--- In chechnya-sl@y..., Norbert Strade <nost@p...> wrote:
> ChRI President A. Maskhadov leads a military conference
>
-snip-
>
An important event at the military conference was the presence of one
of the leaders of the Islamic Jamaats of the ChRI, theologian* Abdul-
Halim, who reported the full subordination of the Islamic military
units to the Commander-in-chief of the ChRI Armed Forces, A.
Maskhadov. His presence was the worthy response to the Russian
special services, which in recent days have spread provocative
reports about a split in the resistance movement.
>
> -snip>
>
H. Hasuhanov, GIA Chechenpress,
> 01 April 2002.
>
> http://www.chechenpress.com/news/04_2002/9_01_04.shtml

> [My translation]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

* Assuming that that Hasuhanov's communique is correct; in the
Russian original there, this word is "alima" which I think could be
translated to English as ulema. I'm curious, can an ulema
command a military force and still be in line with Islamic law?
According to the below; there's nothing about military role for ulema
in Saudi Arabia. M.L.



The Role of the Ulema (Religious Leaders)
The role of the Ulema in Saudi Arabia has a long history and great
significance.
The first alliance between Muhammad bin Saud and Imam Muhammad bin
Abdul Wahhab, and its continued success through the years, reflect
the important role played by the Ulema in Saudi Arabia. That first
alliance was both political and religious in nature and clearly
emphasized the true notion of the state in Islam; that is, state and
religion are inseparable. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an example
of an Islamic state governed by the Holy Qur'an. It is therefore
inevitable that the Ulema should play a key role within the Kingdom.
They play an influential part in the following fields of government:

The judicial system of Saudi Arabia

The implementation of the rules of the Islamic Shari'ah

Religious Guidance Group with affiliated offices all over the Kingdom

Religious education, that is, Islamic legal education and theology at
all levels in Saudi Arabia.

Religious jurisprudence

Preaching and guidance throughout the nation

Supervision of girls' education

Religious supervision of all Mosques in the Kingdom

Preaching of Islam abroad

Continuous scientific and Islamic research

Notaries public

The handling of legal cases in courts according to Islamic law

Hello,

Monday, April 01, 2002, 3:43:41 AM, goldfishbooks <goldfishbooks@...>
wrote:

g> The bolts, with a gritting sound, are slowly tightening up. The
g> Yeltsin's thaw is now gone. It is too naive to complain to courts
g> and attorney's offices, demanding its return. The people must find
g> their own strength, get up and sweep away that government, arrest
g> it and, preferably, - hang them on the street lamps...

g> Boris Stomakhin,
g> for «Kavkaz-Center»

Now tell me, which country in the world would NOT 'persecute' someone
who calls for this kind of violence? Would an American, or, say,
Danish writer remain at large after calling for 'hanging the
government on the street lamps'?

While Boris Stomakhin (whom I have met several times - he lives in
Moscow) remains free, Russia remains a country with, perhaps, the
greatest level of free speech in the entire world. So much for
'dictatorship'.

Yours, Mikhail Ramendik

16:18 Apr.1, 2002

Conflict Between Pro-Moscow Leader, Federal Soldiers Reported in
Chechnya


The head of the Chechen interim administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, has
become victim of arbitrariness of federal troops in the republic's
Gudermes District, Kadyrov's men told the press on Monday.

Kadyrov's spokesman Lecha Yakhyayev told the press that the
official's motorcade was stopped at a checkpoint. Servicemen blocked
the road and demanded a special pass, regardless of the fact that the
traffic police, accompanying the motorcade, told them who was inside.
Yakhyayev claims that the servicemen fired into the air, and Kadyrov
had to get out and bring them to order. The motorcade was allowed to
pass without any explanations some time later, the spokesman said.
Kadyrov immediately informed the federal force's command about the
incident. The command presented its apologies and said that the
servicemen, who had shown disrespect to the republic's top-ranking
official, would be punished, Yakhyayev said.

Kadyrov regards the incident as "a provocation aimed at humiliating
him in front of the people who happened to be at the post at that
moment", the spokesman noted. Kadyrov's restraint prevented a serious
conflict between the servicemen and his bodyguards, he
said. //Interfax//

15:43 Apr. 1, 2002

FSB Reports Attempt to Kidnap Journalists Thwarted in Chechnya

An abduction of several journalists of the Russian TV-company Ren-TV
has been prevented in Chechnya. The news was reported in a Monday
interview with the RTR Television channel by Federal Security
Service's spokesman for Chechnya Ilya Shabalkin. The crime was
prepared by a group led by Islam Chalayev, an infamous criminal
involved in many such kidnappings. The Chechens intended to demand a
$1m ransom for the journalists' release. Law enforcers are currently
undertaking additional measures to ensure the journalists' security,
the FSB spokesman said. //NTVRU.COM

13:32 Apr 1, 2002

2 Sisters of pro-Moscow Chechen Politician Killed

Two sisters of prominent Chechen politician Adam Deniyev were
brutally murdered Sunday night in the village of Avtury, Shali
district of the Chechen Republic. Sherip Alikhadzhiyev, the head of
the district administration has told the press that a group of gunmen
wearing camouflage and masks entered the house of Asma Deniyeva and
shot her dead before her family. At the other end of the village, her
sister Khadizhat was murdered in the same way.

Adam Deniyev was a prominent Chechen politician and religious figure.
He was killed while reading a Friday prayer in the local TV channel
studio in Spring 2001. His brother Gazimagomed was killed in Moscow a
month ago. //Interfax//

Russia troops, rebels clash in Chechnya Apr, 1, 2002

VLADIKAVKAZ - Russian troops clashed with rebels in two regions of
Chechnya, killing five militants, and police discovered a cache of
weapons and ammunition in the neighboring Russian region of
Ingushetia, officials said Monday.
One serviceman was killed and one was wounded Sunday when rebels put
up resistance during a sweep of the city of Argun, said an official
in the Moscow-appointed Chechen administration. Two rebels were
killed and the rest escaped, the official said, speaking on condition
of anonymity.

Three rebels were killed in a skirmish Sunday outside the village of
Tsotsin-Yurt, the site of frequent sweeps by Russian forces. No
servicemen were killed in that clash.

Nine Russian soldiers were killed and 23 were wounded in other rebel
attacks over the past 24 hours, the official said. At least 110
people were detained on suspicion of rebel ties, as troops continued
searches for militants in five regions of Chechnya including the
capital Grozny.

Meanwhile, police acting on a tip from a camp for Chechen refugees
discovered an arms stash on Sunday in Ingushetia, which borders on
Chechnya. The Ingush Interior Ministry said the find included 30
portable grenade-launchers, a machine gun, three Kalashnikov assault
rifles, ammunition for the weapons, and about five kilograms (11
pounds of explosives).

Two sisters of Adam Deniyev, a deputy head of the Moscow-appointed
administration who was killed in an explosion last year, were shot
and killed Sunday in their homes in the family's home village of
Avtury, the Interfax news agency reported. Rebels had taken
responsibility for Adam Deniyev's killing, saying he was targeted for
cooperating with the Russians. His brother Gazimagomed Deniyev was
killed in Moscow last month*, Interfax reported.

In Grozny, a Russian army conscript was freed by Russian forces after
being held two months for ransom, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
The Federal Security Service said Monday it had foiled a plot to
kidnap members of a Russian television crew in Grozny and hold them
for dlrs 1 million ransom. /The Associated Press/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

* According to Viacheslav Izmailov from Novaya Gazeta, Gazi Deniyev
was an FSB officer, he was involved in the infamous swap of Babitsky.
He was killed in Moscow just before Babitsky's trial had started. So,
that couldn't be a month ago. This could be checked out in our
archives. M.L.

http://www.therussianissues.com/topics/54/01/07/16/6560.html


Col. Budanov's Defense Go For Political Gambit (Gazeta.ru)
Russian colonel accused of rape and murder can be sentenced to a symbolic prison
term and then pardoned

by

16.07.2001, 10:41


Colonel Yuri Budanov charged with abduction and first degree murder of an
18-year-old Chechen woman told the court that all of the political leadership
and military command should be in the dock alongside him, and his lawyers have
filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court of Russia.
Budanov's defense lawyers have asked the Constitutional Court to analyze the
orders Yuri Budanov received from his superiors and to establish whether or not
those orders were constitutional. As is known, Colonel Yuri Budanov received his
orders from the then-commander of 58th army Vladimir Shamanov. And the latter
received his orders from the Supreme Commander in Chief of the Russian Armed
Forces Vladimir Putin. Budanov will undergo more psychiatric tests, this time at
Moscow's Serbsky Institute. The defense of the aggrieved party - the parents of
the murdered girl - and observers are pretty certain that the results of these
tests will well suit Budanov, in which case it is quite likely that this summer
he will be sentenced to a short prison term and pardoned. Budanov was awarded
the Order of Courage and therefore qualifies for amnesty.

Does anyone have any information about 'the
theologian, Abdul Halim' mentioned in this report as a
leader of the 'Islamic Jamaats of the ChRI'?

                              Thanks

--- Norbert Strade <nost@...> wrote:

<HR>
<html><body>


<tt>
ChRI President A. Maskhadov leads a military
conference<BR>
<BR>
A military conference of front and area commanders,
dealing with the<BR>
final stage of the preparation for an offensive by the
Chechen troops,<BR>
took place yesterday in one of the mountain districts
of the ChRI.<BR>
<BR>
The conference was conducted under the leadership of
the<BR>
Commander-in-chief of the ChRI Armed Forces, A.
Maskhadov. According to<BR>
a participant in this meeting, the commander of the
Gudermes military<BR>
sector Uvais Inderbiyev, the commanders made a number
of important<BR>
corrections to the plan of the outlined offensive.<BR>
<BR>
An important event at the military conference was the
presence of one of<BR>
the leaders of the Islamic Jamaats of the ChRI,
theologian Abdul-Halim,<BR>
who reported the full subordination of the Islamic
military units to the<BR>
Commander-in-chief of the ChRI Armed Forces, A.
Maskhadov. His presence<BR>
was the worthy response to the Russian special
services, which in recent<BR>
days have spread provocative reports about a split in
the resistance<BR>
movement.<BR>
<BR>
At the conclusion of the military conference, ChRI
President A.<BR>
Maskhadov took the floor, declaring that a fast
retribution awaits the<BR>
Russian war criminals for the gravest crimes against
humanity, committed<BR>
on Chechen ground.<BR>
<BR>
H. Hasuhanov, GIA Chechenpress,<BR>
01 April 2002.<BR>
<BR>
<a
href="http://www.chechenpress.com/news/04_2002/9_01_04.shtml">http://www.chechen\
press.com/news/04_2002/9_01_04.shtml</a><BR>
[My translation]<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
</tt>

<br>

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Find, Connect, Date! http://personals.yahoo.ca

mariuslab2002 wrote:

> --- In chechnya-sl@y..., Norbert Strade <nost@p...> wrote:
> > ChRI President A. Maskhadov leads a military conference
> >
> -snip-
> >
> An important event at the military conference was the presence of one
> of the leaders of the Islamic Jamaats of the ChRI, theologian* Abdul-
> Halim,

(snip)

> * Assuming that that Hasuhanov's communique is correct; in the
> Russian original there, this word is "alima" which I think could be
> translated to English as ulema. I'm curious, can an ulema
> command a military force and still be in line with Islamic law?
> According to the below; there's nothing about military role for ulema
> in Saudi Arabia. M.L.

Dear Marius and list,

Just for the record: I don't demand any authority with regard to those
translations, doing it as well as I can when there's little time.
He was called an "academic alim" in the original, that is, an "academic
Islamic scholar". I don't have any idea what the correct title would be in
English, so I simply took a shortcut and made him a "theologian".

Best regards,
Norbert

Mikhail Ramendik wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Monday, April 01, 2002, 3:43:41 AM, goldfishbooks
<goldfishbooks@...> wrote:
>
> g> The bolts, with a gritting sound, are slowly tightening up. The
> g> Yeltsin's thaw is now gone. It is too naive to complain to courts
> g> and attorney's offices, demanding its return. The people must find
> g> their own strength, get up and sweep away that government, arrest
> g> it and, preferably, - hang them on the street lamps...
>
> g> Boris Stomakhin,
> g> for «Kavkaz-Center»
>
> Now tell me, which country in the world would NOT 'persecute' someone
> who calls for this kind of violence? Would an American, or, say,
> Danish writer remain at large after calling for 'hanging the
> government on the street lamps'?
>
> While Boris Stomakhin (whom I have met several times - he lives in
> Moscow) remains free, Russia remains a country with, perhaps, the
> greatest level of free speech in the entire world. So much for
> 'dictatorship'.

