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Unknown Chechen Group Claims Moscow Metro Blast Mon Mar 1, 2004 02:43 PM ET By Oliver Bullough MOSCOW (Reuters) - A previously unknown Chechen rebel group said in a statement published Monday it conducted a bombing on the Moscow metro last month that killed at least 40 people. Web site www.kavkazcenter.com, which normally publishes statements from extremist rebel warlord Shamil Basayev, who has organized a string of suicide bombings against Russian targets, said it did not know who stood behind the group. The 'Gazotan Murdash' group sent the statement to the Web site three times -- first on February 8, two days after the bombing -- and then phoned the publishers before the site agreed to publish, Kavkazcenter said in a comment. "Our first operation was successfully conducted on February 6 on the Moscow metro," the statement said, saying it was revenge for an alleged atrocity by Russian soldiers in Chechen capital Grozny exactly four years before the metro blast. According to human rights group Memorial, 46 people died when Russian troops stormed through the Alda suburb in February 2000 as they consolidated power in mainly Muslim Chechnya after their return to the region in 1999. The statement, signed by Lom-Ali Chechensky, went on: "It was small, but good. Remember! This was revenge for Alda February 5-6, 2000, and it is only the beginning. An eye for an eye! An injury for an injury! Freedom or Death!" Chechen rebels gained de facto independence from Russia in 1996, but Russian forces poured back three years later. The conflict has degenerated into a bitter guerrilla war, which claims the lives of Russian troops daily. Extreme separatists have increasingly turned to suicide bombings -- killing more than 300 people last year -- but the statement made no mention of the metro bombing having been conducted by a suicide bomber. After the bombing, President Vladimir Putin immediately blamed Chechen rebels, but until now rebels had distanced themselves from the blast. In an editorial comment, Kavkazcenter, which is linked to the extreme wing of the rebel movement, said that if this group was truly independent of established Chechen leaders, it showed a new development in the conflict. "If this statement proves to be true, and if a new previously unknown group stands behind the acts on the Moscow Metro, then the war between Russia and Chechnya has entered a qualitatively new phase when an absolutely autonomous group bent on revenge appears on the scene," said the comment. © Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
By Khaled Schmitt, IOL CorrespondentBERLIN, March 1 (IslamOnline.net) - Russia violates human rights inChechnya in different ways, including mass detentions and forceddeportation of civilians, a German official said.Wrapping up a visit to Chechen refugee camps in the neighboringIngushetia, Germany’s Commissioner for Human Rights Policy Claudia Rothtold Frankfurt Allgemeine Sonntag Zeitung newspaper on Sunday,February 29, that the situation is much more miserable there. Moscow is the one to blame for the rugged conditions of refugees inthese camps, she told the paper.Given Russia's threats to force thousands of refugees back if theymissed the March 1 deadline for a voluntary return, their suffering arestill on the rise, the German MP added.With most cities of Chechnya now reduced to rubble, Roth found that therefugees have refused to come back home, rather deciding to bear a hardlife in these camps.The United Nations estimated that 110,000 people who fled the Russianoffensive, lawlessness and destruction in Chechnya are scattered inIngushetia's inhospitable borderlands.AbductionsThe German official echoes international aid workers in Ingushetia, whoaffirmed that many refugees - feeling forgotten and fearful - resignedto the belief that the rugged conditions are an improvement over whatawaits them in their homeland.Some 5,000 live in three refugee camps and the remainder stays withtheir relatives in the North Caucasian country.Roth said that she heard rising wave of detentions against refugees,noting that she had received reports documented by Russian authorities,in which 5,000 refugees were abducted without trace.The accusing fingers have been pointed to Russian security forces andmilitias led by Ramadan Kadyrov, the son of the Chechen President AhmadKadyrov, Roth said. Kadyrov assumed power last October amid cries offoul playing and rigging in the elections.Aid workers have complained that Russian authorities carry outintensifying harassment against aid workers trying to help refugeesfleeing the war-embattled Chechnya.Relief organizations in Ingushetia report two principal areas oftrouble. The first is what they collectively describe as constantharassment by local and federal authorities. The second is the limitedaccess to the Chechens in tent camps - and to battered Chechnya itself."One of the reasons they want to close the camps is they're veryvisible," an Ingushetia-based aid worker told Washington Post onDecember 8, on request of anonymity for fear of Russian reprisals.Aid workers in the North Caucasus feel isolated and vulnerable in aregion where kidnappings and violence are common and judicialaccountability is an afterthought at best, the paper's correspondentsaid