Chechnya - War Against Terrorism Or Violating Human Rights?

[T]he mainstream Russian mass media have for the most part also given the story the silent treatment. [Politkovskaya] blamed the silence on indifference not just among the media but among the general public. [..] David Satter [..] focused more narrowly on government manipulation of the media. "The authorities' strategy in the face of such revelations is now well-established - just ignore them in the hope that they will go away," he said [..]. He depicted that strategy as largely successful [..]

Terror attacks against Russian civilians could hurt Putin in the run-up to parliamentary elections in December and the presidential elections next year. But he could also use the crisis to cement his hold on power; it was the 1999 wave of apartment bombings that helped propel him into office in the first place. [..] "At the Kremlin they believe that Russians will learn to live with these bombings, like the Soviets once learned to live with chronic food shortages," says the senior federal government official.

Budanov gets 10 years jail sentence

The Russian colonel Yuri Budanov was found guilty, Friday, of kidnapping and murdering a Chechen woman. A military judge in Rostov/Don sentenced him to a ten year prison sentence in an extra security jail. The prosecutor had demanded twelve years. It is the first time that a high Russian military is sentenced for crimes in Chechnya.

The verdict is remarkable because, in December, Budanov was found unaccountable for his actions by the same court. If the Russian Supreme Court hadnt overruled that verdict [last February, ordering a retrial], he would have been released after a brief enforced treatment.

The former commander of the 160th tank division has confessed several times that he has kidnapped, mistreated and murdered the 18 year old Elza Kungayeva in March 2000. This would have happened in a fit of insanity. According to him, Kungayeva was a sniper who had killed several of his comrades. Another soldier would have raped her corpse.

Eyewitnesses and family members of the victim say that Budanov and several comrades had driven to the village of Tangi Tshu in a state of heavy drunkenness, where they dragged Kungayeva out of her house and took her to the camp. There Budanov mistreated and raped Kungayeva and eventually strangled her.

The first law suit against Buyanov in December led to an acquittal. In that period he was psyciatrically examined three times. According to the first examination Budanov had been fully in control of his senses. The other two examinations, done by the Moscow Serbski Institute, yielded the diagnosis of temporary insanity.

The name Serbski-Institute sets off alarm-bells with human rights organisations. The institute was notorious, in Soviet times, for the way it abused psychiatry to lock up dissidents in institutions.

In [a psychiatric examination at] the retrial, the colonel was declared accountable for his actions. [..] The judge said he based his verdict on this. Budanov will lose his military rank and decorations. He has to pay the family of Kungayeva 15 thousand euro in damages.

Human rights organisations reacted with enthusiasm to the verdict. [But} Gannushkina [of Memorial] does not think that more military men will now be sentenced. "This case was unique. The family had filed charges, which is exceptional in Chechnya. And high militaries, amongst whom a general, have testified against Budanov." [In the WPR report below, Said Bitsoev of Novye Izestiya is quoted commenting: "Many have been killed in Chechnya, but they are putting up only one tank regiment commander [for punishment]. They've made a great noise about some strangled girl, even though they have raped before this case and since."]

BBC Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg says the trial has been widely seen as a test of Russia's determination to crack down on human rights abuses by Russian troops in Chechnya.

Supporters from the ultranationalist group Russian National Unity stood outside the courtroom to demonstrate moral support for Budanov as the sentence was announced.

Mirror of a War

For nearly three years, Russian readers have been riveted by the arrest and trial of Yuri Budanov, a colonel charged in the kidnapping and murder of Kheda "Elza" Kungaeva, an 18-year-old Chechen girl. His case has mirrored Russians' understanding of themselves and the second Chechen war. Right-wing Russians have sought to portray him as a patriot in an unpopular war, while Chechens have viewed his prosecution as a test of whether federal authorities are capable of upholding the rule of law in their country.

Although the details of the murder remain in dispute, there is no question that Budanov strangled Kungaeva in the Chechen village of Tangi-Chu in March 2000. Kungaev's family charges that the girl was dragged from her home at night, raped, and murdered by Russian soldiers on a drinking binge. Budanov says he killed Elza Kungaeva in a rage while interrogating her as a suspected sniper.

