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| Caucasus |
| Writer Sneaks into Chechnya |
| 2003-09-21 |
| ONE MONTH AGO, I was in Grozny, the war-torn capital of the breakaway republic of Chechnya. To get there, I disguised myself as a Chechen woman in a headscarf and long skirt with the hope that I would pass through checkpoints without being discovered as an American. Ya, I can see how getting caught as an American would get you in trouble, especially if you screw up Russian dipthongs while talking. Or maybe this is a self-hating American. Why the disguise? Maybe because the Chechen rebels would string her up if they caught her: a woman?!? Having studied the Russo-Chechen conflict for a few years, I wanted to see for myself what life is like for ordinary civilians in Chechnya. You are in the middle of a civil war thick with ethnic implications, and you want to know what life is like for the ordinary civilians? It’s crappy, and I have never been the Harvard OR Chechnya! I imagined myself going as an outside observer, but once in Chechnya I found that I had stepped into Chechen shoes. Like every other civilian, I was vulnerable. This tiny place the size of Connecticut seems completely cut off and forgotten by the outside world. It is a place of total lawlessness, where men with guns rule and human life carries little value. And we can lay the cause of these conditions firmly in the hands of the Chechens. What would she do in these circumstances? Open the border? Have border guards wave you on through because you have a smile? Remind her to have fun? There are no human rights in Chechnya. One Grozny resident told me, "We don’t know if we’ll be alive tomorrow or even five minutes from now." Contrary to assertions by the Russian government that the situation is stabilizing ahead of the Kremlin-organized presidential election, on Oct. 5, my experience convinced me that life is not returning to normal at all. It is inconceivable that a fair election can take place in this climate of fear, where shooting and forced disappearances happen on a daily basis. Boston Globe editors were asleep on editing this piece I guess. Anyway, this is symptomatic of liberal thinking: There are shootings on a daily basis everywhere in the world, yet, elections somehow are conducted and democracy goes on. Why does everyone but the Russians get a pass on this? In the upcoming Bush-Putin summit, the reality of the crisis and the need for negotiations toward a genuine political solution must be made a priority. Fact is that the Russian MOD knows well the reality of the crisis, being ass-deep in hostile Muslims, and are fighting for the survival of their people. Civilians continue to be the main victims of this conflict. Well... DUH!! But why lay it at the door of just the Russian government? It is possible that as many as 200,000 people have been killed in the two Russo-Chechen wars combined; I love this bit of propagandizing. Why not just say, in all honesty and candor you just don’t know how many dead? How many just left? But taking this bit of rhetoric to its logical extremem, as few as 200 people have been killed. This means of writing is a favorite amoungst leftists. It hides their ignorances right there along side their agenda and at the same time makes it look like they know what they are talking about. But they don’t. They don’t because the truth is not a liberal ally. 350,000 people have been displaced from their homes, many fleeing their villages after Russian soldiers conducted brutal "cleansing operations" and detained or killed villagers. I talked with internally displaced Chechens living in a camp in Ingushetia. They spoke about pressure from Russian and Ingush authorities, including threats that several camps will be closed by Oct. 1, presumably to force the internally displaced back into Chechnya in time for the presidential election. Many Chechens I spoke to believe that Akhmad Kadyrov or another leader hand-picked by the Kremlin will win. They see the election as little more than window dressing for the West. All the while, the military operation continues with 100,000 Russian troops fighting 2,000 to 3,000 Chechen guerrillas. I fail to see the problem here. In one paragraph the writer bemoans that Russians will be breaking up refugee camps and forcing them back into Chechnya in time for elections, yet the next paragraphs she bemoans that a Russian may win the election. Oh, and this subject of the first sentance: Many. That can mean three out of ten have said that. We have no idea how many ’many’ is. To my mind, considering the obvious bias of the wriitng I bet she made the facts in this paragraph up. I spent one night in a home on the outskirts of Grozny listening to machine-gun fire and explosions in the hills only a few miles away. I kept remembering the words of a resident, "Not a single night goes by without someone disappearing. Masked men come into homes and take people away." I wondered if I would see the morning. On my second day, I went with guides on a tour of Grozny. I concealed a video camera and filmed the ruins of the city, taking care not to catch the attention of soldiers or police. Every building bears the marks of bullets or gaping holes from aerial bombardment. Many buildings -- including high-rise apartments that once housed ordinary families -- have been completely leveled to piles of rubble. A handful of buildings associated with oil companies are undergoing renovation. The only building in good shape is the presidential palace. Ahh, yes: oil companies. As if the Chechens muslims are noble folks and oil companies are behind the brutality of the war. A observation: Maybe the oil companies having buildings renovated IS in fact a sign that things will be returning to normal; that maybe Russia has the conflict in hand. Oil companies are notoriously tight-fisted with their money, and I strongly doubt they would be investing in Chechnya if they believed the war was still ongoing. The best tonic for a war torn region is investment in infrastructure: jobs and the attendent benefits. But no, liberals would rather see the war ongoing, as it befits how their world would be under their rule. Thanks for proving the Russian govenrment’s assertions that the war is in hand. I am certain you didn’t mean to. Sorry about the length, but I had to get this shiney piece of shite in Rantburg |
