Chechnya - War Against Terrorism Or Violating Human Rights?

Mr. Nimh. I'm sure you are informed about the last PACE's resoution about Chechnya. Can't you comment it?

Radio Liberty has said about a compromise: the PACE doesn't issue a the "bad" resolution and Russia doesn't leave the PACE Cool

. It reminds me a good joke.

One guy tells his friend: "Yesterday I faced my boss with a choice: either he increases my salary or I leave the work." - "And what happened then?" - "We agreed to compromise: he doesn't increase my salary and I don't leave the work."

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Docent P wrote:

Mr. Nimh. I'm sure you are informed about the last PACE's resoution about Chechnya. Can't you comment it?

Radio Liberty has said about a compromise: the PACE doesn't issue a the "bad" resolution and Russia doesn't leave the PACE . It reminds me a good joke.

One guy tells his friend: "Yesterday I faced my boss with a choice: either he increases my salary or I leave the work." - "And what happened then?" - "We agreed to compromise: he doesn't increase my salary and I don't leave the work."

<smiles>

Well, what is there to say, huh ... the trouble of international organisations - always compromising between the principles they've been founded to uphold and enforce and the reality of power politics ... might still makes right to some degree.

Still I tend to be quite happy for the achievements of organisations like PACE - at least they keep the more principled elements of foreign policy on the agenda, even if in day-to-day politics, they're forced to enforce them inconsistently.

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What did I try telling here. The problem is that the PACE had been going to ask Putin to delay the referendum about the new "Chechen Constitution". Of course the Kremlin would conduct it independently of any PACE's resolution so these guys had a good opportunity to prove their democratic principes condemnig this useless comedy without any risk. What a great diplomatic monster must have been comrade Rogozin if he alone managed to defeat the total Europe.

Then two words about Rogozin: a former Comsomol (The Union of Young Communists) leader now is a member of the so called People Party and it's leader Kharitonov's aidman. Kharitonov is famous with his endless and hopeless war against homosexuals - every his speech appeals to arrest these bastards with examples from Stalin's and Hitler's practice. As one Russian observer said Kharitonov is a Duma's comedian whose task is preventing any serious discussion. Seemly he does his job very well - a year ago he was promoted an FSBist colonel. Personally Rogozin is also famous with his hand-to-hand battles in Duma and pouring water upon his collegues.

How did he manage to convince all the deputies? As I saw all his speeches cnsisted of bluff. impolite threats and insults. This is all his diplomatic art. Seemly the deputies were afraid of he would pour water on them - this is the only explanation I found. So now a good advice - if you wish to convince Europian politician in anything - just bring a couple of bottles of mineral water, put them on the tribune and ask - "who is against me?" Laughing

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Who am I
Hi all,

It's flattering to hear the author "Docent P" calling me a great expert, but quite interesting that I'm called a "colonel of Finnish intelligence". Please look at the presentation in the same web journal where you found my articles! I'm quite young to be a colonel... Moreover, I didn't have the chance to meet Masud - dead or alive - unfortunately. And I never acted as an advisor of the Northern Alliance. You probably mix me up with somebody rather more eminent than myself, like Zbigniew Brzezinski. I did give a couple of interview to journalists about Afghanistan, but I am very concerned if I was cited there as a "colonel of Finnish intelligence" or "advisor to the Northern Alliance". I was a junior political analyst, that's all. But thanks anyway - somebody has had a wild imagination!

AKK

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Welcome to A2K, Kullberg!

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Hello, Mr. Kullberg.

>Please look at the presentation...

What's a surprise. So you have never been in Afghanistan, and your interview to Sam Vaknin based on someone's else ideas? Confused

Anyway I will be glad to see your further comments on the topic.

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Copy-paste into this thread, where it fits better, so that I can reply to it in the right place:

Docent P wrote:

nimh wrote: hey docent p, i wondered, what do you think of the council of europe proposal to install a chechnya war crimes court, in which both chechen rebels and russian military would have to be judged? i mean, i know it's not going to happen (the russian government called the proposal "senseless" and "damaging", I believe), but do you think it would have been a good idea, and what do you think of the CoE proposing such a thing?"

