| Chechnya weekly Volume 6, Issue 23 (June 16, 2005) CHECHEN AUTHORITIES ADMIT UPSWING IN ABDUCTIONS Chechnya's State Council held a session on June 15 devoted to the issue of combating kidnappings and searching for missing citizens during which it was stated that 63 criminal cases arising from 70 abductions have been opened in the republic since the beginning of the year and that the number of kidnappings sharply increased in May. "Abductions remain a factor that can seriously destabilize the situation in the Chechen Republic," Interfax quoted Abu Aliev, deputy chairman of the State Council, as saying. He added that "impunity" is the prime cause of the continued abductions. According to Aliev, as of May 1, 2005, a total of 1,845 criminal investigations into the abduction or disappearance of 2,845 people had been launched since the start of the second Chechen military campaign in 1999, but only 366 people had been freed. He also said that 2,086 cases of people being forcibly abducted by members of unidentified security forces have been registered since the start of the "counter-terrorist operation." Nurdi Nukhazhiev, head of the Chechen government's committee for protecting the constitutional rights of citizens, told the State Council meeting that as many as 52 mass graves have been found in the republic. "The necessary organizational decisions must be taken in order to identify and re-bury the dead," he said, adding that the problem cannot be resolved without help from the Emergencies Ministry and other government agencies. "The situation is much more complex and tragic than it seems to be," Nukhazhiev said. "At least 50-60,000 people in the republic are in a protest mood" because of kidnappings, he said. "These people are waiting for the parliamentary elections, and I would not advise anybody to regard them as extremists." Nukhazhiev told the meeting that some 100 out of the 136 visitors he had received during his most recent office hours had come to inquire about kidnapped relatives. "There is no political will; a command from the top for everybody to work together on this problem has not been given," he said. "The situation will not improve until a political decision is made." Recent reports by the relevant human rights groups help to explain the growing concern on the part of some pro-Moscow Chechen officials. The Council of Chechen Non-governmental Organizations reported on June 13 that armed people in camouflage kidnapped a 50-year-old resident of Grozny's Leninksy district, Akhmad Elbiev, and that his fate remains unknown. Citing the Council of Chechen Non-governmental Organizations and the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (ORChD), the Prima-News information agency reported on June 10 that armed people in camouflage uniforms and traveling in several cars without license plates had abducted Vakhid Mairbekov from his home in Grozny's Zavodskoi district. On June 9, security forces detained a 25-year-old inhabitant of the village of Zandak in the Nozhai-Yurt district during a "targeted" cleansing operation, driving him off in a car with blackened windshields. That same day, unknown people kidnapped Said Muzuev, a 30-year-old inhabitant of the town of Samashki in the Achkoi-Martan district. Kavkazky Uzel reported on June 14 that Igor Shakhmurzaev, the chairman of the Chechen chapter of the Union party, who was abducted at the end of April in Grozny, had been released. Shakhmurzaev's brother, Lema, who heads the Institute of Political Culture of Chechnya's "Lamast" society, said Igor Shakhmurzaev was kidnapped by "Russian power structures staffers," held in an unknown location and constantly questioned for more than month. Prima-News reported on June 10 that in connection with the May kidnapping of three brothers from the Groznensky district village of Oktyabrskoe who are members of the Social Democratic Party of Russia – Adam, Kureish and Movla Sherimbekovich – relatives of the abducted and human rights activists had sent an open letter to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who is member of the party's political council, asking for help in freeing them. The three brothers were kidnapped at gunpoint from their homes by "representatives of the power structures" on May 5. The separatist Marsho news agency reported on June 13 that several people who had lodged complaints with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg have been killed or abducted. Among them were Said-Khusein Elmurzaev, a resident of the village of Duba-Yurt in Chechnya's Shali district, whose "disfigured" body was found on the outskirts of the Groznensky district village of Ilyinskaya on May 8, and his son