Mikhail,

I'm surprised you are asking this question once again, since we've been
through it before. In Denmark, nobody would persecute you for statements
like the ones made by Stomakhin, or worse. Here you need to make a
specific threat against a specific person or group of persons in order
to be covered by some law paragraph. And even in such cases there's a
tradition for wide tolerances from the side of the justice system. And
such is the situation more or less everywhere in the Western countries.
As far as I know the tolerance towards openly uttered opinions is even
greater in the US, where the constitution specifically entitles you to
freedom of expression. It's only in the sector of private legal action
where you can get into trouble if you feel like making outrageous
statements.

This is exactly the difference between democratic states (even with
their various shortcomings with regard to civil liberties) and a country
like Russia which today has some formal democratic traits (though no
real constitutional democracy), but which in reality is a dictatorship
by an alliance of different oligarchs, mafia groups and the old and new
KGB, headed by the latter. There is no division of power. The man at the
head of the state is someone who in an ordinary democracy would have
gone through a screening process resulting in a ban from political
positions (in the best case for him), but more probably would have had
to spend some time behind bars (even without Chechnya).

It is perhaps hard to understand by someone inside Russia who is
relatively young that the fact itself that the country accepts a
president who is a product of one of the most vicious criminal
organizations of world history, who served this organization and is
still proud of it, who then for some years worked as the right-hand man
for one of the top mafia bosses and finally was catapulted upwards in
the system by his comrades in crime, does not make people think of the
word "democracy" or "freedom" in the first place. And it's not just the
president. The complete system down to the members of the street police
is completely corrupt and criminal. And the top echelons are serious and
dangerous political gangsters who are responsible for large-scale theft,
looting of their own and other countries, political murders in and
around Russia, mass terror against their own population, plus the
Nazi-style war in Chechnya. - So it's no wonder that a few people begin
to think like Stomakhin.

When I went to school I was taught that citizens of a democratic country
*have the duty* to stand up against such tendencies, and that it is not
only allowed but necessary to fight an authoritarian regime,
*especially* if it's your own. This too is a difference to the
mystification of the "good Czar", the "party that knows what is best for
everyone" or "the Russian state". In a civilized society the state has
no mystical properties. It simply is a tool for its citizens. The same
tendencies as in Russia, the attempts to create a pseudo-religious role
for the "State", are seen in all European countries which haven't had a
chance yet to create a civil society.

I don't agree with everything Stomakhin writes. Especially his idea
about a Russian "genetical" tendency towards authoritarianism is racist
nonsense. And the idea of a "revolution" sounds stupid too. Russia has
certainly had enough revolutions. All the revolutions have only lead to
a new group of autocrats taking the place of the former ones. The latest
"democratic" revolution even turned out to be a farce in which the old
masters simply continued under new names. The KGB is still there and
continues its crimes both against Russia and against humanity with total
impunity.

But there is a Russian "misery", though it's not genetical. It's a
question of collective memory and experience, which it is hard to change
under the conditions of an information blockade. The large majority of
Russians today has still as little access to independent information as
in the days of Brezhnev. The style of the disinformation has changed,
that's all. Freedom of information is, as we say here in Denmark, "a
town in Russia". People like Stomakhin can say what they want because
nobody takes them seriously. Those who are taken seriously by the
criminal state structures are treated like Babitsky and Politkovskaya,
or in the worst case like Starovoitova and the many other murdered
journalists and democratic activists.
The Russian collective mentality *has* a problem. This problem is the
result of hundreds of years of continuous most brutal repression - a
combination of the worst traits of European Middle Age and Asian
autocracy (as Karl Marx put it ;-). That's what some have called the
"slave soul". It takes a very long time under conditions of political
and economical freedom *plus* a system of deliberate democratic
education to change that. It's this misery which allows poltical
gangsters like those who today have usurped the throne to blind the
people with those mystical concepts about the "State" and the mysterious
"dignity" of its governing structures. Though of course a state can't
have more dignity than the people who command it. And there's absolutely
*zero* dignity connected with the Russian Federation today.
It simply is the most easy for the average Russian to believe in this
stuff and to repress any doubts about the leaders, even if everybody can
look at Mr. Putin and see what he is. This is called a "state of
denial". And those who can't be fooled in this way usually fall into
apathy, another product of the slave society. - That's the main reason
why some people like Stomakhin are allowed to play the political clown.
They are left alone in order to fool the last 1 percent and the
foreigners.

But don't believe that it will stay this way! Present-day Russia is no
"Thousand year Reich" as Stomakhin believes, and I don't think its
present leadership will be able to sit for 12 years like the original
Nazis. There simply isn't enough of an economical base or an organized
society in order to try that. The medieval mental structures come in the
way here. We'll probably see bloody changes when the mafia groups are
forced to reconfigure themselves. But hopefully some of the present
criminals will survive that, and they, their Chechen and Russian victims
as well as the world community will get a chance to document and sort
out their activities in Chechnya, so all can learn from it.

To come back to the "state of denial", which we see here on the list as
well: It's really remarkable how people in Russia who we thought we knew
are able to change almost in seconds. I've experienced it myself and
heard it from many colleagues, how perfectly normal people with an
academic education who supported democratic changes already back in
Soviet times, can take one ideological U-turn after the other, together
with whoever is the current "autokrator". As long as that tradition
isn't broken and the barbarian, parasitic state is brought under the
control of its citizens, things will go from bad to worse.

Best regards,
Norbert

> I'm a bit surprised about the easiness with which formerly reliable
JFM
> now joins those who take Russian propaganda allegations,
distortions as
> well as deliberate, directed simplifications at face value. First,
> Basayev's and Raduyev's raids into Russian territory. It depends of
> course on the definition of "terrorism"

the broad definition of of "terrorism" is direct actions against
civilians (hostage taking, killing etc)

if you would consider these
> actions terrorist raids. The Russian propaganda has the habit to
call
> every defense measure taken by the legal Chechen authorities
> "terrorism". Before that term became "in", they used the terms
> "banditry" and "crime".
>
> But I would challenge the definition of those raids as "terrorist".

>The
> Budennovsk incident started out as an attempt to destroy military
> installations on Russian ground that were used in the war against
> Chechnya.
Could you please give details&sources?
When the plan didn't work out as intended, Basayev's group
> took refuge in the Budennovsk hospital (effectively taking the
patients
> hostage), in order to secure the return to Chechnya. It developed
into a
> propaganda stunt that allowed Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin to
> start the process towards the ceasefire agreement in connection
with the
> presidential elections (which Moscow didn't intend to keep). It
must be
> mentioned that the first part of Basayev's action had nothing to do
with
> terrorism.
Which does not mean that the second part had nothing to do with
terrorism, right?

>It's perfectly normal for one side in a war to enter the
> enemy territory in order to carry out military tasks, if it is able
to
> do so. The use of civilians as human shields as part of this action
> wasn't "terrorism" but a war crime (this is *not* the same).
How it make it better?
You can call 9/11 war crime with similar reasoning, would it make it
better?
>
> I'm also a little disappointed that the JFM Monitor doesn't mention
who
> killed the civilians in connection with those raids. For those who
don't
> remember it, the text implies that it was Basayev's people. But in
fact
> the Basayevites didn't kill one single civilian

I am doubtfull that you have any reliable sources to state it,
but if you do, please share them.

>(contrary to the Russian
> propaganda that still claims the young mothers /&pregnant woman, to
be precise/ were killed by the
> Chechens). What really happened (and what was visible on direct TV
at
> the time) was that the Russian "security" forces started to shell
the
> hospital with heavy-calibre weapons, killing a lot of patients
inside
> (and not a single fighter), in the quite usual Russian manner that
> doesn't count even their own soldiers or civilians as other than
human
> material. The only people killed by Basayevs' troops were Russian
troops
> outside the hospital and some Russian interior troops in connection
with
> the botched raid on the airport (which managed to destroy some
> helicopters, though). The Russian "police" forces otoh shot and
killed
> the cameraman of a German journalist team at a roadblock not even
close
> to the hospital.
>
> Raduyev's raid on Kizlyar was very similar, a copycat action in
which he
> tried to imitate Basayev. Here too, the civilian losses were due to
> indiscriminate Russian shelling.

yes, but not only by them

Those who followed the events back then
> could watch Russian troops shell the Daghestani village of
> Pervomaiskaya, where Raduyev's men tried to resist, into rubble. But
> nowhere I see "terrorism" in the narrow sense - deliberate violence
> directed against civilians or political leaders in order to scare
them
> into submission. These were badly planned and badly carried out
military
> raids into enemy country, which ended in the use of civilians as
human
> shields. Thus, war crimes under the definition of the Geneva
convention.
> And they were met with war crimes by the "defending" side.

I am wondering how you will justify Basaev's Dagestan raid.
(as far as I know it gave cause for the beginning of "anti-terrorist
operation". Even if we define the previous military conflict as war,
at that time both sides were under condition of the truce, so
entering enemy's territory was casus belli (?) Am I right?
>
> In the same way, it's nothing but a Russian allegation that "Chechen
> rebels carried out several large-scale terrorist attacks in the
North
> Caucasus cities of Mineralnye Vody, Pyatigorsk and Nalchik in1997".
It
> ought to be clear to everyone that there is no system of independent
> justice in the Russian Federation, especially not with regard to the
> Chechnya conflict (this goes both for accused Chechens who get
jailed
> without reasonable proof and accused Russians who go free without
proper
> prosecution).
>
> That's why all these alleged terrorist acts and war crimes ought to
go
> to an independent international court of justice in order to give a
fair
> process to both the criminals and the victims.
>
> Best regards,
> Norbert

--- In chechnya-sl@y..., Mikhail Ramendik <mikhram@d...> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Monday, April 01, 2002, 3:43:41 AM, goldfishbooks <goldfishbooks@b...> wr=
ote:
>
> g> The bolts, with a gritting sound, are slowly tightening up. The
> g> Yeltsin's thaw is now gone. It is too naive to complain to courts
> g> and attorney's offices, demanding its return. The people must find
> g> their own strength, get up and sweep away that government, arrest
> g> it and, preferably, - hang them on the street lamps...
>
> g> Boris Stomakhin,
> g> for «Kavkaz-Center»
>
> Now tell me, which country in the world would NOT 'persecute' someone
> who calls for this kind of violence? Would an American, or, say,
> Danish writer remain at large after calling for 'hanging the
> government on the street lamps'?

The US Constitution has an amendment called Bill of Rights where it is spel=
led out that citizens have the right to change government by the force.  It =
does not specify where to dispose the bodies of the dismantled government.  =
Knowing the american pragmatism it would not be the subject of long discussi=
on.  However thanks to the Constitution which also gives the right to pursue=
  happiness, in the last two hundred years and some years no such measure was=
  needed.

>
> While Boris Stomakhin (whom I have met several times - he lives in
> Moscow) remains free, Russia remains a country with, perhaps, the
> greatest level of free speech in the entire world. So much for
> 'dictatorship'.

Let me say this.  During sovietism Russia had so called proletar dictatura =
in which the dictatum was firmly in the hand of the Central Committee of the=
  communist party.  That Central Committee created the two basic pillars of t=
heir power, the KGB on the left and the Red Army on the right.  Present day =
Russia differ from the above structure just slightly, namely the Central Com=
mitte was knocked out by Yeltsin, but the two pillars are there still standi=
ng.  In recent time the left pillar was enhanced somewhat and the right pill=
ar is under architectural review, because the soil it is standing now - Chec=
hnya - is somewhat unstable and can fall as statues did especially of tovari=
sh Wladimir Uljanov.  I will call Russia a democratic free country when I wi=
ll not see any reference to the soviet past.  No village of "Sovietskaya", n=
o newspaper of "Komsomolskaya Pravda", no soviet hymn coming from the radio,=
  etc...  When I heard the soviet hymn played at the Olympic I looked for a g=
un to shoot someone.

János

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Chechnya Weekly; April 1, 2002
Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 14:30:17 -0500
From: Jamestown Foundation <brdcst@...>
To: pubs@...