Yes, I agree it's an excellent idea from all points of view. Although it has been brought up by the PACE that is a very different thing from the Council of Europe. The PACE is known as absolutely marginal and powerless organisation. It's ridiculous that after they recommended (they can't impose smth more than recomendation) the Council of Europe to exclude Russia from it's members the Council not only declined this offer but even didn't mention this problem in it's summit. What was the PACE's reaction? They immediately "forgot" all their proposals and restored Russia back in the PACE. Of course todays their initiative won't have any practical result (just a detail - the next day after the resolution several envoys of the Council of Europe visited Moscow and one of them told Putin: "our approach to the Chechen problem is completely the same as your one", it's sad this guy has no chances to taste this approach on his skin ).

But generally IMHO there are big morale consequences. The PACE show that they are not going to believe to the comedy of "referendum" - so some time Maskhadov's government can be admitted as legal. But they have to defeat the Federals before.

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Docent P wrote:

Although it has been brought up by the PACE that is a very different thing from the Council of Europe. The PACE is known as absolutely marginal and powerless organisation. It's ridiculous that after they recommended (they can't impose smth more than recomendation) the Council of Europe to [..]

Just to get this clear - to the other readers on this thread - the PACE is the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (which in turn should not be confused with the European Union).

The Parliamentary Assembly members are not elected by popular vote but by the respective national parliaments, their number reflecting the population of the country they represent. The Council also has a Committee of Ministers, made up of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the member countries (or their deputies), at which one could say the real power lies within the CoE.

The PACE can make Resolutions and Recommendations. It's true that if the PACE makes a Recommendation, this is no more than a "proposal addressed to the Committee of Ministers, the implementation of which is within the competence of governments" - no more than signalling an opinion or proferring advice, thus. The national ministers of foreign affairs still have the final say. Resolutions in their turn can be decisions or "expressions of view for which it alone is responsible" - again, one can say, a mere expression of opinion. But one that is given the authority of representatives of the national parliaments of the 44 CoE member states.

In this case, the PACE did both - adopting a Recommendation and a Resolution.

In Recommendation 1600, it "recommends that the Committee of Ministers", amongst other things, "if the efforts to bring to justice those responsible for human rights abuses are not intensified, and the climate of impunity in the Chechen Republic prevails" to "consider proposing to the international community the setting up of an ad hoc tribunal to try war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Chechen Republic."

Now that's quite a long shot of course - count the conditionalities with me - it advises (1) the Ministers to consider (2) proposing (3) something to a rather abstract "international community" (4). Its importance is merely as a warning shot to the Russian Federation.

But it went quite a bit further in its Resolution 1315, on "The human rights situation in the Chechen Republic". In Resolutions, the PACE is not addressing its own Committee of Ministers, but the member states directly, calling upon them to do something. In this case, for example, as the press release rather bluntly put it,

Quote:

The Assembly called on Council of Europe member states to lodge inter-state complaints against the Russian Federation before the European Court of Human Rights and to exercise "universal jurisdiction" for the most serious crimes committed in the Chechen Republic.

It basically told the member countries to go take Russia to court for the way its violating human rights in Chechnya.

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The Resolution and Recommendation were based on a Report from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, that makes, let's say, interesting reading, and should silence those who still maintain all Russia is doing is safeguarding its national sovereignty in justifiable ways. As the Summary states it:

Quote:

The human rights situation in the Chechen Republic is characterised by gross human rights abuses, violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes, committed by both sides to the conflict. So far, everyone involved - the Russian government, administration and judicial system, the different Chechen regimes - has failed dismally to provide adequate protection from human rights abuses. [..] The result is a climate of impunity which encourages further human rights violations and which denies justice to thousands of victims.