This past December, a military court in Rostov-on-Don found Budanov not guilty by reason of insanity and ordered that he undergo compulsory psychiatric care. "The court basically recognized that Budanov is the same sort of war victim as the woman who died at his hands," commented Yelena Stroiteleva in the centrist newspaper Izvestiya (Jan. 4). [..]

[reaction of Russian authorities]

Early on, Russian authorities sent mixed messages about the Budanov case. Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov echoed the rhetoric of Russian nationalists, declaring that Budanov was not a criminal but "a victim of circumstances and our legislative shortcomings." The minister added that "as a human being he sympathized" with the former tank commander. Similarly, Army Gen. Vladimir Shamanov - now the governor of Ulyanovsk Oblast, on the Volga - expressed words of praise for Budanov and disparaged Kungaeva: "She wasn't just a girl but a sniper, an enemy, who took the life of more than one of my officers."

Soon after Budanov's arrest, however, Anatoli Kvashin, chief of Russia's General Staff, went on television to denounce Kungaeva's killing after meeting with President Vladimir Putin. He described Budanov as "scum that has to be removed by the root from the army collective." [..]

[Finding of rape disappeared from autopsy report]

A draft autopsy report obtained by Kungaeva's family said that the victim had been raped, a circumstance that would undermine Budanov's defense that he had acted in a fit of rage. The final report, however, made no mention of rape, and no charge of sexual assault was brought against Budanov.

In court testimony in 2001, the medical examiner, Vladimir Lyanenko, neither disputed nor repudiated his initial findings. He declined to comment on the question of rape and did not discuss the discrepancy between the draft and final report. [..]

[Popular support for Budanov]

A week or so before the court's verdict, which had been leaked to the public, a group of citizens from the city of Rostov decided to nominate Budanov to the local assembly, or Duma. "As one of the initiators noted, the time had finally come to replace the parasites among the ranks of deputies with normal people," wrote Vadim Dubnov in the Dec. 22 liberal weekly Novoye Vremya. "Budanov for President" was the sarcastic headline in the reformist Novye Izestiya on Dec. 17.

"To condemn Budanov means to spit into the face of the Russian army, while to justify him means to offend Chechens. That is the dilemma," wrote Litvinovich [of the communist Web site Pravda].

[Critical Novye Izvestiya commentary]

In an item headlined "The Insane Country," Valeri Yakov of the reformist Novye Izvestiya failed to see the dilemma Litvinovich described : [..] "Everything surrounding this sensational affair might be considered a bit of theater, theater of the absurd, performed by a small troupe of unsuccessful actors. But sadly, there is no sense of theater here. A huge number of people with the trappings of power have tried quite seriously and consciously to clean Budanov's soiled cap and, by all available means, to create a heroic image for him."

Yakov added: "Now they are trying to persuade us that in demanding a severe sentence for citizen Budanov, we will bring into disrepute the Russian officer class and destroy the army's moral spirit. Thus, it is not Budanov the rapist and murderer who will dishonor the officer corps but those who reproach him: not a regimental commander, who beats his subordinates, who rapes and kills peaceful citizens, who destroys the army's moral spirit, but those who draw attention to this. This is the mad logic of the insane country. [..]

[..] In Chechnya, of all places, images of this kind mislead. This is not a country of tears. Here, lamenting one's fate is regarded as bad taste. "We are a mountain people. We don't cry. May the mountains cry in our stead." That's how they talk here, and that's how they fight. Stoicism is a characteristic trait of this tenacious people.

This does not help a TV career. A successful director relies on standard-issue tears. The camera zooms in on some old women on a bench beside the ruins of Samashki. A woman you have just filmed tips them off, and they blubber away. Needless to say, this scene will later be incorporated in the documentary.

The elderly tell you how they were herded into cattle wagons and deported to Kazakhstan in 1944 on Stalin's orders; mothers explain how Russian soldiers today snatch their sons and whisk them away to "filtration camps". They all stay composed as they speak. [..]

