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Monday, June 20, 2005. Issue 3190. Page 3. Refugees Protest Abductions The Associated Press Dmitry Nikiforov / AP Photo: Chechens who fled overnight from the village of Borozdinovskaya sitting in a camp near Kizlyar, Dagestan, on Friday. KIZLYAR, Dagestan — Residents of a village in eastern Chechnya who have fled into Dagestan to protest what they described as a brutal security raid accused the authorities on Friday of abducting their relatives. Zukhrizhan Bilalova, 34, said that masked men earlier this month had taken away her 45-year-old husband Said and his 40-year-old brother Shakhban. Nothing had been heard of them since. Ramzan Magomedov, 23, said that security forces had blockaded their village on June 4 and forced all the men into the village school. "They accused of us being accomplices to the rebels, giving them food," he said, adding that his 26-year-old brother Akhmed had been taken away. Villagers say 11 people were abducted and a 77-year-old man was killed during the violent raid by Chechen and federal forces. The Borozdinovskaya village residents crossed overnight into Dagestan with their belongings loaded onto dump trucks and other vehicles, and set up a makeshift tent camp in an open field several hundred meters from the border. Valentin Ivanov, a police officer in the nearby Dagestani town of Kizlyar, said the refugees were pushing for a meeting with regional officials to discuss the security raid. State-owned oil company Rosneft confirmed Friday that its representative in Chechnya, Ilyas Magomadov, had been abducted on Thursday as he was returning to his home village from Grozny. A press officer at the company who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, could not confirm a report in the Kommersant business daily that the abductors had first demanded ransom of $500,000, then $200,000. http://www.gazeta.ru/2005/06/20/oa_161234.shtml (my quick tr) Sweeping under after zachistka Podchistka posle zachistki by Ilya Zhegulov [passage omitted] The inhabitants of this Chechen village (predominantly ethnic Daghestanis) in their majority already left their houses and together with their household goods came on the trucks to the border with Daghestan. In the city district of Kizlyar, the highway Makhachkala-Astrakhan serves as a conditional border . The inhabitants went to one side of the road, which lies in Daghestan, and they set up their camp there. So far more than 500 inhabitants of the village of Borozdinovskaya have been living on their belongings, covered with polyethylene foil. For all the conveniences in the camp on the outskirts of Kizlyar there are only six tents, a cistern with water and some latrines built by the refugees. In spite of these horrible conditions, those, who arrived, flatly reject to return, moreover, to the place of this spontaneous camp come many new Dagestani families, who survived at the Chechen village after the cruel zachistka. Moreover in Daghestan itself many local residents after events in Borozdinovskaya began to call to take vengeance on the Chechens. According to the refugees, on the 4th of June in the middle of day, into the village, where mainly live the Avars, resettled here in the beginning of 1950's from the mountain Tsuntinsky and Tsumadinsky districts of Daghestan, on one APC [BTR] and on several dozens of vehicles arrived approximately four hundred armed people in the camouflage uniform. These men spoke in Chechen, and some locals, who understand the Chechen language, listening to their conversations asserted, that this was the Vostok battalion of Sulim Yamadayev. They took all the men older than 15 into the courtyard of a rural school and they began to beat them. According to the eyewitnesses, on those who were lying on the ground they simply walked on them with their feet. When the woman went to the school, they weren't allowed to approach them, they frightened them by shots into the air and with explosions of smoke grenades. Towards the evening into the village on the white jeeps drove up some unidentified [men] in the uniforms and as their response to a question of the local residents, who attacked them, they said: "Everyone here, except Ramzan Kadyrov". Late in the evening the men were let go. In the village by that time two houses got burnt out, it was possible to extinguish the third one set to another house. In one of the houses an old man was found killed, while in another - a human remains. They have taken 11 more local residents with themselves. According to the data of local residents, they took away ten Avars and one Russian with the surname Lachko, who came to his friend from Kizlyar to swim in the local lake. What kind of units have actually carried out this first cruel zachistka in this small village [stanitsa], among those who more or