Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches (13 page)

On the other hand the interview was seen as straightforward mischief-making by both interviewer and interviewee, because publication would lead immediately to sanctions from the state authorities on the grounds of seditious libel. Russia’s leaders have got so carried away by their own black propaganda, the argument went, that they no longer want to know the true situation in Chechnya and prefer to stick with the “Maskhadov with horns” invented by their own propaganda.

It was decided that the following paragraph should be cut from the interview. We offer it here instead, outside the interview, along with comments which would have been impractical within the context of the interview itself.

Neither Chechens nor the Chechen leaders would ever give orders, no matter what political benefit it might bring, to shoot their own citizens. It is contrary to our whole way of thinking, especially in our own village, especially our own relatives. That is the sort of thing you in Russia are capable of. We are not. As an excuse for military aggression, or in order to dub someone a terrorist, you in Russia can calmly give orders to blow up multi-storey apartment blocks full of your own citizens or commit all manner of terrorist acts in crowded places. These are timed to take place immediately before the opening of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, sessions of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and so on. Our culture is completely opposed to that sort of thing. The Chechen President does not wage war against his own people; neither does he wage war against the women and children of Russia. It is the President of the Russian Federation who indulges in that
sort of thing, and takes satisfaction from it. Yes, satisfaction. We are fighting aggressors, mercenaries, contract soldiers, your General Shamanovs [accused of war crimes] and Colonel Budanovs [a rapist and murderer, supported by Shamanov but convicted after a long press campaign]. Those are the people we are fighting, and will continue to fight until we have destroyed them without pity.

What is this? Typical war paranoia? Maskhadov is profoundly affected by this, perhaps to the exclusion of all else. The censored paragraph only emphasises, however, the tragic nature of a situation where, on the other side of the conflict, the federals are no less paranoid in their determination to believe Maskhadov is the devil incarnate. Meanwhile, what is to become of those caught in the crossfire? The tragedy of Chechnya grinds on, and until we stop lying we are all complicit in the persecution of the guiltless.

[The agreed text of the interview with Aslan Maskhadov now follows:]

ASLAN MASKHADOV: “WE TOO ARE WONDERING HOW TO BREAK THE DEADLOCK”

May 28, 2001

Our country is limping into the third successive summer of the Second Chechen War. There are thousands of victims on both sides, and perhaps one million damaged souls. Why is this war lasting so long? Are we really to believe that a large, well-equipped army continues to pursue a dozen field commanders through little Chechnya and for some reason can’t catch them? With the coming of spring the television brainwashing will start up once again, explaining how it is “leaf cover” which is the main obstacle to bringing the war to a victorious conclusion. As a country we have plainly lost our way.

Here we offer the viewpoint of the other side: an interview with Aslan Maskhadov, given at a time when every highly placed official in Moscow would claim it was impossible to meet him, in the very area
where “everything is under control.” That is, in the very thick of the federal troops’ fortified positions.

What do you think comes next? How can the war be ended?

We are also wondering about this. Where do we go from here? How do we get out of the current stalemate? After all, we too recognise that there is a stalemate, and that the war is just useless, senseless slaughtering of each other – murder carried out with exceptional brutality, fuelled by extraordinary hatred.

There is no point trying to pretend that the military operation has ended, let alone been brought to a successful conclusion, and that now the FSB under the leadership of Patrushev will proceed to catch terrorists. That is laughable. The outcome of the military operation is that Marshal Sergeyev, the Russian Minister of Defence, has been removed from his post. Victors are not sacked, they are promoted.

Russia has lost the war. That much is clear even to the hawks in the Kremlin and to Russia’s leaders. The victorious blitzkrieg which the generals promised Putin has not come to pass. The Russian Army is exhausted, demoralised and disintegrating.

I have worn a soldier’s uniform for 25 years. I served in the Soviet Army, helped raise its fighting capability, was proud of it, and put my soul into it. I too wonder where all these psychopathic Kvashnins [General, Chief of GHQ] and Budanovs in this Army – which, at one time, we were all proud of – have come from. Where have all the criminals who serve in it appeared from? The labor camps? Are they contract soldiers? Are they looters?