1 April 2002 - Volume III, Issue 10

CHECHNYA WEEKLY - News and analysis on the crisis in Chechnya

NEWS

ZACHISTKI GOES BUREAUCRATIC.
On March 27, the commander of the Combined Group of Russian
Forces in Chechnya, Lieutenant General Vladimir Moltenskoi,
signed a special order, Order No. 80, stipulating new rules for
the conducting of special operations within population points of
the Chechen Republic. The specific aim of the order is to
"lessen the [number of] unlawful acts committed against the
local population and to increase trust between the soldiers and
the civilian authorities." The order mandates that all special
operations "are to be conducted not only in the presence of
procurators but also of the local authorities and the organs of
internal affairs." A list of persons taken into custody during
an operation must be compiled, and copies of that list must be
provided both to the procuracy and to the local pro-Moscow
Chechen administration. "We are raising the responsibility of
all officials so people will not go missing without trace,"
Moltenskoi explained, "There are facts showing that innocent or
not-so-innocent people have gone missing during special
operations--either through the fault of individual commanders or
others who conducted the operations." Diederik Lohman, director
of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch, commented: "All of
this has been promised before, and most of it is already in
Russian law. You can produce laws and decrees, but in the end it
all comes down to implementation. Right now, soldiers and
officers don't really feel there is a real chance they will be
prosecuted if they break the law" (NTV.ru, March 28; LA Times,
March 30).

Commenting on General Moltenskoi's Order No. 80, Russian
presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky told RIA Novosti
that he is convinced that it will serve "to speed up the
stabilization of the situation in the republic." This
"unprecedented document," he said, contains "an honest analysis
of the established facts of unlawful actions by soldiers during
the conducting of special operations" (NTV.ru, March 29). On
March 28, during a meeting of the prime minister of Chechnya,
Stanislav Il'yasov, and the pro-Moscow Chechen Ministry of
Internal Affairs, a decision was taken "categorically
prohibiting employees of the Chechen police to wear masks"
during the performance of their duties (Kolokol.ru, March 28).

RULES ON SPECIAL OPERATIONS: CONNECTED TO COUNCIL OF EUROPE?
Recent developments on controlling zachistki may well have been
connected with the meetings of the Interparliamentary Assembly
of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Council of
Europe taking place at the time in the Tauride Palace in
Petersburg. On March 29, the online daily Gazeta.ru reported:
"Already in June of this year, the Council of Europe intends to
adopt special resolutions that will seriously restrict the
antiterrorist activity of states belonging to the Council of
Europe, including Russia." In particular, Gazeta.ru went on, the
resolutions will concern "the inadmissibility of torture, of
inhumane language or of language demeaning the human worth of an
individual, of 'arbitrariness in any form,' the respect for the
right to life, the right to a just trial and the nonextradition
of a person if such extradition were to threaten him with
execution." As Peter Schieder, the present chair of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, observed to
Gazeta.ru: "The Council of Europe has always seen the actions of
the Russian authorities in Chechnya as representing an
antiterrorist operation, but we have always said that during the
conducting of such operations it is inadmissible that peaceful
citizens should suffer."

RUSSIA SAYS NO TO INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL.
On March 26, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov declared to
reporters in Petersburg that there was no possibility whatsoever
of creating an international tribunal for Chechnya at The Hague.
"All the talk about this topic is a provocation by those who
would like to complicate the process of a political settlement
in Chechnya," Ivanov asserted (Interfax, March 26). The
following day, March 27, the separatist foreign minister of
Chechnya, Ilyas Akhmadov, responded that, "Nothing could be
further from the truth" than Igor Ivanov's words, and he then
added: "We call upon the Member States of the UN General
Assembly to found an International Criminal Tribunal for
Chechnya (ICTC) in order to prosecute Russian war criminals and
genocidaires, both military and civilian, including and
especially Russian leaders. The UN General Assembly can set up
this ICTC by a majority vote pursuant to its powers to establish
'subsidiary organs' under the UN Charter article 22. This
International Criminal Tribunal for Chechnya should be organized
by the UN General Assembly along the same lines as the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia that
has already been established by the UN Security Council"
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic of
Ichkeria, March 27).

In its reaction to Akhmadov's statement, the information office
of the President of Russia remarked caustically: "It is rather
strange to hear appeals for the creation of any kind of court
from those who are on the international wanted list and have
been charged under an entire bouquet of laws and conventions
concerning terrorism and banditry" (Interfax, March 28).

MOSCOW CRIES FOUL ON CHECHEN SEMINAR.
On March 25, the French Foreign Ministry confirmed that the
French ambassador to Moscow, Claude Blanchemaison, had, on March
15, been summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow and
informed of the displeasure of the Russian government over the
fact that a seminar, entitled "Chechnya: Between Europe and
Russia," had been scheduled to be held in Paris on March 22-25,
"discreetly supported by [minister of public education] Jack
Lang and by the Greens of the Mayor's Office of Paris," an event
in which Chechen separatist spokesmen were to participate
(Liberation, March 26). The following day, the Russian Foreign
Ministry released the text of its official protest against the
holding of this seminar (RIA Novosti, March 26). On March 25,
the Russian website Inosmi.ru published an account of the
proceedings of the seminar that had appeared that same day in
the French newspaper Le Figaro.

In her presentation to the seminar, Libkhan Bazaeva, chair of
the Memorial office in Nazran, Ingushetia, told those in
attendance that "practically every day she travels to Chechnya
to confirm the commission of a new crime. The sum total of these
visitations is nothing other than a long list of horrors and
tragedies." On March 2, she recalled, citing just one example,
"Russian soldiers approached four young Chechens who were
warming themselves and took them away under the pretext of
checking their documents." Two days later, Russian television
announced that four young terrorists who had organized an ambush
had been killed in an exchange of fire with federal forces. The
bodies, which she was later shown, had been disfigured with a
knife, the victims had had their hands tied behind their back,
and the ear of one of them had been torn off. "This crime,"
Bazaeva emphasized, "remains unpunished, and no one will seek
out the guilty Russian soldiers." The Chechen separatist
minister of health, Umar Khanbiev, expressed his belief that the
Kremlin was planning "a final solution" for the Chechen problem
(Le Figaro, March 25).

FOREIGN MINISTRY DEMANDS EXTRADITION OF RUSLAN GELAEV.
On March 26, it was reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry
had sent a note to the Georgian Embassy in Moscow demanding the
immediate arrest and extradition to Russia of Chechen field
commander Ruslan Gelaev "for immediate prosecution" (Interfax,
March 26). The Georgian embassy in Moscow told Interfax: "If
Gelaev really is in Georgia, and if the Georgian prosecutors
have documents confirming his guilt, he must undoubtedly be
detained and extradited to Russia." It was also noted by embassy
personnel that "Georgia had asked Russia on many occasions to
detain and extradite the former chief of the Georgian Security
Service Igor Giorgadze," who is on Interpol's list of most
wanted criminals (AVN Military News Agency, March 26). At the
present time, Giorgadze lives openly in Moscow.

REFUGEE TENT CAMPS TO BE ELIMINATED.
On March 29, the pro-Moscow prime minister of Chechnya,
Stanislav Il'yasov, announced that "all [refugee] tent camps in
the Chechen republic" are to be liquidated before April 15 of
this year. In his words, virtually everything has now been
readied to move this populace to temporary housing facilities
located in the Chechen capital (Presscenter.ru, March 29).

MORE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST BEREZOVSKY.
On March 26, the director of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, told
reporters in Petersburg that his agency possessed additional
information concerning the involvement of oligarch Boris
Berezovsky in the funding of illegal armed formations in
Chechnya. "We have received even more information than we had
expected," Patrushev revealed. Commenting on the
Berezovsky-financed film "An Assassination Attempt against
Russia," which aims to prove that the FSB was behind the
September 1999 apartment house bombings in Moscow and
Volgodonsk, Patrushev said that Berezovsky "can make a show, but
in this case he could not produce a sufficient amount of facts"
(Interfax, March 26). The following day, it was announced that
former FSB employee Aleksandr Litvinenko, who had collaborated
with Berezovsky and others in the making of the film, and who
had recently requested political asylum in Britain, was to be
summoned to Russia for questioning in connection with "abuse of
office, forgery, and also the stealing and illegal possession of
ammunition" (Interfax, March 27). According to the Russian
websites Grani.ru and Kompromat.ru, the Berezovsky-financed
documentary film "Pokushenie na Rossiyu" [Assassination Attempt
against Russia] is available in Russian at:
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/index.html#codecs. An
English translation of the Berezovsky-sponsored book, entitled
Blowing Up Russia, is available for purchase at the bookstore of
spibooks.com. For the Russian original, see
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html.

RESTORATION FUNDS STILL GOING MISSING.
Over the past week and a half, there have been indications that
federal funds intended for the restoration of Chechnya have, as
before, been disappearing into a bottomless "black hole." On
March 22, the Associated Press reported that Russian Audit
Chamber chair Sergei Stepashin had met the previous day with the
pro-Moscow Chechen cabinet of ministers in Djohar (Grozny).
Stepashin announced on that occasion that "auditors were
investigating reports of the misuse of funds, including
double-billing for housing renovations that had already been
performed." On March 29, the newspaper Kommersant revealed that
"the program for the restoration of Chechnya is under threat of
collapse." This was stated on March 28 by the head of the
"Direction for Construction and Restoration Work in the Chechen
Republic," Anatoly Popov. At a press conference in Moscow, Popov
underlined that, at the present time, there are flatly no funds
available for performing restoration work within the republic:
"Thirty-eight percent of the funds (that is, 980 million
rubles)," he recalled, "which had been earmarked for the
restoration of Chechnya according to last year's program were
received by the Direction from the funding agencies only on
December 28-29 [2001], so that there was no opportunity to use
them. In accord with the Budget Code, all unexpended budgetary
funds had to be returned to the federal budget, and this was
done." As for the financing of restoration work for the current
2002 budget year, this has not even begun, "even though the
first quarter has almost ended." Popov affirmed that the reasons
for "the breaking off of financing" of Chechen restoration work
were unknown to him. His office, he said, has yet to receive a
single kopeck of the roughly US$96 million promised for this
year. "We owe our workers almost 500 million rubles," he
complained (Kommersant and Moscow Times, March 29).

In similar fashion, the March 20-26 issue of Moscow News carried
an interview with German journalist Florian Hassel, who had
recently completed an investigation into major funding abuses
within the pro-Moscow public health system in Chechnya. "Last
October," Hassel related, inter alia, "an audit of the
state-owned pharmaceutical company Chechenfarmmedtekhnika
revealed that the firm had misused a sum equivalent to 1.5
million euros. I made the rounds of several hospitals and
medical centers in Chechnya which, according to documentary
evidence, had received large sums to carry out repairs and
purchase equipment. I saw for myself that nothing had been done
there.... Do you know what astounded me most? The indifference
of Russian journalists in Grozny whom we told about our
findings. Amazingly, they were not in the least interested."

PERSPECTIVE

A "REBELLION" BREWS IN THE RANKS OF ELITE MVD FORCES.
On March 26, the mass circulation newspaper Komsomolskaya
Pravda, in an unusual development, published lengthy excerpts
from an open letter sent to the "leadership of the country and
of the Ministry of Internal Affairs" by members of SOBR UPOP--an
elite anti-organized crime MVD spetznaz unit--from the city of
Cherepovets, located to the north of Moscow. The text of the
appeal was unanimously adopted during a recent meeting of the
Cherepovets SOBR.

"Until now," the officers began their appeal, "no [Russian] law
exists 'On a Condition of War,' and the law 'On Emergency Rule'
does not reflect the reality that is occurring in the North
Caucasus. A war is taking place in Chechnya, but criminal cases
are being opened against employees of the MVD and other agencies
in relation to the discovery of corpses of rebels that show
signs of a violent death. This [is true] even in cases where the
rebels are found with weapons in their hands. This even when it
is well known that they were killed in a firefight. On what
basis is the Russian Procuracy terrorizing the units of the
Ministry of Defense, Internal Troops, the MVD and the spetznaz
forces who are participating in military actions? And why is
'peacetime' legislation being applied to a territory in the grip
of war, de facto during a time of war?"