One scene, however, will later be edited out. The son, daughter and son-in-law of an old man have all been killed. His house has been reduced to one standing wall. He speaks with dignity to the camera: "We rejoice in everything God gives us." Neither the bosses in Zurich, nor the audience, expect such spiritual fortitude from the victims of war; he who has lost something is supposed to mourn it.

The art of shooting such seven-minute snapshots in a completely unknown country lies in the art of simplification. Everyone ?'knows' what war is: sobbing mothers, uniformed men with a weapon slung across their shoulder, bloated corpses, children playing in the rubble. These images are already familiar in reports from other war zones. When you are overwhelmed by the task in hand, cliché is indispensable.

Two kinds of violation

[..] The camera zooms in on the black, burst rear of a headless corpse, giving an impression almost of penetration. "Yes, that's it." Cut.

Your colleagues have already raced through Afghanistan, Lebanon and Bosnia. Their attitude to corpses is relaxed. They do not care that to the Chechens, the dead are more sacred than anything else. During the bombardments many Chechen women and men jumped out of the shelters and risked their lives to bury their exposed dead.

The naked backside of a corpse flashes around the world. It sums up the humiliation of a culture where exposure of certain body parts is taboo. [..] The occupiers' relaxed attitude to nudity and the choice of TV images they make adds to the violation of the dignity of this small mountain people. [..]

A censorship of pity

The added expense that you represent is unnecessary. The talented film crew realise that they can convey the ravaged condition of Chechnya through the whispers of lonely Christina: "I know what is to come." Silent victims from distant lands are welcome. Christina, the Russian girl from Grozny, beside a giant ruined building, is a comprehensible image. In her face you discern your own autism.

There are other images unseen. In front of the rubble, children appear in groups, clench their fists, and shout with broad smiles: "Allahu akbar!" Sainab explains: "We die with ?'Allahu akbar' on our lips because the world silently watches the annihilation of our people. All we have left is God. We pronounce his name because we believe that he is on our side, on the side of justice."

You admit that it would be counterproductive to show images of belligerent Chechen children. It would whip up the fear of Islamic fundamentalism among the TV audiences.

Sainab and Maja are interviewed. [..] They would like to satisfy the tense foreigner, out of politeness. They would even retract their statement, but the tongue refuses to obey. They ask their guest to accept their apologies. Sainab nervously scratches her head, Maja asks in a depressed voice: "Does he not like us any more? What shall we do?"

On the order of the director you press Sainab: "Would you even give your life for the independence of Chechnya?" "Yes." "And the life of your four children?" "Yes."

You film Sainab in front of the pile of rubble that was the presidential palace, the symbol of Chechen autonomy. Russian snipers shoot into the air to intimidate you. This is a nocturnal distraction to accompany the bored army's vodka sessions.

Sainab explains: "The death of the individual is not a bad thing. It is unacceptable not to defend oneself when being attacked. The contemptuous reaction to this does not only hit the coward but also his children and grandchildren, the whole tribe in eternity. And what is a life worth without respect, without honour?"

The director sighs. The whole scene is useless.

The story repeats itself with Maja. Standing on a rotten beam in the ruins of her house, she announces in the name of the collective Chechen soul: "We are all ready to put up with destruction and death in the name of freedom for coming generations."

The director shakes his head: "I don't buy that." Then: "More personal, get more personal."

Another shoot. But Maja avoids the first person pronoun. Like people across the northern Caucasus, she filters her opinion: "As our elders used to say…"

The gulf between us

[..] Around noon, gracious, clean, ladies wearing thin, rolled hair bands instead of scarves, tight long dresses and lacquer shoes, emerge from the burnt rubble of Grozny as if on their way to the Paris opera. The scene renders your concept of war atrocities absurd. You could not show it: these Chechen women's display of their will to survive could evoke unpredictable emotions.

