| Caucasus
Reporting Service Chechnya: Conflict Empties Villages Dozens of mountain settlements are being steadily depopulated by the ongoing conflict. By Umalt Dudayev in Usum-Kotar (CRS No. 274, 17-Feb-05) A narrow, snow-covered dirt road leads to a few deserted houses with broken doors and windows, collapsing roofs and fences. Everything suggests this village has long been abandoned by its residents. This is Usum-Kotar, a tiny village in the alpine Nozhai-Yurt district in the southeast of Chechnya – one of dozens of mountain settlements whose residents have been forced to flee in a process of depopulation barely reported to the outside world. “This community was named after my great-grandfather Usum, who had founded it in the early 1900s,” said Yahya Usumov, 52, who lived in Usum-Kotar before the second Chechen conflict began in 1999. “My grandfather and father lived here, as did my family and I, and my cousins with their families. But we’ve all had to leave. It’s no longer possible to stay in Usum-Kotar.” Usumov lost his wife in the war. Although she died of a heart attack, the villager blames the constant bombing and shelling for wrecking her health. “My wife was only two years younger than me, and had never had health complaints before,” he told IWPR. “The war took her away, like so many other Chechens. There was a lot of shooting and bombing going on all the time. Many people die of heart failure [here] because of all the anxiety, stress and fear. But no one cares.” Usum-Kotar is situated close to a forest, making it vulnerable to Russian air or artillery strikes. The Russian military is suspicious of forested mountain areas in the south, which it believes are used as hiding places by guerrillas loyal to rebel Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, warlord Shamil Basayev, and other commanders. “Since the war began in the autumn of 1999, the Russians have been constantly bombing and shelling the mountain gorges and forests both in our district and across southern Chechnya. They’re still doing it,” said Usumov. “The locals were forced to flee, fearing for their own lives and those of their next of kin. Any village can be targeted at any time. Russian soldiers can break into your home any time, kill or kidnap you or your family members, and then vanish without a trace and no one will catch the perpetrators.” As Chechen mountain villages have no gas or coal, people have to heat their homes with wood - but this has to be gathered in the forest, and few want to stray there. As well as the danger posed by the scores of landmines planted there, villagers run the risk of being captured by the Russian troops who comb the area looking for guerrillas. Traditionally, people in mountain villages lived off the land by cattle farming, beekeeping or growing maize and potatoes. In summer, the men would leave to find seasonal work in Russia, Kazakstan or elsewhere in the Soviet Union. But this kind of life has become impossible. “The troops have driven people away with their bombings, mop-up raids and special operations,” said Usam Baisayev of the Memorial human rights organisation, referring to the house-to-house operations carried out by Russian soldiers and their Chechen allies. “The odd village still has one or two families living in it, but others have been completely depopulated, especially in the districts bordering on Georgia and Dagestan, Shatoi, Itum-Kale, Vedeno and Nozhai-Yurt. Those who can afford it buy housing to quieter parts of Chechnya, up north, others move in with their relatives or friends.” Human rights activists have compiled an incomplete list of more than 20 villages that have been wholly or partially abandoned because of the conflict. Yahya Usumov now lives in his relative’s house in Nozhai-Yurt, further down the valley. He said, “When the war began, they sold this house to me for a little money, and left Chechnya. I consider myself very lucky. My other fellow villagers and friends have it harder. Property prices have gone up sharply, so they can neither find permanent housing, nor return to their homes in the mountains.” Memorial’s Baisayev said, “The exodus from the foothills and mountains peaked in 2001 and continued through 2002, when the cruellest mop-up raids were carried out. “These villages were subjected to the most inhumane treatment. Soldiers rampaged through the communities again and again, breaking into homes, and taking people away. All this was accompanied by incessant shelling and bombing. Villagers had no choice but to flee to more peaceful places on the plains.” Many ordinary Chechens believe the Russian military is pursuing a coordinated policy to drive people out of the mountains as a way of undermining the rebels’ support base. “This theory was prompted by a certain document, which appeared on the internet at the beginning of the second Chechen War,” said Baisayev. “The document, allegedly adopted by Russia’s Security Council, called for all mountain villages between Bamut and Dargo to be liquidated,” he said. The line between the two villages cuts across the map of Chechnya from west to east. “The provenance of that document may be questionable, but subsequently, it was communities south of that line that were targeted in particularly heinous raids, forcing the locals to migrate to the plains,” he said. Most recently, Russian federal troops launched a bomb and rocket attack on a forested area close to the village of Zumsoi on January 14-16. Memorial activists later established that the home of local resident Mahmud Tamayev was destroyed, and that three more locals had been taken away by soldiers. In the “mop-up” raid that followed, federal soldiers allegedly stole cash and valuables from