Well, where have they come from?

An enormous military machine is now beyond the control of its generals. So what is to be done? Moscow has started flirting with “good” Chechen field commanders and “bad” Chechen field commanders, and is openly talking about who it is prepared to conduct negotiations with and who it isn’t. It is recruiting to its ranks puppets and traitors to their country.

From the experience of the last Chechen War we know that this is
a dead end. Remember the incident with the former Minister of State Security, Geriskhanov. Anybody, no matter how great a celebrity he might be, commanding officer or field commander, has only to cross the line of what is permissible to find his status has changed to that of a traitor. He crosses that line today, and tomorrow he finds he has no one behind him, he is on his own. When that happens the traitor is no longer any use to anybody. Neither to us nor to our opponents.

How do you regard the possibility of peace negotiations conducted by the federal side with Field Commander Gelayev? You must know that recently the federal side has been publicising precisely such negotiations. Presidential Representative Victor Kazantsev made an announcement about it
.

Gelayev, you say? Well, what of him? Anybody, including Gelayev, who oversteps the mark of the permissible must expect the same fate as befell Geriskhanov. For the Chechen side it is quite clear the war needs to be stopped. Chechens do not need it – it is mainly civilians who are being killed – but we are also aware of what awaits our people if we do not persist, if we give in, if we are brought to our knees. One Russian general, I do not know his name, said, “We need to destroy them all, down to the five-year-olds, then enclose them behind barbed wire and re-educate them.” I have heard other things said: “We should pass them all through filtration points, from ten to sixty years old.” That is, break everyone’s ribs and cripple everybody. Even “intellectual” people have said, “We need to build a Great Wall of China along the Baku highway.”

That is the fate facing my people. God forbid that we should lose. In order to save our people from genocide our only option is to defend ourselves. Only that. And defend ourselves we shall.

Who, in your view, is the principal enemy of peace negotiations between you and the federal side? Are negotiations possible at all? What might they yield?

My representatives are constantly putting out feelers to the Russian leaders, to the top officials, and my people tell them, “There’s been enough fighting. It’s time to sit down at the negotiating table.” Immediately we hear triumphalist yelling: “What do you mean negotiations?!
Negotiations spell political death for us! How could we explain it to our people?” and so on.

My representatives then say, “But the war has to be stopped. Do you not realize that?” They reply, “Yes, the war needs to be stopped.” And the next question is, “But how?”

 … In my view the overriding problem is that there is no official in the Kremlin we can talk to soberly and reasonably. Not even about the interests of Russia, about things that are primarily of benefit to Russia. You need to understand, there is nobody there to negotiate with!

But do you believe that negotiations are nevertheless possible? Or has the train already left the station and all that remains is for you to fight it out with each other to the bitter end?

Negotiations are both possible and inevitable. Wars are ended only by negotiation, and I am sure that is how this war will be ended too. Our proposals for a peace settlement are clear to everybody: sit down at the negotiating table without any preconditions and there, at the table, decide what to do next, how to improve relations. I believe it is crucial to found our mutual relations on the basis of the Peace Treaty signed on May 12, 1997. The second point in it states, “Mutual relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic will be built on the universal norms and principles of international law.” That is the most important requirement. Lack of clarity about mutual relations is the cause and excuse for all sorts of provocations and wars.

This defines my approach to the supposed negotiations and contacts with Nemtsov [Leader of the Union of Right Forces political faction]. I know nothing about them. I have given no authorisation for them to anybody for the very good reason that you cannot conduct negotiations with Nemtsov if he would like to build a Great Wall of China on the Baku highway.

What do you know about the causes of the recent much-publicised murder of Adam Deniev in Avtury? From early spring this year Deniev was presenting himself as the Deputy Head of Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov’s Chechen
Administration, but after his death even members of the personnel department of the Administration were unable to find documentation of any such appointment
.

