1997-1998) and is a leader of the Solidarity opposition movement.

Aug 17, 2009

Many Killed in Russia Bomb Attack

At least 20 people have been killed by a bomb at a police station in Russia's southern republic of Ingushetia.

The suspected suicide attack in Nazran, Ingushetia's main city, injured more than 60 people, including children.

The republic borders Chechnya and has seen a spate of shootings, bombings and other attacks on police and government.

The Ingush leader blamed militants, but Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sacked Ingushetia's interior minister, saying the attack had been preventable.

"The police must protect the people and the police must also be able to defend themselves," Mr Medvedev said.

Escalating clashes

Monday's bomb attack was described as the deadliest strike in months in Ingushetia.

The explosion gutted the building as police lined up for a shift change.

ANALYSIS
Sarah Rainsford, BBC News This attack is part of a recent surge in violence in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region of Russia. The large-scale separatist conflict that ravaged Chechnya has now ended after 15 years. In April, the Russian president declared Chechnya to be stable enough to ease security restrictions, and lower the number of Russian troops.

But the insurgency in the Caucasus has gradually changed form into an Islamist uprising, and spread beyond Chechnya's borders. Militants have targeted government officials and the security forces in particular, with a combination of deadly gun battles and suicide attacks.

President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was appointed by the Kremlin to head the autonomous republic of Ingushetia - and arrived vowing to end the violence and combat serious corruption. He's still recovering from an attempt on his life.

Images from Nazran showed scenes of devastation within the compound, with nearby homes also badly damaged and burned-out cars strewn nearby.

The bomber was reported to have rammed his vehicle into the gates of the police compound as officers were reporting for inspection, government spokesman Kaloi Akhilgov said.

"Practically all the cars and buildings in the yard of the police headquarters were completely destroyed," Reuters quoted him as saying.

The bomber was assumed to be among the dead, although this could not be confirmed.

Mr Akghilov told the AFP news agency that all of the dead were police, but 11 children were among those injured. Many of those hurt were living in residential buildings adjacent to the police station, he said.

Many of the injured were said to be in a serious condition. They were taken to hospitals in Nazran, but Mr Akghilov said the authorities were struggling to cope with the casualties.

"We have not had such an attack for a long time," he said, adding that hospitals did not have enough blood to treat the injured.

Much of the violence in Ingushetia has echoed the continuing unrest in Chechnya, with escalating clashes in the past year between pro-Russian security forces and armed militants.

Human rights activists and opposition politicians in Ingushetia told the BBC last year that the republic was now in a situation of "civil war".

In the most high-profile recent attack, Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was severely wounded when a suicide bomber attacked his motorcade in June. He has not yet returned to work but is said to be recovering.

In a statement, he blamed Monday's attack on militants angered by recent security operations along the border with Chechnya.

"It was an attempt to destabilise the situation and sow panic," he said.

Less than a week ago, Ingushetia's construction minister was shot dead by masked gunmen.

That followed the shooting dead of three employees of Russia's emergencies ministry.

In Chechnya, Russian forces were engaged in heavy fighting with separatist rebels until a few years ago, though the fighting has become much less intense recently.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/8204670.stm

Published: 2009/08/17

Aug 15, 2009

Finding Those Behind Chechen Killings Â‘Paramount,' Russian President Says

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 15, 2009

MOSCOW, Aug. 14 -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared Friday that the capture of those responsible for the recent killings of three Chechen human rights workers should be the "paramount task" of the nation's security services.

Medvedev also appeared to signal dissatisfaction with Chechnya's Kremlin-appointed strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel warlord who has been accused of terrorizing the population.

"I think this is a challenge for the Chechen leadership," Medvedev said at a news conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "The Chechen president must do everything he can to find and apprehend these murderers."

His demand came amid a surge of violence in Chechnya and two neighboring provinces, Dagestan and Ingushetia, that left 23 people dead. The bloodshed underscored the Kremlin's struggle to maintain control of the region against an Islamist insurgency that appears to be gaining momentum.

In the deadliest incident, militants burst into a bathhouse Thursday night in the city of Buynaksk in Dagestan and gunned down seven women, authorities said. The attack occurred after the rebels sprayed a nearby police post with gunfire, killing four police officers.

Six other police officers and five suspected rebels were reported killed in gun battles in Chechnya and Dagestan on Thursday and Friday. In Ingushetia, authorities said a woman who made a living telling fortunes was shot to death Thursday by militants who consider the practice a grave sin.