many homes. A similar attack happened in October 2003, and of the village’s 56 homesteads, only 15 are now still inhabited. Second Lieutenant Vladimir Yerofeev of the Russian security services insists there is no coordinated policy to make the residents of mountain villages leave. “This kind of information is just the latest myth-making put out by the Ichkerian [rebel Chechen] propaganda machine,” he said. “From time to time, they make up something new. In the early Nineties, when [pro-independence president Jokhar] Dudayev came to power, the Chechen government scared people with rumours of the imminent deportation of all Chechens to Siberia or elsewhere in Russia. People who had suffered deportation in 1944 believed this, of course, and backed the Dudayev regime.” However, Yerofeev conceded that life is much harder for Chechens in the mountains than on the plains. “They are facing lots of problems, but these… have built up over years and even decades. The military operations in Chechnya have simply made those problems more acute.” Salavdi Eskiev from the village of Shatoi partially agrees. “I used to work for the government during the Soviet era, so I know what life is like in the mountain villages,” he said. “It was the same then as it is now, minus the shooting and mop-up raids. People had no work, no gas, no electricity, and took their water from nearby springs.” Eskiev said that for example when the Chechens were allowed to return from exile in the Fifties, the residents of the mountain village of Chai-Mokhk were not allowed to resettle there. “The only person who had ever made it back to his ancestral home in Chai-Mokhk was a distant relative of mine, who had to get a job as a forest ranger in order to do that. He and his family lived there all by themselves till the start of the war in 1999. But he too has since left.” Umalt Dudayev is the pseudonym of a Chechen journalist and IWPR contributor. © Institute for War & Peace Reporting Alkhanov Confirms, Condemns Kindapping of Maskhadov's Relatives Created: 18.02.2005 MosNews Chechen President Alu Alkhanov confirmed that relatives of the self-proclaimed Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov had been kidnapped. Speaking at a press conference for foreign reporters in Moscow on Friday, Alkhanov said criminal proceedings have been instigated in connection with the incident. He condemned the kidnapping. "I am against kidnapping as a citizen and a president. There is no difference whether they are Maskhadov's or Alkhanov's or Kadyrov's relatives." Akhmad Kadyrov was Alkhanov's predecessor killed on May 9, and his son Ramzan is now first deputy prime minister of Chechnya. According to the Memorial human rights center, eight of Maskhadov's relatives were kidnapped in December 2004 by local forces controlled by Ramzan Kadyrov. Alkhanov was quoted by Russian Information Agency Novosti as saying that terrorist attacks continue in Chechnya despite a ceasefire proclaimed by the separatists. The president called Maskhadov's ceasefire declaration a new way of reminding people that he exists. He blamed Maskhadov for terrorist attacks inside and outside Chechnya. "If someone thinks that Maskhadov is separate from the terrorist attacks, he is deeply mistaken. Nothing is committed without Maskhadov's knowledge including terrorist attacks in and outside the republic," the Chechen president said. He called separatist leaders Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev to leave the Chechen people alone and asked rebel gunmen to lay down their arms and return to a normal life. Speaking of Arab mercenaries among the rebel gunmen, Alkhanov said they have nothing in common with the Arab world. "The role of natives from Arab countries in Chechen illegal armed forces is not insignificant, but those scumbags have nothing in common with Arabs or people who adhere to Islam," he said. He mentioned that people of various nationalities take part in attacks. "The Chechen people have deep respect for Arabs and the Arab world." Alkhanov did not rule out that people "involved in the collapse of the Soviet Union" in 1991 are also involved in the "events in the Chechen republic". "The period from 1991 to 2000 was very complicated in Chechnya's history. If (first Chechen president and rebel leader Dzhokhar) Dudayev had dared to hold a referendum, the people of Chechnya would have said it does not want to separate from Russia," Alkhanov said. February 20th 2005 · Prague Watchdog Some Chechens obliged to contribute to Kadyrov's memorial Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus - Some Chechen public sector employees have been obliged to make contributions for a memorial to Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen leader assassinated last spring in Grozny. They have to contribute 1,000 roubles from their salaries to the Kadyrov commemorative fund, which will finance the construction of the memorial. Sergei Abramov, the Moscow-backed Premier of the Chechen Republic, earlier said that the memorial will be built in the center of the Chechen capital at Kadyrov Square on the banks of the Sunzha River. "The Chechen government has already put out a public tender for this project of the memorial complex," Abramov stated. Kadyrov, a former Chechen guerrilla and religious leader, was picked by the Kremlin to lead the republic after the second Chechen war started in 1999. Following rigged elections in October 2003, he was proclaimed President of the Chechen Republic. On May 9, 2004 he died in a bomb attack in a Grozny 21.02.2005 Attacking human rights activists For a long time already human rights activists and journalists have said that Ramzan Kadyrov and his men are behind abductions