"It turns out," the authors continued, "that they [the Chechen
rebels] are being taken into captivity unlawfully, When the
procurators attached to our units discover captured rebels, we
have to... let them go. This is idiocy! And periodically some
Moscow clerk with a smart face declares loudly that there is no
war in Chechnya! Then why do they announce on television that,
in one month's time, there have died and been wounded as many
men as served on the crew of the [drowned] submarine 'Kursk'?
The Chechen rebels are more honest in their deeds than the
members of our government are. At least they call things by
their name: 'Jihad'--that means war, not a forest fire or a
flood." As can be seen, the SOBR officers are vehemently opposed
to any investigation by the Russian Procuracy of alleged war
crimes committed by their unit or by other detachments stationed
in Chechnya. (These investigations, it should be noted, have
been launched by the Russian Procuracy largely due to extremely
heavy pressure exerted by the Council of Europe on the Russian
government to punish war crimes committed against the civilian
populace of Chechnya.) The SOBR authors of the collective
letter, for their part, underscore that a real war is taking
place in Chechnya, thus implying that a condition of war
vitiates the need for any investigation of crimes committed
against civilians.

Another key problem, the SOBR authors maintain, is that the MVD
leadership "has no concept of the methods of work and the
tactics of special units." Only completely ignorant persons
would, for example, "station SOBR [units] at checkpoints."
Another major complaint of the authors concerns the activity of
the pro-Moscow Chechen police. "It is not surprising," they
write, "that in Grozny at 7:00 pm a curfew has been established
for the 'federals,' during which time they can easily be shot at
or blown up. And during that time [of curfew] Grozny is simply
crammed with [pro-Moscow] Chechen police. If we take a rebel
into custody, he turns out to be a policeman. If we take a
policeman into custody, he turns out to be a rebel. No one can
say what functions these Chechen formations are carrying out
(except to provide armed support in feuds between clans and in
the tweaking of marketplaces)." "In our view," the SOBR authors
sum up, "these [pro-Moscow police] formations should be
disarmed, carefully checked over, and then cut back in number
tenfold. A single unit should be formed from those who have
proven their loyalty by their work and by their blood." The
remaining pro-Moscow police should be sent "to help women and
old men to restore the city, to comb through rubble and so on."
As can be seen, the SOBR authors are outspoken opponents of the
process of "Chechenization" that the Kremlin is now promoting:
Establishing a pro-Moscow Chechen police force stands at the
heart of this program.

The SOBR men then pass on to the issue of their so-called
"combat wages [boevye]." "De facto,' they write, "they have
ceased to pay us our 'combat wages' though we can take a bullet
or be blown up by a mine at any minute. But the clerks who never
leave [the military bases at] Khankala or Mozdok de facto
receive their 'combat wages' in full. But those OMON [police
commandos] who served three tours of duty at the checkpoints in
2001 (270 days in all) were paid 'combat wages' for only
twenty-two days."

Another sore point for the authors is that the Russian state is
not paying a kopeck to support SOBR's activities in Chechnya.
Instead, unnamed private "sponsors" are covering the costs of
their bulletproof helmets and vests and other equipment. "Even
our special weaponry is acquired with the aid of these same
sponsors. And the weaponry is already outdated. Who will buy us
new weapons? Our sponsors? And where is the state here? We have
seen the newest Russian weaponry in the hands of the Chechen
rebels." The Russian state, the authors complain, does not even
pay for such essentials as their "groceries, water, bedding and
so forth. Again these are provided by our sponsors.... Thank
God, normal people for whom the condition of law enforcement and
legality in the country are not a matter of indifference do
exist."

The authors of the collective letter proceed once to direct
scathing criticism against the pro-Moscow Chechen administration
of Akhmad Kadyrov. "Many billions [of rubles]," they contend,
"are being sent for the restoration of Chechnya. But the Chechen
administration is drowning in luxury. The impression is created
that de facto everything has been bought or sold.... And now
tell us the reason why we should serve as 'cannon fodder'? So
that someone can make a profit on the sale of oil, on the
'restoration' of Chechnya, or on the arming of the rebels?"

On March 27, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that the telephones
in its editorial offices were "ringing off the hook" in response
to the published letter of the Cherepovets SOBR. A number of
individuals connected with SOBR and OMON units stationed
throughout Russia telephoned in to support the authors of the
Cherepovets letter, though many preferred not to give their
names. The newspaper published a few of these responses. Nikolai
Gerasimov, an OMON fighter, declared: "We are 100 percent in
agreement with the publication. We are sick to death of these
postings [to Chechnya]." A Major Volynchikov of a SOBR unit in
Lipetsk underscored that "real [military] battles" were taking
place in Chechnya. Aleksandr, an OMON officer stationed in
Petersburg, wrote that "98 percent of our unit fully support the
lads from Cherepovets," while another OMON representative from
Nizhny Novgorod affirmed: "We fully support the demands of the
Cherepovets SOBR. We were sent [to Chechnya] from October 2001
till January 2002 and were paid only six days of combat wages."
An officer in the Moscow OMON said: "I fully support the
article. I have nothing to add--the situation is catastrophic,
precisely as is described."

It should be noted that the publication of an appeal from the
Cherepovets SOBR on March 26 represented the second time this
month that Komsomolskaya Pravda had addressed the subject of
burning grievances entertained by elite MVD units serving in
Chechnya. On March 12, the same newspaper had published a report
entitled, "Disturbances in the Elite Units of the Police." That
item had reported that "eight officers of SOBR from the Republic
of Komi have refused to go to Chechnya for 180 days." The
leadership of the MVD had recently raised the limit for a normal
posting to Chechnya from 90 to 180 days. "Everyone understands,"
one of the protestors, SOBR Major Igor Nevzorov, stressed, "that
returning from there [that is, after 180 days in Chechnya] we
will be potential clients for a psychiatric ward." Protests have
also, the newspaper reported, been made by "the SOBR in
Syktyvar, Vorkuta and Uktha." "This conflict in an elite unit of
the MVD," the newspaper wrote further, "could be called an
emergency situation on a local scale if a similar situation did
not also obtain in several cities of the Northwest Federal
District-Murmansk, Kaliningrad, and Kirov."

To sum up, perhaps without intending to do so, the SOBR
protesters have made the hopelessness of many of the Russian
leadership's current policies toward Chechnya very clear. A real
war, the authors emphasize, is taking place in Chechnya. Why
then does the Russian leadership want to return large numbers of
refugees from Ingushetia, Georgia and so on to a dangerous war
zone? The SOBR authors stress their contempt for the efforts of
Russian prosecutors, under heavy pressure from the Council of
Europe, to apply the strictures of international law to their
behavior. In so claiming, they highlight the considerable danger
to which Chechen civilians are being subjected. Finally, in
their contempt and seeming hatred for the pro-Moscow Chechen
civilian administration and police, they demonstrate graphically
that a program of "Chechenization" is not likely to succeed. In
short, their letters and statements provide additional evidence
that the Russian leadership's present approach to Chechnya has
reached a complete dead end.
-------------------------------------------------------
http://www.jamestown.org

Chechnya Weekly is a publication of the Jamestown Foundation. It
is researched and written by John B. Dunlop, a senior fellow at
the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The Jamestown
Foundation and The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya
<www.peaceinchechnya.org> cooperate to raise awareness about the
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--- In chechnya-sl@y..., Andrew McGregor <glenorchyca@y...> wrote:
> Does anyone have any information about 'the
> theologian, Abdul Halim' mentioned in this report as a
> leader of the 'Islamic Jamaats of the ChRI'?
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From the info below(from our archives) one can assume that Abdul-
Khalim is just a commander of military force of one of Jaamats. M.L.

-snip-
The Chechen side reported that eight Chechen mojahedin were killed
over the last four days, including two Islamic volunteers. Three
Chechen fighters from Amir Abdul-Khalim's subunit were killed when
planting a remote-controlled landmine in the area of Staryye Atagi
village. Another two fighters were killed in shootouts in their
native villages - Tsa-Vedeno and Novyye Atagi.

Source: Kavkaz-Tsentr news agency web site, in Russian, 15 May 01

--- In chechnya-sl@y..., Norbert Strade <nost@p...> wrote:
> ChRI President A. Maskhadov leads a military conference
>
-snip-
>
An important event at the military conference was the presence of one
of the leaders of the Islamic Jamaats of the ChRI, theologian* Abdul-
Halim, who reported the full subordination of the Islamic military
units to the Commander-in-chief of the ChRI Armed Forces, A.
Maskhadov. His presence was the worthy response to the Russian
special services, which in recent days have spread provocative
reports about a split in the resistance movement.
>
> -snip>
>
H. Hasuhanov, GIA Chechenpress,
> 01 April 2002.
>
> http://www.chechenpress.com/news/04_2002/9_01_04.shtml

> [My translation]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

>>
* Assuming that that Hasuhanov's communique is correct; in the
Russian original there, this word is "alima" which I think could be
translated to English as ulema.
<<

Dear Marius,
The word "ulema", meaning scholars (or persons of knowledge), is
the plural of "alim" i.e. scholar (or a person of knowledge).
They are derived from "Elm", literally meaning "knowledge".

It looks like, in Russian,  the word "alima" is used instead of "alim",  I am
not sure.
To me it sounds like  a female scholar.
"Alim" is masculine (male scholar) and "alima" is feminine ( a female scholar).

>>
I'm curious, can an ulema command a military force and still be in line with
Islamic law?
<<

Yes, according to Islamic law, a scholar can command a military force.


>>
According to the below; there's nothing about military role for ulema
in Saudi Arabia.   M.L.
<<

In * theory *,  the whole system  is based on Islam and its laws.
But, to cut a long story short - ;)  .....  "ulema" here are not military
commanders.

Best regards.
Mohammed
----------------------------------------------------------
The Role of the Ulema (Religious Leaders)
The role of the Ulema in Saudi Arabia has a long history and great
significance.
The first alliance between Muhammad bin Saud and Imam Muhammad bin
Abdul Wahhab, and its continued success through the years, reflect
the important role played by the Ulema in Saudi Arabia. That first
alliance was both political and religious in nature and clearly
emphasized the true notion of the state in Islam; that is, state and
religion are inseparable. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an example
of an Islamic state governed by the Holy Qur'an. It is therefore
inevitable that the Ulema should play a key role within the Kingdom.
They play an influential part in the following fields of government:

The judicial system of Saudi Arabia

The implementation of the rules of the Islamic Shari'ah

Religious Guidance Group with affiliated offices all over the Kingdom

Religious education, that is, Islamic legal education and theology at
all levels in Saudi Arabia.

Religious jurisprudence

Preaching and guidance throughout the nation

Supervision of girls' education

Religious supervision of all Mosques in the Kingdom

Preaching of Islam abroad

Continuous scientific and Islamic research

Notaries public

The handling of legal cases in courts according to Islamic law

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Chechen claims to Ingushetia aimed at refugees' return - web site
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 1, 2002


Text of report by Chechenpress news agency web site
[Original title: Young Chechens are seized in the northern districts]

1 April, Chechenpress correspondent L. Vakhidova: Despite optimistic
statements in the Russian media by some pro-Russian leaders of
Chechnya's northern Districts, young Chechen men are still being
detained and killed there.

Local residents report that the chief of the [local department of the
Russian] Federal Security Service, Mayrbek Khusiyev, is taking an active
part in punitive actions against residents of Nadterechnyy, Shelkovskiy
and Naurskiy Districts of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Several
young people, who had once been pardoned by Russian authorities, were
detained and taken away in recent days in Nadterechnyy District.

Our correspondent managed to learn about the fate of two of them. The
correspondent reported that the residents of the village of Znamenskoye,
Said-Ibragim Duluyev and Ruslanbek Abubakarov, were recently brutally
killed by Russian invaders. Meanwhile, the head of the occupation
administration of this District, A. Zavgayev, is playing a provocative
role on the Federal Security Service's instructions. This role is to
unleash enmities between Chechens and Ingush.

We should recall that Zavgayev recently issued a statement laying
territorial claims to Ingushetia. The purpose of his statement was
obvious: to cause a quarrel between the fraternal peoples and force
Chechen refugees to return home. It is no secret that the Russian
authorities have unsuccessfully tried to force the Chechen refugees to
return home. However, 200,000 Chechen refugees do not want to return
home for as long as the Russian troops are there.

Source: Chechenpress web site, Tbilisi, in Russian 1 Apr 02

The Moscow Times

Tuesday, Apr. 2, 2002. Page 3

MN Reporter Found Killed

The Moscow Times
Valery Batuyev, a war reporter for the Moskovskiye Novosti weekly, was
found strangled and stabbed to death Sunday in his Moscow apartment. He
had recently returned from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, near Chechnya.

