The Georgian Times Caucasus Article data: 04.03.03

Russian Trace of Pankisi Provocations

By Keti Lomaia

During its Pankisi voyage, the Georgian Times journalists met with Aslanbek Abdurzakov, human rights defender of the Chechen refugees. We wanted to find out if the rights of the Chechen refugees currently residing in Pankisi were violated.

--What sort of a situation is in the gorge currently?

--We are waiting for the next provocation anytime soon.

--Do you mean Georgia or Russia?

--No, you should know that all the provocations are initiated by Russians in here. Unfortunately, Russians "grasp" us here as well.

--Is the provocation you are waiting for anyhow connected to the third phase of the anti-terrorist operation that is currently underway by the Georgian power structures in the gorge?

--The anti-terrorist operations here are conducted usually. The Georgian law-enforcers may anytime enter the house and arrest anybody. Such facts take place mostly at night. People in black masks enter our houses and without any evidence or accusation arrest our guys. We do not know people behind the black masks. We seriously think that the masked people may be Russian power structures' representatives, which work in the regional police department for quite some time.

--Besides the case of Hussein Yusupov, were any other Chechen youth or nationals vaporized from the Georgian territory?

--From September 2002 until now 2 Chechen refugees got vaporized. We know about one of them that he was arrested by the anti-terrorist service and later he disappeared. That is Yusupov. As for the other Chechen, he is Adam Talatov, born in 1962. He exited his Tbilisi house to park his car and since then he was never found. His car was found in the parking lot.

--How do the Georgian power structures responded in regard with the Talalov case?

--They just deny any connection with Talalov's disappearance.

--How bad is the criminal situation in the gorge?

--I have to say that the police block posts do not hinder the gorge criminals at all. The criminal system and corrupted officials do their business now as well as they did it previously, before the block stops were established and the way they did it in Russia, Chechnya and any other place. For a long time by now criminals kidnap
people, steel, rob and kill them. The power structures use the criminals for their own purposes. There were facts when criminals were caught in Nalchik, or North Oseti, but later on they would appear in Grozny. Certainly, nobody knew these people in Grozny for they were transferred there for the first time in their lives. For
sure, Russian special services used such people for their own purposes.

--The Georgian and Russian media currently assert that as the spring comes and snow melts, Chechen field commander Gelayev and his group of Chechen rebels are expected to penetrate into the gorge. What can you say concerning this issue?

--It becomes funny that Gelayev all of a sudden has turned into a legendary Flying Dutchman "drifting" around the Pankisi gorge with his similarity "legendary" and "immortal crew" of Chechen rebels. What should Gelayev do here? When he was here, power structures made him deal with a serious provocation. Somebody wanted it really bad to involve Gelayev in the Abkhazeti affairs and thereby, discredit both him and the Kodori-operating Georgian partisans. Gelayev with his
people avoided the provocation only due to their luckiness. I personally do not support solving the conflict through military means.

--On the background of the upcoming meeting of presidents Shevardnadze and Putin, do you think we should expect provocations destined to discredit Chechens living both in Tbilisi and Pankisi?

--When Shevardnadze first met Putin, he told the latter that he would make a little present to Putin. And the worst of all happened soon as Georgians extradited 5 Chechen nationals to the Russian side. I frankly speaking cannot understand how may president present such a blood sucking vampire as Russia even one Chechen or just human life? Yes, we do expect provocations on the background of the upcoming presidential meeting. All the top level meetings clearly involve and affect Pankisi a lot. I did not want to tell you this but if so continues, Georgia is going to face the same fate as Chechnya. We all have to understand that whatever now happens or already happened in Chechnya is not just our problem, but that of the whole Caucasus.

--Do you maintain any contacts with your Russian colleagues?

--It is not only contacts, but a long-time friendship that connects me to my Russian friends. I do not say that the whole Russia is a vampire. No, on opposite, this huge country underwent numerous tortures brought upon the historic developments. It is only the current military-political government of Russia that sucks blood out of us an everybody else.

--Why do you think the Pankisi gorge is closed?

--Probably because it is easier to do whatever you wish in the closed space. Besides, some say there are Chechen terrorists in the gorge. Generally, we, Chechens, are described as extremely ruthless people, who know nothing about mercy. If people were to crisscross the Pankisi entrance without any problems, it is natural they would have brought different news to the outer world. They would have told anybody that there are now terrorists in Pankisi and that Chechens
are normal human beings much like everybody else. It is not in the interests of many people that such news got spread. Many do not want Georgians to know that we are very thankful to Georgians for sheltering our refugees. However, this does not mean that we will let the Russian spies manipulate with the aforementioned. Why do they need all these agents and state-of-art performances. Just let them say like men do that they want to arrest some people and extradite them to Russia. Then we will see who will win this war. Please, do not take my words as threat. However, we got tired. Let them say whatever they want to do with us publicly. They say we are brothers, but there are a couple of enemies that "spoil the reputation" of our brotherhood.

--The Georgian government claims that there are 40 terrorists among the Chechens with the refugee status. They say the terrorists are on the Georgian soil and maintain close ties to the Al-Qaeda network.

--It is laughable to assert that. Maybe certain Chechen nationals did have close ties to Al-Qaeda, however, this world terrorist organization never had any ties with the Chechen resistance. If the Georgian power structures know the identity of these individuals, let them arrest the terrorists as soon as possible. Instead, though, they detain innocent refugees. If Russia thinks that each Chechen is a terrorists, then yes, I would agree with you and tell you that there are approximately 4,600 Chechen terrorists in Georgia. If they mean real terrorists, I personally have not seen any in Pankisi. We have offered our assistance to the structures that fight international terrorism. However, the case is that they themselves have created terrorists and they are not going to find and arrest them for sure.

--Some time ago, the information went public that a couple of countries expressed their readiness to shelter the Chechen refugees. Did the Georgian government help you at all in finding and contacting these countries?

--Unfortunately, I cannot say that the government did anything to assist us. 12 countries of the world as well as the United States expressed their willingness to shelter the Chechen refugees that currently reside in Georgia.