From the Conclusion of the Report:

Quote:

53. The conclusions to be drawn from the above-mentioned cases are depressingly clear: For nearly a decade now, people in the Chechen Republic have lived in constant fear. Fear of the Russian forces, fear of the Chechen fighters. A brief chronology of the events since 1 December 1994 can be described as follows: First, the population of the Chechen Republic (especially in Grozny) had to endure carpet-bombing by Russian forces, which cost upward from 20.000 lives[29]. Hot on the heels of the indiscriminate bombardment came a campaign of mindless terror perpetrated by some of these Russian forces, with murder, rape, torture, looting, pillaging and extortion being the order of the day[30].

54. Then the Chechens must have felt betrayed by their own people, losing confidence in a government that could not or would not protect them from bands of religious extremists and criminal gangs, who in turn held the Republic hostage by means of kidnapping, drug smuggling and other violent acts. Vicious punishments were meted out in a perversion of justice under Sharia-law. But the "liberation" of Chechnya in the form of the second Russian campaign brought no relief: ruthless Russian forces, more often than not, seem to make no difference between fighters and civilians[31]. To this day, the civilian population in the Republic risks illegal detention, unlawful "disappearance", even rape, torture and murder at the hands of some Russian forces, while not being protected from kidnapping, murder and terrorist acts perpetrated by some Chechen fighters.

55. The reaction of the Russian authorities has not been very constructive. One does get the feeling that the Russian authorities are doing everything to hide the real situation in Chechnya from public view. The Chechen Republic has practically been closed off - there is nearly no access for journalists and NGOs.

To illustrate what kind of things we are talking about here, let's highlight some of the more detailed observations. For example, on alleged mass killings, let's pick up on the case of Alkhan-Yurt:

Quote:

14. On 1 December 1999, after weeks of heavy fighting, Russian forces took control of Alkhan-Yurt, a village located just south of Grozny. According to a report by the NGO "Human Rights Watch" of April 2000[9], "during the two weeks that followed, Russian forces went on a rampage in the village, summarily executing at least 14 civilians. They first expelled, temporarily, hundreds of civilians from Alkhan-Yurt, and then began systematically looting and burning the village, killing anyone in their way".

15. According to the report, the last of the civilians to die, Aindi Altimirov, was killed and beheaded by Russia soldiers on 18 December 1999. On 17 December 1999, Russia's then highest ranking representative for Chechnya, Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Koshman, and Malik Saidulayev, a prominent pro-Moscow Chechen leader, travelled to Alkhan-Yurt, to investigate allegations of serious abuses by Russian forces in this, Saidulayev's, home village. Much of the visit was filmed, and shows the two walking around the devastated village, discovering several caches of goods looted by Russian soldiers, and even being threatened with being shot themselves by some (apparently intoxicated) soldiers. The subsequent criminal investigation has reportedly been closed "for lack of evidence of a crime". No further information has been made available to the Assembly on this case, despite several requests of the past years.

On unlawful killings, we could highlight one of the three given examples:

Quote:

32. The NGO "Human Rights Watch" calls the killing of Malika Umazheva on 29 November 2002 "the first clearly retaliatory murder of its kind in Chechnya"[20]. Mrs Umazheva served as head of administration for Alkhan-Kala, a village on the outskirts of Grozny. Unlike many other village administrators, she had been very outspoken about abuses by Russian forces in her village, worked with human rights organisations, and repeatedly confronted the Russian military about them. According to eyewitnesses, soldiers in masks came to the Umazhev home late in the evening and took Mrs Umazheva to the shed, where she was shot in the back, in the heart, and in the head. Her family is convinced that Russian forces are to blame, due to the fact she had received death threats from Russian soldiers before, and that the soldiers who came to her house spoke unaccented Russian, and fled in Russian military vehicles. The official investigation into the case is reportedly continuing.