A police spokeswoman said Monday that on the day of the murder
investigators detained a homeless man trying to sell Batuyev's mobile
telephone and he quickly led them to the suspected killer, a Belarussian
national. Batuyev's belongings and the knife apparently used to kill him
were also found.

Interfax reported late Monday that the suspected murderer, 19-year-old
Sergei Zdorovtsev, had confessed to the crime. His accomplice was
identified as Sergei Zimin, 21.

Top editors at Moskovskiye Novosti could not be reached for comment
Monday. "We are waiting for the results of the investigation," an
editorial assistant said.

But Dmitry Babich, a foreign editor who worked with Batuyev, said he had
doubts about the police version. "I don't believe it was a plain
robbery," Babich said. "He wasn't a rich man at all." Babich said,
however, that Batuyev was a very trusting man and could have let
strangers into his home.

Batuyev, who was 33, had worked at Moskovskiye Novosti for two months,
after reporting for other newspapers. "He was a very courageous man,"
Babich said.

Three Russian citizens held prisoner in Guantanamo - defense ministry

Interfax. Monday, Apr. 1, 2002, 8:25 PM Moscow Time

SOCHI. April 1 (Interfax) - Three Russian citizens have been transferred
to the camp for POWs in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay as a result of the
anti-terrorist operation against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels in
Afghanistan, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced after
talks with President Vladimir Putin in Sochi.
"Their future will be decided by the Prosecutor General's Office, which
may initiate legal action against them," Ivanov told Interfax.
"These Russian citizens were taken prisoner in Afghanistan. They were
armed and we know how they got there," he said.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since the Russian Federation claims that Chechens are its citizens,
we'll soon know if there are Chechens among the mentioned three
prisoners. N.S.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: HRWChechnya Spain: Don't Ignore Russian Abuses in Chechnya
Date: Mon,  1 Apr 2002 23:22:48 +0000
From: "Elizabeth Eagen <hrwatchnyc@...>" <hrwatchnyc@...>

Spain: Don't Ignore Russian Abuses in Chechnya

(Geneva, April 2, 2002)-Spanish officials should have serious
discussions with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ivanov about Russian
abuses in Chechnya, Human Rights Watch urged on the eve of Ivanov's
visit to Madrid.

The Russian government insists that Chechnya is returning to normal, and
has refused to establish a national commission to investigate charges of
serious abuses by Russian troops against Chechen civilians. Moscow has
directly flouted the resolutions of the United Nations Commission on
Human Rights, including by refusing to allow U.N. monitors access to
Chechnya.

The European Union was the architect of the resolution condemning Russia
last year at the U.N. Commission, which is now holding its annual
six-week session in Geneva.

"In the case of Chechnya, Russia is thumbing its nose at the European
Union and the United Nations," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive
director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch.
"As the current president of the EU, Spain cannot let that happen. To
maintain their political integrity, Spanish officials must firmly
protest to Ivanov about the behavior of Russian troops in Chechnya."

Human Rights Watch released a briefing paper based on more than fifty
interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch researchers in December 2001
and February 2002. It describes violations of human rights and
international humanitarian law committed by Russian troops on an
everyday basis: arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, summary
executions, indiscriminate fire and large-scale looting.

Human Rights Watch said the Chechen rebel forces have also been
responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law,
including the assassinations of dozens of Chechen civil servants working
for the administration established by the Russian government.

"Chechnya is the only place in Europe where civilians are being killed
on a near daily basis," Andersen said. "Our research clearly contradicts
Russian government assertions that Chechnya is returning to normal.
What's happening there is certainly far from normal."

Tracking the conduct of Russian forces in six military sweep operations
between August and December 2001 alone, the Human Rights Watch briefing
paper documents nine forced disappearances and five cases of the
indiscriminate use of force. It analyzes the Russian authorities limited
efforts to investigate these crimes and describes the problems faced by
internally displaced people in Chechnya's neighboring regions. The
briefing paper also describes assassinations and threats against
officials and ordinary civilians by Chechen forces.

Among the victims whose cases are detailed in the briefing paper are:

*Madina Mezhieva and Amkhad Gekhaev who were machine-gunned from a
military helicopter on October 27, 2001, while driving home from a
turnip field in Komsomolskoe. The soldiers took these two away alive,
and several days later, family members obtained their bodies, both
missing limbs, from the military commander's office in Gudermes.

*Malika Lalaeva and Raisa Taramova, two children killed during a
shelling of Goity on October 28, 2001, when three of the nine shells
lobbed into the village hit Lalaev's family house.

*Musa Yunusov and Lom-Ali Yunusov, both detained at night on December 9,
2001 by Russian soldiers, who also torched their houses. Five days
later, the relatives identified their mutilated bodies among seven
corpses dumped in a forest near a Grozny suburb.

*Magomed-Emi Alsultanov, Khasmagomed Esuev, Mukhadi Khamzatov,
Saidmagomed Mutsukaev, Anzor Ismailov and others, detained by Russian
forces and subsequently "disappeared." For months, relatives were trying
to get information about their fate from Russian authorities, but never
succeeded.

In none of these cases have the authorities taken adequate steps to
investigate the abuses. Since the last U.N. commission meeting, the
Russian government has claimed to be carrying out criminal
investigations into abuses in Chechnya. But Human Rights Watch has
analyzed several key investigations, including those into the Sernovodsk
sweep "disappearances," the mass grave in Dachny village, and the
massacres in Alkhan-Yurt, Staropromyslovskii, and Aldi. Human Rights
Watch found that investigators have consistently failed to take basic
investigatory steps that could lead to the identification of
perpetrators.

The volatile security situation in Chechnya continues to prevent more
than 200,000 internally displaced persons from returning to their homes.
The Russian authorities pressure them to return to Chechnya, but the
majority remains in Ingushetia, in conditions of squalor, insecurity,
and uncertainty.

Human Rights Watch is urging the U.N. Commission to adopt a resolution:

**Deploring the continued serious violations of international
humanitarian law;

**Noting Russia's failure to establish a national commission of inquiry
or other accountability mechanism;

**Noting the absence of any official national or international record of
violations committed in the context of the conflict in Chechnya;

**Calling on Russia to issue invitations to the relevant U.N. human
rights monitors; and

**Calling on Russia to invigorate the domestic accountability process.

"The Spanish government is a critical part of any effort to hold Russia
accountable for atrocities in Chechnya," said Andersen. "Now is the time
for Madrid to act."

The briefing paper is available in English at
http://hrw.org/un/unchr-chechnya.htm.

For more information:

In Geneva:  Johanna Bjorken, 1 917-916-1266
In Geneva:  Joanna Weschler, 4179-387-4868
In New York: Reed Brody, 1-212-216-1206

-------------------------------------------------
For more Human Rights Watch coverage of Chechnya, visit
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/russia/chechnya
To receive Human Rights Watch Chechnya releases via email, send a blank
message to: chechnya-subscribe@...

--- In chechnya-sl@y..., "sschange" <socialscience@2...> wrote:
> > > >The
> > Budennovsk incident started out as an attempt to destroy military
> > installations on Russian ground that were used in the war against
> > Chechnya.
>
Could you please give details & sources?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

sschange,

The list has been running for a quite few years now. So, before
flooding us with this kind of questions, I suggest to check out our
archives, we have there more than 20,000 news and articles (there's a
few good books on the market too.) This advice is not only for you,
but also for people who are new on the list. I don't think we have
time to answer and explain to all your and other questions that deal
with the past. M.L.

Eurasianet   Q & A April 1, 2002


GEORGIAN DEFENSE OFFICIAL RULES OUT FORCE IN ABKHAZIA
A Q&A with Irakli Alasania, Georgia's Deputy Defense Minister: 4/1/02

Tensions are running high between Georgia, officials in separatist
Abkhazia and Russia. On March 27, amid predictions of violence, a
bomb was set off on a commuter train in Abkhazia, killing one and
injuring fifteen. Georgia claimed that the bombing was part of a
larger plan to prevent US training and equipping of Georgian troops.
Abkhazia countered that this was the beginning of a three stage
Georgian attempt to invade Abkhazia, and Russia announced that the
bombing might delay plans for withdrawals from Russian military bases
in Georgia. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Georgia Forum Director Zeyno Baran interviewed the Deputy Defense
Minister of Georgia Irakli Alasania about these issues on March 29,
2002.

EurasiaNet: Defense Minister Tevzadze issued warnings a day before
the train bombing that some attacks might be staged in Abkhazia. If
he knew about this threat, why was he not able to prevent it?

Alasania: Yes, a few days before the train bomb he received
intelligence about possible attacks. He then alerted all other law
enforcement and international agencies. Because we do not have
complete control over the Abkhaz territory we were limited in what we
could do to prevent such an attack. He therefore decided to go public
the day before the planned attacks in the hope that they would be
prevented.

EurasiaNet: Do you think the goal of the attacks was to prevent the
US-Georgian military training program from going ahead?

Alasania: Our information indicates that the planners wanted to
achieve three goals. First was to somehow prevent US-Georgian
military cooperation. Second was to stop or create obstacles to the
Russian base withdrawal. And third goal was to alert the Adjarian
leadership that there might be threats coming from the central
government to other regions too. The planners of this attack have
achieved their goals and the confirmation can be found in the Russian
media and Defense Minister Ivanov's statements. Russians and Abkhaz
now blame Georgian special services of having staged the attacks.

EurasiaNet: Can you confirm that the Georgian government is committed
to the resolution of the Abkhaz situation through political means
only? The events of last fall led many people to believe that
Georgian government would wait for the right time to attack Abkhazia.

Alasania: President Shevardnadze, the Minister of State Security, and
the Minister of Defense have all declared that Georgia is 100 percent
committed to a political resolution in Abkhazia. I want to underline
our clear position: military force will not be used, not only in
Abkhazia, but also in no other autonomous republic in Georgia. Under
the train and equip program, there will be solid guarantees and the
parliament will have checks and balances. The Minister of State and
the National Security Council will also be directly involved in this
military program. And even when the train and equip program is over
and Georgia has sufficient ability to address Georgian territorial
integrity issues, force will not be used in any of the separatist
regions. We are committed to a peaceful resolution in Abkhazia and
other regions.

EurasiaNet: State Security Minister Valery Khaburdzaniya stated that
there are several dozen Wahhabis as well as some terrorists in
Abkhazia. Can you confirm this?

Alasania: We have clear information that Wahhabis are building
mosques and are actively involved in recruiting people in Abkhazia.
Georgia is not against any religion, but we are concerned that these
groups may have financing coming from terrorists and drug
trafficking. We also confirmed that some of the terrorists who in
1996 hijacked the Turkish ship Avrasya, that was carrying Russian
passengers, are currently in Abkhazia.

EurasiaNet: How do you plan to clean up Pankisi?

Alasania: The Ministries of State Security and Internal Affairs have
decided to establish a joint operation center to start law
enforcement and special activities in Pankisi. We will deal with
local criminals, paramilitary groups that might be in Pankisi, and
Arabs who have connections with terrorists in Chechnya and Russia.
Our security services recently arrested two people* with possible
connections to Khattab [a field commander in Chechnya]; one Chechen
and one Georgian national [Kist].

EurasiaNet: What do you plan to do about Ruslan Gelaev?

Alasania: We have received Russian request for Gelaev's extradition
three days ago (March 26). We cannot confirm or deny that he is in
Pankisi now. We are working now to identify the groups in Pankisi who
have committed terrorist attacks on Russian soil. But that does not
mean we will extradite them immediately; when we have identified
these people, we will first ask Russia for evidence of their crimes.

Editor's Note: Zeyno Baran, is the Caucasus Project Director at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
Click here to view the CSIS website.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

  * Two Terrorist Suspects Arrested


(Tbilisi, April 1, Civil Georgia) - Georgian State Security Ministry
confirmed on March 31 that two citizens of Georgia are detained for
alleged links with terrorist groups.

Supreme Court of Georgia sentenced Islam Saidaiev, ethnic Chechen and
Zurab Khangoshvili for three month preliminary detention, while the
investigation is over.

Saidaiev's lawyer claims that suspected is a journalist and he knows
some of Chechen field commanders, but this does not prove that he has
links with terrorists.

