|
Chechnya's Sham
Elections European papers gave extensive play to this Sunday's controversial presidential election in the troubled Russian republic of Chechnya. The election has been almost universally derided as a one-sided sham, largely because Russia's chosen candidate for the job, Akhmad Kadyrov, has forced all serious competitors to drop out of the race with a combination of money and brute force. The race is particularly ridiculous because Chechnya's incumbent president is leading rebel forces in their battle against the Russians. France's Le Monde led Friday with an exclusive interview with Aslan Maskhadov, the elusive rebel leader who has been in hiding for four years. Elected Chechnya's president in 1997, he is now a prime target of Russian military efforts in the region, accused by them of having links to international terrorists. In his interview, Maskhadov ridiculed the Russian position in Chechnya, saying "anyone who thinks about it a little must see that Russia's military adventure in Chechnya is a total failure." The rebel Muslim leader repeatedly denied any links between his organization and al-Qaida and asserted that the separatist movement "has nothing in common with international terrorism." Maskhadov also rejected the idea of allowing Chechnya to be an internationally administered entity within Russia, arguing that the Palestinian example showed how ineffective such solutions can be. In a separate Le Monde piece, a fiery op-ed drove home the Chechen viewpoint and lambasted Russia's heavy-handed interventionism. "Nicholas I, Stalin, Putin: implacable continuity. The colonial war in the Caucasus is turning inexorably into an extermination of the local population." The piece went on to disparage the assumption that Chechen rebels have al-Qaida connections: "After the defeat of the Taliban, not one Chechen in Afghanistan, dead, alive, in prison, or at Guantanamo!" Russia has maintained U.S. support for its war in Chechnya because of the purported connection between Chechnya's Muslim separatists and international terrorists. An article in the Moscow Times (reprinted from The Nation) laid out "Bush's Sellout on Chechnya." The piece contrasted Bush's pre-election disapproval of Russia's bloody occupation of Chechnya with his recent endorsement of Putin (whom he has nicknamed Pootie-Poot) at a Camp David summit, where he named Russia an ally in the war on terror. The piece concluded that Bush's remarks even carried "an implicit endorsement of this weekend's rigged election, which Bush's own State Department says will be a tragic farce." Almost everyone agrees with that State Department assessment, largely because Kadyrov's strongman tactics have been brutal and utterly unsubtle. An article in France's Le Figaro said Putin is so pleased with his chosen candidate that he has been making appearances with Kadyrov not only in Russia but also abroad and had to be dissuaded from presenting the Chechen to Bush. Putin has brought increasing pressure to bear on the situation within Russia as well: The St. Petersburg Times ran an article Friday on the censorship of a Moscow film festival celebrating Chechen cinema. "Festival organizers accused the authorities of intimidating Kinocenter into canceling the event" but vowed they would show the films at another venue. Another piece in the Moscow Times discussed the political machinations behind Putin's support of Kadyrov. The article quoted a leaked Russian army report detailing the would-be Chechen president's systematic brutality on his way to Sunday's election and Russia's numerous efforts to help him. According to the Times, Kadyrov's supporters have been extorting money from Chechen businesses and bureaucrats for months while soldiers terrorize voters. The piece went on to argue that the army report was leaked as part of an inter- agency turf battle in Moscow: "The Interior Ministry, which commissioned the report, is in bitter competition with the Federal Security Service … for authority in Chechnya." The piece concluded by noting that some rebel fighters have moved into Ingushetia, a republic neighboring Chechnya and that the conflict in Chechnya is beginning to spill across its borders.
