| Kavkaz Center As disappearances continue Kavkazky Uzel reported on April 23 that eight residents of the village of Starye Atagi in Chechnya's Groznensky district had been kidnapped over the previous month. The website cited the Council of Chechen Non-Governmental Organizations, which in turn cited testimony from villagers, who said that the abductors seemed to be either military personnel or members of local power structures. On April 20, a23-year-old Starye Atagi resident named Gakaev was stopped on the street by russian soldiers who then forced him into a car and drove off to an unknown destination. Earlier, a villager named Maaev, who currently has a business in Moscow, was kidnapped by armed men in camouflage two days after arriving in Starye Atagi from the Russian capital. He was freed several days later after his parents paid a large ransom. On April 19, two Starye Atagi residents were seized by members of "power structures". One of them turned out to be a policeman and was released after questioning, but the fate of the other man remains unknown. On April 16, a 22-year-old Starye Atagi resident with the surname Yupaeva was kidnapped in front of the hospital where she worked as a nurse. On April 15, Russian troops and local security personnel detained a Ruslan Ebaev, a 50-year-old father of two, during a special operation in Starye Atagi. According to Ebaev's relatives, he neither participated in fighting in either of Chechnya's two wars nor belonged to any non-governmental organization or movement. On March 26, Starye Atagi resident Aslan Turluev was abducted by armed men in uniforms who were reportedly members of occupation RUBOP formation. Turluev's relatives claimed he was forced to sign a document saying he was rebel fighter. On March 19, a 34-year-oldStarye Atagi resident, Rizvan Oibuev, was taken out of his home by kidnappers who, before driving him off to points unknown, beat his parents when they tried to block prevent his abduction. The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society reported on April 22 that Achkoi-Martan resident Vasi Buchaev was kidnapped in the Achkoi-Martandistrict center by unknown persons on April 19. Relatives of Buchaev managed to trace the kidnappers to the city of Gudermes but were unable to find out where he was being held. The Prima news agency reported on April 22 that armed men had abducted a teacher at a school in the Nozhai-Yurt district. Meanwhile, Kavkazky Uzel reported on April 26 that security forces were carrying out a number of special operations in the Shali district, including so-called "targeted" mopping-up operations in the village of Serzhen-Yurt. According to a villager, on April 25 security personnel searched several houses in Serzhen-Yurt and took one person off to an unknown destination. Also on April 25, members of puppet formation carried out a special operation in the city of Shali, where they detained local inhabitants whom they suspected of belonging to Mujahiddeen groups. Security operations were also carried out in the settlements of Duba-Yurt and Avtury. Several Shali district residents told Kavkazky Uzel's correspondent that the raids in the district were connected to a "noticeable" increase in rebel activity. Agencies 2005-04-29 Saturday, 30 April 2005 Police Forcibly End Opposition Protest In Ingushetia Prague, 30 April 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Police and army troops used force on 30 April to disperse a protest in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, and detain its organizers. Officials had earlier warned the protest organizers, including Ingushetian Parliament Deputy Musa Ozdoev, against holding the demonstration. The objective of the protest was to call for the resignation of Ingushetia's president, Murat Zyazikov. The opposition has repeatedly criticized Zyazikov, a former Federal Security Service (FSB) general who was elected president three years ago, for corruption and incompetence in economic affairs. The opposition began planning in early April to stage simultaneous protests in several towns after police thwarted a demonstration in late March to protest crime, corruption, and appalling soci-economic conditions and to demand the return to Ingushetia of the Prigorodnyi Raion of neighboring North Ossetia, which was part of the pre-World War II Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The protests were first scheduled for 28 April, and then postponed until 30 April. Earlier this week, the Nazran municipal authorities warned Ozdoev that he had failed to comply with the legal requirements when informing them of the planned protest. Ingushetian acting Interior Minister Beslan Khamkhoev wrote to Ozdoev on 26 April recommending that he call off the protests lest "illegal armed formations" stage terrorist attacks against the participants. Khamkhoev warned that if that happened, Ozdoev would be held responsible for any casualties. The Ingushetian authorities then began circulating false fliers calling on the population to congregate on the central square in Nazran at the precise time Ozdoev's meeting was to take place. But while Ozdoev insisted that the meeting was to be nonviolent and that participants would protest the socio-economic situation and call for Zyazikov's resignation, the counterfeit fliers said in addition to calling