An American expert on the region warned in an article this week that Russia's repressive policies in the North Caucasus had created "fertile ground for terrorist recruiters" and represented a threat to U.S. security interests.

"Getting targeted assistance to the region, including job creation, should be of the highest importance to the White House and the State Department, as well as European governments," wrote Sarah Mendelson, human rights and security initiative director at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Referring to the unsolved killings of several human rights activists and journalists, Mendelson urged President Obama and European leaders to make clear to Medvedev that "impunity will not be tolerated" while pressing him to accept international help to address lawlessness in the region.

Chechnya's most prominent human rights activist, Natalya Estemirova, was abducted and executed last month, and a couple who ran a center for children traumatized by Russia's two wars against Chechen separatists was found shot to death in the trunk of their car Tuesday.

A day later, the Ingush construction minister was gunned down in his office. The Ingush leader, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, returned to work this week after recovering from an assassination attempt in June that killed four of his bodyguards.

Medvedev linked the attacks on the human rights workers to those on government officials, and said they were "aimed at destabilizing the situation in the Caucasus" and carried out by militants with foreign support.

"I have given all necessary orders," he said, according to the Interfax news agency. "Finding, prosecuting and punishing these murderers is the paramount task for all law enforcement authorities, for the office of the prosecutor general, for the Investigation Committee, and for other special services."

Merkel told reporters she condemned the recent killings "in the strongest terms" during a summit meeting that focused on trade and investment. "This is unfortunately a serious subject which we have to deal with time and again at many meetings," she said.

Human rights activists argue that the most likely suspects in the slayings of their colleagues are not the rebels but members of the Russian security services. Some accuse Kadyrov of engaging in "state terrorism" against his critics with the tacit support of his patron, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and a group of Russian lawyers has called for an international tribunal to prosecute war crimes committed in Chechnya.

Medvedev last month dismissed allegations that Kadyrov was behind Estemirova's death, but his remarks Friday suggest that he may be losing patience with the Chechen leader, a former separatist fighter whom Putin entrusted with unusual autonomy over the region in 2007 in return for his loyalty.

Kadyrov has condemned the killings and vowed to solve them, but he has also repeatedly derided Estemirova, saying she "never had any honor or sense of shame" and "was misleading society and writing lies."

Aug 14, 2009

Gang Kills Seven in Russian Sauna

Russian police are hunting gunmen who killed seven women at a sauna and four policemen at a checkpoint in the troubled southern region of Dagestan.

The attack happened on Thursday in the town of Buynaksk, 41km (25 miles) from the regional capital Makhachkala.

Police say they know the identities of some of the gunmen, who fled into a forest after the attack.

Separately, four policemen and two militants were killed in a clash near Grozny, in neighbouring Chechnya.

Moscow has been keen to portray Chechnya and the region as an area returning to normal after years of unrest.

But these latest attacks form part of a wider pattern: a growing anti-Kremlin, Islamist insurgency that appears to be spreading across the North Caucasus, the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse reports.

On Friday police shot and killed three militants near a village in Dagestan's Derbent district, officials say.

In Thursday's attack in Dagestan, at least 15 gunmen opened fire on a traffic police checkpoint on the edge of Buynaksk, Russian media quoted local police as saying.

The gunmen are reported to have hijacked a minibus, which they later abandoned.

They went on to attack a sauna at a nearby health complex, killing seven women workers there.

Dagestan has been plagued by violence in recent years, much of it linked to the conflict between security forces and separatist rebels in Chechnya, a mainly Muslim Russian republic.

Russian forces have fought two wars against Islamist rebels in Chechnya since 1994. The conflicts claimed more than 100,000 lives and left it in ruins.

Clashes with militants are also common in Ingushetia, which borders on Chechnya to the west.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/8201054.stm

Published: 2009/08/14

Aug 10, 2009

Human Rights Activist Abducted in Chechnya

GROZNY, Russia — The leader of a human rights group in Chechnya and her husband were abducted by armed men on Monday, members of two other groups said, adding to a sense of insecurity in the Russian region.

"Today, towards two o'clock, unidentified armed men got into the offices of Let's Save the Generation and abducted its leader, Zarema Sadulayeva, and her husband," said Alexander Cherkasov of Memorial, the Interfax news agency and Moscow Echo Radio reported.