The report notes that "Torture and rape are two very serious human rights violations" and observes that "many bodies found in Chechnya [..] bear unmistakable signs of some of the worst forms of torture, including the cutting off of ears, fingers and even limbs". Though "survivors of torture are usually so frightened of reprisals that they do not complain about their treatment in custody", the report does highlight one example each of torture and rape.

Quote:

[..] Police detained Alaudin Sadykov on March 5, 2000, and kept him in the October district temporary police precinct in Grozny for over two months. During those months, police cut off one of his ears, broke several ribs and caused numerous other physical injuries. Mr Sadykov was eventually released in May 2000.

He reported the ill-treatment in June 2000 and actively corresponded with authorities, but the procuracy informed him of launching a criminal investigation only in January of 2002. Despite the fact that he knows the name and can recognise at least one of the police officers who tortured him, and the fact that many fellow detainees and guards were witness to the abuses, the investigation has failed to identify suspects. [..] Mr Sadykov described to Amnesty International in detail instruments used to torture detainees, including ice picks, hammers, surgical and dental instruments, instruments for removing fingernails, spades and saws. [..]

44. One of the few rape (and murder) cases to reach trial was that of Colonel Budanov. On 31 December 2002 he was acquitted of murdering the young Chechen woman Elza Kungaeva on 26 March 2000 on the grounds of "temporary insanity", although the prosecutor's office is reportedly appealing the verdict. The rape charge, however, was dropped by the prosecution before the trial, although the forensic examination had found that Kungaeva had endured anal and vaginal penetration just before her death. Instead, one of Colonel Budanov's subordinates was charged with "desecration of a corpse", but the investigation was closed under the 2000 amnesty.

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Thank you, Mr. Nimh, for this detailed explanation.

Now I've just picked up some interesting info. It sounds unbelievable but the PACE discussed the future of Chechnya with nobody else but a terrorist, Movsar Baraev's assistant, participant of his raid to Nord-Ost called Khanpasha Terkibaev. He escaped from the besieged theatre in several hours before the assault and so remained the only survived terrorist. His name was published in the list of terrorists in the main government paper, Izvestia, but it wasn't a problem to him to reach Strasburg last April and take part in the session as a representative of the peaceful "Chechen society". There has been his interview to the Novaya Gazeta where he dicuss his long and hard service in the FSB.

What have I read:

This guy took part in the Basaev's raid to Budennovsk in 1995. In 1997-1999 he worked in the Chechen TV showing himself greatly pro-Maskhadov. In 1999 he even became a Maskhadov's spokesman. During the war he left this post and had been living in his house in the Mesker-Yurt village until being arrested by the FSB. In the Argun's FSB office he got a document that he was totally amnestied for his participation in the Budennovsk action. He is the first and the last guy who managed to leave the Argun FSB office alive as well as the only person officially amnestied for Budennovsk. After being released he got to Jordan where he was appointed as the Chechen envoy in that country. But in 2001 the rebels discovered him as a FSBist agent and he was deposed from this appointment. He returned to Chechnya where he joined the Movsar Baraev's unit.

In October 2002 he took part in the raid to Nord-Ost. As he said Baraev DIDN'T KNOW where he was leading to! Baraev was sure that the action will be conducted against the Luzhkov's town-hall. The only guy informed about the real target was Terkibaev who had the plan of the theatre. He organized Baraev's movement through the city using FSBist's documents. Then he promised Baraev: after they made some noise they would be allowed to go, not everyone but the most of them. Baraev had no explosives - there were moulages although most of the terrorists didn't know it. Before the assault Terkibayev secretly left the theatre and so he remained the only survived terrorist - all others were killed.

Then Terkibaev appeared in Baku where he said that he was the last Baraev's fighter pursued by the FSB and asked local Chechens to give him money and contacts with the Resistance. But soon he returned to the official service. As he said he had several meetings with the Putin's administration's head Surkov in the Kremlin and all his work is directed by personally Yastrbzhensky. When he asked Yas-ky what hell had his name been published in a paper, Y-ky replied: "don't be worried about". Then he worked in the Russian PACE's delegation, then as the referendum's organizer, as an agitator arranging a meeting between some former Chechen deputies (ones who turned to the Federal side) and Putin where they avowed to conduct the referendum.