in a report.InterventionRoth, a former leader of ruling coalition Green Party - called on Russiato resort to political and legal means instead of military power inChechnya.The war on terrorism is not a justification for Russia to work in theteeth of international human rights in Chechnya, she said, referring tothe grave discrimination against Chechens and Caucasians in Russia.She appealed with the German government to pressure Russian PresidentVladimir Putin to respect human rights, rights of ethnicities and endingtight control on media outlets.Putin swept to the Presidency in March 2000 on the back of support forhis vow to wipe out what he calls Chechen "terrorists" at the start ofthe invasion, Russia's second in the republic in a decade.The U.N. Human Rights Committee slammed in a panel on November 7 theill-treatment of detainees under interrogation, executions and torturein the republic of Chechnya.Earlier, the Russian human rights watch-dogs issued a book on October 8documenting hundreds of cases of civilians killed or abducted in Chechnya.The 542-page volume covers abuses recorded from eyewitness accounts byactivists working in Chechnya from July to December 2000 - a period inwhich Russia's main attack on the Chechen Caucasus republic had beencompleted.Five days ago, two Russian agents were detained in Qatar and chargedwith assassinating former Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev - whoseextradition from the Arab Gulf country had been demanded by Moscow - ina car blast. 1.3.2004
The Council of NGOs states that the refugee camp “Satsita”on the edge of the town of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in the Sunzha Region ofIngushetia will probably be liquidated. It was already announced in thecamps that school classes for refugee children on the edge of the townwould end by March 1. Teachers and workers for other organizations onthe territory of the camp were paid until March, but not beyond that date.On February 24 Parchiev, the representative of the Ingush ImmigrationService and Pomeshenko, the director of the “Moscow Workers Group”visited the tents where refugees live and received information about thenumber who have been compensated for a lost home and means of existence.All of these refugees have been ordered to abandon the camps and returnto Chechnya. Today, Igor Yunasha, the Vice-Director of the InternalImmigration Service of the MVD of the Russian Federation will visit thecamps. Residents connect his arrival with the preparations underway toliquidate the tent city of “Satsita”.According to the Chechen Committee for national salvation, at the centerof the temporary resettlement in Nazran (also referred to as an RVP)“Pine Tree”, where 60 Chechen refugee families live, on the fifth daythe electricity was turned off. In the RVP “Porcelain” the water wasturned off a week ago and the electricity was turned off on February 23.In the RVPs “Angust” and “Troitsky” where since the February 22 of thisyear more than 100 families have been living, the light was turned off.For the refugees, living in the village of “Aki-Yurt”, light and gaswere turned off on February 20.Chechen refugees believe that the government intends to createunbearable living conditions for them in order to force them to leaveIngushetia. Gas, water, and light, which the government normallyprovides during difficult winter conditions, were turned off. Translated by Rebecca GouldPRIMA News Agency [2004-02-25-Rus-03] eng.kavkaz.memo.ru 27/2/2004
Timerlan Akhayev, an officer of the Chechen Interior Ministry, disappeared without a trace in Urus-Martan on February 23. As reported by the officer's relatives, he disappeared in the evening on his way home from a base of Chechen Interior Ministry's OMON (special tasks police platoon). The whereabouts of the missing man has been unknown since that time. Source: Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship 2004-03-01 09:54
San Francisco Chronicle Grozny, Russia - Killings, bombings leave lasting scars, counselors say On school mornings, 10-year-old Fatima Zakriyeva pulls her shiny black hair into a tight ponytail and walks through the ruins of what once were several blocks of Chechnya's capital to spend the day shivering at a desk in her unheated school. On weekends, she goes to the hastily paved backyard of the cramped dormitory where she now lives to play on a tiny triangle of concrete wedged between a giant water tank, rows of zigzagging clotheslines and two freshly painted but smelly communal outhouses. But often Fatima, who bites her nails so short that they expose red slivers of raw skin at the fingertips, just stays in the dorm room she shares with her unemployed parents and three older siblings. Sitting on the edge of one of the two narrow cots her parents moved together to form a master bed, she thinks longingly of the tent in a sprawling, disease-ridden refugee camp in Ingushetia, a Russian region bordering Chechnya, where she lived for three years until she moved to Grozny two months ago. Sometimes Fatima's thoughts go further back, to her family house in the village of Martyn-Chu, about 15 miles southwest of Grozny, and how its walls split like the skin on an overripe plum one day in 1999 when a Russian rocket hit a house next door, and how her family had to hide