less satisfactorily survived both wars, no one, until now, can say. In the MVD of Chechnya they said to a Gazeta Ru correspondent that this, until now, is unknown and a special commission has been investigating it. Now for some reason no one recalls about the fact that those disappeared eleven inhabitants have been in the hands of the Chechen police. This was already reported on the 6th of June to the Interfax agency by a source in the law-enforcement agencies of the republic. According to him, eleven inhabitants of settlement Borozdinovskaya were "detained on the suspicion of complicity to the boyeviks, who committed the attack on the head of local administration". "With those detained now, some investigation measures are being conducted, their participation to the crime is being checked, and a data about their complicity to the boyeviks", declared the source in the Chechen police. The very same also noted that with the unexplained circumstances in the settlement some four apartment houses got burnt, in one of which the corpse of a local resident was found. The local residents assert that this pogrom arranged the Vostok battalion. A day before of the zachistka, in the village, forester Tagir Akhmatov whose son serves in Yamadayev's battalion was killed. Yamadayev himself always promised blood vengeance on all the boyeviks, who attack his soldiers, and he usually keeps his word. The inhabitants of the village assure moreover, that they saw Khamzat Gairbekov among those, who carried out the operation, the chief of the Vostok's intelligence. Yamadayev's unit in general categorically denies its connection with the events in the village. One of the Yamadayevs brothers, Deputy of the Gosduma Ruslan Yamadayev, reported to Gazeta.Ru that the soldiers of the Vostok stayed in Borozdinovskya for only 15 minutes and they didn't carry out any zachistka there. He said that no one was detaining its inhabitants, and with the whole thing what had occurred in the village, the Vostok has no relations to it at all. "This is a smartly planned provocation in order to paint the Vostok battalion in the bad light - stated Yamadayev to Gazeta Ru, after adding that those 11 alleged detainees, it's possible to say, disappeared without a trace, because no one knows, who cleaned up the village. Now the deputy went to Chechnya in order to participate in the investigation of events, and he indicates that his brother is ill and in no way he could assume his participation in the events in Borozdinovskaya. The commander is ill and the work goes on It became known on Monday morning that in the village of Dyshne-Vedeno, in a house on Sadovaya Street, the soldiers of the spetsnaz Vostok battalion shot down three boyeviks there. After the shoot-out, on the corpses "from the place of the incident three Kalashnikov automatic rifles and ammunition have been withdrawn ". Meanwhile, the RIAN agency reported that those boyeviks belonged to a band-group of certain Musliyev, a.k.a Abrek, previously never mentioned in the Chechen communiques. 20 JUNE 16:06 Displaced Chechen villagers stage protest in Dagestan Jun 21, 2005 Text of report by Russian Ren TV on 21 June [Presenter] A special operation in the Chechen village of Borozdinovskaya in which four houses were burnt down, one person was killed and 11 people went missing was carried out by a subunit of the Russian Defence Ministry. This was announced by the secretary of the Dagestani Security Council, Akhmednabi Magdigadzhiyev. He said that they [the subunit] were people with authorized powers, wearing uniforms and carrying weapons on a mission to destroy terrorists. The Russian military has not confirmed this. A demonstration in support of the residents of Borozdinovskaya who were forced to move to Dagestan was held today in Dagestan's Kizlyarskiy District. Over 2,000 people took part. They are demanding a rapid investigation into the incident in Borozdinovskaya. Otherwise they are ready to hold an open-ended protest on [Dagestani capital city] Makhachkala's central square. Our correspondent Vadim Mekertychev is now on the line. Vadim, what is the situation now in the refugee camp? [Correspondent] Good evening, Vitaliy. Let me correct your information a little first. Over 5,000 people took part in the demonstration in Kizlyarskiy District. As well as residents of Borozdinovskaya who had to leave their home village, there were also residents of surrounding towns and settlements, including Khasavyurt. The majority of the demonstrators were young people between 25 and 30 years ago. They all want the Dagestani authorities to carry out a thorough investigation, as you already said, because one person died and 11 went missing. It is still not known where they were taken or who these people were. The view of official Makhachkala that they were Defence Ministry soldiers