Life just got a whole lot more complicated
May. 9th, 2004 05:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisyphusshruggedSo how's the whole putting a sock puppet in place to brutally oppress the inconvenient muslim people of an country which would prefer not to be occupied thing going on other fronts?
A story in quotes.
Akhmad Kadyrov is the president of the Chechen Republic (elected on October 5, 2003 for 4 years). He was born on August 23, 1951 in the Karaganda city, Kazahkskaja SSR.
In April, 1957 Kadyrov family returned to the Centorojj village, Shalinskijj rajjon, Checheno-Ingushkaja ASSR.
* 1968 - finished Bachijurt school.
* 1968 - took a course in combine harvester driving in the Kalinovskaja stanica, Nauskijj rajjon.
* 1969-1971 - worked in "Novogroznenskijj" sovkhoz, Gudermeskijj rajjon.
* 1971-1980 - worked in building companies in Nechernozem'e and Siberia.
* 1980 - entered Bukhar Miri-Arab Madrasah.
* 1982-1986 - continued studying in the Tashkent High Islam University.
* 1986-1988 - worked as deputy imam of the Gudermes cathedral masjid.
* 1989-1990 - founded a first in North Caucasia Islamic Institute in the Kurchalojj village and was its rector.
* 1990 - entered sheriat faculty of Amman Islamic University.
* 1991 - returned to the motherland, breaking studying.
* 1993 - designated as deputy mufti, in September, 1994 as acting mufti of the Chechen Republic.
* 1995 - elected mufti of the Chechen Republic.
* June, 2000 - designated as head of the Chechen Republic government.
* 2001 г. - awarded by Order of Friendship.
* October 5 2003 - elected as president of Chechen Republic.
*May 9 2004 - killed after an explosion ripped through VIP seating at a stadium in Moscow.
******
The head of the pro-Moscow administration in Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, has declared that he will run for the Chechen presidency in elections due later this year.
"I see no other way of achieving the goals I have set myself," Mr Kadyrov said on Russian radio.
His announcement comes a few days after a referendum on a new constitution in Chechnya which would cement the republic's place within the Russian Federation.
Moscow has sought to portray the referendum as the start of a political settlement of the conflict in the troubled region.
But human rights organisations have questioned the legitimacy of the vote in conditions of war.
According to preliminary results, almost 96% of those who went to the polls said "yes" to the new constitution.
Presidential and parliamentary elections later this year were also overwhelmingly approved.
Election officials, quoted by the Russian Interfax news agency, said 89.5% of listed voters had taken part.
The referendum results are to be finalised on Thursday.
But reporters in Grozny have cast doubt on the turnout claims, saying that they saw relatively few voters in polling stations.
And independent analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, quoted by AFP news agency, said the referendum was "a Soviet-style election, with the results blatantly faked".
Russia hopes that the elections will provide Chechnya with credible local authorities to replace the government established by Moscow.
It then aims to negotiate a deal on autonomy with the new authorities.
Mr Kadyrov is a former mufti of the republic who turned against the rebels and has been branded by them as a traitor.
Russian soldiers inspecting cars and buses don't catch any rebels. They occasionally rough up the drivers and often demand bribes -- and the guerrillas know very well how this game is played. "Stick some money out the window and they don't check anything," says one self-described mujahid. Ordinary residents like Zinaida, a clerical worker with a teenage son, are just happy to see another dawn. "Night is our hell," she says, a time when soldiers descend on homes, beat down doors and take away young men suspected of rebel activities. Most are never seen again.
Welcome to "gradual normalization," the name that Russian President Vladimir Putin's propaganda machine has come up with to describe what passes for life in Chechnya. When a mine blew up recently near the campus of Grozny University, a student looked at his watch and quipped: "Normalization is early today." This weekend normalization enters a new phase, as Chechens -- a few of them, anyway Ñ go to the polls to elect a President. Turnout is likely to be low, and those who actually cast a ballot will find they have little choice but to vote for Putin's handpicked nominee, Akhmad Kadyrov, head of the Moscow-appointed administration in Chechnya.
