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| Documentary Exposes Russian Aggressions In Chechny |
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| amatullah |
| 10/13/03 at 23:17:50 |
| Documentary Exposes Russian Aggressions In Chechnya Putin By Khaled Schmidt, IOL Correspondent BONN, October 3 (IslamOnline.net) - Away from embracing Russia's official language that puts a tight lid on all aggressions of its forces in Chechnya, a hard-hitting European documentary exposed a grim image of the situation in the Caucasian republic. Entitled "A Welcome from Grozny", the documentary aired by the French-German cultural channel Arte Tuesday, September 30, showed large scenes of destruction in the Chechen capital due to Russian attacks, and tough living conditions of refugees fleeing to the borders with neighboring state of Ingushetia. Based on interviews with a number of Grozny inhabitants, Russian soldiers and Chechen independence seekers, the film run scenes of Russian forces breaking into one house, detaining an inhabitant regardless of the appeals of his helpless mother. The report also said that 2,000 Chechen civilians were abducted by Russian forces, some of them were identified with their mutilated bodies found scattered. The grim image of Grozny was furthered by debris of bombed-out buildings destroyed by the random and long-standing Russian shelling. For the buildings that survived the attacks, there is no water, phone and little electricity. The report also took notice of the demographic imbalance in the city, as girls only go to schools as most of male students are incarcerated in detention camps or laid to rest. Russian soldiers also killed more than 10,000 and made refugees of tens of thousands of Chechens fleeing the fighting, according to human rights Nevertheless, Russia's military option failed to "break the will of Chechens, as they are putting up more stiff resistance along generations down the last five centuries, a Russian officer serving in the region said, on condition of anonymity. The officer put at eight the number of Russian soldiers killed by Russian fighters every day. The report came as angry rights activists this week accused the Kremlin of open intimidation after a Moscow cinema abruptly cancelled a festival of scathing documentary films about Chechnya that had already been screened in Britain and the United States. It also comes to end a Russian state tight control that has made developments in the volatile region largely off-limits to the media since storming into the Caucasus republic in October 1999. Over the past few years, the Kremlin seized control over all national broadcasters, and banned all foreign media from going to Chechnya except as part of organized trips under the watchful eye of a hawkish presidential adviser, said Agence France-Presse (AFP). The war coverage is thus reduced to pictures of soldiers shooting impressive-looking guns at far-off targets -- ostensibly separatist hideouts. The separatists have been banned from the airwaves and the rare protests by rights groups almost never make it to the screeens. 'Horrendous' "He (Putin) was a former KGB agent," Politicofiskaya In an evening held on comment on the report here, a Russian journalist accused President Vladimir Putin of dragging out Russia to a "horrendous catastrophe by his insistence to keep on" the campaign in the Caucasian republic. "Putin sparked the second Chechen War in 1999 for his own political interests, and a hallucinating desire to revenge the defeat of Russia at the hands of Russian fighters in 1994-1996 invasion of Chechnya," said Ana Politicofiskaya. So, Politicofiskaya believed, it is of little surprise that Putin deals with apathy towards crimes of genocide and rape his forces commit in Chechnya. On July 25, a Russian colonel was sentenced to 10 years in jail after being convicted of strangling a Chechen woman to death while serving in the restive republic in March 2000. In 2002, Human Rights Watch said it had documented more than 120 summary executions of civilians and numerous cases of arbitrary detention, torture and rape by Russian forces in Chechnya. "He was a former KGB agent, with a deep-rooted Chauvinistic hostile tendency to Caucasians and Jews," she the Russian journalist, who has visited Chechnya fifty times. Politicofiskaya said Putin's policy led to "plunging Russia in poverty, and increasing stereotypical antagonism against Caucasians and Central Asia citizens. A 'Dictator' She said that the dimensions of Putin's personality make her lose hopes for a swift end to the Russian aggression against Chechnya. "Undoubtedly, any other president would have halted this campaign out of Russia's national interests," she said, warning of "gruesome repercussions if it drags on. The two military campaigns bled Russia of more than 12,000 soldiers, and the Russian society suffers from the highest rate of violence mainly practiced by one million soldiers who had served in Chechnya. Presidential Elections The report appears as Chechnya will choose a president on Sunday, in an election that the Kremlin touts as proof that the four-year war here is over, and which critics dismiss as a farce. An estimated 540,000 registered voters in the war-torn republic will have a choice of seven candidates, with Akhmad Kadyrov, whom Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed to run Chechnya three years ago, expected to win despite tenuous popular support. But critics say the election is nothing but a fig leaf, a way for the Kremlin to legitimize Kadyrov as the man in charge of the restive Caucasus republic and to replace Aslan Maskhadov, whom Chechens elected to the post in 1997. Critics say that a fair election cannot be held in today's Chechnya, which is entrenched in a brutal guerrilla combat. "This election is a farce," the chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, told reporters last week. Russian and European rights groups have refused to monitor the election. Meanwhile popular support for Kadyrov remains tenuous. Life for ordinary Chechens has not improved during his three years in power - water has not started running, phones have not begun working, it's still dangerous to go out at night. http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-10/03/article08.shtml |
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