| Posted by:Anonymous |
| #11 Anybody else notice this woman writes like a 7th grader doing a 'what I did this summer' essay? She claims to be a graduate student? |
| Posted by: DANEgerus 2003-9-21 11:46:12 PM |
| #10 They had de facto independence from 1996 onwards. The place turned into a terrorist haven that eventually sought to export its poison outwards when al-Qaeda leader Khattab invaded Dagestan with his al-Ghamdi buddy and their Arab playmates. |
| Posted by: Dan Darling 2003-9-21 10:27:43 PM |
| #9 Isn't the occupation of Chechenya by the Russian akin to the occupasion of Tibet by the Chinese and about as brutal, if not more so? No. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2003-9-21 10:14:10 PM |
| #8 When is a war of liberation acceptable and when isn't it? Isn't the occupation of Chechenya by the Russian akin to the occupasion of Tibet by the Chinese and about as brutal, if not more so? If Russia lays claim to Chechenya as her own soil then the welfare of Chechen cities should be protected as much as the welfare of any other city in Russia -- isn't then leveling Grozny something like saying "the operation was a success, the patient is dead"? It seems to me that by levelling Grozny Russia lost all moral claim to the place; Russia treated it as an *enemy* city, not just a city to be rescued from the hands of the rebels. If Chechenya needs to be levelled to the ground in order to be "saved" from the rebels, wouldn't it be much better to let it go independent? After all this isn't like Kosovo for the Serbs, or Kurdistan for Turkey -- unlike those two cases, Chechenya is but a tiny part of the Russian federation in either population or area... |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2003-9-21 9:00:04 PM |
| #7 The writer should not qualify as a jounalist. She doesn't appear to have entered the country in a search for facts (jounalism.) Instead she has entered the country because she studied it in school and though an actual trip inside would be cool. She must have missed out on the motocross holiday through the Sudan, or all the other morons adreniline junkies left while she was finishing up her term paper. She has a fututre with any of the three major networks in the US. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-21 8:41:26 PM |
| #6 I just finished Robert Young Pelton's book The Hunter, the Hammer, and Heaven : Journeys to Three Worlds Gone Mad on Sierra Leone, Chechnya, and Bouganville. He goes into the history of Chechnya. It is pretty brutal. The relations between Russia and Chechnya for the last 300 years have been real bad. Now the Russians are fed up with the Jihadi Nutcase Chechen fighters, so there are massive artillery, rocket, missile and bombings of anything there, and the Chechen fighters respond with attacks on convoys, HQs and anything else Russian they can harass and destroy. Oh, and by the way, journalists are fair game for killing and ransoms. One is an absolute fool to go to that shithole. After reading about the three areas gone mad, I make the following conclusions: Sierra Leone: some reason to hope for better times. Bouganville: quite a bit of hope that things will improve Chechnya: abandon all hope for this place. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-9-21 4:30:15 PM |
| #5 The writer demonstrates all the superficial excitement without insight that is charecteristic of a college senior ready to save the world. Maybe she should take a guilded tour of the prisons of Iraq and some of the mass graves, make a stop at the killing fields and swing through the Juche capital. Might kind of knock some of the edges off her little recess from journalism school. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-21 11:55:01 AM |
| #4 2000 to 3000 rebels? We know there are 100,000 troops in Chechnya, but what about the rebels? How certain is anyone as to the actual number of rebels? Is that the constant number being maintained over the years with numbers amounting to several thousands being killed, captured or left/quit/rotated out? Inquiring minds wanna know. The short answer is you don't know; not even the Russian Army knows. True, the Russian Army leveled Grozny; no one can dispute that. Russian command didn't want to see a repeat of the New Years Eve debacle in 1994-1995, and I frankly do not blame them. The Russian Army used the strength of their army, in artillery, in fighting the Chechens. Was it antiseptic, the standard to which the US holds it commanders? Of course, not, but I seriously doubt given similar circumstances, the US Army would hold back its ordnance fighting rebels on our own soil, especially after an engagement like the First Battle of Grozny. |
| Posted by: badanov 2003-9-21 8:51:29 AM |
| #3 The Russian Army is just as brutal as any Chechen bandit, made up of brutalised drug addicted conscripts too poor to buy their way out, lead by incompetant psychopaths who beat hundreds of their own subordinates to death each year. |
| Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-9-21 8:05:31 AM |
| #2 They're also fond of cutting off heads. And filming it. And sending the tape to the family. But I guess this "writer" didn't get a chance yet to see this side of the story: Chechen brutality. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2003-9-21 7:43:38 AM |
| #1 Newsflash: Grozy was leveled by Russian artillery in late 1999 or early 2000. If the presidential palace is unscathed, then it must be a new one, because the old one was severely damaged. The Chechens are probably the meanest people on earth, who (when they are not shooting Russians) make their money by stealing cars, running drugs and kidnapping people. Finally, Russian has had 100,000 troops chasing 2000-3000 rebels for over three years now, and they still haven't caught them. |
| Posted by: Douglas De Bono 2003-9-21 7:24:52 AM |