Four years after Vladimir Putin vowed to hunt down Chechen rebels, the Kremlin is looking to the ballot box as the place to end the war.
Or at least, say skeptics, to make it seem to end.
An election Sunday for Chechen president is the crowning event in Moscow's "normalization" plan for the bloodied southern corner of Russia. But critics of the government say the virtually uncontested race will do little to end the conflict and its main purpose is to allow Putin to claim victory in Chechnya ahead of Russia's presidential election next year.
Akhmad Kadyrov is the man the Russian government had hoped would bring stability to strife-torn Chechnya.
But while he was condemned by rebels as a traitor, he had earlier in his career called for a jihad against Russia.
He later condemned Islamic radicalism and threw in his lot with the Kremlin.
It was this combination of a separatist past and moderate Muslim credentials with pro-Moscow sympathies which persuaded the Kremlin he would be a good man to back in Grozny.
He won the presidency in October 2003 in an election which some Chechens condemned as a sham.
International observers said the poll was questionable because of a lack of pluralism.
Backed by Moscow, Kadyrov is one of seven candidates left in the highly controversial Chechen presidential election slated for Oct. 5. His strongest challengers have been pushed out.
Kadyrov's security force has swelled in recent months to 1,500 3,000 armed men, according to the Moscow Helsinki Group, a human rights organization. His security force also is believed to be the main supplier of vodka to Russian military forces.
Russian human rights groups report that gunmen have attacked and intimidated Kadyrov's opponents and their supporters and families. On Sept. 9, gunmen driving cars bearing Kadyrov's portrait shot and killed the son of a top campaign official for an opposition candidate, then shot their way into the official's home, according to the Moscow Helsinki Group.
"I don't want to call it an election," said Sarah Mendelson, a specialist in Russian elections at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There are international standards for elections," none of which has been met, she said.
Moscow's choice Akhmad Kadyrov becomes the new President as Russian President Vladimir Putin puts into effect his plan for `managed democracy' in war-torn Chechnya.
THE October 5 election in Russia's war-battered state of Chechnya resulted in a predictable mandate - a complete victory for President Akhmad Kadyrov, a Kremlin-backed Muslim cleric who was a secessionist leader in the first Chechen war. The turnout was overwhelming, with over 85 per cent of the country's 561,000 voters turning up at the polling booths. Russian troops guarded the polling stations and lined the roads and armoured carriers patrolled the streets of Grozny, the capital, to ensure peaceful voting.
The Kremlin’s candidate in Chechnya’s presidential election Akhmad Kadyrov was assured of a landslide victory Monday amid cries of foul in a poll that few expect to bring peace to Russia’s troubled southern republic.
Electoral officials in the capital Grozny said Kadyrov had won more than 82 percent of votes cast in Sunday’s poll with more than half the votes counted.
Turnout was set at more than 81 percent, a figure that appeared barely plausible to journalists at the scene who had visited several polling stations where the number of voters had seemed extremely low.
The head of the electoral commission Abdul-Karim Arsakhanov said Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya’s pro-Russian administration since June 2000, had secured 82.5 percent of the vote. Some 52.85 percent of the ballots had been counted, he said. “From the telephone data we have received, we can say that Kadyrov has an absolute and unbeatable lead,” the electoral chief said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.
Russian authorities, which have presented the election as evidence that the situation in the republic has returned to normal, are likely to view the result as confirmation of its policies in Chechnya.
However critics have warned that the poll, widely seen as skewed in favour of Kadyrov, will do little or nothing to bring an end to the fighting.
The odd career path of Akhmad Kadyrov -- college headmaster, anti-Russian guerrilla fighter, Islamic cleric, pro-Russian political appointee -- has taken another sharp turn, as he has used the Kremlin's backing to sweep 85 percent of the vote and become the new president of the war-torn Russian republic of Chechnya.