Recruitment of mercenaries for Abkhazia is under way in Dagestan

The Leader of the Information Center of the United Command of
Mujahideen of Dagestan, Zeid Dagestani, gave a brief interview to
Radio Kavkaz where he reported that Russian authorities started to
recruit mercenaries for combat operations in Abkhazia.

Zeid Dagestani:
«According to our reports, the recruitment of mercenaries into
Russian gang formations for participating in combat operations on the
territory of Abkhazia has started. In particular, such work is being
conducted in Buinaksk military headquarters. At the same time, under
the threat of physical reprisal against their relatives, young men
from Chechnya are being drafted into Russian armed forces which are
now being deployed in Dagestan. Manipulations with conscripts are
also being conducted in other republics of Caucasus.

We are convinced that such actions by Moscow have clearly outlined
goals and tasks. The Kremlin is trying to turn the growing war for
national liberation by the nations of Caucasus against Russian empire
into an internal conflict in Caucasus. Russian leaders have plans to
seriously split the nations of Caucasus in order to retain the
territories of Caucasus occupied by Russia. According to these plans,
a native of Caucasus will be supposed to kill his fellow Caucasian
native, a Muslim will be supposed to kill a fellow Muslim, and a
Christian will kill his fellow Christian.

As we already know, the secret recruitment for the war in Abkhazia is
also under way in other republics of Northern Caucasus. There they
promise mercenaries large sums of money. Massive anti-Georgian
propaganda is being conducted among them. During confidential
conversations with potential mercenaries Russian secret services
officials are promising them land and houses on the territory of
Abkhazia (in the resort area), as well as on the territory of
Georgia. According to the reports from our sources, on March 18 at
the Buinaksk military headquarters some official from Russian secret
services, who identified himself as FSB Colonel Andrievsky, during
his conversation with the mercenaries who signed the contract, stated
that «the Americans along with Chechens and Georgians want to attack
Abkhazia and take that territory away from Russia. We must forestall
it and be in Tbilisi before the Americans settle there...»

Since your radio station is heard by many people in Caucasus, I would
like to seize the opportunity and call on all Dagestanis on behalf of
Dagestani Mujahideen not to fall for Moscow's provocations and not to
play the disgraceful role of a puppet in the dirty hand of Kremlin
puppeteers. If you do not want caskets from the Caucasus front to be
coming to your cities and villages, do not yield to the persuasions
and promises of Kremlin criminals. Boycott the service in Russian
army which turned into a gang of robbers and murderers long time ago».

Radio «Kavkaz».
Department of Strategic Information, «Kavkaz-Center»

2002-03-31 01:01:05

Monday, Apr. 1, 2002. Page 10 The Moscow Times

The Constitutional Challenge

By Dzhabrail Gakayev

Although numerous elections have been held in Chechnya over the past
decade and a half, only at a considerable stretch could they be
called democratic, free and fair. Each time that elections have taken
place, instead of consolidating society, they have only served to
deepen divisions.

It will only be possible to bring an end to the protracted conflict
in Chechnya and consolidate society once a government is elected in
democratic elections -- thus giving it real legitimacy and authority
among the people. If the conditions for holding such elections cannot
be put in place, it would be better not to conduct elections at all.

The best way of establishing constitutional order in Chechnya is to
start from a clean slate. The constitutional process could be
initiated by convoking a congress of representatives of villages and
towns of the republic, of all ethnic groups in Chechnya, and of
Chechen communities in Russia and abroad. An organizing committee
should be created to determine congress procedures, quotas for
representatives, etc. The congress would then elect from its number a
Constitutional Assembly to prepare the legislation necessary for
holding proper elections.

The foundation for erecting a constitutional edifice in Chechnya
should be local elections -- i.e. elections to village, district and
city councils (which, in turn, would elect a chairman). Only after
local elections have taken place does it make sense to conduct
elections at the republic level.

Chechen traditions suggest that a parliamentary system of government
would be more appropriate for the republic. The people of Chechnya
have not tended historically to tolerate the imposition of
authoritarian rule, and partly for this reason the presidential
system of government has failed to take root in the republic. State
institutions in Chechnya have always depended to a considerable
extent on the support of traditional institutions of local
government -- such as councils of elders, etc. This is how things
have been for centuries.

In the final analysis, however, discussions about the pros and cons
of a parliamentary or presidential system of government are largely
academic. Of primary importance is the creation of a functioning
system, in which the constitution provides for the separation of
powers and there is a clear delimitation of the competencies of each
branch of government.

The parliament should consist of an upper chamber with around 20
representatives formed on the basis of proportional representation of
the districts, main ethnic groups and confessions; and a lower
chamber of 38-40 representatives elected by popular vote. The
parliament should then appoint a prime minister from its ranks and
confirm the government that he puts forward.

It would be preferable not to delay and hold local and republic-wide
elections next year.

An elected parliament could then complete work on the draft
constitution prepared by the Constitutional Assembly and, following
public debate and consultation, adopt it. A referendum on the status
of Chechnya should not take place right away; given that society is
deeply divided and traumatized, it makes considerable sense to
postpone this issue to a later date.

The problem of establishing constitutional order by no means ends
with selecting the system of government. Of paramount importance is
the issue of who will rule the republic; whoever it is should be
united by a shared commitment to public service. Chechnya's future
prosperity very much depends on honest people with a sense of public
duty coming to power.

There is also another option for restoring constitutional order in
Chechnya. Under this scenario, the Constitutional Assembly is formed
from the former deputies of parliaments that existed during the rule
of Doku Zavgayev, Dzhokhar Dudayev and Aslan Maskhadov,
representatives of parties and confessions, authoritative public
figures, leading academics, etc. -- in total between 100 and 150
people. The composition of the Constitutional Assembly could be
confirmed by Russian presidential decree.

Such a body would fulfill the role of an interim representative and
legislative institution, charged with preparing a draft constitution
as well as the legislative basis for holding elections. It should
also set dates for holding elections

It is extremely important that all sections of Chechen society be
represented in this Constitutional Assembly, with the exception of
those persons and organizations that have committed crimes against
the people of Chechnya. Such broad representation should assist
consolidation and reconciliation in society, and most importantly
should serve to legitimize the process of establishing constitutional
order. Under the appropriate circumstances, the consultative council
being formed under the auspices of the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe in Strasbourg and the State Duma could fulfill this
role.


Dzhabrail Gakayev, professor at the Ethnology and Anthropology
Institute under the Russian Academy of Sciences, contributed this
comment to The Moscow Times.

--- In chechnya-sl@y..., "M. Othman" <mm@n...> wrote:
> --- In chechnya-sl@y..., Norbert Strade <nost@p...> wrote:
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
----
>
> >>
> * Assuming that that Hasuhanov's communique is correct; in the
> Russian original there, this word is "alima" which I think could be
> translated to English as ulema.
> <<
>
> Dear Marius,
> The word "ulema", meaning scholars (or persons of knowledge), is
> the plural of "alim" i.e. scholar (or a person of knowledge).
> They are derived from "Elm", literally meaning "knowledge".
>
> It looks like, in Russian,  the word "alima" is used instead
of "alim",  I am not sure.
> To me it sounds like  a female scholar.
> "Alim" is masculine (male scholar) and "alima" is feminine ( a
female scholar).
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mohammed,

I apologize for my mistake, sometimes after midnight my mind doesn't
work so clearly. In Slavic languages not only verbs, but also nouns
can change and that depends on what a sentence says (I think that's
called declension in grammar). So, even if this particular sentence
has word "alima" in it, that still means "alim" - a male scholar.

Thanks for your explanation.

Best,

Marius

NOVAYA GAZETA,  No 22, 28th March 2002 (my translation)


TO BE MARKED AS TERRORIST


Last week Petersburg became the center of fight with the
international terrorism. Fortunately, not in the conventional sense.
They didn't drop bombs and no troops were send there. "The
paratroopers", who landed on the River Neva shores, consisted of
diplomats, parliamentarians and VIP-persons. Simultaneously, the
international conference of the leaders of special services and
security services on the same subject began with the opening of the
joint forum of the council of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the
CIS states and the bureau of PACE on fight with the terrorism.


REPORT OF OUR CORRESPONDENT

In the Tavricheski Palace parliamentarians have gathered: 226 people-
delegation from the CIS countries, more than 100 delegates of PACE
and about 40 representatives of OSCE. The first and the second and
the third spoke many correct words, that the fight with the terrorism
cannot be in conflict with the principles of democracy  - which is
the priority of civil freedoms and human rights.
At the other end of the city, in the hotel Pribaltilskaya  gathered
more than 100 representatives of special services and security
services from 39 countries, including all countries of the CIS,
European Union, NATO, "Shanghai five", representatives of American
CIA and FBI, British MI-5 and so on. Of course, the hosts and
organizers were all the people from the FSB. The chairman of FSB
Nikolai Patrushev also spoke many correct words. About that, that the
conference has been organized for the first time in the entire
history of special services. And about that, that it would be good to
make it as a yearly event. And, in addition about the human rights.
True, as it was explained during conversations, he treats this
concept in his own way. It appears, that in Chechnya, exactly the FSB
is defending the human rights. Moreover, the advanced experience of
Chechen "zachistki" must be extended, "this work must be carried out
not only in Chechnya, as it is everywhere necessary to defend the
human rights, the Constitution..."

Nikolai Donskov, St. Petersburg


COMMENTARY OF OUR ANALYST

"I decide myself, who is a Jew here!" - used to say Herman Goering.
Today's statesmen catch no longer Jews, but terrorists. And therefore
this slogan of the day has a new meaning: "We decide ourselves, who
is a terrorist here".

       Primary task of Russian authorities at the conference in
Petersburg consisted of explaining of this simple truth to the slow-
witted Europeans. There are no victims among the civilians in
Chechnya, all those who're suffering - are terrorists. All Chechens -
are criminals. Beginning from children older than 10. True, a Chechen
when reaches his pension age, in the opinion of generals, stops to be
a terrorist .

Consequently is not possible to determine human rights abuses.

       To any state was always profitable to declare its enemies as
terrorists. To militaries it was even more. In that case everything
is extremely simplified. No problems with any international
conventions, no responsibility for war crimes. Problem is in the fact
that a similar treatment of events have always been disputed not only
by human rights defenders , but also neighbouring governments. Those
who with us, are  - "fighters for freedom". Those who against us,
are - terrorists.

      Russian authorities today require that the entire world would
recognize its sovereign right to decide, "who is a terrorist here".
And it's not necessary to deceive yourself. The matter deals not only
with Chechnya. If this right will be acknowledged, then terrorists,
as spies in the 30- ties, will be detected everywhere. For the
beginning already several "terroristic"  judicial cases about the
left radicals. Cases which are, in the opinion of human rights
defenders, clearly fabricated. But, if we recognize the right after
our leaders to assign ourselves our enemies, then we will have to
sooner or later admit: there are also no human rights defenders .
There only "accomplices of terrorists". Our state leader today
acquired important ally in person of American leader. If  the USA is
pulled more into all possible "antiterrorist actions" in the entire
world, that is more of the interest in broadening dealing with
terrorism. The same relates also to Israel.

      War is war. The losses among the peaceful inhabitants are
inevitable in it. But even in this tragedy, it's necessary to answer
for the death of peaceful people in war. If not at a criminal trial,
then at least politically, this is understood both in Washington and
in Moscow. This wonderfully knows the Israeli prime minister -
Sharon, whom one time the public opinion in its own country already
forced to leave by his dismissal from the high posts because of the
mass violence against peaceful Palestinians. The fight with the
terrorists has one additional advantage: it assumes secrecy. In war,
at least we have war correspondents on the front. But, in the course
of anti-terrorist operation, any front becomes invisible.

        Israeli-Russian-American approach will hardly obtain support
in Europe. Not because, as they assert, Europeans are not familiar
with the problem of terrorism. The whole point is that they are very
well familiar with it. It suffices to recall the history of Britain,
France, Spain, Germany and Italy of the last 30 years. In all these
countries there were large-scale terrorist acts, strong terrorist
organizations operated. But, not in one of these countries civilian
society made it possible to conduct a huge military anti-terrorist
operation. Or, simply speaking, war without the rules. "Zachistki".
Bombardments. Arrests without a warrant.