from the bombing in friends' cellars before they fled war-torn Chechnya for Ingushetia. She wonders what peace might be like. Often she cries. "I hate being here," Fatima whispered last week, weeping. "It is scary. It is awful." Her words echoed the sentiment of many Chechen children trapped in Russia's decade-long war against separatist guerrillas, which has killed thousands of Russian soldiers and Chechen fighters and civilians. The conflict has turned towns and villages into apocalyptic moonscapes where deformed carcasses of concrete apartment blocks and wooden houses hover over bomb craters strewn with shrapnel, garbage and unexploded ordnance. The impact of Russia's campaign to rule the breakaway republic goes beyond the terror of bombings and gunbattles. Amid almost daily clashes between federal forces and rebels, Chechnya's 500,000 children -- many of whom know nothing but war, violence and deprivation -- struggle with the trauma of growing up in a war zone. "There is not a single child in Chechnya who hasn't been traumatized," said Yakha Shvarts, one of about 30 psychologists working with children in the devastated republic. "Most children have lost a parent or a sibling," she said. "They saw people die. They have fears. They have nightmares. They are afraid when they see or hear tanks. The process of healing is very slow." Eight out of 10 children in Chechnya suffer from psychological or nervous disorders, a study by the republic's health ministry last November showed. It attributed the problems to "the endless tensions within the society that cause permanent stress syndromes." Widespread poverty and hunger, as well as the lack of clean drinking water, basic sanitation and public health infrastructure have led to outbreaks in communicable diseases such as measles, hepatitis A and whooping cough. Anemia and gastrointestinal disorders are common. Hasan Gadayev, a Chechen Ministry of Health official, told Russian news agencies a health survey of 320,000 Chechen children last year showed that about 70 percent had tuberculosis. Once, the republic could treat 1,200 TB patients at a time, but aerial bombardment and heavy artillery strikes by the Russian military have destroyed many hospitals, reducing the capacity to only 150 TB patients. "Sadly, the consequences of war will have a major impact on the health of our children for many years to come," Gadayev said. Although Shvarts urges the children to talk about war and their losses as a way of dealing with trauma, she said very few youngsters want to discuss war and death or even write about it in journals. "Why would I want to write down my war memories?" asked Amina Askhabova, a 16-year-old junior high school student who dreams of becoming a journalist. "I don't need to be reminded about it. It's unforgettable." Frustrated teachers try to do their best to make life easier for the troubled children. "We help as much as we can," said Hamzat Kukayev, the headmaster of the school where Shvarts works. In addition to two staff psychologists, Kukayev's school -- unlike Fatima's -- has metal gas stoves in every classroom to keep the children warm when they study. Few schools in Chechnya have even such primitive heaters, and fewer still offer counseling. Jamal Nikiya, 17, said psychological help in his school in Chechnya's second-largest city, Gudermes, amounts to occasional reminders that everything outside might be booby-trapped. Thousands of children in Chechnya have died or lost their limbs after stepping on land mines or picking up unexploded ordnance or homemade bombs disguised as toys, videotapes or cigarette lighters, relief agencies say. In 2002, the Chechen Ministry of Health reported 5,695 land-mine and unexploded ordnance casualties, among them 938 children. The United Nations estimates that there are about 500,000 mines in Chechnya, making it one of the most mine-contaminated zones in the world. Pointing at the wasteland near the dormitory Fatima shares with about 500 others who have recently returned from refugee camps in Ingushetia, Fatima's neighbor, Aslan Sakhurov, 17, wondered if it, too, was mined. "I wouldn't play soccer there," he said. He looked around at buildings bearing the familiar shrapnel pockmarks, their roofs caved in from Russian aerial bombardment. "There's nowhere to play soccer here. There is absolutely nothing for us to do. This is home, but it was better in the refugee camp." He lit a cigarette, his last smoke before he goes upstairs. There, he shares a room with his mother and younger brother. "There is no daddy," he explained curtly, with a painful wince, before stumbling off. "Daddy got killed in the war." Upstairs, Fatima wiped tears from her face and looked up. Her father, Zhunid, an unemployed tractor driver, smoked nervously, exasperated by his inability to console his little daughter. Her mother, Roza, busied herself wiping dishes that were already impeccably clean. Zhunid broke the silence. "We're sorry," he said. "Come to our house when the war is over." Suddenly, Fatima's dark eyes lit up with the memories of her old home and the normalcy it once meant. "Pochtovaya, nine," she chirped, reciting the address of the house she left four years ago. "Pochtovaya, nine. Will you come?" E-mail Anna Badkhen at abadkhen@sfchronicle.com. graphical line |