Did the Russian secret service instigate the war in Chechnya?
by Abu Khalid
Last updated 14th July 2002
Newsflash: "Assassination of Russia" (click here if the first link doesn't work), a video by Russian media tycoon Boris Berezovsky attempting to show that the Chechen leadership nor guerillas instigated the bombing campaign in Russia which started the 2nd Russian-Chechen war has been released on the web. It is very good and presents some very convincing evidence:
Or:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/multimedia_assassination_of_russia.html
Firstly, a good source on the human rights abuses in Chechnya committed by the Russian army can be found here or here, plenty of articles on the Chechen crisis dealing with a number of issues can be found here. On with the issue, did the FSB (Russian secret service) start this war in Chechnya? If so, why? For what purpose would the Chechens bomb Russia even though they were autonomous and were experiencing virtually no Russian interference? Who has the most to gain in this conflict, Chechen people or rebels who succeeded in driving out the Russians and gaining autonomy or the Russian government who stand to gain Chechnya's plentiful supply of oil (and Yeltsin and Putin would have gained public support and popularity. Putin has plenty more reasons, such as the fact that if he fought this war against these "terrorists", he would have gained enormous amounts of support for his recently gained Presidency)? This document centers around an incident which happened in September 1999 in the Russian city of Ryazan, FSB agents were caught planting (what was later confirmed as) bombs containing hexogen and a timer set to go off the next day (the next day was the day when the Russians sent their army into Chechnya, presumably this planting of a bomb was so that the Russian government could gain more public support for the Russian campaign in Chechnya). Why did the Russian authorities at first announce that it was a genuine terrorist bombing attempt but then two days later call it a test conducted by the authorities to see how good the people can cope in a situation like this after it was discovered in phone records that the bombers were FSB? Doesn't that say the Russian authorities had something to hide? Please note, I may not agree with some of the things said on this document (especially about Shamil Basayev's motives) but overall it contains very valuable information about this Chechen-Russian war.
This document presents information from credible sources, and for anyone who wants to study this more then please go to yahoo.com and type in the search engine "Ryazan bomb" or "Ryazan bombs", basically, anything to do with the Chechen-Russian conflict.
As of March 2002, the noted Russian businessman, Boris Berzovsky announced to the press that he would release a video claiming that it has proof that it was Russia which started the 2nd Chechen war, this document aims to prove this with more sources.
This document should not be viewed as a partisan source, it uses information from a variety of sources with my input being only in this introduction. The sources themselves are not viewed as partisan, "The Guardian" newspaper being just one example of the variety of sources. These sources themselves are based upon the evidence presented, therefore a dismissal of this document as a "partisan source" cannot actually be upheld.
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The Ryazan incident
If the Russian people can be bothered to vote,
they will vote for the man who is being foisted on them
Russia: special report
Jonathan Steele
Guardian
Friday March 24, 2000
A new noun has crept into the English lexicon. Partly a puppet, partly a front man, a "put-in" is someone installed, imposed, or enthroned in power in a country by undemocratic but completely legal and constitutional methods. No need for a palace coup, an army putsch, or a revolution in the streets. The appointment of Russia's new president shows that to be a "put-in" you only require influential friends in the right place.
A pseudo-democratic seal of approval will be stamped on the lucky man on Sunday, when those Russian voters strong enough to resist the crushing hands of apathy and disgust troop off to the polling booths. But the real election took place last August when a handful of men behind closed doors in the Kremlin chose a hard-nosed apparatchik, Vladimir Putin, to take over from Boris Yeltsin.
Known as the "Yeltsin family", this bunch of asset-strippers who seized Russia's energy and raw material monopolies when state ownership ended, were well aware that anyone they picked would have little chance of losing what pass for elections in Russia. Incumbency and control of television are the keys. In a society where authoritarian instincts run deep, just being presented as the man in charge gives you a headstart since there is no requirement that challengers get equal treatment on news programmes. Far from it, they are either ignored or pilloried with no right of reply.
Four years ago the Kremlin clique used these cynical techniques to drag Yeltsin to victory after initial opinion ratings in single figures, even when he had a major heart attack three days before the poll. (Lying to voters, they denied the attack had happened.) This time the task was bound to be easier, provided they picked someone able to walk straight and keep sober in public.
What issue should he emphasise? Reviving the collapsed economy was a non-starter, since Putin clearly has no expertise and most Russians are too disappointed to believe anyone on the economy. Tackling corruption was also a hard issue on which to campaign, since the Yeltsin family's whole point in appointing an insider was to protect themselves and their friends from prosecution or revenge.
How about war? This was a better bet, since war plus media control give a man the chance to project a wider image as a strong leader. Chechnya was the obvious target. The Chechens had provided a pretext by invading Dagestan in August, and when several blocks of flats in Moscow and other Russian cities were blown up in September, popular anger against them rose.