Elections without people At 3 p.m., Johar time, it can be said with certainty that the so-called elections of the leader of the puppet regime in Chechnya have failed completely. The number of people who had been at the polling stations wasn't even 5 percent. A Chechenpress correspondent visited several villages of the Grozny rural district today, and everywhere the picture was the same. E.g., in Starye Atagi, the roads leading to the polling stations are blocked for motor traffic, two armoured transporters of the occupying formations are standing in the area of the polling station, Kadyrov bandits and members of the local puppet police are concentrated there. No accumulation of people wishing to vote is visible, lonely voters appear only rarely. As one of the local militiamen angrily said, now they'll have to sit for the entire night, filling out papers, like during the referendum. In Novye Atagi in the Shali district, in Chechen-Aul, in Prigorodnoye and in the suburb of Gikalo in the Grozny district, the occupiers, who weren't satisfied with the presence of armoured vehicles in the school area, where also the polling stations are located, even dug out full-scale entrenchments. Against whom they were getting ready to protect themselves or the voters is unknown, since Putin actually had said that "there is no war in Chechnya". Only during the positional fighting for Grozny had the Chechenpress correspondent seen the Chechen capital so empty of people. The markets, stores and all enterprises are closed, and only on the central market are found a few market women who complain that the people have hidden and that there are practically no buyers, with the exception of the market guards from the puppet militia. The roadblocks at the entrance to the capital of the republic and in the city centre have been "reinforced" with local members of the puppet internal troops. Bristling with the barrels of heavy machine guns, sheltered by walls of thick concrete blocks, covered by sandbags on the entire perimeter, roadblocks are placed on all roads and cross-roads as eloquent symbols of the "democracy" established in Chechnya by Putin and his local accomplices. This is the holiday atmosphere reigning in Ichkeria on 5 October. B. Engeno, Chechenpress, 05.10.03 http://www.chechenpress.com/news/10_2003/7_05_10.shtml [Translation by N.S.]
Chechen poll dismissed as 'worse than a farce' By Fred Weir in Moscow 06 October 2003 Akhmad Kadyrov, the Chechen presidential candidate backed by Moscow, won 80 per cent of the votes cast in 12 of the republic's 20 regions, Russian news reports said last night. A candidate needs more than 50 per cent to win the election outright and avoid a runoff. The Kremlin hailed the election as a step towards normality in the war-torn southern republic but it was denounced by critics as a travesty. Quoting unnamed officials in Chechnya's election commission, ITAR-Tass news agency also reported that preliminary results from four administrative districts representing about one-third of the total votes cast, including the capital Grozny, indicated that Mr Kadyrov won roughly 80 per cent of the votes in those districts. Mr Kadyrov, who was appointed by the Kremlin in 2000 and became the region's acting president in March, was widely expected to win after his leading challengers withdrew or were cast out of the race. Russian news reports said 16,000 armed police were guarding the republic's 426 polling stations, and security precautions were in effect throughout Chechnya. Three shooting incidents were reported aroundGrozny, but officials saidvoting proceeded in a "calm and peaceful atmosphere". A wave of suicide bombings during the summer, blamed on Chechen rebels, killed almost 200 people in Chechnya, neighbouring republics and in Moscow. Officials said almost half of Chechnya's 560,000 eligible voters had cast ballots by yesterday evening, well over the 30 per cent required for the voting to be legal. Those voting included some 30,000 Russian troops stationed in the republic, as well as thousands of refugees bussed into Chechnya from tent camps in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia. Although seven candidates are running for the presidency, analysts say Mr Kadyrov's six surviving rivals are nonentities. Four serious contenders all of whom were performing better than Mr Kadyrov in independent opinion polls have quit since July. "These