or special forces from the GRU [Main Military Intelligence Directorate] has not been confirmed. People are naming names but only in private conversations. They will not say them on camera. There are currently two opinions as to what the Dagestani authorities should say. The opinion at the demonstration was voiced by State Duma deputy from Dagestan Gadzhi Makhachev. [Makhachev] Our leaders should quickly provide accommodation for them, for children and the elderly, in sports halls, resorts or wherever they can - let them decided - and only then investigate. Having left people outside in the woods, in a bog, under the rain, they are putting together commissions and bringing people together. They should first provide them with temporary accommodation and only then investigate this incident. [Correspondent] The demonstrators are also convinced that neither the Defence Ministry nor the GRU special forces have anything to do with this harsh sweep that happened in Borozdinovskaya. What's more, no Dagestani officials have come to Kizlyar with the exception of the interior minister who demonstrators do not think is sorting out anything. It is now quite a long time since the operation was carried out but an emergency session of the Dagestani State Council has only been scheduled for tomorrow. In official Makhachkala they have a completely different theory to the one voiced at the demonstration today. This is what Magdigadzhiyev said. [Magdigadzhiyev] The demands made today by the residents of Borozdinovskaya that they be given land in Dagestan and everything else they need are not acceptable. Source: Ren TV, Moscow, in Russian 1530 gmt 21 Jun 05 BBC Mon KOMMERSANT Daily, JUNE 21, 2005 Kozak Takes Control to Oppose Kidnapping Following numerous cases of kidnapping in Chechnya, President's Envoy to the South Federal District Dmitry Kozak stepped in, having taken control of activities of investigators and prosecutors in the district. He ordered to carry out a full-scale checking of all cases of kidnapping with particular focus on Borozdinovskaya village. In Rostov-on-Don, Dmitry Kozak held a meeting attended by officials from the prosecutors' office, interior ministry, federal security service, a source with the envoy's office told Kommersant. The highlight was kidnapping in Chechnya with particular focus on the accident in Boozdinovskaya village occured June 3. As a result of the operation held by Sulim Yamadaev's Vostok squadron of special forces, 11 Avars missed from the village, a body of a dead Avar was found in one of the four burnt-to-ashes houses, the locals said. The destiny of kidnapped people is still unknown. Around a thousand of Borozdinovskaya residents moved to the Kizlyarsky District, Dagestan, on Sunday, refusing to return until investigation nears its end. The conflict between the Avars and Chechen Akkins, residents of villages located near the Dagestan-Chechnya border, was unleashed in 1999, in time when Shamil Basaev's squadrons encroached upon the territory of Dagestan. Then, the Avars used to keep down the Akkins of the Khasavyurtovsk District. It is different now with the Akkins apparently taking vengeance on the Avars. To shed light on the conflict, the authorities of Chechnya and Dagestan have established a special commission headed by Chechen National Policy, Information and Foreign Ties Minister Movsar Ibragimov and member of Dagestan's State Council Elmady Zhabrailov. The Chechens have been continuously reiterating they are ready to set off losses incurred by Borozdinovskaya residents. Dmitry Kozak stepped in as well. He ordered enforcement officers to examine all cases of kidnapping in Chechnya and to report to him personally. The military prosecutors are probing into the criminal case concerning kidnapping and killing people in Borozdinovskaya. Unable to name the guilty, the prosecutors only said that the father of one of Vostok fighters had been killed before the operation. "I went to Chechnya to check into the matter," State Duma's deputy Ruslan Yamadaev told Kommersant. "I think it is too early to blame the fighters of Vostok battalion headed by my brother Sulim," Yamadaev stressed, adding that somebody might have attempted to compromise the fighters to attain certain political purposes. Direct commander of Sulim Yamadaev's battlion, Sergey Suravikin also declared he never doubts the innocence of Vostok fighters. by www.kommersant.com http://www.lenta.ru/news/2005/06/20/beslan/ (tr. by M.L.) The North Ossetian Commission: The hostages got killed as a result of firing at the school The majority of Beslan hostages perished because of fault of the servicemen who stormed the school, came to the conclusion the commission, which was created in North Ossetia to investigate this terrorist act. The fact is that the most of hostages perished as a result of the