I have no idea whose deputy Deniev was supposed to be among that lot. It is of no interest to us. The first possibility that comes to mind is that, realising the war is already lost, the Russian intelligence services are doing away with unwanted witnesses, as happened in the last war.

Another possibility: Deniev had 11 blood feud enemies in his native village of Avtury alone. They were likely to take revenge on him at any moment.

The Chechen side had no particular need of Deniev’s murder, although our intelligence services have him listed as a traitor and for that he would at some point have had to stand trial before a sharia court, in accordance with the Criminal Code of the Chechen Republic.

I see no sense in shooting at these people from the shadows or carrying out terrorist attacks on them. As regards the financial dimension, which the Kremlin has been making great play of, I have no knowledge that Deniev was preventing financial resources reaching our side.

One other recent accusation levelled against you is that you were involved in the brutal murder of a shepherd and three of his assistants on April 17 in your native village of Alleroy in Kurchaloy District
.

I did receive operational intelligence that a reconnaissance group of Russian troops brutally murdered a shepherd and his three assistants in broad daylight on April 17, 2001 in Alleroy. They were murdered between noon and 4:00 p.m. hours beside the ravine where their bodies were discovered, and there were numerous prints in the mud from soldiers’ boots and gumboots. It appears that before they were shot they were forced to lie face down on the ground, and afterwards shot once more in the head.

The names of the murder victims are Khozhakhmed Alsultanov, a shepherd, 44, the brother of Saidakhmet Alsultanov who was a bodyguard of the President of Chechnya assassinated in 1998; Khozhakhmed’s son, Islam; and two nephews, Shamkhan and Shakhid Umarkhadzhiev.

Our preliminary investigation has revealed that on the afternoon of April 17 Kadyrov’s elder brother-in-law was celebrating a housewarming. Kadyrov also attended, with numerous bodyguards. Russian reconnaissance troops were observed in the south-east and north-east outskirts of the village and we imagine that the group which shot the shepherds did so at that time.

A WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION BECOMES A WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE. THE ZAKAYEV CASE: THE LATEST SENSATION IN A LONDON COURT

July 28, 2003

There were few people in Court 3 of Bow Street Magistrates Court, London on the morning of July 24, 2003. Although hearings were resuming in the case of The Government of the Russian Federation versus Akhmed Zakayev, the Russian side had already indicated that the day would be of little interest, as they always do when there is to be cross-questioning of a witness for Zakayev’s defence. This time there was a noticeable lack of members of our Prosecutor-General’s Office, who are usually only too eager to come to London. Sergey Fridinsky, Deputy Public Prosecutor for the Southern Federal Region, charged with ensuring the extradition of Maskhadov’s Special Representative, had decided not to fly in. Igor Mednik, Investigator of the Southern District Prosecutor’s Office and second-in-command of the Zakayev case, had also decided to ignore Zakayev’s defence witnesses.

How unwise. Mednik and Fridinsky would have been surprised to discover that a witness for the prosecution, a supposed victim of Zakayev, was instead appearing before Judge Timothy Workman as a witness for Zakayev’s defence. In the case materials sent from Moscow and prepared by Investigator Mednik, Duk-Vakha Dushuyev figures as Zakayev’s former bodyguard, who in December 2002 testified that in January 1996, on the orders of the individual whose extradition is sought, his other bodyguards had taken hostage two Orthodox priests, in Chechnya on a peacekeeping mission, in order to hold them to ransom. These were Father Anatoly Chistousov, who subsequently died
in captivity, and Father Sergius Zhigulin, whose monastic name is Father Philip and from whom the court had already heard evidence.

Background

Akhmed Zakayev, born 1959 in Kazakhstan, graduated from the Department of Choreography of the Grozny College of Culture and Enlightenment and the Voronezh State Institute of Arts. From 1981 to 1990, actor with the Khanpasha Nuradilov Grozny Drama Theatre.