elections are worse than a farce, they are a theatre of the absurd," says Lyudmilla Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a Russian human rights watchdog, which last month cancelled plans to send 300 election monitors. Most international organisations, including the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, declined to send observers to Chechnya. Mr Kadyrov is a Muslim mufti and former rebel who called for an Islamic jihad against Russia during Chechnya's first war for independence in 1994-96. But after the Kremlin again sent troops into the republic in 1999, Mr Kadyrov was appointed to lead a pro-Moscow provisional government in 2000. Critics say Mr Kadyrov has stacked local administrations with his cronies and employed his personal security force led by his son, Ramzan to intimidate rivals and seize control of all the republic's media outlets. Mr Kadyrov has survived numerous assassination attempts, most recently when a female suicide bomber killed herself and 14 others, but narrowly missed the acting president, at a festival in May. The presidential election is the outcome of a one-sided peace process launched a year ago by the Kremlin. Moscow's main objective is to remove legitimacy from Chechnya's rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected in the republic's only internationally recognised presidential polls in 1997. Neither Mr Maskhadov nor any of his representatives were permitted to take part in the latest election, which the rebels called a "meaningless sham". Little is expected to change if Mr Kadyrov wins, but he is likely to receive an increasingly free hand from a war-weary Russian President Vladimir Putin, who faces his own presidential election in March. © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
Future NATO boss concerned over Chechnya election NATO Secretary-General designate Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Monday he believed the weekend presidential election in Chechnya was marred by a lack of rival candidates and the absence of independent media. De Hoop Scheffer said the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a human rights and democracy watchdog he chairs, had not been able to monitor the vote in Russia's rebel region. A former Muslim cleric backed by the Kremlin was set for a sweeping win in the ballot after all the other leading candidates dropped out of the race. Many observers doubt the result will bring peace to the region hit by separatist violence. "It is regrettable that in the run-up to the elections there was a lack of real pluralism among candidates," de Hoop Scheffer – the Dutch foreign minister designated to become NATO Secretary General in December – said in Warsaw. "The absence of independent media as well as continued climate of violence gives reasons for concern," he said after talks with Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz. Chechen rebels dismissed the election as pointless, vowing to press on with their fight to end Russian dominance and turn their homeland into an independent state. "It is necessary
to resolve this conflict politically, restoring the rule of law and
respecting human rights," said de Hoop Scheffer.
Refugees in Pankisi Boycott Elections in Chechnya The Chechen Times - 6.10.2003 Chechen refugees living in Georgia Pankisi Gorge refused to participate in the presidential elections of Chechnya, held on October 5. "No polling stations are opened in Pankisi Gorge," Nukri Arveladze, head of the Akhmeta district, where Pankisi is located, told Civil Georgia. Last week Russian delegation visited Pankisi gorge and tried in vain to convince up to 3,700 Chechen refugees to return to their homeland. Six candidates are competing for the presidency in Chechnya, but the favorite is the Kremlin's top official in Chechnya Akhmad Kadyrov. The Russian authorities have been faced with widespread criticism for holding a vote during wartime. Russian radio reports violations during Chechen presidential election At some polling stations [in Chechnya] there were no voters' lists at all. Instead, members of local electoral commissions wrote in voters' names and addresses on to blank lists, a Vremya Novostey correspondent reports. Moreover, many voters were given several ballot papers each, often without even being asked to show their passports, Nezavisimaya Gazeta has quoted one of the candidates, Shamil Burayev, as saying.