fire and caving of the school's ceiling in the school's gymnasium. But as stated to Kommersant Stanislav Kesayev, the speaker's deputy of the parliament of North Ossetia, who heads the republic's commission, ["The investigation doesn't want to see this" : by Olga Allenova http://www.kommersant.ru/k-vlast/get_page.asp?page_id=20052434-9.HTM ] the ceiling caught fire and was brought down because the servicemen were shooting at the gymnasium from their rocket propelled grenade launchers. Kesayev confirmed that he personally saw how the tanks were firing at the school. According to him, for this there can not be explanation whatsoever, just as there's not explanations for the use of the grenade launchers and Shmel [Bumblebee] flamethrowers. "Indeed, this fact could never be hidden - as not some evil ghosts brought to the place of this tragedy and threw up there those tubes from Shmels [flamethrowers]. Especially as the fire, which was in the school, attests to the fact that it did break out because of those flamethrowers. The military servicemen, by the way, confirm this too" - said the parliamentarian. Kesayev considers that the official investigation simply does not want to see some things. In particular, according to him, it has ignored the information tha the first note handed by the terrorists contained the their demand to withdraw the troops from Chechnya. "This note was written crudely, on a student's notebook, but it was written", - commented the representative of commission, reporting that the investigation doesn't have this note. The parliamentarian expressed the opinion that a part of the hostages was killed by those who were liberating the school, since the loss of 10 Alpha and Vympel men has lead to brutal actions of their collegues, and I know that they "worked" already on every move, they fired from the underbarrel grenade launchers". That's why on who precisely was running out of the school's building , they, in Kesayev's opinion, "no longer reacted, because this was the battle, and all the more when your friends, the children who you had nursed perish, at these moments already other instincts react". The results of investigation don't satisfy the republic's commission. According to Kesayev, "when the investigation selects immediately one theory - it's known for us from Kulayev's statements that there was 32 terrorists, two of them were women - well this, you know, as with a poor student: when you don't know how to solve a problem, you look at the end of book for an answer and you get a solution for it ". He doubts that no one from the their terrorists couldn't escape. Referring to the statements of hostages, the parliamentarian mentions, that some terrorists in the school had been seen by many hostages, but among of the killed people, those who had their appearance couldn't be found.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also : "The crime and testimony" by Zaur Farniyev and Olga Allenova Kommersant Vlast No 24 (627) 20.06.05 http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.html?docId=585981 The analytical weekly Kommersant-Vlast' has published an interview http://www.kommersant.ru/k-vlast/get_page.asp?page_id=20052434-9.HTM with Stanislav Kesayev, the speaker of the North Ossetian parliament, in which he expresses his concern and misgivings about the version of the events at Beslan on September 1 2004 presented by the public prosecutor. The interview is too long to translate in its entirety, but one part of it, where Kesayev talks about the failure of certain "big generals" and key security personnel who attended the seizure to appear in public, negotiate with the hostage-takers, or make any statement at all, is of particular interest: You mean the deputy directors of the FSB, Vladimir Anisimov and Vladimir Pronichev, and the head of the Southern Federal Region Interior Ministry Directorate (GU MVD), Mikhail Pankov? - Certainly. They were there, but we know nothing of them. And whereas Prime Minister Chernomyrdin talked to Shamil Basayev (in 1995, at Budyonnovsk. - - "Vlast'"), with these [hostage-takers] no one talked – at any rate, none of the key people were there. It may be that this was an intentional tactic, but experience has shown that it is an unsuccessful tactic for combating terrorism and dealing with one's citizens. It may possibly make sense in Israel. There's a higher level of professionalism there, and the circumstances are different. There it's in their subconscious, they know that Palestinian terrorism is Israel's enemy. But what about with us in Russia? We're constantly trying to say that all the blame lies with international terrorism, in which there's some Chechen and Ingush factor. But in reality it's a consequence of the policy of the recognition or non-recognition of Chechnya, and a form of protest and an attempt