for a crackdown on corruption in Ingushetia and for the creation of jobs for unemployed young people, participants would call for the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. The counterfeit fliers further said demonstrators would seek to oust the republic's leaders by force if the latter rejected their demands. Several prominent Muslim clergymen visited Ozdoev's home late on 29 April but failed to persuade him to call off the protest. Also on 29 April, armored vehicles blocked all approaches to the town of Magas, where the opposition Youth Movement of Ingushetia (MDI) planned to hold a parallel peaceful demonstration. MDI leader Rustam Archakov announced early on 30 April that the movement had decided the previous evening to postpone the Magas protest indefinitely. In Nazran, armored vehicles were deployed near the train station early on 30 April and up to 1,000 police and troops blocked off the main square where Ozdoev's demonstration was to take place. Roadblocks were set up on all highways leading to Nazran and numerous buses transporting would-be participants to the protest were halted and turned back. An unspecified number of people nonetheless managed to congregate at 11 a.m. near the main square, but shortly after Ozdoev began to address the meeting, masked men attacked the participants with clubs and dispersed them. Ozdoev was taken by force to the local Interior Ministry headquarters, but he later told the website ingushetiya.ru by telephone that "the campaign against corruption and embezzlement will continue. We shall continue to insist that President Zyazikov resigns" and that the Russian Prosecutor General's Office begins investigating his "crimes." Ozdoev stressed that the opposition will continue to act within the framework of the law and the constitution. Meanwhile Gennadii Gudkov, chairman of the People's Party of Russia (of which Ozdoev heads the Ingushetian branch), told RIA Novosti that the Nazran demonstration was convened in full compliance with relevant legislation. He added that police acted illegally in detaining Ozdoev, who as a parliament deputy enjoys immunity from arrest. The website ingushetiya.ru quoted an unnamed police official as saying that a member of Zyazikov's administration telephoned the Interior Ministry "in hysterics," insisting that the police should not on any account release Ozdoev lest the demonstration resume. http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/04/61834e50-2053-43b4-b717-ca8b6ea19e59.html http://www.ingushetiya.ru/news/5195.html (tr. by M.L.) Attention! The next provocation. When opening of our site in Ingushetia, you are directed to the false double-site. Ingushetiya.Ru, 01.05.2005 00:46 In the arsenal of provocations, devised by Murat Zyazikov and his entourage in disrupting the rally on 30 April, also those false leaflets, and rewritten periodicals that entered correspondence in Nazran's city hall, an order to murder a businessman who lives in Moscow, and so on, it proved to be one more - a creation of this double-site - Ingushetiya.Ru. In this case, all Ingushetia's providers were forced to change DNS with directing [perenapravleniyem] to the false site of Ingushetiya.Ru. These provocateurs expected to compromise the opposition movement of Ingushetia, and also the Ingushetiya.Ru site itself, which has enjoyed enormous popularity in the republic. Below are some news, which were posted on this double-site on 30 April. The Independent Victims who fled Beslan siege lose compensation By Andrew Osborn in Moscow 30 April 2005 The Russian authorities have been accused of being heartless and insensitive after ordering 30 teenagers who survived last September's school siege in Beslan to return the financial compensation they were paid. Civil servants in the southern Russian republic of North Ossetia decided the pupils did not deserve compensation because they had escaped in the first few minutes of the siege. That meant that they did not fall into the three eligible categories of victims: hostages, seriously wounded and slightly wounded. Although it was argued that the children had suffered psychologically and had often lost close friends or siblings, the government has fended off a legal challenge from their parents. As a result, the teenagers must each hand back the 40,000 rubles (£800) they were awarded. The scandal has split Beslan, which lost 330 people in the siege, 180 of them children, and has again seen the local authorities become the target of residents' anger. The teenagers' parents have appealed to Vladimir Lukin, Russia's Human Rights Ombudsman, and have asked the parliamentary commission investigating the tragedy to assist. "At first I didn't pay any attention to the stories [about compensation being returned]," Nadejda Tsomartova, an elderly Beslan resident, told Gazeta.Ru. "But then I got really offended. One of my grandsons died in the siege and the other managed to get away. And now they [the authorities] were first of all giving something to us and then taking it back. It's just incredible. These children also suffered traumatically." Arkady Baskayev, an MP, told Ekho Moskvy radio that the authorities had made a serious blunder. "In my opinion nobody has the right to take anything away from them [the children]." http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=634352 |