"People will no longer be able to say, as they sometimes do, that I am Putin's puppet," Kadyrov, 53, said after voting Sunday in his hometown. Just days before the election, Russian President Vladi-mir Putin endorsed Kadyrov as "an open, decent and honest person."
The world's major human-rights organizations boycotted the voting, refusing to send observers because of safety concerns while damning the election as a piece of political theater stage-managed by Moscow. The United States and European nations also didn't send observers; the State Department bars American diplomats from going to the republic for security reasons.
Kadyrov's victory became all but assured when his three main challengers, all of whom were more popular in most polls, dropped out of the race or were disqualified.
Since the beginning of the new Russian Federation in 1991, elections have regularly been held in a repressive environment of violence, coercion and dis-information. The Russian presidential elections of March 14 were no exception. The bombing of a commuter train in Moscow just a week earlier, leaving some 40 dead, was quickly blamed on the Chechens by President Vladimir Putin before an investigation had even been launched. Putin went on to win re-election.
Before the bombings, things were actually looking up for the Chechen people. Members of the European Parliament were calling for Russia to end the violence in Chechnya and to accept the Akhmadov Peace Plan, drawn up by the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Chechnya's elected president Aslan Maskhadov, who is now with the guerilla resistance to the Russian occupation. The plan is an agreement of conditional independence calling for the removal of Russian soldiers from Chechnya, and the placement of UN peacekeepers in the region.
But as election week began in Russia, the situation was similar to what it was during the Russian-overseen Chechen Republic presidential elections of October 2003, in which the rule of Russian-appointed official Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov was confirmed. Rights observers worldwide have protested the atmosphere of terror in which Kadyrov was elected.
In the first two months of 2004, there have been over 43 "disappearances" or arbitrary arrests in Chechnya.
The Moscow-backed president of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, yesterday retracted his own claims that he had tried to talk the Chechen separatist resistance leader into surrender.
Mr Kadyrov, installed as president of the war-torn republic after a highly dubious election held under martial law, told reporters he had spoken to Aslan Maskhadov. Minutes later, however, he denied the claim.
The EU on Thursday submitted a draft resolution on Chechnya to the ongoing 60th session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, criticizing Russia for violating human rights in Chechnya.
It claimed that Russian judicial authorities, both civilian and military, failed to fulfill their mission to investigate offenses committed by federal forces or security services in the breakaway republic. It also denounced all acts of terrorism in Russia.
Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov also denounced the EU draft as "objectively offering moral support for rebels," Interfax reported.
President George W. Bush's remarks at his joint press conference with Vladimir Putin closing their recent Camp David summit meeting largely gave the latter what he wanted on Chechnya. The U.S. president's words were interpreted by mainstream news media, such as the Associated Press, as endorsing the Kremlin's crackdown.
"Russia and the United States are allies in the war on terror," Bush said. "Both of our nations have suffered at the hands of terrorists, and both of our governments are taking actions to stop them. No cause justifies terror. Terrorists must be opposed wherever they spread chaos and destruction, including Chechnya."
Bush went on to use the phrases "human rights" and "free and fair elections," but only in such a way as to avoid directly challenging the Putin administration's claim to be pursuing those goals already. Indeed, Putin himself could have used Bush's formulation without having to change one word: "A lasting solution to that conflict will require an end to terror, respect for human rights and a political settlement that leads to free and fair elections."
An anonymous "senior administration official" interviewed by Ken Fireman of Newsday denied that interpretation, insisting that Putin would understand Bush's words as an implied rebuke. "We wanted to raise Chechnya but we wanted to do it in a polite way," said the official.
Press Conference, Alexander Vershbow, US Ambassador to Russia
Q: You have said that the question of Chechnya was raised. The American press writes that a war is on in Chechnya. Russia calls it a counter-terrorist operation. Have the presidents managed to agree on this issue? And the second question. Washington was greatly worried by the arrival of Kadyrov. Allegedly he even went to Camp David but he was not allowed there.