Sainab sees in this aesthetic expression an unbroken national spirit. "See how beautiful we are. This war has taught us that it does not pay off to pile up riches. The more bombs they throw on us the better we dress, even when we are hungry. We know that we could be dead tomorrow. We pass the occupiers with our heads held high, to tell them and ourselves: ?'You cannot defeat us.'"

Chechnya: Little Value In Estimates Of Chechen Resistance

March 23, 2007
RFE/RL

Russian Deputy Interior Minister Colonel General Arkady Yedelev recently announced his latest estimates for the number of resistance fighters still active in Chechnya: 450, subdivided into 37 separate groups.

Those figures, provided during a press conference in Grozny on March 19, contradict earlier statistics cited by the Russian military and Interior Ministry. They also differ from estimates from the Chechen resistance leadership, which admits that not all groups of fighters are still under its direct control.

Fluctuating Figures

Yedelev's figure of 37 militant bands is down from his estimate of just six weeks earlier [when] he gave the same total -- 450 men -- but estimated the number of individual groups at 46.

Two months before that, the resistance website kavkazcenter.com cited Colonel General Nikolai Rogozhkin, commander of the Interior Ministry forces, as estimating the number of Chechen resistance fighters at between 800-1,000.

And in early November 2006, the commander of the Group of Federal Forces in the North Caucasus, Colonel General Yevgeny Baryayev, was cited by kommersant.ru as providing a figure of 700.

It can be expected that the number of resistance fighters is likely to vacillate as a result of combat losses, but there are no indications that the resistance is short of volunteers.

In April 2006, then-Chechen Republic Ichkeria Vice President Doku Umarov told RFE/RL's North Caucasus in a long interview that more young men seek to join the resistance than can be accepted into its ranks, in light of limited funding available. He said only the toughest candidates -- those who can withstand the bitter cold of the mountains in winter -- are accepted.

Umarov, who in line with the Chechen Republic Ichkeria Constitution adopted in March 1992 became president after the death in June 2006 of Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, repeated in a recent interview with the Ukrainian nationalist publication "Banderivets" that the number of would-be recruits constitutes "a huge problem for us" since "we cannot provide all of them with weapons." [..]

Autonomous Resistance

But whereas in 2006 Umarov expressed regret that those not accepted into the ranks of the resistance have no choice but to leave Chechnya, he said in the recent address that "many young Muslims, both in Ichkeria and in other regions of the Caucasus [and also in Russia] are organizing themselves into military jamaats and acting autonomously."

In other words, the days when the North Caucasus resistance -- and its offshoots in the Volga and Urals -- constituted a single unified force that reported to, and coordinated its activities with, the Chechen War Council, appear to be over.

The emergence of autonomous fighting forces is likely to herald an intensification of hostilities, possibly over a larger geographical area than in the past. But it could create problems for the Chechen "core" of the resistance if Umarov and his supporters find themselves in competition for financial donations from Muslims in Russia and abroad.

The emergence of autonomous jamaats could also impel Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) to try to co-opt their less experienced members in a "false flag" recruitment with the aim of either infiltrating and destroying the Chechen War Council headed by Umarov, or tasking them with committing acts that could undermine the Chechen cause.

Nor is the emergence of autonomous jamaats the only factor likely to affect the ongoing low-level fighting. In his interview with "Banderivets," Umarov admitted that the killing in 2006 of both Sadulayev and radical field commander Shamil Basayev negatively affected the timing and nature of subsequent military operations. And, he said, as a result of those losses (and possibly also of the death of field commander Sultan Khadisov in September 2006), the resistance has decided to switch tactics.

New Tactics

Umarov spoke in greater detail of those changes in his recent address, explaining that "we have reorganized some military structures. Plans have been revised, tactics have been changed, communications and coordination between individual groups of modjaheds, and between fronts and sectors, have been strengthened. The past autumn and winter were given over to large-scale preparatory work.... The activities of the Volga and Urals fronts are taking off."

In short, the periodic estimates by Russian officers of the strength of the remaining resistance forces in Chechnya are largely irrelevant in light of the military flexibility and ideological commitment of the North Caucasus resistance, the influx of volunteer fighters, and the expansion of hostilities.