in Chechnya. Besides, according to them, these «state structures» are to blame for most documented abductions. Until recently Kadyrov made no attempts to react to such accusations. On the contrary: he was proud of such image of «a cruel politician." By the way, this is the only «image» suiting him – all of his statements have always been at least strange and senseless. Frankly speaking, he lacks eloquence. Such lack of eloquence is compensated by bandit actions of «brave men," heavily armed and acting with total impunity both in Chechnya and on the territory of neighboring republics. Such «freedom» is the last thing they have. Being a gang in fact, they call themselves «the presidential security service» or «Kadyrov’s special forces." Many have an impression that Moscow likes the actions of these gangs. However, a long awaited victory in Chechnya is not even in sight regardless of such «harsh measures» taken by «the Kadyrovites." The only visible result: growing criticism from the side of human rights activists, who – we believe – have been heard in Europe. For official European structures this criticism is like mosquito noise – quiet, but steady. And finally Europe had «to react» – Gil-Robles had a long meeting with Russia’s Prosecutor General Ustinov. According to Tatiana Lokshina, the program director of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Gil-Robles asked Ustinov about M. Magomadov, a lawyer and human rights activist. Ustinov listened attentively to the European guest and did not shock him with his own opinion on how to deal with family members of «terrorists." On the contrary, after their conversation Ustinov dared to make an impossible step: his people are said to have made an examination at the home of «vice premier» Kadyrov openly accused of Magomadov’s abduction by human rights activists. Although the lost lawyer was found, Ustinov had a long and unpleasant conversation with Kadyrov during this blitz-visit. Usually talkative, the prosecutor general declined to inform the press about his visit to «the vice premier," the topic of their conversation, or the reason for such actions. This way or another, human rights activist and lawyer Magomadov «suddenly» reappeared. However, few believe in his story that no abduction took place and he simple «had decided to wait until the troubled time was over with his relatives in a neighboring republic." Obviously, this story is the price for his release. Most probably details will become known soon. Until they are made public, Ramzan Kadyrov decided to attack (this is the best defense!) human rights activists. If previously in private conversations he threatened them with «disappearance," now Kadyrov is going «to make human rights activists accountable» for charges against him. This is another serious symptom that Moscow is gradually becoming more displeased with Kadyrov. Prior to that there were rumors that «new Chechnya’s president» Alkhanov would be guarded by people having nothing to do with the clan of Kadyrovs. Besides, it was decided to recruit them outside Chechnya. However, such rumors have suddenly disappeared as they surfaced. According to high ranking officials of the puppet police, Kadyrov reproached Alkhanov and warned him about possible consequences of such freedom of action. As a result, Alkhanov said «he is very pleased with the work of his vice premier» and that all the rumor about Kadyrov’s involvement in abductions – were mean provocations. Clearly, having made such statement Alkhanov appeared in a stupid and unpleasant situation: obviously, the list of Kadyrov’s crimes will be long and shocking. And when «the vice premier» will be made accountable for his actions, Alkhanov is to be reminded of his words. Today, it is clear – Kadyrov’s statement about his decision to file a suit against human rights activists is nothing but a hollow threat. Because even a perfunctory investigation into his activities will put him in the dock, as well as the whole system of Russia’s «state power» in Chechnya. What is fraught with the tribunal in The Hague – not subordinate to «the Basman justice» of Russia. The Chechen Times http://www.chechentimes.org/en/comments/?id=26437 Kavkaz Center Invaders and collaborators seize Chechen children Council of Non-Government Organizations (CNGO) reported that on February 16 Russian invaders and Kadyrov’s collaborators captured and took away a 15-year-old schoolboy from the village of Belgatoi, Shali District of Chechnya. The locals reported that a 9th grade student, Anzor Khudayev, was captured not too far from his home. The formal reason for the kidnapping was that the child had no identification documents on his person. On February 15 during a punitive raid in the village of Chechen-Aul the invaders captured and took away a young man. This report came from the man’s relatives. They said that the invaders and Kadyrov’s collaborators entered the village in several vehicles, broke into the house where the victim was residing and took him away without giving any explanations whatsoever. The victim’s whereabouts are unknown. Upon the request from the relatives, the last name of the victim is not disclosed. Meanwhile Council of Non-Government Organizations (CNGO) of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI) reported that Russian invaders and Kadyrov’s collaborators took a 20-year-old local hostage during a punitive raid in the village of Baitarki, Nozhai-Yurt District. This report came from one of the young man’s relatives. He told that the raiders entered the village in several vehicles, broke into the house where the young man was living and took him away without giving any explanations whatsoever. Kavkaz Center 2005-02-22 |