Vershbow: I think that the discussion on Chechnya was very lively. I think we fully agree that there is a serious terrorist problem in Chechnya and President Bush made clear that America stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Russia in seeking to deal decisively with the terrorists. And we of course recognized that there is an international dimension to the terrorist problem and we've taken steps, including our support for Georgia, to try to cut off international support for Chechen terrorists.
And we made clear that we were pressing other governments to turn over Chechen terrorists that may be on their territory consistent with UN resolutions. At the same time we watch with a combination of interest and concern the unfolding of the political process in Chechnya.
President Bush emphasized the importance of a political process that leads to free and fair elections in Chechnya. As for Mr. Kadyrov, there was never any request or proposal that he participate in the Camp David meetings. And I would add that there was never a formal request for any meetings at the State Department or anywhere else in the government.
Putin was less struck with solidarity than Our Fearless Leader was: Asked about Chechnya over the weekend, Putin immediately referred to the U.S. presence in Iraq. "Are you sure everything is OK with human rights there?" he said. "Or Afghanistan. Are you sure everything is OK there on human rights?"
He also wondered about possible human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States is holding an unknown number of military prisoners under uncertain conditions.
That nest of liberals at The Brookings Institution thinks maybe Our Fearless Leader should have defined his terms a little better: After a rocky start with the Bush administration--marked by spy scandals and a dispute over U.S. intentions to build a missile defense shield and withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty--Putin had worked hard to build a personal affinity with Bush, remove the sense of confrontation, underscore that the Cold War was finally over, and find some mechanism for transcending differences. After September 11, it seemed that the war against terrorism could be just that mechanism. Russia and the United States had finally made common cause.
Common cause, however, assumes both parties have a shared view of the problem and the potential range of solutions. Unfortunately, Putin and Bush do not see terrorism in the same way [sic]. The terrorist threat to Russia is not equivalent to the threat to the United States, and Russia's responses to terrorism have differed from America's.
Like the United States, Russia sees its primary threats as emanating no longer from other states, but from an array of transnational actors. Yet, beyond the dangers posed by al Qaeda and the Taliban, the United States and Russia see terrorism quite differently. In fact, Putin's and the Russian public's view of the terrorist threat remains largely unchanged since September 11. It is narrow and specific to Russia, not to the United States.
Russian discussions of the threat of terrorism quickly become muddled with concerns about religious extremism, "banditry" and criminality (frequently used in conjunction with the Chechens), general social disorder, and the rupture of national unity. Russians see the state as under attack not from the outside, but from the inside, as a result of its military, political, and economic weakness. Unlike the United States, Russia is not so much being targeted by terrorism as inadvertently spawning it. State failure, not success, is the root of Russia's terrorist threat.
There was confusion on Sunday as to the fate of the top Russian general in Chechnya, Valery Baranov, following a blast that rocked the republic's capital Grozny.
Interfax news agency initially quoted a source in the Russian command as saying Baranov had been killed in the attack on a packed stadium on Sunday morning.
But it later quoted an "official source" as saying the general had been seriously injured and was undergoing an operation.
Baranov was the most senior commander of Russian troops in the North Caucasus region that includes separatist Chechnya.
Earlier, officials had said the attack had killed the pro-Moscow president of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov.
******
Naturally, Jeanne has been on this all along.
A story in quotes.
Akhmad Kadyrov is the president of the Chechen Republic (elected on October 5, 2003 for 4 years). He was born on August 23, 1951 in the Karaganda city, Kazahkskaja SSR.
In April, 1957 Kadyrov family returned to the Centorojj village, Shalinskijj rajjon, Checheno-Ingushkaja ASSR.
* 1968 - finished Bachijurt school.
* 1968 - took a course in combine harvester driving in the Kalinovskaja stanica, Nauskijj rajjon.
* 1969-1971 - worked in "Novogroznenskijj" sovkhoz, Gudermeskijj rajjon.
* 1971-1980 - worked in building companies in Nechernozem'e and Siberia.