       For this very reason the West European countries remain
democratic. In Latin America, in the 70-ties, terrorism was also the
reality there. War against it had became the state ideology. In
contrast to the USA - on its own territory. Result: military
dictatorship, thousands of disappeared without a trace. But after ten
years - the restoration of democracy and the court trials, where
those who were sitting at the dock, turned out to be the most
successful "fighters against terrorism".

Boris Kagarlitsky

In regard to accidents killing Chechen fighters
planting mines. It needs to be restated that it
is very dangerous to have anyone operating a
radio transmitter nearby. Even a handheld such
as a Kenwood produces an alternating electromagnetic
field from the antenna that will set up electric
currents in any nearby wire. Also the transmitter
produces harmonic frequencies in the near field
that are resonant on many other channels than the
one the transmitter is sending on.
If a lookout has to be nearby, he must recieve only.
No transmitting on location. Good luck...Snuffy

1.4.2002 20:49 MSK
Georgian State Security seeks al-Qaida


Tbilisi, GEORGIA. Some days ago Georgia's State Security officers
detained a native of Chechnya, Islam Saidaev, a suspect in ties with
international terrorists. Journalist Saidaev had been an editor-in-
chief for Grozny-based newspaper "Chechen Truth" up to 1999. Since
the second Chechen campaign, he went to Georgia to be engaged in
public and journalist activity.

On answering Prime-News agency questions, first deputy of State
Security Minister Irakly Alasaniya didn't specify where and when
Saidaev had been detained. At the same time he said that the grounds
for his arrest was delivered information that Saidaev might be
connected with international terrorist network al-Qaida.
On March 29, the Georgia's Supreme Court returned a three-month
preliminary imprisonment for Saidaev. The Georgia's State Security
Ministry is in charge for legal proceedings on the case. He was
accused under article 328 of Georgia's Criminal Code (complicity or
aiding international terrorist organizations), that is 7 to 15 years
in prison, according to the law.
Saidaev's lawyer Sevdiya Ugrehelidze told PRIMA on April 1 that there
are no specific accusations and evidence of his terrorist activity,
except agents' data. According to the lawyer, there might be three
reasons for Saidaev's arrest. First, Georgia has faced an anti-
terrorist hysteria, so that special services are aspiring now to
curry favor of the government and Americans. Second, Saidaev's trip
to Hadj (holy pilgrimage to Mecca) in Saudi Arabia this year could
also raised suspicions. And in the third place, investigators contend
that the journalist is acquainted with Khattab. In turn, Saidaev
insists that being a journalist from 1996 to 1999 he had met all any
notorious field commanders.
Meantime, head of the Caucasian Information Bureau Surho Idiev,
Saidaev's colleague, holds that State Security officers detained him
on March 22, although the case's documents show March 25 as the day
of his arrest. According to the lawyer, her client complained that
for two days, March 23 and 24, he was psychologically tortured:
having made him sit down on the chair, officers didn't conduct an
inquiry and let him sleep for many hours.
Saidaev was arrested near the town of Telavi, while he and some
others, including the NTV channel correspondent, were going back in a
car from Pankisi Gorge. Ugrehelidze stated that Alexei Pobortsev's
reporting from Pankisi was shown when Saidaev had already been in
custody. The Chechen journalist, who has recently obtained a Georgian
citizenship, was also engaged in rendering humanitarian aid to
Chechen refugees in Pankisi Gorge, besides his journalist activity.
Saidaev headed the "Millenium" Society engaged in rehabilitation of
Caucasian wars' victims.

PRIMA News Agency[2002-04-01-Chech-37]

What a "smart" FSB response to Berezovsky's video. M.L.


Russia: Fake bomb exercise staged in Moscow restaurant
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 29, 2002

[Presenter] Bomb threat calls from hooligans have recently become
more frequent in Moscow. Sometimes, police receive them several times
a day. Today Moscow special services rushed on an alarm twice - to
the Kazanskiy railway station and to the Military History Institute.
Nothing dangerous was found in both cases.

An explosive device found in a Moscow restaurant this afternoon also
was a fake. However, this was a very special case.

[Correspondent Vadim Muravyev] A suspicious item was found in a
restaurant in central Moscow. A visitor left it at the table. All
necessary precautions were taken immediately.

[Omitted: visitors were evacuated, police were warned and a team of
experts with a sniffer dog arrived from the Taganskiy police
department]

It was found out that the explosive device was a dummy, brought there
by the officers of the [Moscow main directorate for] civil defence
and emergency situations. Yes, it was a training exercise.

Specialists say this is the only way to teach people how to act in
case of emergency. After the mystery was revealed, a lecture was
given to managers from neighbouring restaurants.

[Video shows the restaurant and the fake bomb]

[Editorial note: an exercise of a similar kind staged in Ryazan on 22
September 1999 by the Federal Security Service gave rise to
suspicions and led to a political scandal. See reports on Boris
Berezovskiy's film "Attempt on Russia"]

Source: Centre TV, Moscow, in Russian 1500 gmt 29 Mar 02

Tuesday, Apr. 2, 2002. Page 12 The Moscow Times

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer

For Magomedrasul Magomedov, a scientist from Makhachkala, the ordeal
began in August 1999: He was dragged from his Niva by masked gunmen
who then took him from his native Dagestan to Urus-Martan, the kidnap
capital of Chechnya.

"It was a real zoo. Cages and pits in almost every house but instead
of animals, people were languishing in them," Magomedov recalls.

His own experience as a captive of the Chechen slave trade drove
Magomedov to find out how many more people had been victims. After
his release, he combed through newspaper archives to calculate how
many kidnappings had taken place in the North Caucasus in the 1990s,
and how many people had been released in that period.

"It turns out there were around 2,000 hostages held in Chechnya along
with us," says Magomedov. "An average of 70 people were kidnapped in
the region every month."

A prominent Dagestani ecologist, Magomedov was kidnapped along with
his colleague Alexander Kaimarazov, and two visiting Polish
biologists, Zofia Fischer-Malanowska and Ewa Marchwinska-Wyrwal.

The Dagestani scientists were freed from their pit in Urus-Martan a
month later, but their Polish colleagues had to spend more than six
months in captivity. While Magomedov denies that a ransom was paid
for him directly, he says his family paid thousands of dollars
in "gifts" to secure his release. His Polish colleagues, he says,
went for a higher price.

In Urus-Martan, the four hostages inhabited the same cell where
Sergei Shvarts, a 25-year-old dentist from the Dagestan capital
Makhachkala, had suffered alone for weeks. His only companion was the
copy of "The Master and Margarita" his captors had given him -- a
concession that kept him from going mad.

While Magomedov and his colleagues were captured in a small village
about 100 kilometers from the Chechen border, Shvarts was kidnapped
in broad daylight in Makhachkala and released four months after he
was taken in June 1999. Shvarts was not the first in his family to
suffer at the hands of Chechen slave traders. His father, a well-
known plastic surgeon in Dagestan, was kidnapped in late 1998, and he
is still in captivity. Shvarts believes his father is being kept by
Chechen warlord Khattab.

The stories of Magomedov and Shvarts, and those of so many other
survivors of kidnap attacks, have become frighteningly common in the
North Caucasus. Many local residents know only too well what it is
like to have a loved one fall victim to cross-border body snatchers.




Kidnapping is nothing new in Chechnya and Dagestan. Indeed, it is an
integral part of the region's ancient culture, and some traditional
folk songs remain about kidnapping and selling victims. The slave
market in the Dagestan village Endirey-Aul, the largest in the
region, flourished during tsarist times and continued up until the
1917 revolution.

But since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the corresponding
slackening of the police force, the kidnapping business has returned
in full force. The Interior Ministry started registering kidnap
attacks connected with Chechen criminal rings back in 1992. Since
then, the number of incidents has skyrocketed from two cases in 1992
and 1993, to 312 attacks in 1995 and 437 attacks in 1996 -- during
the first military campaign in the region. For the remainder of the
decade, the official number of reported kidnappings has hovered
around 350 cases per year.

Mind numbing as they are, the official kidnapping figures are
misleading; in many cases the victim's relatives don't apply to
authorities for help, fearing reprisal from those holding their loved
ones hostage.

The new millennium saw a considerable drop in kidnappings. In 2000,
when Russian troops claimed control over the previously de facto
independent Chechnya, the number of cases decreased by 66. That was
when, according to Colonel Akhberdilav Akilov, chief of the Interior
Ministry's regional directorate to fight kidnapping, "Russian law
enforcement agencies got the opportunity to act in Chechnya."

But in 2001 kidnapping incidents in Chechnya and Dagestan shot up
again to 343 official cases, proving that Russian control over the
restive republic is somewhat illusory.

According to Akilov, last year's increase is due to the collapse of
the region's black market trade in oil. Since these proceeds have
dried up, Chechen warlords have turned to kidnapping to finance their
campaign against the Kremlin.

But some analysts believe that the cease-fire in Chechnya is the
reason for revival of the hostage trade.

"Two years ago the infrastructure of the criminal business was partly
destroyed by the war," said Timur Muzayev, an expert from the
Panorama think tank and an adviser to the Chechen government in 1994
and 1995. "Today's semblance of peace permits the kidnappers to
return to their business."

Indeed, they have not only resumed business, but developed the art of
kidnapping into a highly sophisticated industry.

"Earlier the bandits' usual practice was simple -- grab the victim
and run over the border to Chechnya," says Akilov. "Today, the
kidnappers conduct preliminary reconnaissance of the future crime
scene, they take care to secure transportation and hide their
hostages -- they even spread false information to mislead the
investigating authorities."

The returning victims also report that the gangs enjoy cooperative
links with the police and a strict division of labor within the
criminal rings. The kidnappings of Magomedov and Shvarts illustrate
the high professionalism of the perpetrators.

"Our Niva was blocked on the road by three Ladas full of people
wearing the uniforms of OMON officers," Magomedov remembers the day
he was abducted. "When Sasha [Kaimarazov] asked what they wanted from
us, they broke his leg with a rifle butt and then made us take seats
in their cars."

Magomedov's kidnapping occurred just one week after Chechen warlords
Shamil Basayev and Khattab invaded Dagestan in August 1999, when
thousands of Dagestani policemen and Russian troops were amassed at
the Dagestani-Chechen border and hundreds of police check points were
set up on the roads. All transport between the two republics was shut
by the decree of Dagestan's interior minister, yet Magomedov's
kidnappers had no trouble moving their cargo into Chechnya. Their
motorcade passed through numerous checkpoints without being stopped
because, Magomedov believes, the policemen -- who had already been
bribed -- knew in advance they were coming.

"One man in my car was giving orders via radio to the police to open
the check points," he says, smiling bitterly. "It was useless to call
to the police for help."

After spending 18 days in a hole in the woods, Magomedov and his
fellow victims were sold to the Akmadov brothers, Chechen warlords
notorious for their activities in the slave trade.

"We crossed the border checkpoint as if there were no police
restrictions at all," recalls Magomedov. "The man who had kept us got
a plastic bag full of money from the Akhmadovs' envoy."

Since Basayev's 1999 invasion, relations between Dagestan and
Chechnya have worsened -- a condition that is only aggravated by the
rising number of Dagestanis who fall victim to Chechen kidnappers.
But since the locals are wary of Chechens, kidnappers working within
Dagestan have forged links with local criminals to abduct their
victims, says Shvarts.

"Dagestani criminals abduct people and sell them to Chechnya," says
Shvarts.

Shvarts' experience suggests that his captors also had the local
police on their payroll. The dentist, who was kidnapped just steps
away from his home, was kept in the Kadar zone, a Wahhabi enclave
some 100 kilometers west of Makhachkala, before being transferred to
Chechnya.

After 10 days in captivity, his captors handcuffed Shvarts, put a gas
mask over his head and placed him in a large, coffin-like box. They
nailed it shut and hid it underneath a KamAZ truck. After traveling
like that for several hours, Shvarts lost consciousness.

"I woke up when a man in a police uniform lifted the lid of the box
and asked me whether I was still breathing. Seeing me alive, he shut
the lid," recalls Shvarts, speculating that it had been an officer at
a checkpoint between Dagestan and Chechnya.

Once inside Chechnya, the kidnappers divide their duties and
responsibilities, says Magomedov.

"Everybody there had cells in the basement of their house that were
used like hotel suites," he says. "The owner of the house gets paid
by the hostage-keepers, and the local youths hired to guard us were
paid a per diem."

While most of the survivors speak of the complicated nature of the
crime -- stressing the developed information exchange between
Dagestani and Chechen criminals -- there are cases when mistakes are
made.

