Russian Soldiers and Chechen
police blamed for disappearances
April 25, 2003
VLADIKAVKAZ - Officials in Chechnya's Moscow-backed administration accused
both Russian soldiers and Chechen police on Thursday of involvement in a
wave of civilian disappearances that have belied the Kremlin's claims that normality
is returning to the war-shattered region.
Rudnik Dudayev, the chief of Chechnya's Security Council, called a meeting to
discuss the disappearances. Of all the military and law enforcement officials
invited, only newly appointed Chechen Interior Minister Ali Alkhanov attended.
"By ignoring the meeting, they have shown their attitude to civil power," Dudayev
said.
Some 215 people have been illegally detained or kidnapped in Chechnya since the
beginning of the year, Dudayev said. He noted that 46 of the cases had occurred
since last month's constitutional referendum, which the Kremlin and its loyalists
have presented as a key step toward peace.
"The overwhelming majority of these people are law-abiding citizens," Dudayev
was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
He placed the most blame on Russian servicemen, "who enter populated areas at
night in armored vehicles whose license plates are covered with paint and take
people without identifying themselves and without saying where they are taking
them," Interfax reported. However, he said that the Chechen police force also
was at fault for "not preventing illegal detentions, whether by bandits or the
military."
The rising incidence of disappearances "reduces the efforts made by the republic's
administration to achieve stability to nothing," Dudayev said.
Alkhanov complained that neither he nor the local administration heads were informed
in advance of military sweeps for rebels and their collaborators.
"A mechanism must be worked out against this lawlessness," he told the meeting.
Interfax quoted Shamil Burayev, the administration head in the Achkhoi-Martan
district, as saying the Russian forces would not have to conduct the sweeps if
the Chechen police were doing their job and apprehending criminals. Two other
administration heads, from the Kurchaloi district and the Staropromyslovsky neighborhood
in the capital Grozny, said the police themselves were in on the disappearances.
"Why are the streets full of cars without license plates and with darkened windows,
in which policemen are sitting?," Kurchaloi head Makkal Taramov was quoted as
saying.
Four Russian soldiers were killed and nine injured in rebel attacks across Chechnya
over the past 24 hours, said a Chechen government official who spoke on condition
of anonymity. One Chechen policeman was killed and three others were killed in
shootouts with rebels, he said.
In the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia, police detained three Chechens
and confiscated 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of the explosive hexogen and two guns
they had in their car, Interfax-Military News reported.