"They have taken them away to an unknown destination. They came back into the NGO's office and took the mobile telephone and the car of the husband," he added.

They had no word on where they were, he added.

One of Memorial's own activists, Natalya Estemirova, was abducted and murdered in July, sparking an international outcry.

Another senior human rights worker and a former colleague of Sadulayeva told AFP earlier: "A gang came into her office around midday while she was working and then forced her into a car.

"There has been no news of her since," the colleague said, asking not to be named.

Cherkasov said the interior ministry and the Russian federal security service, the FSB, have been informed of the abductions.

Sadulayeva's husband, Alik Djibralov, had been jailed for four years for links to illegal armed groups, he said. He had married Sadulayeva two months after leaving prison, he added.

Let's Save the Generation works with young people in Chechnya who have been marginalised, helping them get back on their feet to prevent them joining any of the armed groups in the unstable region.

The body of Memorial's award-winning activist Estemirova was found shortly after she was seen being bundled into a car outside her home in the Chechen capital Grozny on July 15.

In the wake of her killing, Memorial chairman Oleg Orlov accused Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader Ramzan Kadyrov of being responsible for the murder, irrespective of who ordered the crime.

He refuted the allegation on Monday, saying in an interview with Radio Svoboda, the Russian service of Radio Free Europe: "Why should Kadyrov kill a woman who was useful to no-one?

"She was devoid of honour, merit and conscience," he added.

Kadyrov is praised by the Kremlin for restoring some stability to the Caucasus region but is detested by human rights activists who accuse him of letting his personal militia carry out kidnappings and torture.

Cherkasov said that Kadyrov's comments showed that "he does not believe it is necessary to guarantee the security of rights activists in Chechnya."

After her death, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev praised Estemirova for speaking "the truth."

Deadly clashes between government forces and Islamist rebels are common in Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region in the North Caucasus mountains.

The region was the scene of two wars between separatists and Russia's central government after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the insurgency has spilled over into neighbouring regions, taking a steady toll of lives.

Jul 27, 2009

6 Killed in Attack at Chechen Theater

ANDREW E. KRAMER

MOSCOW — Six people were killed in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, on Sunday when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside a theater as a crowd gathered for a performance. The bombing was the second in the city this month.

Police officers had stopped the man a dozen or so yards from the theater’s entrance, news agencies reported, preventing him from entering a hall packed with about 1,000 people where he might have caused many more casualties. Instead, the man exploded his explosives beside benches and a fountain in front of the theater.

Russian state television showed police tape cordoning off the square and ambulances leaving the area. Ten people were wounded, television news reported. The powerful blast rattled windows blocks away.

Four of the dead were police officers, including the director of security for public events in Grozny, the Russian Information Agency reported. Another was a Turkish construction worker described as a bystander, and the sixth a citizen of Georgia who died in a hospital later on Sunday.

Another Georgian citizen was wounded, the news agency reported. It said the bomber’s remains were too damaged to be identified immediately.

On July 7, a bomb hidden in an urn on a Grozny street exploded, wounding nine people.

Russia is fighting a low-grade insurgency in Chechnya, a region in the Caucasus Mountains the size of Connecticut, where rights groups say police abuse is as much of a problem as militant attacks.

Two weeks ago, Natalia Estemirova, a researcher for the human rights group Memorial, was abducted in Grozny and her body later found on the side of a road. Memorial accused the region’s president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, of involvement in her killing; Mr. Kadyrov has sued the group for slander.

In other violence in the region on Sunday, police officers in Grozny killed a man in a shootout who was described as a rebel. In the neighboring region of Ingushetia, four men died when the car they were riding in exploded. The regional Interior Ministry said they were militants transporting a makeshift bomb, The Associated Press reported.

Violent attacks have increased in the North Caucasus recently. In June, a suicide car bomber critically wounded the president of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, by colliding with his motorcade on a highway.

After the explosion on Sunday, Mr. Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya, said it was an effort by militants to halt a military operation under way in the mountains between Chechnya and Ingushetia that was begun in response to the attack on Mr. Yevkurov.

Jul 25, 2009

Chechen Separatist in Rare Talks

A Chechen separatist envoy and a regional government representative say they have held talks on bringing stability to the south Russian region.

The prime minister of the government-in-exile, Akhmed Zakayev, and Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, chairman of the Chechen parliament, said they had met in Oslo.