A professor from one of Dagestan's universities, who asked to remain
anonymous, believes that his kidnapping in September 1999 was a
mistake.

Taken hostage together with the deputy rector of his university, the
professor was forced into a Toyota Landcruiser that made it through
dozens of police checkpoints -- all the way to Gudermes in Chechnya.

"We were brought into a large villa surrounded by a 5-meter high
brick wall. Dozens of hostages were kept in small cells in the yard,"
the professor recalls.

Once the professor was taken inside, a middle-aged Chechen asked him
his name and inserted a disc labeled 'Makhachkala' into his computer.
After a brief search, the master shrugged:

"You are not in my database. You were taken by mistake," he
said. "What can you offer for yourself?"

The frightened professor immediately wrote a letter to his wife
asking her to give all their savings, the keys to his Volga and the
car itself to the bearer of the letter. He was released several days
later, when his master's envoy returned to Gudermes with his
possessions.

Before being delivered to the border checkpoint, the professor asked
his master about the fate of his fellow captive, the deputy rector --
who was only released a month later.

"He headed the university admissions office this summer and shortly
after that bought a brand new Jeep for himself and a Mercedes for his
son," the captor said. "My calculations show he can easily cough up
$50,000."

According to Shvarts, nobody is released for less than a $50,000
ransom.

The dentist was in captivity for two months before his kidnappers
decided to raise the ransom issue.

"They gave me a mobile phone and told me what to tell to my mother,"
says Shvarts, adding that his captors kept a gun to his head
throughout the conversation. "Then they talked to her themselves."

He refused to say exactly how much his family and medical colleagues
paid to retrieve him, but dentists are considered to be well off in
Dagestan -- one reason why he was targeted in the first place.

"Even when you have the money, you have to beg your masters to take
it," he says.

Ransom rates weren't always so high. Back in the days when Chechen
kidnappers adopted the grab and run policy, the ransoms requested
reflected the region's standard of living. Depending on the victim's
social status, they could run anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000. That
was the typical price for a Russian soldier or Dagestani policeman
serving near the border of Chechnya. But as the kidnappers grew
savvier, collecting a database of information on wealthy citizens,
their ransom demands skyrocketed.

Dozens of representatives of Dagestan's business community as well as
statesmen, public figures and their relatives have been kidnapped and
ransomed in the recent years. The ransoms ranged from $300,000 for
the son of the deputy rector of Dagestan's Medical University to $25
million for the son of the former Dagestani prime minister.

Not surprisingly, the rates rise again if the victims are foreigners,
or if the media gets hold of the story.

In the case of Herbert Gregg, an American preacher living in
Makhachkala where he was kidnapped in November 1998, the initial
ransom demand was $3 million. To expedite the deal, his masters
passed videotape to one of his Moscow friends that showed Gregg's
keepers cutting off his finger. This film was then shown on Russian
television several times.

After numerous meetings between Dagestani police officials and
Chechen warlords acting as mediators for the hostage takers, the
ransom was dropped to $2 million. That, according to the chief of
Dagestan's Interior Directorate to Fight Organized Crime, was the
amount that was paid to release the American.

The price tag for French relief worker Vincent Cochetel -- who was
released in 1998 -- was even higher. While common official practice
is to deny that any ransom was paid, Magomed Tolboyev, former head of
the Dagestani Security Council and a participant in the negotiations
to free Cochetel, told journalists that the kidnappers received $4
million.

One of the largest ransom demands ever made was for Gennady Shpigun,
Russia's deputy interior minister, who was abducted in Chechnya in
March 1999. According to Russian media reports, Shpigun's kidnappers
requested $25 million for his release. In order to confirm that
Shpigun was still alive, his captors sent a photograph of the Russian
official -- haggard and bearded -- reading a newspaper account of his
capture with a portrait of the official neatly shaved and in full
officer's dress. Shpigun's dead body was found in Chechnya in July
2000.

Police officials rarely confirm that ransoms have been paid,
preferring to use the euphemism: "The hostage was released in a
result of the special operation."

"But this is nonsense," says Magomedov, who is writing a book about
Chechnya's kidnapping industry. "It always takes money or the
exchange of Chechen prisoners for hostages."

Sometimes the slave traders demand that their friends or relatives be
released from Russian prison in exchange for the release of their
hostages. This exchange chain often involves dozens of people --
victims, masters and mediators.

A Chechen-for-Russian exchange program was officially set up in
February 1996 when then-President Boris Yeltsin ordered the creation
of a presidential commission on prisoners of war, internees and
missing persons.

"Initially, we changed the seized rebels for seized Russian
soldiers," says Vyacheslav Izmailov, a reporter from Novaya Gazeta
and a member of the commission's task force. "When the war stopped,
the kidnappings of civilians in and around Chechnya skyrocketed and
we had to look for new options to get them back."

The commission reached an agreement with the Prosecutor General's
Office allowing for Chechens in prison accused of less severe crimes
to go free in exchange for the release of a hostage in Chechnya.

"I always tried to get several hostages for one Chechen," says
Izmailov. "Once I got seven people for one."

There is one other way -- other than paying money -- to arrange for
the release of your kidnapped relative, says Magomedov.

"The most important thing is to know who is holding the hostage --
this is the information kidnappers hide most," says Magomedov. "Once
you know it, you can find a way to pressure the captor. He probably
has his own relatives in Russia, and you can threaten them."

According to one high-ranking Dagestani police official, such was the
case when a Dagestani gangster living in St. Petersburg discovered
that his father had been kidnapped from his native village near the
Chechen border. The captors demanded $300,000 for the old man's
release, but the gangster had other plans. He flew home and drove
over the border to the nearest Chechen village.

"I am ready to bury my father without his body and mourn his loss,"
the gangster told the local Chechen elders. "But then I am going to
spend $300,000 to hire 100 cutthroats who will turn your village into
ashes."

The next day, the gangster's father was returned home with apologies.

It was Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov's inability to put a stop to
the kidnappings that contributed to his downfall, analysts say.

"Kidnappers in Chechnya were not common criminals -- every gang was
protected by a local prominent leader," says Panorama's
Muzayev. "Whenever Maskhadov attempted to intervene, he had to
retreat for fear of provoking the internal conflict. His tolerance
[of the kidnappers] led to his loosing power in Chechnya."

"Maskhadov decided that the struggle with the kidnappers would push
the republic into civil war and serve the interests of Moscow," says
Shamil Beno, a minister in the government of the first Chechen
President Dzhokhar Dudayev.

"Only the decriminalization of politics in the region can have a
positive impact on the kidnapping situation," he says. "Today the
participants of the political process in the region use criminal
methods -- and kidnapping is among the most popular -- to reach their
political ends."

According to Beno, around 3,000 hostages are currently being held in
Chechnya, while the Interior Ministry says only 700 people remain in
captivity.

Exposure of the kidnapping is extremely complicated work, says Akilov
of Dagestan's anti-kidnapping force.

According to a source in the Dagestan Supreme Court, only 31
kidnappers were convicted in 2001, most of them for light offenses
such as kidnapping brides.

Such poor effectiveness on the part of law enforcement agencies only
fuels the proliferation of the kidnappings, the former hostages
believe.

"If a kidnapper wants to take somebody, they will do it anyway," says
Shvarts, sighing sadly. "One must be aware of it here."

Dear sschange and list,

Let me start with stating that I agree with Marius. The people who post
news stories and comments to this list can't be expected to do research
work for others in their spare time.
There is a huge list archive that contains coverage of almost everything
that happened in connection with Chechnya since 1995 and partly before.
You can search the latest items at
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chechnya-sl/messages > and older material
at <http://www.man.torun.pl/cgi-bin/wa?S1=chechnya>. Your questions
about documentation for my statements can be answered there. I won't be
surprised if there are hundreds of messages containing material about
the Budyonnovsk events.

Just a few more comments:

sschange wrote:

> > I'm a bit surprised about the easiness with which formerly reliable
> JFM
> > now joins those who take Russian propaganda allegations,
> distortions as
> > well as deliberate, directed simplifications at face value. First,
> > Basayev's and Raduyev's raids into Russian territory. It depends of
> > course on the definition of "terrorism"
>
> the broad definition of of "terrorism" is direct actions against
> civilians (hostage taking, killing etc)

"Terrorism" is defined in different ways by different interested
parties. E.g., the Russian propaganda defines *every* action by the
Chechen Resistance, even military operations directed soleley against
military personnel, as "terrorism" and "crime". They do this both for
obvious propagandistic reasons (to sneak their genocidal campaign into
the world-wide fight against terrorism) and because of their own
problems with defining the events in Chechnya, which clearly constitute
a *war* but which the Russian side in violation of its own constitution
treats like a mix of external war and internal "police action", both
illegal according to their own definitions. So "terrorism" comes in
handy.
"Webster's" defines terrorism quite shortly: "The systematic use of
terror esp. as a means of coercion". Accordinng to this definition,
neither Basayev's raid on Budyonnovsk nor Raduyev's raid on Kizlyar can
be called "terrorist", since in both cases the harming of civilians
happened due to the failure of some military operations and thus wasn't
"systematic". They used civilians as human shields in a military action,
which fulfills the definition of a "war crime" (according to the Geneva
conventions which can be accessed on the web).
IMO it is important to make these clear definitions, since the Russian
side abuses the "terrorism" definition for its own political goals.
Otoh, the actions of the Russian troops in Chechnya constitute "state
terrorism", since they clearly aren't directed against the Chechen
military in the first place but are spreading terror among the Chechen
civilians as means of coercion. Political commentators shouldn't get
away with deliberately confusing these things.

> > I'm also a little disappointed that the JFM Monitor doesn't mention
> who
> > killed the civilians in connection with those raids. For those who
> don't
> > remember it, the text implies that it was Basayev's people. But in
> fact
> > the Basayevites didn't kill one single civilian
>
> I am doubtfull that you have any reliable sources to state it,
> but if you do, please share them.

As already mentioned, the list archive is full of descriptions of the
events. Btw., that happened back then when there still was full media
coverage of the events (the Russian side has learned that lesson in the
meantime). You could watch the Russian interior forces shell the
hospital with heavy machine guns and mortars live on TV. You could also
watch Basayev and some of his hostages give live interviews inside the
hospital. And finally, you could watch the Chernomyrdin Show, with the
prime minister negotiating with Basayev, also on live TV.

> > Raduyev's raid on Kizlyar was very similar, a copycat action in
> which he
> > tried to imitate Basayev. Here too, the civilian losses were due to
> > indiscriminate Russian shelling.
>
> yes, but not only by them

I haven't seen any credible (independent) source saying that Raduyev
killed civilian hostages (btw., the Russian side counted killed
so-called "policemen", i.e. members of the interior military forces, as
"civilians"). What Raduyev did was taking hostages and fortifying
himself in that unfortunate village, thus putting civilians in harm's
way. But the civilians were killed by indiscriminate Russian shelling.
This, too, was on live TV.

> I am wondering how you will justify Basaev's Dagestan raid.
> (as far as I know it gave cause for the beginning of "anti-terrorist
> operation". Even if we define the previous military conflict as war,
> at that time both sides were under condition of the truce, so
> entering enemy's territory was casus belli (?) Am I right?

If you had had a look at the archive, you would know that I never
justified Basayev's Daghestan raid, and I never would. I called him a
war criminal after Budyonnovsk and I see no reason to change that. Btw.,
after Budyonnovsk, then Chechen president Johar Dudayev told the
international press that Basayev would be court-martialed after the end
of the war. As we know, Dudayev was murdered and things developed in
another direction. But such was the political and legal situation at the
time.

I don't want to repeat the well-known facts about the "beginning of the
'anti-terrorist operation'" once again. Just do a search for
"Stepashin", and you'll find out that the man who was Putin's
predecessor as KGB/FSB chief and prime minister was put in charge of
organizing the reinvasion of Chechnya in April 1999, according to his
own statemens to among others Western journalists. He himself stated the
kidnapping of Gen. Shpigun (by, as it now seems, FSB-affiliated Chechen
gangsters) as the "last straw" that led to the decision. Basayev's
intrusion into Daghestan half a year later was thus just a pretext with
regard to the concrete timing. As the world knows as well, this wasn't
enough to prepare the Russian public for a war, so the KGB had to blow
up the appartment blocks in Russia before the public hysteria was big
enough.

Best regards,
Norbert