* 1980 - entered Bukhar Miri-Arab Madrasah.
* 1982-1986 - continued studying in the Tashkent High Islam University.
* 1986-1988 - worked as deputy imam of the Gudermes cathedral masjid.
* 1989-1990 - founded a first in North Caucasia Islamic Institute in the Kurchalojj village and was its rector.
* 1990 - entered sheriat faculty of Amman Islamic University.
* 1991 - returned to the motherland, breaking studying.
* 1993 - designated as deputy mufti, in September, 1994 as acting mufti of the Chechen Republic.
* 1995 - elected mufti of the Chechen Republic.
* June, 2000 - designated as head of the Chechen Republic government.
* 2001 г. - awarded by Order of Friendship.
* October 5 2003 - elected as president of Chechen Republic.
*May 9 2004 - killed after an explosion ripped through VIP seating at a stadium in Moscow.
******
The head of the pro-Moscow administration in Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, has declared that he will run for the Chechen presidency in elections due later this year.
"I see no other way of achieving the goals I have set myself," Mr Kadyrov said on Russian radio.
His announcement comes a few days after a referendum on a new constitution in Chechnya which would cement the republic's place within the Russian Federation.
Moscow has sought to portray the referendum as the start of a political settlement of the conflict in the troubled region.
But human rights organisations have questioned the legitimacy of the vote in conditions of war.
According to preliminary results, almost 96% of those who went to the polls said "yes" to the new constitution.
Presidential and parliamentary elections later this year were also overwhelmingly approved.
Election officials, quoted by the Russian Interfax news agency, said 89.5% of listed voters had taken part.
The referendum results are to be finalised on Thursday.
But reporters in Grozny have cast doubt on the turnout claims, saying that they saw relatively few voters in polling stations.
And independent analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, quoted by AFP news agency, said the referendum was "a Soviet-style election, with the results blatantly faked".
Russia hopes that the elections will provide Chechnya with credible local authorities to replace the government established by Moscow.
It then aims to negotiate a deal on autonomy with the new authorities.
Mr Kadyrov is a former mufti of the republic who turned against the rebels and has been branded by them as a traitor.
Russian soldiers inspecting cars and buses don't catch any rebels. They occasionally rough up the drivers and often demand bribes -- and the guerrillas know very well how this game is played. "Stick some money out the window and they don't check anything," says one self-described mujahid. Ordinary residents like Zinaida, a clerical worker with a teenage son, are just happy to see another dawn. "Night is our hell," she says, a time when soldiers descend on homes, beat down doors and take away young men suspected of rebel activities. Most are never seen again.
Welcome to "gradual normalization," the name that Russian President Vladimir Putin's propaganda machine has come up with to describe what passes for life in Chechnya. When a mine blew up recently near the campus of Grozny University, a student looked at his watch and quipped: "Normalization is early today." This weekend normalization enters a new phase, as Chechens -- a few of them, anyway Ñ go to the polls to elect a President. Turnout is likely to be low, and those who actually cast a ballot will find they have little choice but to vote for Putin's handpicked nominee, Akhmad Kadyrov, head of the Moscow-appointed administration in Chechnya.
Four years after Vladimir Putin vowed to hunt down Chechen rebels, the Kremlin is looking to the ballot box as the place to end the war.
Or at least, say skeptics, to make it seem to end.
An election Sunday for Chechen president is the crowning event in Moscow's "normalization" plan for the bloodied southern corner of Russia. But critics of the government say the virtually uncontested race will do little to end the conflict and its main purpose is to allow Putin to claim victory in Chechnya ahead of Russia's presidential election next year.
Akhmad Kadyrov is the man the Russian government had hoped would bring stability to strife-torn Chechnya.
But while he was condemned by rebels as a traitor, he had earlier in his career called for a jihad against Russia.
He later condemned Islamic radicalism and threw in his lot with the Kremlin.