Here is his photo with Maskhadov and Maggy Tatcher:

http://2003.novayagazeta.ru/nomer/2003/30n/n30n-s01.jpg

I remember we had some conversation about Nord-Ost with Mr. Steissd and CI. Now I see we can make the conclusion. It's interesting that the PACE had a good "cooperation with Russian delegation" in other words with one of the Movsar Baraev's terrorists, furthermore officially killed 6 months ago.
------

Now I'm sorry, I will be cut off from Internet for all May, but then I hope that I'll have possibility to visit the forum more often. See you later.

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to Docent P.
Hi,

I have been in Afghanistan some times, but I don't work for any secret service. If I did, you wouldn't expect me to write articles to newspapers and give interviews, would you? The interview to Sam Vaknin was given with the permission of my that time's employer and my job was that of a researcher. That is also mentioned by Vaknin. So, giving me quite a promotion (let alone a military one) was based on your imagination. I understand that in Russia you easily come to such conclusions. Here in Northern Europe it sometimes happens that people are what they say, and there is no hidden agenda behind what they say. It may be boring that I don't drive Aston Martin and drink Martinis around Afghanistan. (That would violate the sharia which is maintained by Karzai's Afghanistan, too.) There is also a little contradiction in your version of my biography: during and right after the Sept 11th, Northern Alliance did not control Kabul. Kabul was only liberated in December. Some of the ideas that you seem to conclude I must have gotten from Massoud are indeed from him, but they could be found in three web-based journals of Rabbani and Massoud's Jamiat-i Islami during the months before Sept 11. I did not have an opportunity to meet him as he was assassinated on Sept 9th as a striking prelude to the crimes two days after.

AKK

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Das Parlament of 10 June reported on a public information session of the German parliament's human rights commission. Excerpts:

(Footnote: Memorial was famed for its bold work on documenting and exposing the crimes and legacies of the Stalinist era, back in the perestrojka years.)

"Orleg Orlev from the aid organisation Memorial spoke of an "escalation of violence". Just in January and February alone, over 60 people have dissapeared in Chechnya, said Diederik Lohmann of Human Righhts Watch. That measures up to a prognosis of over 700 people a year."

"The aid organisation Doctors Without Borders [..] expressed concern over the situation of the refugees, who in the course of the conflict fled to Ingushetia. Increasing pressure is exerted on these people to return to Chechnya. 180 of the shelters the organisation built are empty, because access to them has been forbidden [by the Russian government]. "The refugees have no choice, they appear to have to return", the aid organisation writes, though 98% of them does not want to."

"[Swetlana] Gannuschkina reported that the refugees who returned home, like the rest of the [Chechnyan] population, often lack water and electricity."

"Orlov denounced in particular how soldiers, who committed crimes against the Chechnyan population, overwhelmingly received only "symbolic sentences" or got off without any punishment whatsoever. Memorial appealed to the international community to "clearly and unequivocally" denounce the behaviour and the methods of the Russian army in Chechnya."

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You'll have heard the news about the suicide bomb attacks at a Moscow rock festival last weekend. Two Chechnyan women blew themselves up at the entrance of the festival grounds, apparently afraid they wouldnt pass through the security check. They killed at least 17 youngsters. The women themselves were as young as the rock festival's visitors. If they had gotten into the grounds, commentators said, and had blown themselves up there, many more people still would have been killed and wounded.

Through the main news stories you'll have heard Putins reaction, promising to crack down harder still. Below a report on the reaction of Russian human rights activists.

Quote:

Activists rap Putin's Chechnya policy

AFP

MOSCOW, July 07

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The authorities ordered the concert to keep on going after the explosions took place, by the way, to avoid chaos from breaking out. The first those inside the grounds heard about it was through calls on their cellphone.