to undermine the existing system. Translated by David McDuff Monday, 20 June 2005 Russia: Police Brutality Shows Traces Of Chechnya By Julie A. Corwin Russia -- police arrest Nat-Bols (April 2004) Stavropol Krai's human rights ombudsman Aleksei Selyukov last week sent a complaint to the krai prosecutor about alleged massive violations of human rights in the town of Ivanovskoe in the Kochygbeevskoe Raion on the night of 11 June, when Interior Ministry troops reportedly rounded up more than 30 local youths at the town's disco, yufo.ru and Regnum reported on 17 June. The police, armed with rubber truncheons and submachine guns, loaded the youths -- most of whom were between the ages of 14 and 23 -- onto a police bus and took them to a local police station, gazeta.ru reported. There they were forced to face the wall with their hands in the air without speaking. They were searched, their mobile phones taken away, and their passport information was taken down. According to some of those detained, the police intimidated them, shoving them and striking them in such a way that they wouldn't leave bruises, gazeta.ru reported. The police then allegedly illegally photographed and fingerprinted the young men. Then after about two hours, they were released into dead of the night to walk home or hitch rides back to their village more than 15 kilometers away. Local residents believe the event was an act of revenge by the police. According to gazeta.ru, a 29-year-old police officer was knifed to death in the neighboring town of Nevinnomysskoe in May. Local residents believe the police officers thought a raid on the Ivanovskoe disco would send a message to all the young people in the area. Nearly a year has elapsed since Russia experienced the terrorist takeover by Chechen fighters of a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, that left more than 300 people dead. At a 9 June RFE/RL briefing, Tanya Lokshina, chairwoman of the Moscow-based Demos Center for Information and Research, and Yuri Dzhibladze, president of the Moscow-based Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, argued that Beslan has become Russia's analogue to 11 September 2001, and federal and local authorities, at the initiative of President Vladimir Putin, have described Russia as a "fortress under siege." The dominant message to the public is that Russian society must consolidate in the face of the terrorist enemy. In this environment, opposition and criticism are labeled "traitorous." Russian human rights groups, which are often the recipient of financial support from abroad, have been subjected to increasing scrutiny by the authorities, particularly those groups that deal with sensitive issues such as torture and other forms of abuse by police and the security services. As a result, the attention of such groups is being diverted away from such monitoring and toward defending themselves. According to a survey conducted by the Levada Analytical Center in May, approximately 70 percent of respondents said they or their relatives could fall victim to illegal actions by law enforcement officers. In the same study, 73 percent of physicians and nurses providing primary medical assistance to victims of accidents or assaults said they believe the problem of police violence against detainees is quite serious. The recent police raid in Ivanovskoe appears to replicate in miniature similar police raids in other parts of Russia. In February and March, the Tver Oblast town of Bezhetsk experienced two police raids in which police allegedly beat large numbers of people. One of the Bezhetsk raids was also carried out in a local disco and was rumored to have been motivated by revenge after some local young men reportedly tried to free an acquaintance who had earlier been taken into custody for "hooliganism." In December, there were massive police raids in Blagoveshchensk, Bashkortostan, where local police have been accused of illegally detaining and assaulting hundreds of local residents. Similarly, in Blagoveshchensk, an initial theory about the raids in that city was that they were conducted to punish city residents after three police officers were beaten up shortly before the raids began. According to a report published in March by Demos and Public Verdict in March on the law enforcement system, one of the primary reasons for police officers violating human rights is to protect the interests and the status of their colleagues. According to the report, "most frequently law enforcement officers use their authority and means of coercion to penalize individuals who have acted against other law enforcement officers, as well as to help their colleagues avoid liability for violations that they have committed." Speaking at the RFE/RL briefing, Lokshina commented that the only reason the Russian public came to hear about