Lisa McAdams - VOA Moscow 04 Dec 2003

A leading Russian human rights group, Memorial, has denounced what it says is a continuing climate of terror by Russian federal forces in Chechnya, despite Russian-sponsored presidential elections earlier in the year hailed as a first step toward peace.

Rights activist Oleg Orlov of Memorial says the non-governmental organization recorded 431 kidnappings in Chechnya over the past year.

From that number, Mr. Orlov says, Memorial found that 137 people were freed, sometimes through paying ransom, but another 47 were killed.

Addressing reporters in Moscow on Wednesday, Mr. Orlov says the real toll is far higher, since, he says, Memorial has access to only 25 to 35 percent of Chechen territory.

Mr. Orlov says Memorial firmly denounces what he calls the continuing climate of terror.

Mr. Orlov asks rhetorically, who is busy with the kidnapping? He says the answer is obvious. He says Memorial finds that Russian federal forces still engage in the activity. But, he adds, special forces under newly elected, Kremlin-backed President Akhmed Kadyrov also take part in such actions.

Mr. Orlov acknowledged that there were fewer massive security sweeps through Chechen villages and towns in 2003. But he denounced the continuing disappearance of civilians as a deliberate policy of breeding fear in an already terrorized population.

Russian federal forces returned to Chechnya for a second time more than 4 years ago, after a failed campaign in the late 1990s forced Moscow to withdraw.

Mr. Orlov says there is only one way to halt the dangerous cycle of violence and oppression, and that is the political will from Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government.

Mr. Orlov says that, at present, Memorial sees no will to stop the current chaos. Rather, he says, there is support from state power to foment struggle through illegal means. He alleges that there is even a special managed system to kill people opposed to the newly elected, pro-Moscow officials.

The findings by Memorial come nearly two months after the Kremlin-sponsored election, which international rights observers say should never have been held as long as the war continues.

The southern Russian republic has descended into essentially a guerilla-style war, with Russian and Chechen separatist casualties recorded on a near-daily basis.

President Putin says the situation in Chechnya is returning to normal, and he has encouraged refugees to return home.

The Chechen Times

Arbitrariness of Russian troops in Argun

According to the "SNO" Information Centre, Russian troops abducted three local residents on the night of 29 November in Argun town, after which they burnt the houses where the residents lived. According to informations from local residents, a group of Russian soldiers arrived at about 2 a.m. on the night of 29 November on several APCs without identification tags and broke into the house of the Gayevs. The soldiers thrashed the family with the butts of their automatic weapons and then dragged their son, Idris Gakayev, into the street, and forced him to sit down in one of the armoured vehicles.

At the same time, another group of soldiers entered a house in the neighbourhood, where the El'marzayev family lives. The soldiers thrashed all the men in the house and then took the two El'marzayev brothers - Hussein (22 years) and Hasina (18 years) with them. Before they left, the soldiers set both houses where the arrested young people lived on fire.

The relatives of the abducted people assert that the soldiers who carried out the "special operation" in the houses of the Gakayevs and the El'marzayevs were masked, and instead of the usual military boots, they wore chrome-plated shoes. In the opinion of the people, it was some new special unit that was in action on the night of 29 November. The whereabouts and the further fate of the abducted people hasn't been established so far.

[ 03.12.2003 11:23 ] The Chechen Times

http://www.chechnya.nl/news.php?id=7556&lang=rus [Translation by N.L.]

36 Killed in Train Blast Near Chechnya

Friday December 5, 2003 3:01 PM

By SERGEI VENYAVSKY

Associated Press Writer

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) - A suicide attacker set off an explosion that tore through a commuter train Friday near the separatist region of Chechnya, killing 36 people and wounding scores of others in a bombing that President Vladimir Putin said was intended to disrupt this weekend's parliamentary elections.

Authorities said a man triggered the bomb and three other attackers - all women - also were involved. At least two of the women may have jumped from the train before the blast.

The rebel Chechen government denied it was responsible for the blast, the second fatal attack on the rail line near the breakaway republic since September.

The 8 a.m. explosion ripped open the side of train as it approached a station near Yessentuki, about 750 miles south of Moscow, hurling passengers to the ground. Others were trapped under a mound of twisted, burning wreckage for hours.

At least 148 wounded were hospitalized, and another 29 suffered only slight injuries, said Maj. Gen. Nikolai Lityuk of the Emergency Situations Ministry.

Authorities found undetonated grenades still strapped to the legs of a male suicide attacker, the Interfax news agency quoted Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Federal Security Service, as saying. Experts gingerly entered the wreckage to remove the explosives and later detonated them, Russian television reported.

Patrushev said two women jumped from the train just before the explosion, Interfax reported. The male suicide bomber has not been identified. Patrushev did not say what happened to the third alleged female attacker.