Puzzlingly, the Russian media are also reported as having done their best to keep down news about the attacks. A Berlin Tagesspigel report is quoted on the net (www.radikaly.ru) as noting that:

"On Russian TV hardly anything could be seen about the terror attack. Blood and shards, the holes which the explosions ripped into the tarmac and the traumatized faces of the visitors to the rockfestival could only be seen by those in Moscow who had access to satellite and thus to foreign TV stations. State TV especially, but also the private stations, that normally wallow in images of raw violence, exercised a surprising restraint [..] Only NTV showed a man with a bloody headwound, [..] and family members who crowded with fearful eyes around the lists of names of those delivered to the hospital."

The paper seeks the explanation for this in an attempt to keep up the impression that Putin's recently launched "peace process" for Chechnya, that excludes any role for the Chechen rebels and former president Maskhadov, remains on schedule. "Putins press service vehemently denounced the remarks of critical media and politicians that suggested a direct relation between the attacks and the controversial 'peace process'. Nothing should disturb the flawless world that the Kremlin is selling itself and the rest of the world concerning Chechnya".

Interesting take, that, but in apparent contrast with the reports about Putin's harsh words and determined promises of revenge afterwards, as in "we have to chase the rebels out of the holes and the caves where they hide and we have to destroy them". Nothing much in ways of downplaying there. Docent P, you have a take on this?

Putins wrong about the caves and holes, by the way ... 20-year old Zalichan Elichadzjiyeva, one of the suicide bombers, was described by her former neighbours as a "cheerful, enterprising young girl, who wanted to do a medical education", who left her native village just half a year ago to look up her brother, who'd joined the rebels.

The Dutch Volkskrant summarises: "The last half year there were already four suicide attacks in Russia. Five Chechnyan women were involved, who got the nickname "black widows". According to human rights organisations these women wanted to avenge the death of their loved ones. The Kremlin however is convinced that Arabic terrorists are brainwashing women."

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Fascinating posts Docent P thanks. And I must congratulate you on your English. I tried learning Russian once....

I cannot follow the detail of this thread because I don't know the characters, (except Maggie Thatcher...is she fighting in Grozny now?) so I can only give an overall view. But from what little I know it seems to me that the situation in Chechyna is being exploited by criminal and religious extremists who are not so much interested in liberating Chechyna as spreading fear and terror in Russia for nihilistic reasons.

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Re: Some comments
Thanks for your post, Docent - yeh, pity that this issue seems to be of concern to so few here in the West. And if they have a take on the Chechnya conflict, they put it on a par with the rest of the "war on terror" - i.e., threatened state fights criminal/extremist terrorists. That is a pity.

Thing is, there's some 150+ conflicts raging in the world, and the people here at most spend an hour a day thinking or reading about world affairs (watching the news and an odd documentary on TV, reading the paper). (And that's an optimistic estimation.)

To then process the information they get effectively, they need to be able to categorise those many conflicts into "models" of conflict they know and understand. File 'em away, so to say. And which "model" it is they think they see, depends on how the governments involved try to portray them (the way Putin is trying to make this look like a straightforward "war on terror", for example) - and on which models happen to be en vogue at the moment.

Twenty years ago, the Chechnyan conflict would have been filed away as an "insurrection against Communist rule by desperate means". Ten years ago, it would have been mentally put in the category, "repressed ethnic minority revolts against national (or imperialistic) state". Right now, on the other hand, the image of Muslim insurrectionists touting guns, or Muslim women seemingly ready to die for their beliefs, evokes only Al-Qaeda and the "war on terror".

And considering all those factors have, fersure, played some particle role in some dimension of the conflict, theres always enough to report on, that would confirm such a mold of perception.