Bezhetsk was because the raids occurred so close in time to the media storm about the raids in Blagoveshchensk. "We investigated the situation in Bezhetsk quite carefully," Lokshina said. "The only reason we know about Bezhetsk is because Blagoveshchensk was so bad, so scandalous, and attracted so much media attention that because of it small-scale events such as Bezhetsk became known. I am quite sure that events like Bezhetsk -- not a thousand people, but a couple dozen -- are actually quite common in Russia." While investigations about the incidents in Bezhetsk and Blagoveshchensk are still under way, Dzhibladze concluded that the roots of such occurrences can be found not in Tver Oblast or Bashkortostan, but in Chechnya. "One of the clear roots of police violence is Chechnya," Dzhibladze said. "[Police] troops and officers are rotating there every half a year. They go back home and bring the experience of violence with impunity. The government is promoting such impunity -- there have been just a few cases where officers have been punished for crimes against civilians in Chechnya, out of -- you can imagine -- hundreds of cases in two wars. This gives a powerful, powerful signal to state agencies and forces that they are immune from prosecution whatever they do." To support their comparison between the recent police raids and the conflict in Chechnya, Lokshina noted that a human rights lawyer working in Blagoveshchensk recently uncovered an internal Interior Ministry (MVD) document that described how police in "emergency circumstances" should organize "filtration centers" for the detention of suspects and their associates. "The lawyer found a certain MVD document stamped 'DSP,' or 'for internal use,' in which it is described how law enforcement should handle emergency circumstances -- not emergency situations as is already stipulated in the relevant law -- but some mysterious emergency circumstances. Within these mysterious emergency circumstances, the police have to organize filtration centers. It's there on paper. It's exactly what has been going on in Chechnya for years and now we suddenly find out that in any Russian city there can be a filtration center." http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/6/DA84EB4B-5F23-4876-8D61-BC4D6F4F6260.html eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 14/6/2005 'Fighting Wahhabism' Several days ago, a Chechen police officer beat a 14-year-old girl for wearing a headscarf. "This took place in the district police department in Grozny's Zavodskoi district on 9 June, Taisa Isayev, chief of the Information Centre of the Council of Chechen Nongovernmental Organisations, told Caucasian Knot. The girl's relatives (she is resident in Prigorodnoye, Grozny district) asked not to mention their names for fear of repressions and harassment on the part of law enforcement and security agencies." "The girl's mother says she came to the Zavodskoi District Division of Internal Affairs together with her daughter to get a passport for the girl as she had grown 14 a while before that. The daughter came in, while her mother waited for her outside. In a while, the woman heard her daughter cry. She came in running and saw one police officer cruelly beat her daughter with a truncheon calling her "Wahhabi" and verbally abusing her. Only the girl's mother was able to stop this 'arm of the law,'" she says. The girl's condition is grave, according to Taisa Isayev's information. Her relatives know the name of the police officer, but they are not going to take any steps for fear of possible negative implications of such steps. UNESCO to open psychological rehabilitation centers in Chechnya MOSCOW, June 20 (RIA Novosti) - UNESCO intends to open psychological rehabilitation centers in Chechnya, spokesman for the UNESCO office in Moscow Dendev Badarch said Monday. "UNESCO will hopefully open psychological centers in Chechnya next year," he said. The centers, although considered a separate project, will be implemented and financed within the UNESCO framework, he said. According to Badarch, UNESCO is helping restore the education system in Chechnya. "UNESCO is currently involved in an education project in Chechnya. It implies professional training of school headmasters and teachers who have had no opportunity to improve their skills for ten years," Badarch said. "We will hold a series of seminars involving some 400 school headmasters and teachers." He said 179 people had taken part in similar seminars last year. Chechen teachers are interested in this program and are eager to get additional training, Badarch said. UNESCO helped prepare three textbooks for Chechen schools, including books on national aspects, the Chechen language and culture and history, he said. UNESCO allocated $1 million for the project, half of which has already been used.