Idris Elmurzaev, whose "tortured' body was discovered in April. Prima-News reported that at the beginning of June, the remains a young man "literally blown to pieces by an explosives charge" was found on the outskirts of Grozny. According to the news agency, the victim, an inhabitant of Argun with the last name Usmanov, had been called in for questioning by Russia's special services several days earlier. "People believe he was blown up after severe torture," Prima-News reported on June 10. Kavkazky Uzel on June 14 quoted Taisa Isaeva, head of the Council of Chechen Non-governmental Organizations' information center, as saying that Chechen police had beaten a 14-year-old girl for wearing a headscarf. Isaeva quoted the girl's mother as saying the incident took place on June 9 when she took her daughter to the police precinct in Grozny's Zavodskoi district to get her a passport. "The daughter went inside, and the mother had to wait for her outside," Isaeva told the website. "Subsequently, the woman heard the screams of her daughter. Rushing inside, she saw one of the policemen harshly beating her daughter with a club, calling her a `Wahhabi' and cursing her in unprintable language. Only the mother's intervention stopped this `guardian of law and order'." According to Isaeva, the girl remains in grave condition. Meanwhile, Kavkazky Uzel reported on June 11, that Russian aircraft and artillery carried out massive strikes on the outskirts of population centers and wooded areas in mountainous areas of Chechnya, including the Shatoi, Nozhai-Yurt, Vedeno and Itum-Kalinsky districts. A Shatoi resident told the website that ceaseless shelling was preventing local inhabitants from gathering firewood and grazing cattle. He said the shelling usually starts in the evening and lasts 30-40 minutes. A Russian military source told Kavkazky Uzel that shelling of the wooded areas in the mountains is carried out only if "the movement of groups of militants or their bases and camps" are discovered. On June 5, the head of the Shatoi district administration, Said-Khasan Duzaev, sent a letter to Chechen President Alu Alkhanov concerning the regular shelling of pastures located near the settlements of Khal-Keloi, Sharo-Argun, Dai, Aslanbek-Sherpivo, Gatin-Kali, Marsh-Kali and Musolt-Aul. Duzaev complained that the bombardment prevented local residents from grazing livestock and thereby earning their livelihoods. Prima-News reported that a teenaged herdsman was shell-shocked and a large number of cattle killed as the result of shelling on the outskirts of the village of Verkhny Dai on May 29. BBC World, Last Updated: Thursday, 16 June, 2005, 18:18 GMT 19:18 UK Official confirms Chechen horror By Stephen Eke BBC News, Moscow A top human rights official in the Russian-backed administration in Chechnya says there are more than 50 mass graves in the troubled republic. Nurdi Nukhazhiyev told the BBC that tens of thousands of civilians had "disappeared" since 1999. He said the war had seen human rights violations on an unimaginable scale. Mr Nukhazhiyev added that figures on civilian deaths were approximate, but that the graves and who might be buried there could no longer be ignored. The Russian government launched the second Chechen war at the end of 1999. The pro-Moscow administration needs more money and political support to deal with the legacy of disappearances, kidnappings and murders that it says have resulted from a war the Kremlin calls "the counter-terrorist operation". There isn't a single Chechen family that didn't suffer during the first and second Chechen war Nurdi Nukhazhiyev "We have identified 52 mass graves. We've been raising the question of exhuming the remains and doing DNA analyses for three years now," said Mr Nukhazhiyev, who heads the Council of Human Rights Organisations of Chechnya. "The absence of suitable medical facilities here makes this impossible." Shaky position Many of the accusations levelled against the Russian authorities by human rights groups - namely the deliberate targeting of civilians by the Russian military - have angered the Moscow authorities. Mr Nukhazhiyev, however, says many of the accusations are true. "There isn't a single Chechen family that didn't suffer during the first and second Chechen war," he said. "If the Russian state was interested in establishing the truth, it would announce the formation of an independent post-conflict commission." He said the administration in Grozny had made a start by setting up a database with information on all those who have suffered or died. Human rights groups have said the Chechen administration to which Mr Nukhazhiyev belongs is also guilty of abuses, particularly