TEXT: Yelena Shishkunova Gazeta ru The Supreme Court on Monday ordered Yuri Budanov, a Russian officer convicted of murdering a Chechen girl, to remain in prison, upholding the verdict of guilty handed to the former colonel earlier this year. As a result of the verdict, the defence counsel for Budanov announced their intent to file a complaint to the presidium of the Supreme Court within the next 10 days, and if it is rejected, they will appeal to the highest authority, the Chairman of the Court. "They cannot throw out our arguments that easily," a defence counsel for Budanov, Pavel Astakhov, told Gazeta.Ru. The military board of judges of the Supreme Court on Monday, rejected an appeal filed by the lawyers of Yuri Budanov, who insisted that the verdict on their client must be repealed. The convicted officer's lawyers, Pavel Astakhov and Alexei Dulimov, filed an appeal against the verdict, passed on Budanov by the North-Caucasian Military Court on July 25, 2003. The ex-colonel's new lawyer Pavel Astakhov claims the two experts who were invited by the court to examine Budanov's mental health were not duly qualified to do the job, therefore the tests they performed on Budanov cannot be considered to be lawful. However, the Supreme Court disagreed with the lawyers. The Rostov-on-Don military court was right to accept, as a basis for the verdict, the conclusion of the team of experts, who said that the convict had suffered no mental disorder and could not be recognized insane, the Supreme Court said in its ruling. To recap, on July 25 this year, the court in Rostov-on Don, sentenced Budanov to 10 years imprisonment in a high-security prison, stripped him of his military rank and awards. The first Russian officer ever to face public examination for military crimes in Chechnya, Colonel Yuri Budanov, was arrested in early 2000 on charges of raping and murdering a young Chechen woman Elza Kungayeva as well as abuse of office. The charge of rape was dropped a short time later as one of Budanov's subordinates confessed he had violated the girl's body after her death. Before and during his first trial, that began in February 2001, the colonel underwent four psychiatric examinations. In autumn last year, experts from Russia's top Institute in Moscow, Serbsky, declared him officially insane at the moment that he strangled Kungayeva. The experts blamed Budanov's mental disorders on serious shell shock and depression. In December 2002 a military court in Rostov-on-Don said the officer could not be held criminally liable for murder, and ordered him to undergo compulsory medical treatment. The sentence was challenged, both by the lawyer representing the aggrieved party, and by the prosecutors. In late February, Budanov's case was overturned by the Supreme Court, and a re-trial was ordered. During the re-trial, experts, who were invited to perform a new set of tests on Budanov, examined his behaviour in the courtroom and concluded that he was sane. Budanov's lawyers, Pavel Astakhov and Alexei Dulimov, said that although the court had chosen to ignore the conclusions of the six experts of the renowned Serbsky Institute who examined Budanov during his first trial, at the same time it did listen to two other specialists, one of which had not even provided the documents certifying his qualification, while another was clearly prejudiced. According to Astakhov, Anatoly Alyokhin, who performed the psychological examination, failed to submit to the court documents certifying his qualification of psychologist. Another expert, a military psychiatrist, Yuri Loginov, had – long before he appeared at Budanov's trial – unofficially advised Budanovs family and met Budanov in person. Commenting Monday's ruling, Astakhov said it all sounded very strange to him. "Budanov had undergone several tests at the Serbsky Institute. 12 experts, who took part in examining his mental health, including two respected academicians, concluded that he was suffering a serious disorder. Later another test was performed and six more experts said he could not be held liable for his actions. And only two experts, whose conclusions we have questioned, hold that he may bear criminal responsibility. 18 versus 2. And the court, defying all those contradictions, gives preference to those two." Lawyers plan to
contest the Supreme Court ruling within the next 10 days. 06 Oct. 16:03
Terror Victim
Group MOSCOW (AP) -- Former hostages and relatives of those killed during last October's Chechen rebel raid on a Moscow theater officially announced Saturday the creation of an organization intended to protect the interests of victims of terrorist acts. Sergei Karpov, whose son died in the theater ordeal, said the group -- called Nord Ost after the musical that was playing when the raid occurred -- hopes to "draw the public's attention to the problems of the victims" of the theater raid and other recent terrorist attacks in Russia. Karpov said other
aims of the group are ensuring health care for former hostages, as well
as social, psychological, informational and legal assistance.
Poland: Russian embassy picketed PAP, Warsaw, Poznan, 5 October: Scores of people picketed the Russian embassy in Warsaw on Sunday [5 October] with two chaining themselves to one of the gates in a protest against Sunday presidential elections in Chechnya and the latest developments in that country. This way the protesters - members of Free Caucasus organization - expressed their support for Aslan Maskhadov, Chechnya president elected in 1997 and against mass extermination of the Chechen nation by the Russian army. Picketed was also the Russian Federation consulate in Poznan.
|