Mediators said the talks were the first between the two sides in eight years.

Russian forces have fought two wars against separatists in the mainly Muslim republic since 1994.

The conflicts claimed more than 100,000 lives and left it in ruins.

Mr Zakayev represents the separatists' political wing, not the military wing that is leading the insurgency in Chechnya.

He said the two sides had "discussed political issues being solved not by force but by political means".

"I would like to express delight that this has taken place," he added. "I'm strongly convinced every Chechen person should be well aware of the processes taking place, and should take part in them."

“ This meeting has been authorised not only by [Chechen President Ramzan] Kadyrov himself... It has been happening in perfect co-ordination with the highest leadership in the Kremlin ”
Ivar Amundsen Chechnya Peace Forum

Mr Abdurakhmanov meanwhile said the talks had centred on "the total political stabilisation of the Chechen Republic and the final consolidation of Chechen society".

Norwegian mediator Ivar Amundsen, the director of the human rights group, Chechnya Peace Forum, said it was the first time there had been "a serious political dialogue between the Russian-installed regime in Chechnya and the government-in-exile".

"This meeting has been authorised not only by [Chechen President Ramzan] Kadyrov himself... It has been happening in perfect co-ordination with the highest leadership in the Kremlin," he said, adding that further talks would be held in London in 10 days' time.

Six months ago, Mr Kadyrov declared that political normalisation could not be achieved without the involvement of Mr Zakayev.

He repeated the offer of reconciliation last month, telling Russian television that there would be no point in imprisoning him and that he would like the former actor to play a role in reviving Chechen culture.

When asked on Friday if he would take up offer, Mr Zakayev told BBC Russian: "I will definitely return to the Chechen Republic and there are no conditions that I would impose on this."

Spreading insurgency

Mr Zakayev was a leading rebel in Chechnya until 2000, but fled and sought asylum in the UK when Russia regained control.

In 2003, a British court rejected Moscow's request for his extradition on kidnapping and murder charges, saying that there was substantial risk of him being tortured by the authorities.

Two years ago, Mr Zakayev declared himself prime minister of the rebel Republic of Ichkeria after the President, Doku Umarov, described Western countries as the enemies of all Muslims, and announced his intention to install shariah across the region.

Any statement of support from him for the Kremlin-backed government in Chechnya would aid Moscow, analysts say.

Chechnya has in recent years been more peaceful. In April, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the end of a decade-long "counter-terrorism operation", intended to pave the way for the withdrawal of thousands of troops.

But since then several attacks have taken place. Earlier this month, two police officers and two soldiers were killed in a gun battle with militants in southern Chechnya.

Fighting has also spread to neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia, where correspondents say a violent Islamist insurgency is growing.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/8167526.stm

Published: 2009/07/24

Jul 21, 2009

Natalya Estemirova - Fighting for Human Rights with Life

2:06

July 18, 2009

Jul 19, 2009

Chechnya Is Gripped by Political Kidnappings

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

GROZNY, Russia — Oleg D. Masayev nervously fingered a cellphone as if working a string of prayer beads, his large blue eyes darting back and forth. He wanted to talk, he said, about his brother, who had disappeared without a trace or explanation, as if simply carried away by one of the dust devils that twirl along Chechnya’s roads.

“He was our youngest brother,” Mr. Masayev said. “He was the one we loved the most.”

The vanished brother had lived in Moscow and had little opportunity to become entangled in the separatist violence in Chechnya; he had, however, offered a chilling firsthand account as a victim of official abuse.

The wars that have ravaged Chechnya since the collapse of the Soviet Union have officially ended. Grozny, the capital, has been mostly rebuilt, and stores and cafes are open.

Yet the republic is in the throes of an epidemic of kidnappings. The abduction and killing last week of Natalia Estemirova, a celebrated human rights worker, came in the context of an escalating trend of unexplained disappearances. Dragged off the sidewalks, pulled out of beds at night or grabbed from their cars, scores of people have simply vanished.

In the first six months of this year, the Russian human rights organization Memorial, where Ms. Estemirova worked, documented 74 kidnappings in Chechnya, compared with 42 for all of 2008.

Human rights groups have blamed Chechnya’s president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, and his security forces for the bulk of the disappearances, and the killing of Ms. Estemirova.