They also found the remnants of a bag believed to have carried the bomb, the security agency said. The device was estimated to have the force of 22 pounds of TNT, said Vladimir Rudyak, a spokesman for the local prosecutor's office, and blew one of the train cars onto its side.

It was not known if the death toll of 36 included the male attacker.

Putin called the attack ``an attempt to destabilize the situation in the country on the eve of parliamentary elections'' on Sunday.

``The international terrorism that has challenged many countries continues to represent a serious threat for our country,'' Putin said. ``It is a ruthless, serious, treacherous enemy. Innocent people suffer from their activity.''

Although Putin didn't identify who he believed was responsible, he was ``sure they won't succeed.'' He also promised to help all those affected by the attack.

The rebel Chechen government led by President Aslan Maskhadov issued a statement denying its involvement.

``We repeat that the Chechen government is guided by the principles of international humanitarian law,'' the statement said. ``We therefore condemn any acts of violence that directly or indirectly target the civilian population anywhere in the world.''

The rush-hour attack seemed calculated to kill and injure a large number of people, and local health officials said the train was carrying a large number of students from schools and universities.

Hours after the blast, firefighters continued to pull dead from beneath the carriage.

``We will find those who did it, `` Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said, according to the Interfax news agency. ``The earth will be burning under their feet.''

Six people were killed in two blasts on the same train line in September. No group claimed responsibility for those attacks.

A series of suicide bombings and other attacks have rocked the region in and around Chechnya and Moscow this year.

In June, a female suicide attacker detonated a bomb near a bus carrying soldiers and civilians to work at a military airfield near Mozdok, the headquarters for Russian troops in the Caucasus region, killing at least 16 people. A month earlier, a suicide truck-bombing in Chechnya killed 72 people and a woman blew herself up at a religious ceremony, killing at least 18 people.

A double suicide bombing at a rock concert in Moscow on July 5 killed the female attackers and 15 other people. Soon after that, bomb experts said a woman from Chechnya left an explosive on a Moscow street that killed a bomb disposal expert.

In October 2002, Chechen rebels seized a Moscow theater for nearly three days before Russian authorities ended the siege by spraying a powerful gas in the building. More than 120 of the 800 hostages were killed.

Putin: Terrorists will not succeed

December 05, 2003 Posted: 18:16 Moscow time (14:16 GMT)

MOSCOW - Friday's bomb attack on a commuter train in southern Russia is aimed at destabilizing the situation in the country on the eve of parliamentary elections, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with top security officials Friday. "The criminals will get nothing out of this, as Russian citizens themselves will stop them," the President stressed. He said the government and regional authorities would do all they can to help those who suffered in the attack. For their part, intelligence services and prosecutors will make every effort to solve this terrible crime.

According to Nikolai Patrushev, Director of the Federal Security Service, the terrorist attack on a commuter train in the Stavropol region was carried out by a group of four people, including three women and one man, Rossiya (Russia) television reports. Mr. Patrushev said two of the three women were in the second car of the train, and they jumped out before the explosion. One of the women was directing the operation, and she is unlikely to have survived the blast. Mr. Patrushev said the identity of the man from the terrorist group, whose body was found, was unlikely to be established. "He was a suicide bomber, because grenades were found on his legs," the official said.

According to the latest information, 36 people died in the blast (31 people died on the spot, and five people died later in hospital). According to the Southern Federal District's Department of the Russian Emergency Ministry, 148 people were hospitalized, including 16 people in grave condition.

The powerful explosion ripped the train car in two. A fire broke out in the car immediately. The train, which was traveling between the cities of Kislovodsk and Mineralnye Vody, was full of commuters. The bomb was filled with bolts and small metal parts designed to cause maximum casualties.

The blast occurred at 7:42 Moscow time on Friday. The train was close to the town of Yessentuki in the North Caucasus region near the war- wracked republic of Chechnya.

/RosBusinessConsulting/

Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Ministry of Foreign Affairs Official Statement

05/12/2003

Urgent press-release: We have not, do not and will not employ Russian methods that make no distinction between civilians and combatants, between legitimate and illegitimate means, targets and ends.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria states that the Chechen government has no relation to a reported explosion of train in southern Russia near the Yessentuki railway station this morning.

We repeat that the Chechen government is guided by the principles of international humanitarian law. We therefore condemn any acts of violence that directly or indirectly target civilian population anywhere in the world. We will not, under any circumstances, break our commitment to build a civilized state.

The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria is fighting against a Russian state-sponsored genocidal terror. We have not, do not and will not employ Russian methods that make no distinction between civilians and combatants, between legitimate and illegitimate means, targets and ends.

Press Office