kidnappings. Mr Nukhazhiyev denies this. "I'm telling you directly - and everyone who knows me would tell you the same - that I'm the first to make an objective and honest case for human rights," he said. "So I'm telling you that those allegations are both incorrect and untrue." Some Russian analysts have questioned the loyalty of the administration Moscow established in Chechnya, stressing that its members are seen as traitors by most ordinary Chechens. They have warned that tensions are likely to grow ahead of parliamentary elections due in the region in the coming months, and that the administration could resort to anti-Russian outbursts to bolster its own shaky position. This would embarrass and anger Russia, which insists, despite suffering daily casualties in Chechnya, that life there is returning to normal. Chechnya weekly Volume 6, Issue 23 (June 16, 2005) REBELS' RELATIVES ARE TARGETED Kavkazky Uzel reported on June 13 that there have recently been a number of abductions of relatives of rebels, but that the relatives of those kidnapped are afraid to discuss the cases. "Taking hostage the relatives of Chechen militants has already become the norm," a Grozny resident identified only as Viskhan told the website. "It was long ago approved and gained currency as a tactic of the federal forces and local siloviki. One doesn't have to go far for examples. Some 40 relatives of the former defense minister of Ichkeria Magomed Khambiev were taken hostage; relatives of Aslan Maskhadov and rebel field commander Doku Umarov were abducted. However, instances of relatives of ordinary members of Chechen armed formations being taken hostage do not receive wide publicity, above all because people are afraid to speak openly about it." The website quoted an unnamed human rights activist as saying that relatives of those kidnapped are usually given an ultimatum that they will be freed only if this or that rebel turns himself in. Sometimes the abducted relatives are released after a long period in captivity and multiple interrogations, but relatives of rebels not infrequently simply disappear. An anonymous Chechen NGO staffer told Kavkazky Uzel that the number of such abductions is on the increase. "Even women and underage children are taken hostage," the anonymous NGO worker said. "This tactic is increasingly used by local siloviki. Such an inhuman tactic can lead to the most serious consequences: never-ending vendettas and reciprocal mass destruction of Chechens." Among the examples cited by the website was the April 2 abduction of Duk-Vakha Dadakhaev from his home in the Urus-Martan district village of Gekhi, during which several of his female relatives who tried to prevent the kidnapping were struck with rifle butts. According to Kavkazky Uzel, Dadakhaev had cousins fighting with the rebels, including one by the nom de guerre of Spartak who was killed by security forces. Another incident, which took place in the Shali district village of Novye Atagi, involved the kidnapping of a 13-year-old boy by members of Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov's security service. On May 10, Chechen security forces detained 70-year-old Maret Khutsaeva and teenager Lipa Rashidova, demanding from the former information on the whereabouts of her son, Arbi Khutsaev. The women were freed on condition that Arbi turn himself. Maret Khutsaeva was warned she would be taken into custody again if he failed to surrender. On May 11, unknown armed people abducted Kharon Saidulaev, suspected of having contacts with the separatists, and his son Apti. The son was seized together with his father "with the goal of [exerting] psychological pressure on Kharon in order to get needed information," Kavkazky Uzel wrote. On May 26, the day after a member of one of the security units loyal to the Yamadaev brothers was murdered in the Gudermes district village of Gerzel, members of unidentified Russia power structures kidnapped members of the Sirazhdiev family – two brothers, their sister and the wife of one of the brothers. Their fate remains unknown. (Sulim Yamadaev is commander of the Russian army's Vostok special operations battalion; his brother Ruslan Yamadaev is a State Duma deputy.) Kavkazky Uzel reported on March 14 that the relatives of Aslan Maskhadov who were recently freed after being abducted and held for six months do not want to discuss what happened during their detention. The website quoted an unidentified staffer with the Memorial human rights center as saying that Maskhadov's brother, Lechi, is in "grave condition" while Maskhadov's sister, Buchu Abdulkadyrova, has "serious" health problems as a result of their detention (see