Personally, I think Putin's idea that these girls are "brainwashed" in terrorist camps is probably bollocks. I think you're closer to the truth. Even in any other culture, seeing your father arbitrarily imprisoned in a hole in the ground and beaten up for weeks, your brother shot by drunk soldiers at a "checkpoint", and/or being raped yourself by some such, would be enough to resort to kamikaze revenge for some. Let alone in a culture like the Chechnyans', where religious conservatism mixed with a strong, Sicilian-like traditions of pride and honor should give all the more reason for violent, suicidist revenge against rape, humiliation and the murder of relatives.

I ain't "talking it right" - the victims of the suicide bombings are no less innocent - but if we dont properly see where it comes from, we cant fight it. And yes, Steve is right that there are also enough criminal and religious extremists at work in Chechnya to exploit all the bitterness and fury for their cause, for sure. It all seems more like Palestine than like anything else, in that respect. (Though the Chechnyans would wish the Russian army behaved like the IDF ...)

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Docent P wrote:

The authors of the resolution were Ari Oostlander (Europian People Party) and Reyno Paasilinna (Europian Socialist Party). As usually our dear Leftists can't be silent seeing as someone is violating human rights - they extremaly need to join up to his fight and to lick this guy's ass together with domestic specialists of this job. Ok, good attempt, dear comrades.

Hate to jab at you there, Docent, but the "European People's Party" is the umbrella party for the Christian-Democrats and affiliated Conservatives in the EU. Its the main right-wing party in the European Parliament. Nothing specifically left-wing about the pandering to Russia there ...

(In fact, if you're looking for MPs who are sympathetic enough with the plight of the Chechnyan civilians to want to press for more explicit criticism of Putin, you'll probably have to look in the far left corner, amongst Greens and such).

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Docent P

I don't get "Das parlament" regularily, and since the beginning of this year, they aren#t online with the actual issues any more.

So I just can refer to the (German) text of a resolution, made by the Bundestag's 'Commitee for Human Rights and Humatarian and presented to Putin on the occasion of his visit to Germany:Aid'
text of 31.01.03

Generally, commitees in the Bundestag don't give recomemdations for the Chancelllor.

Quote:

The "plenary's right to be the sole decision-making body":
The forming of the will of the Bundestag must be based on a decision of the plenary. The activities of the bodies set up by the Bundestag only serve to prepare such plenary decisions. This does not rule out constant cooperation between the specialized committees and the appropriate federal ministries.

Info on the Human Rights and Hunatarian Aid Committy here:

Tasks and working methods of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid

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Generally these stories about suicide bombers are not very interesting to me. Seemly this entertaiment is becoming ordinary .

There are rather more interesting information about new details of the Nord-Ost. Really it is looking more and more amazing. Mr. Terkibaev, an FSB agent and also Movsar Baraev's assistant during Nord-Ost as well as Putin's representative in the PACE, wasn't the only terrorist survived during the Nord-Ost (as it could be easily suggested). Another at least one is nobody but famous "Abubakar" (this is a nick) himself. During their conversations with Baraev Russian State Duma Deputy Govorukhin noticed that in response to every hard question Baraev used to say: "I need to ask Abubakar... This is what Abubakar knows better... Abubakar told me that I should... " etc.

This mysterious Abubakar was the real head of the terrorist group while Movsar Baraev was just his spokeman. Unlike Baraev Abubakar never took off his mask and avoided any conversation. But that was not all. Abubakar, also involved in the explosions of buses in Moscow in 1996, has been noticed as an old FSB agent. Furthermore his face looks very similar to the photorobot of a man noticed by witnesses during the explosion on the Pushkin Square in 2000 and then he became the main suspect of that criminal case. His connection with the FSB was discoveed by an FSB Colonel Trepashkin who insisted on arresting and interrogating this guy. Instead the FSB arrested Trepashkin himself after they had brought a few bullets to his apartment (a very common practice in todays Russia). Now he is still in prison.