It was this combination of a separatist past and moderate Muslim credentials with pro-Moscow sympathies which persuaded the Kremlin he would be a good man to back in Grozny.
He won the presidency in October 2003 in an election which some Chechens condemned as a sham.
International observers said the poll was questionable because of a lack of pluralism.
Backed by Moscow, Kadyrov is one of seven candidates left in the highly controversial Chechen presidential election slated for Oct. 5. His strongest challengers have been pushed out.
Kadyrov's security force has swelled in recent months to 1,500 3,000 armed men, according to the Moscow Helsinki Group, a human rights organization. His security force also is believed to be the main supplier of vodka to Russian military forces.
Russian human rights groups report that gunmen have attacked and intimidated Kadyrov's opponents and their supporters and families. On Sept. 9, gunmen driving cars bearing Kadyrov's portrait shot and killed the son of a top campaign official for an opposition candidate, then shot their way into the official's home, according to the Moscow Helsinki Group.
"I don't want to call it an election," said Sarah Mendelson, a specialist in Russian elections at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There are international standards for elections," none of which has been met, she said.
Moscow's choice Akhmad Kadyrov becomes the new President as Russian President Vladimir Putin puts into effect his plan for `managed democracy' in war-torn Chechnya.
THE October 5 election in Russia's war-battered state of Chechnya resulted in a predictable mandate - a complete victory for President Akhmad Kadyrov, a Kremlin-backed Muslim cleric who was a secessionist leader in the first Chechen war. The turnout was overwhelming, with over 85 per cent of the country's 561,000 voters turning up at the polling booths. Russian troops guarded the polling stations and lined the roads and armoured carriers patrolled the streets of Grozny, the capital, to ensure peaceful voting.
The Kremlin’s candidate in Chechnya’s presidential election Akhmad Kadyrov was assured of a landslide victory Monday amid cries of foul in a poll that few expect to bring peace to Russia’s troubled southern republic.
Electoral officials in the capital Grozny said Kadyrov had won more than 82 percent of votes cast in Sunday’s poll with more than half the votes counted.
Turnout was set at more than 81 percent, a figure that appeared barely plausible to journalists at the scene who had visited several polling stations where the number of voters had seemed extremely low.
The head of the electoral commission Abdul-Karim Arsakhanov said Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya’s pro-Russian administration since June 2000, had secured 82.5 percent of the vote. Some 52.85 percent of the ballots had been counted, he said. “From the telephone data we have received, we can say that Kadyrov has an absolute and unbeatable lead,” the electoral chief said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.
Russian authorities, which have presented the election as evidence that the situation in the republic has returned to normal, are likely to view the result as confirmation of its policies in Chechnya.
However critics have warned that the poll, widely seen as skewed in favour of Kadyrov, will do little or nothing to bring an end to the fighting.
The odd career path of Akhmad Kadyrov -- college headmaster, anti-Russian guerrilla fighter, Islamic cleric, pro-Russian political appointee -- has taken another sharp turn, as he has used the Kremlin's backing to sweep 85 percent of the vote and become the new president of the war-torn Russian republic of Chechnya.
"People will no longer be able to say, as they sometimes do, that I am Putin's puppet," Kadyrov, 53, said after voting Sunday in his hometown. Just days before the election, Russian President Vladi-mir Putin endorsed Kadyrov as "an open, decent and honest person."
The world's major human-rights organizations boycotted the voting, refusing to send observers because of safety concerns while damning the election as a piece of political theater stage-managed by Moscow. The United States and European nations also didn't send observers; the State Department bars American diplomats from going to the republic for security reasons.
Kadyrov's victory became all but assured when his three main challengers, all of whom were more popular in most polls, dropped out of the race or were disqualified.
Since the beginning of the new Russian Federation in 1991, elections have regularly been held in a repressive environment of violence, coercion and dis-information. The Russian presidential elections of March 14 were no exception. The bombing of a commuter train in Moscow just a week earlier, leaving some 40 dead, was quickly blamed on the Chechens by President Vladimir Putin before an investigation had even been launched. Putin went on to win re-election.