Chechnya Weekly, June 8). BEATINGS BECOME ENDEMIC The Memorial human rights center reported on June 15 that the beating of detainees has become endemic in the North Caucasus, Kavazky Uzel reported on June 15. "What is going on in the North Caucasus with those detained on suspicion of terrorism – strange deaths, falls from the windows of prosecutor's offices, now the complaints of [Beslan terrorist attacks suspect Nur-Pashi] Kulaev about beatings – is becoming a system," said Aleksandr Cherkasov of Memorial. He cited the case of Adam Gorchkhanov, who was kidnapped by unknown men in camouflage and masks in the Ingushetian village of Plievo on May 23 (see Chechnya Weekly, June 1). Meanwhile, the Chechen Republic's human rights commissioner, Lema Khasuev, said he has refused to cooperate with Memorial, Interfax reported on June 15. "Memorial's policy is `the worse for Chechnya, the better for Memorial'," he told the June 15 State Council meeting. "That is why I do not cooperate with them. Memorial's managers have only one aim – to work off the money that they received from Western structures." The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights released a report on June 10 which states that "the campaign of harassment and prosecution against Russian human rights NGOs dealing with Chechnya-issues" continues. The Vienna-based group specifically cited the ongoing "legal harassment" of the Nizhny Novgorod-based Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (ORChD), noting that the Nizhny Novgorod Human Rights Society, with whom the ORChD jointly publishes the Pravozashchita newspaper, was ordered on June 3 to halt its activities by the Ministry of Justice (see Chechnya Weekly, January 26 and March 23). REBELS AND FEDERALS CONTINUE TO TRADE BLOWS Fighting between rebel forces and federal troops and their pro-Chechen allies continues unabated. Seven officers of the Tver regional department of the Interior Ministry were shot to death on the border between Chechnya's Kurchaloi and Shali districts on June 9. Kommersant reported the following day that investigators believe the incident occurred when eight officers whose tour of duty was to end on June 15 drove to a wooded area off the Kurchaloi-Avtury highway without a military escort and were ambushed by a rebel unit who fired at their UAZ van with mortars, grenade launchers and assault rifles. Six of the Tver police officers were killed on the spot, while Major Viktor Oleynik, chief of staff of the Kurchaloi district temporary Interior Ministry department, died of his wounds later in the hospital. The van's driver survived the attack. The separatist Daymohk website reported on June 10 that the attack was carried out by "Chechen mujahideen under the command of emir Abdul-Vakhid." Prima-News reported on June 10 that three Chechen policemen were killed on June 8 in the Shelkovsky district when unknown attackers fired on their automobile. According to Daymohk, Chechen rebels have "full control" over the entire Vedeno district "after dark." "The mujahideen move in large groups on horseback," the website reported. "They are fully equipped and well armed. They have assault rifles with optical sites and grenade launchers." As for rebel losses, Prima-News reported that the emir of the Sernovodsk Jamaat, 23-year-old Bersa Babaev, was killed in a June 7 battle between rebels and members of the Nozhai-Yurt district Interior Ministry department that took place in a wooded area three miles from the Sunzhensk district settlement of Assinovskaya. RBK on June 13 quoted Russian military sources as saying that security forces had captured three rebel fighters – one in the Groznensky district village of Alkhan-Kala, the second in Grozny and the third in the Achkoi-Martan district. On June 11, RIA Novosti quoted military sources as saying that a member of group headed by Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basaev had been captured in the Nadterechny district village of Mesker-Yurt. Utro.ru reported on June 13 that Muslim Ocharkhadzhiev, a 22-year-old rebel fighter from the group headed by the field commander Akhmed Avdorkhanov, died when a bomb he was assembling in a house in the Gudermes district village of Komsomolskoe detonated. Ocharkhadzhiev had allegedly passed through a bomb-making training camp run by the late Arab field commander Khattab. MELNIKOVA: OVER 25,000 RUSSIAN SOLDIERS KILLED SINCE 1999 Valentina Melnikova, head of the Committee of Soldiers Mothers of Russia and chairwoman of the United People's Party of Soldiers' Mothers, said that more than 25,000 Russian servicemen have been killed in Chechnya since the second war there began in 1999, Kavkazky Uzel