Does that mean the Kremlin was behind the bombings, as some Russians have alleged? It is hard to know. The FSB, the successor to the KGB which Putin briefly headed, has not yet found proof of a Chechen hand. Investigators told a Moscow press conference last week they still believe Chechens may have been behind the explosions: but of the 26 people on their list of suspects, none is an ethnic Chechen.
Alexander Shagako, deputy head of the FSB investigation department, said his people had identified the components of the explosives used in all three cities, the drivers who delivered the explosives and stored them, and the people who chose which buildings would be attacked. But he admitted there was no proof that those who carried out the explosions were trained in an anti-Russian Islamic centre on Chechen territory.
Doubts over a Chechen link to the bombs were heightened by an incident in Ryazan, south-east of Moscow, in September when residents discovered a bomb in their flats and suspicious men who turned out to be FSB agents. The FSB later said the bomb had been put there as part of a training exercise. When Duma MPs called for an inquiry, pro-Putin MPs blocked it.
Much has been written about the enigma of Putin, but guessing makes little sense. Even if Russia were allowed a democratic poll, any winner would try to restore a strong state, give Russia back a sense of dignity, and improve tax collection. Putin too says he will do this. There is no surprise there. The crucial test is whether he means it, given his undistinguished career as a KGB agent and servant of Russia's new rich. Will he remain as crude and authoritarian as his behaviour suggests, with his references to critical journalists as "traitors" and Chechen opponents as "animals", and his dirty tricks against dissidents and, most recently, against the prosecutor who tried to investigate the Yeltsin family?
After leaving the KGB, Putin owed his promotion to two men suspected of corruption, Anatoly Sobchak, the late mayor of St Petersburg, and Pavel Borodin, the head of the Kremlin's property department. Will he really be able to break from the kleptocrats and their political friends who have captured the Russian state? Will he tackle the raw material monopolies and ensure a reasonable share of their earnings go to the national exchequer rather than disappearing abroad?
This is Russia's main problem, and it flies in the face of common sense that this new president will do anything serious about it. After all, it goes against a spy's code of honour to betray the men by whom he is "put in". [1]
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Take care Tony, that man has blood on his handsEvidence shows secret police were behind 'terrorist' bomb
John Sweeney
Observer
Sunday March 12, 2000
The photograph below of a detonator pre-set to explode a bomb calls into question Russian leader Vladimir Putin's line - endorsed by Tony Blair during his visit to Russia yesterday - that Chechen terrorists were responsible for the explosions that killed more than 200 Russians last year.
Two bombs went off in Moscow, but a third bomb planted in Ryazan, 100 miles south, was defused by bomb squad officer Yuri Tkachenko who said: 'It was a live bomb.' It was made of the same explosive, Hexagen, and planted in a similar target - a working-class block of flats.
The third bomb did not go off because the bombers were caught red-handed. They were Russian, not Chechen, and when they were arrested by local police they flashed identity cards from the FSB - the new styling for the KGB, the secret police Putin headed before he became Russia's acting President. Two days later the FSB announced that the third bomb had only been 'a training exercise'.
The Kremlin's evidence that Chechen terrorists bombed Moscow is extremely thin. After the bomb outrages, secret police in the FSB handed out Photofit pictures of unnamed Chechens. No suspects were arrested and no convincing explanation was given to the public.
The third bomb was found in the basement of the flats on the night of 22 September at around 9pm. Tkachenko said: 'It was a live bomb. I was in a combat situation.' He tested the three sugar sacks in the basement with his MO-2 portable gas analyser, and got a positive reading for Hexagen, the explosive used in the Moscow bombs.
The timer of the detonator was set for 5.30am, which would have killed many of the 250 tenants of the 13-storey block of flats. The sacks were taken out of the basement at around 1.30 am and driven away by the FSB. But the secret police forgot to take away the detonator, which was left in the hands of the bomb squad. They photographed it the next day.
The bombers were discovered by the people they meant to kill. Vladimir Vasiliev, an engineer com ing home for the night, noticed three strangers acting suspiciously by the basement of his block of flats at 14/16 Novosyolov Street, literally New Settlers Street.
Vasiliev noticed that the number plate at the front of the car had been covered up with a piece of paper, on it '62', the Ryazan regional code. At the back of the car the plate had the Moscow regional code.
Vasiliev, puzzled, decided to call the police. 'As we were waiting for the lift, one of the young guys got out of the car and the girl asked: "Have you done everything?" '
Vasiliev observed the three in the car: 'They were Russian, absolutely, not Asiatic. The girl was a blonde.'
The local police arrested two men that night, according to Boris Kagarlitsky, a member of the Russian Institute of Comparative Politics. 'FSB officers were caught red-handed while planting the bomb. They were arrested by the police and they tried to save themselves by showing FSB identity cards.'
Then, when the headquarters of the FSB in Moscow intervened, the two men were quietly let go.