Abductions have evolved from a largely successful, if brutal, counterinsurgency tactic to a form of political repression by Mr. Kadyrov’s government, said Yekaterina L. Sokiryanskaya, a researcher at Memorial. Mr. Kadyrov, she said, has been governing and settling personal vendettas using the same free hand Moscow granted him to fight the war.

“Everybody calls him a small Stalin,” she said. “He is getting rid of political rivals and independent voices.”

Both Mr. Kadyrov and Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, have denied that Mr. Kadyrov had a role in the killing of Ms. Estemirova. Memorial’s director, Oleg P. Orlov, has directly accused Mr. Kadyrov of the killing, reflecting the group’s broader analysis of the causes of the abduction epidemic in Chechnya. Mr. Kadyrov said Friday he would sue Mr. Orlov for slander.

The rise in abductions in Chechnya comes even as most reported insurgent activity in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus has moved outside of Chechnya, according to an analysis by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In 2008, for example, the small region of Ingushetia surpassed Chechnya in the number of reported acts of insurgency-related violence, with 350 episodes compared with 210 in Chechnya, according to the center. In Dagestan, another republic, ethnic strife and police corruption are fueling a low-grade insurgency.

Over all, the center reported, the number of violent acts in 2008 in the North Caucasus, with a combined population of 6.1 million, was about four times larger than in Colombia, with a population of 42 million.

Mr. Kadyrov, who was installed as president just after his 30th birthday, has never lost his rough edges as he has evolved from a field commander to a political leader. Stocky and bearded, he once showed up in a track suit for an audience at the Kremlin, and enjoyed careering around Grozny, assault rifles strewn in the back seat. He keeps a private zoo, stocked with fighting dogs and ostriches.

As he consolidated power, political opponents and critics were either forced out of the region or died.

Alu D. Alkhanov, an interim president who preceded Mr. Kadyrov, was compelled to leave Chechnya in 2007. In 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist for the Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta who covered Chechnya, was shot in the entryway of her Moscow apartment building. Two brothers from a rival, Moscow-backed Chechen family were killed, one in his car in Moscow last year and the other in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, in April. In January, a former Chechen government insider who had publicly accused Mr. Kadyrov of torture was shot to death in Vienna.

Mr. Kadyrov has denied any role in these killings.

“All enemies of Kadyrov are mysteriously disappearing,” Ms. Sokiryanskaya, the Memorial researcher, said.

Ms. Estemirova’s death closed off a source of detailed criticism of Mr. Kadyrov for journalists and human rights groups. On Saturday, Aleksandr Cherkasov, a director of Memorial, said the group’s Grozny office would be temporarily closed because “what we have been doing involves mortal danger,” the Interfax news agency reported.

Mr. Masayev, whose brother disappeared last August, agreed to speak only about the grief his brother’s disappearance had caused the family. Memorial, the rights group, had documented the particulars of the case.

The vanished brother, Mukhamadsalakh D. Masayev, lived in Moscow through Chechnya’s two wars in the 1990s. A religious Muslim, he returned to Chechnya in 2006 hoping to work as an imam but was detained and held for four months in a parked bus on a Chechen military base. After his release, he granted an interview to Novaya Gazeta directly implicating Mr. Kadyrov in his abuse.

“One day, they took us out to the woods and cocked their assault rifles,” as if threatening them with execution, Mr. Masayev said in the interview. “Laughing, they brought us back. One day, a man with the nickname Jihad, the commander of some sort of battalion, beat me and yelled debasing words. Another day, the guards took us at night to a meeting with Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov put a foot forward, as if for us to lick it and ask for forgiveness.”

He said he was released after being invited to drink tea with Mr. Kadyrov.

After the publication, Mukhamadsalakh Masayev returned to Chechnya to attend a funeral against the advice of his older brother. He disappeared soon after he arrived in Chechnya. His seven children live in Moscow with relatives. “The children ask me, ‘When will Papa come home?’ ” Oleg Masayev said of his meetings with his nieces and nephews now. “And I don’t know what to say. I say, ‘He is traveling on the path of God.’ ”

Jul 16, 2009

The Courage of Natalya Estemirova

by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 07/15/2009

In October 2007, Russian human rights activist Natalya Estemirova wrote for us about the assassination of the crusading investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Today, Estemirova was assassinated.
Her body, dumped near the capital city of Ingushetia, was discovered with two close-range bullet wounds in the head.