reported on June 11. She also claimed that more than 700 Russian enlisted men and officers have been buried in Chechnya. "There are maps of the republic where these burial places are marked; there is a federal law according to which…money from the budget should be apportioned for the search and exhumation of our children; all of this was ordered by the command of the 58th army, but nothing is being carried out," Melnikova said. The presidential commission for finding those who died and disappeared during the Chechen conflict "now practically does not operate; it has completely died, like our soldiers," she added. "And no one wants know about either it or our guys abandoned in Chechnya by the federal authorities and the president personally – he answers for everything in our country now." Sources in the Russian Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service called Melnikova's figures "exaggerations," Kavkazky Uzel reported. Meanwhile, Sergei Topchy, the deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian Interior Ministry's Internal Troops, said on June 15 that losses among the Internal Troops have fallen this year more than five-fold compared with the same period last year, Ekho Moskvy radio reported. On June 9, Chechnya's military commissar, Said-Selim Tsuev, said there are "no burial grounds of the remains of Russian servicemen" on Chechen territory. "There are crosses installed at the sites of military clashes where people really died, but there are no actual burial grounds," the Regnum news agency quoted him as saying. KULAEV TRIAL PROVIDES NEW BESLAN DETAILS The trial of Nur-Pashi Kulaev, the sole participant in last September's Beslan terrorist act to be captured and put on trial, has yielded fresh testimony that raises questions about the actions of the local and federal authorities. Answering questions from victims of the incident, Kulaev told North Ossetia's Supreme Court that the hostage-takers at Beslan's school No. 1 were in contact with "people from the government" from the first half of the day on September 1 – i.e., immediately after they seized the school – and had put forward demands. The authorities, however, were apparently in no hurry to communicate with the hostage takers. Kavkazky Uzel reported on June 14 that Regina Kusraeva, who was in the school with two of her children, told the court: "While we were sitting in the assembly hall, the terrorists tried to contact the government of the republic [and] the country. The terrorists summoned the director of the school Lidia [Tsalieva], who after a few minutes came back to us and said that no one needs us, no one is picking up the phone – neither in Putin's office or from our [North Ossetian] government." According to Kavkazky Uzel, practically all of the living victims of the terrorist attack have reached the conclusion that it was the "the federals" who "destroyed" the children who died in the incident – over half of the 330 people killed. The website quoted the head of the investigative department of the Interior Ministry branch in North Ossetia's Pravoberezhny district, Elbrus Nogaev, as saying that what happened on September 3 "was not a freeing of hostages," but rather a "military operation." Regina Kusraeva told the court that on the first day of the hostage seizure, one of the hostage takers told the hostages: "Judging by past experience, we suspect that there will be an assault. If the lights go out, everybody lay on the floor, but don't run; they'll kill you." Kusraeva said the terrorists treated the hostages "reasonably" on the first day of the incident, giving them food and allowing them to line up for water. "But on the second day, they told us that they were declaring together with us a dry hunger strike, inasmuch as their demands were not being met," she said. "Then on the third day the assault began. I sat with the children under the window in the assembly hall. There was such heavy [weapons'] fire that I was afraid that it would pierce the walls. Why did that happen? Then one of the terrorists told me: `Get of here; the roof is on fire, you can die.' We ran to the cafeteria; the situation was the same there, and there the militants told us to run out: `Now this part of the building will be fired on; get out of here.' Then they forced the hostages to stand on the windowsills, to tear down the drapery and to wave it, to shout [at them] not to shoot. I myself saw how they were shooting from the streets. I sat with the children on the floor, but in one moment I looked and saw a mountain of corpses on the windowsills. Then, an APC [armored personnel carrier] pulled up, three [soldiers] jumped out and point blank began to