Before the bombings, things were actually looking up for the Chechen people. Members of the European Parliament were calling for Russia to end the violence in Chechnya and to accept the Akhmadov Peace Plan, drawn up by the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Chechnya's elected president Aslan Maskhadov, who is now with the guerilla resistance to the Russian occupation. The plan is an agreement of conditional independence calling for the removal of Russian soldiers from Chechnya, and the placement of UN peacekeepers in the region.
But as election week began in Russia, the situation was similar to what it was during the Russian-overseen Chechen Republic presidential elections of October 2003, in which the rule of Russian-appointed official Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov was confirmed. Rights observers worldwide have protested the atmosphere of terror in which Kadyrov was elected.
In the first two months of 2004, there have been over 43 "disappearances" or arbitrary arrests in Chechnya.
The Moscow-backed president of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, yesterday retracted his own claims that he had tried to talk the Chechen separatist resistance leader into surrender.
Mr Kadyrov, installed as president of the war-torn republic after a highly dubious election held under martial law, told reporters he had spoken to Aslan Maskhadov. Minutes later, however, he denied the claim.
The EU on Thursday submitted a draft resolution on Chechnya to the ongoing 60th session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, criticizing Russia for violating human rights in Chechnya.
It claimed that Russian judicial authorities, both civilian and military, failed to fulfill their mission to investigate offenses committed by federal forces or security services in the breakaway republic. It also denounced all acts of terrorism in Russia.
Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov also denounced the EU draft as "objectively offering moral support for rebels," Interfax reported.
President George W. Bush's remarks at his joint press conference with Vladimir Putin closing their recent Camp David summit meeting largely gave the latter what he wanted on Chechnya. The U.S. president's words were interpreted by mainstream news media, such as the Associated Press, as endorsing the Kremlin's crackdown.
"Russia and the United States are allies in the war on terror," Bush said. "Both of our nations have suffered at the hands of terrorists, and both of our governments are taking actions to stop them. No cause justifies terror. Terrorists must be opposed wherever they spread chaos and destruction, including Chechnya."
Bush went on to use the phrases "human rights" and "free and fair elections," but only in such a way as to avoid directly challenging the Putin administration's claim to be pursuing those goals already. Indeed, Putin himself could have used Bush's formulation without having to change one word: "A lasting solution to that conflict will require an end to terror, respect for human rights and a political settlement that leads to free and fair elections."
An anonymous "senior administration official" interviewed by Ken Fireman of Newsday denied that interpretation, insisting that Putin would understand Bush's words as an implied rebuke. "We wanted to raise Chechnya but we wanted to do it in a polite way," said the official.
Press Conference, Alexander Vershbow, US Ambassador to Russia
Q: You have said that the question of Chechnya was raised. The American press writes that a war is on in Chechnya. Russia calls it a counter-terrorist operation. Have the presidents managed to agree on this issue? And the second question. Washington was greatly worried by the arrival of Kadyrov. Allegedly he even went to Camp David but he was not allowed there.
Vershbow: I think that the discussion on Chechnya was very lively. I think we fully agree that there is a serious terrorist problem in Chechnya and President Bush made clear that America stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Russia in seeking to deal decisively with the terrorists. And we of course recognized that there is an international dimension to the terrorist problem and we've taken steps, including our support for Georgia, to try to cut off international support for Chechen terrorists.
And we made clear that we were pressing other governments to turn over Chechen terrorists that may be on their territory consistent with UN resolutions. At the same time we watch with a combination of interest and concern the unfolding of the political process in Chechnya.
President Bush emphasized the importance of a political process that leads to free and fair elections in Chechnya. As for Mr. Kadyrov, there was never any request or proposal that he participate in the Camp David meetings. And I would add that there was never a formal request for any meetings at the State Department or anywhere else in the government.