When investigator of the Moscowian Criminal Investigation Department Taratorkin was checking the bodies of the terrorists killed in Nord-Ost he amazingly discovered that Abubakar's body had disappeared. The man, who had Abubakar's document was not the one. Taratorkin immediately reported about it to the General Prosecutor and demanded to put A-kar to the listing of wanted persons. In response Ta-kin was immediately arrested allegedly for opening a state secret but very soon released and fired from the Militia.

Here are some links about Nord-Ost (beginning from the mentioned interview with Terkibaev and a lot of other reports and comments) I've picked up from the Russian terror99.ru and American Jamestown Foundation pages:

One of the terrorists survived. We found him. (Novaya Gazeta, April 28, 2003)

Russian Authorities Hedge Over Special Services Involvement in Moscow Theater Siege (Novaya Gazeta, May 5, 2003)

Our interview with Anna Politkovskaya: "No one is interested in the essence of the current events in our country" (Human Rights Information regional organization, May 7, 2003)

MYSTERIOUS FIGURE IMPLICATED IN RUSSIAN THEATER TRAGEDY

QUESTIONS CONTINUE TO SWIRL ABOUT MYSTERIOUS HOSTAGE-TAKER...

...AS OTHER OBSERVERS WEIGH IN

Where Is Abubakar?

But the story is just beginning. The most amazing thing is that these post-Nord-Ost FSBist actions became closely linked with a new wave of repressions against last opposition political survivors. The beginning of this process took place a year ago when State Duma Deputy Golovlev was assassinated but unknown criminals. Golovlev was an assistant of Yushenkov - the leader of the Liberal Russia party (don't confuse with the fascist Liberal Democratic Party), the only legal anti-Putin movement. Therefore his assassination caused a lot of questions but the authorities as usually said that it was a criminal argument. Yushenkov himself was assassinated 6 months later. It's interesting that his death occured on the next day after he was told by Litvinenko - an FSB defector living in London - about Terkibaev and FSB's involvement in Nord-Ost. Yushenkov was going to investigate it so carefully as possible using all his deputy's power. If he discovered something we don't know yet - this question will remain unanswered forever. A week later one of his assistant got an assylum in the USA. The last Yushenkov's assistant was arrested by the FSB and accused in assassination of Yushenkov. The night before his arrest he told his friends: "I have a feeling that I'm going to be arrested by the FSB".

Meanwhile the FSB continued their heroic war on the Moscowian Militia. Several weeks ago the official propagandists fullfilled all the TV and radio channels by their loud victorious speeches. The famous Case of Werwolfes began! Allegedly The FSB arrested a group of militiamen who had been involved in illegal arm-dealing, falsification of criminal cases and furthermore they were suspected in assasination of Yushenkov. In the center of the Werwolfes is (as you probably have already guessed) nobody else but Taratorkin, just released after his first arrest. T-kin and all his closest cooperators were arrested again which was praised by all Russian (and many foreign as well) medias as the greatest Putin's victory against the corruption inside the Militia, a new great progress in his movement toward democracy and "dictatorship of law" etc. Basing on it I have a feeling that T-kin will hardly evermore see freedom Sad

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Two weeks ago the FSB made another strike: Yury Shekochikhin, State Duma Deputy, the Yabloko Party's member, a friend of Yushenkov, and anti-Chechen war protester, died in mysterious circumstances. Allegedly he got a too strong allergic reaction but the medics call this reaction very strange and they haven't found the allergen yet.

This is an article about him:

Awfully Familiar

And to complete the defeat of the Liberal Russia, it has been declared out of law. It happened in a standart scenario: a pro-Kremlin LR member, Pokhmelkin, organized a meeting with a couple of his friends where he called himself the leader of the LR and excluded Ivan Rybkin (another Londoner-defector, former chief of the State Security Council, todays chief of the LR and Yushenkov follower) from the party. Then Pokhmelkin demanded the court to recognize himself the only legal party's chief. The court of course did it willingly. So the rest part of the party has been declared illegal while this what is known yet under the Liberal Russia title has turned to another Putin's fan-club.

This is the story I found deserving to be mentioned here. I hope it was not too boring.

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