A woman who courageously investigated kidnappings, killings and other rights abuses in Chechnya, a single mother in her early 40s, a leading member of the esteemed human rights group Memorial, Estemirova received the first annual award from the international human rights group RAW in WAR (Reach all Women in War) in October 2007.

She understood, as she wrote in her harrowing story about Anna Politkovskaya's confrontation in Chechnya with a notorious police official responsible for the imprisonment, torture and murder of Chechen civilians that: "There are those with a vested interest in keeping the Russian Abu Ghraib forgotten--so that they can once again kidnap and torture. Our task, however, is to uncover their deeds and to fight them. Anna was at the forefront of this work for many years."

Natalya Estemirova was also at the forefront of that dangerous work, never ceasing to expose human rights abuses committed by the brutal leadership in Chechnya, where she lived and worked. Members of Memorial are now saying what they feared to say before, out of concern for Natalya's safety. They are accusing the 32-year old leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, of involvement in her assassination.

"Ramzan Kadyrov is personally responsible, not only because he leads Chechnya," said Oleg Orlov, Memorial's chairman. But, because "he personally threatened Natalya, told her that her hands would be covered in blood and that he destroys bad people." Kadyrov leveled these threats, according to Orlov, when he dismissed Estemirova as head of the Grozny Human Rights Public Council last year. Kadyrov has not replied to accusations that he was involved. What is clear is that the two bloody wars Moscow has fought with Chechnya, (from 1994 to 1996 and starting again in 1999) to halt the Muslim republic from seceding in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse, have led to tens of thousands of civilian deaths, mass disappearances and killings, and rampant corruption. Putin installed Kadyrov as the republic's president in 1994 and his regime has been notorious for its corruption and human rights abuses.

For journalists, Russia has become --according to the International Union of Journalists--one of the most dangerous countries to work in. More than thirty journalists have been murdered for their work or have died under suspicious circumstances since Boris Yeltsin came to power; the pattern continues under Vladimir Putin and Dmitrii Medvedev. In only one case have the killers been convicted.

After learning of Estemirova's killing, President Medvedev issued a statement condemning the murder and ordered Russia's Investigative Committee to conduct a thorough probe. Kadyrov released a statement on Wednesday night saying he would "spare no expense: to find her killers.

The leading opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta has paid the heaviest price for its crusading investigations into high-level corruption, human rights violations, and brutality in Chechnya. Three of its leading reporters, including Anna Politkovskaya, have been murdered for their unflinching investigations. Most recently, 25-year old freelance reporter for Novaya, Anastasiya Baburova -- who was covering the rise of race-motivated crimes and Neo-Nazi groups -- was gunned down on a Moscow street. (There is no progress to report in her case.) And Estemirova was a frequent contributor to Noyava, reporting on extrajudicial killings, abductions and punitive arsons; after a wave of threats from the Chechen authorities, she wrote under a pseudonym. Despite the physical threats, assaults, and financial and political pressures, the newspaper's reporters and editors have continued to remain independent and publish crusading investigative reporting.

The issue of impunity for violent crimes against journalists is a matter of international importance. Deadly violence against journalists in Russia -- and in all countries, has led to self-censorship, leaving issues of global significance under reported or entirely uncovered.

Today we honor the courage of Natalya Estemirova. She tenaciously exposed human rights abuses and was a powerful voice for justice in her country.

Those who have so brutally stifled her voice must be brought to justice.

Jul 4, 2009

Chechen Police Die in Ingushetia

Chechen police die in Ingushetia

Nine Chechen policemen have been killed when militants attacked their vehicle in Russia's neighbouring republic of Ingushetia, officials say.

Another nine police were injured near the village of Arshty, in one of the deadliest recent attacks.

The Chechen police were conducting joint operations against militants in the volatile region.

Last month, Ingushetia's leader was seriously wounded in an apparent assassination attempt.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has vowed a "cruel" revenge on those who tried to kill Inghushetia's President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov.

Convoy ambushed

The vehicle the Chechen police travelling in came under grenade and gun fire at about 0840 local time (0540 GMT) on Saturday, officials say.

The militants opened fire from a nearby forest.

The Chechen police were travelling in a convoy of five vehicles.

It was not immediately known if there were any casualties among the attackers.

Islamist militants have been battling pro-Kremlin authorities and Russian security forces in a low-level insurgency in Ingushetia, Chechnya and also Dagestan in the Caucasus region.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/8134193.stm

Published: 2009/07/04