Putin was less struck with solidarity than Our Fearless Leader was: Asked about Chechnya over the weekend, Putin immediately referred to the U.S. presence in Iraq. "Are you sure everything is OK with human rights there?" he said. "Or Afghanistan. Are you sure everything is OK there on human rights?"
He also wondered about possible human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States is holding an unknown number of military prisoners under uncertain conditions.
That nest of liberals at The Brookings Institution thinks maybe Our Fearless Leader should have defined his terms a little better: After a rocky start with the Bush administration--marked by spy scandals and a dispute over U.S. intentions to build a missile defense shield and withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty--Putin had worked hard to build a personal affinity with Bush, remove the sense of confrontation, underscore that the Cold War was finally over, and find some mechanism for transcending differences. After September 11, it seemed that the war against terrorism could be just that mechanism. Russia and the United States had finally made common cause.
Common cause, however, assumes both parties have a shared view of the problem and the potential range of solutions. Unfortunately, Putin and Bush do not see terrorism in the same way [sic]. The terrorist threat to Russia is not equivalent to the threat to the United States, and Russia's responses to terrorism have differed from America's.
Like the United States, Russia sees its primary threats as emanating no longer from other states, but from an array of transnational actors. Yet, beyond the dangers posed by al Qaeda and the Taliban, the United States and Russia see terrorism quite differently. In fact, Putin's and the Russian public's view of the terrorist threat remains largely unchanged since September 11. It is narrow and specific to Russia, not to the United States.
Russian discussions of the threat of terrorism quickly become muddled with concerns about religious extremism, "banditry" and criminality (frequently used in conjunction with the Chechens), general social disorder, and the rupture of national unity. Russians see the state as under attack not from the outside, but from the inside, as a result of its military, political, and economic weakness. Unlike the United States, Russia is not so much being targeted by terrorism as inadvertently spawning it. State failure, not success, is the root of Russia's terrorist threat.
There was confusion on Sunday as to the fate of the top Russian general in Chechnya, Valery Baranov, following a blast that rocked the republic's capital Grozny.
Interfax news agency initially quoted a source in the Russian command as saying Baranov had been killed in the attack on a packed stadium on Sunday morning.
But it later quoted an "official source" as saying the general had been seriously injured and was undergoing an operation.
Baranov was the most senior commander of Russian troops in the North Caucasus region that includes separatist Chechnya.
Earlier, officials had said the attack had killed the pro-Moscow president of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov.
******
Naturally, Jeanne has been on this all along.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-09 05:52 am (UTC)It does however underline the similarity of Chechen predicament with ours. Actually I lost a bet with my friend that Bremer hasn't been assasinated yet by this time.
Probably my big question is can we afford Iraq occupation turning into chechen style occupation, long and bloody guerilla war.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-09 07:24 am (UTC)Apparently a group of Iraqis moderate has formed a political opposition group. They are neither urban poor religious fantics like Al sadr nor US backed groups. So this is a very hopefull development. We all can go home happy soon. (unless Bush decides to start assasinating them one by one of course) Let's keep our fingers cross.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F250B5AD-D891-4585-B702-2A7683F96C4C.htm
Anti-occupation Iraqi group forms
A pan-Iraqi group has been formed to oppose the occupation of Iraq and has immediately called for a meeting with UN envoy al-Akhdar al-Ibrahimi in a direct challenge to the country's US-appointed leadership.
About 500 Iraqis met in Baghdad on Saturday to set up a national political force free of US influence to push for a handover of sovereignty under the auspices of the United Nations.
The United Iraqi Scholars Group - which appointed a 16-strong leadership panel - has vowed to boycott any political group set up by the US and called for a stronger army than the small force envisioned by the US-led coalition.
After a five-hour conference, the group said its agenda was based on "legitimate resistance to end the occupation" and keep Iraq united.
The group of moderate Shia and Sunni Muslims as well as Kurds also demanded the US-appointed Governing Council should be sidelined
PS. was going to submit this story, but there is no submission button, so I just tag this into the most relevant blog entry comment.