shoot those hostages who continued to stand on the windowsills. At that moment I was absolutely not scared of the militants; they were not firing at us. The only thing I feared was that they were going to kill them [the terrorists] and then come in the school and shoot all of us." Susanna Dudieva, the head of the Mothers of Beslan committee who lost her son in the assault on the school on September 3, questioned Kulaev and expressed fear that he might not survive until the end of the investigation. Kulaev indicted that he was being regularly beaten. Fatima Kelekhsaeva, a teacher who lost a daughter in the school, told the court: "I sent my daughter to a state educational facility and am presenting all my claims to the state. And we ask that Kulaev be punished to the fullest extent of the law." On June 2, Kulaev testified that he had heard the leader of the terrorists who seized Beslan's school No. 1, known as the "Colonel," discuss a plan that involved placing trucks rigged with explosives near police and security headquarters in Grozny and the cities of Vladikavkaz and Nazran in North Ossetia and Ingushetia, respectively, MosNews reported. During the June 2 court session, some of the relatives of the victims called for criminal charges to be filed against republican and federal officials and for the passage of a law that would allow relatives of the Beslan terrorists to be punished, newsru.com reported. TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF BUDENNOVSK RAID OBSERVED On June 14, Budennovsk marked the tenth anniversary of the hostage-taking raid led by Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basaev, Russian news agencies reported. According to MosNews, residents of the southern Russian town laid wreaths at monuments to local police officers, who were the first to confront the rebels as they stormed into the city dressed in Russian army uniforms. On June 14, 1995, Basaev's forces seized a large hospital and held more than 1,800 hostages for six days, demanding a cease-fire, an end to the war and the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. Fighting between the raiders and security forces left 129 people dead, including 18 Russian policemen and 17 soldiers, and more than 400 people wounded. Following negotiations with then Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Basaev and his men were allowed to retreat safely back to Chechnya. Basaev and his men then escaped back into Chechnya, using some of the hostages as human shields. A source in the main directorate of the federal Prosecutor General's Office in the Southern Federal District told RIA Novosti on June 13 that during the ten years since the Budennovsk raid, 30 rebels who participated in it have been killed while another 20 participants have been captured and sentenced to long prison terms. According to prosecutors, another 40 participants in the raid remain on the federal wanted list. Investigators believe a total of 195 rebels took part in the raid. On June 13, Audit Chamber Chairman Sergei Stepashin, who was head of the Federal Counter-Intelligence Service (FSK) during the Budennovsk raid, told Channel One television that the raiders had originally planned to seize an airplane in the town of Mineralnye Vody and fly it into the Kremlin in a suicide attack similar to 9/11. Stepashin claimed that Basaev got cold feet and then seized the hospital in Budennovsk. The separatist Chechenpress information agency on June 14 called the Budennovsk raid a "successful operation" that forced the Russian authorities "to listen to the Chechen resistance and start the process of peaceful resolution of the Russian-Chechen war of the 1994-1996 period." --- GROZNY-MOSCOW TRAIN BOMBED
BY RUSSIAN NATIONALISTS? The Moscow Times reported on June 15 that
investigators believe it just as likely radical Russian nationalists
carried out the bombing that derailed a passenger train traveling from
Grozny to Moscow as Chechen rebels. The bomb went off underneath the
train 150 kilometers south of Moscow on June 12, derailing the
locomotive and four passenger cars and injuring three passengers.
Interfax quoted explosive experts as saying that the bomb bore
similarities to the one used in March's attack on Unified Energy Systems
chief Anatoly Chubais just outside Moscow, for which three retired
military officers connected to nationalist organizations were arrested.
One explosive expert said the train bomb was assembled "utterly
unprofessionally." Aleksandr Verkhovsky, a researcher with the
Moscow-based Sova think tank specializing in radical nationalist and
neo-Nazi groups, told the Moscow Times that neo-Nazis appeared to be
most motivated for such |