Police Inspector Andrei Chernyshev was the first to enter the basement. He said: 'It was about 10 in the evening. There were some strangers who were seen leaving the basement. We were told about the men who came out from the basement and left with the car with a licence number which was covered with paper. I went down to the basement.
'This block of flats had a very deep basement which was completely covered with water. We could see sacks of sugar and in them some electronic device, a few wires and a clock. We were shocked.
'We ran out of the basement and I stayed on watch by the entrance and my officers went to evacuate the people.'
The following day, on 24 September, the FSB in Moscow announced that there had never been a bomb, only a training exercise. Vasiliev said: 'I heard the official version on the radio, when the press secretary of the FSB announced it was a training exercise. It felt extremely unpleasant.' [2]
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Question:
Six bombs in Russian apartment houses in 1999 were blamed on Chechen terrorists. They engendered a national panic that helped justify Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Chechenya. The first five bombs caused 300 deaths; the sixth bomb, in the city of Ryazan, was detected in advance and defused by a bomb squad on September 22nd, 1999. It was the only incident in which the perpetrators were seen.
Who was behind the Ryazan Incident?
Answer:
The FSB, the successor intelligence service to the KGB which Putin headed before becoming Acting President and then, after his military success in Chechenya, President of Russia.
Here is what happened on the night of September 22rd, 1999. At about 9 PM, a bus driver returning from work to his apartment on New Settler's Street in Ryazan, saw a white car backed up to the high-rise building in which he lived. He noticed that its license plate had been suspiciously taped over. Then, two men and a woman, who appeared to be coming from the basement of the building, got in. One man was looking at his watch then the trio drove off in a rush. The bus driver immediately called the police emergency number.
The local police arrived, went to the basement, and came rushing out shouting 'bomb'. A bomb-disposal team then defused and removed the alien device from the building. Concerned that there might be other bombs, the police proceeded to evacuate all the residents to a nearby cinema, where they spent the entire night and next morning.
In Moscow, on September 23rd, the FSB announced that a "terrorist action" in Ryazan had been narrowly averted, and the next day Acting President ordered the Russian Army to invade Chechenya and eliminate the terrorists' bases.
Meanwhile, in Ryazan, preliminary lab tests showed the presence of explosives in the device that were similar to the five other bombs blamed on Chechen terrorists, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Sergei Kabashov of the Ryazan police. Acting on the assumption that it was the work of Chechen terrorists, the police located the white car with the doctored plates which had been abandoned in a parking lot near the train station. While tracing its engine number for the identity of the car's chain of ownership, the police put the city's railroad stations under tight surveillance. Presumably, the trio, whom residents of the building had described, were trapped in Ryazan. At this point, a local operator intercepted a phone call. It was from an unidentified person in Ryazan to FSB headquarters in Moscow. The FSB official advised the apparently panicked team in Ryazan to "split up" to evade police surveillance at the train station.
And then in Moscow, just as the Ryazan police were closing in on the trio of suspects, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the FSB in Moscow, announced that the incident in Ryazan had been nothing more than a "training exercise" staged by the FSB to test local vigilance. He explained the earlier FSB announcement that it was a "terrorist action" was erroneous, as was the police analysis revealing explosives in the bomb. The white car belonged to the FSB. The trio who planted the device were FSB agents. The device secreted in the apartment house basement contained, according to the FSB, harmless sugar.
So the FSB admitted it was behind the Ryazan incident. As it turned out, there were no more "training exercises"-- or, for that matter, bombs in apartment houses. [3]
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THE RYAZAN INCIDENT. The no. 61 (August 27) issue of Novaya Gazeta contains the full text of a new book, entitled "The FSB Is Blowing Up Russia," co-authored by Aleksandr Litvinenko and Yury Fel'shtinsky. From 1988-1998, Litvinenko served as an officer in the counterintelligence organs of the FSB. In November 1998, he openly criticized the leadership of the FSB during a press conference in Moscow, after which he suffered two arrests. In 2000, he left Russia illegally. Currently he and his family reside in Britain, where, this May, he was granted political asylum.
Chapter four of the new book, entitled "The Failure of the FSB in Ryazan," and chapter five, titled "The FSB Against the People," treat in great detail the extraordinary events that took place in the central Russian city of Ryazan on the night of September 22-23, 1999. The authors' thesis, in a nutshell, is that the FSB attempted to blow up an apartment complex in Ryazan that night but that this attempt was foiled by a sharp-eyed local citizen. The bombing of Chechnya was set to begin the following day, and, if an explosion had occurred in Ryazan, there would have been no bounds to Russian popular fury. Following the debacle in Ryazan, there ensued an elaborate cover-up, whose intricate workings the authors meticulously trace. The "Ryazan incident" represents a key event for all of those in Russia who contend that it was the FSB (possibly cooperating with the GRU) who in fact blew up two large apartment complexes in Moscow in September 1999, thereby galvanizing popular support for a second invasion of Chechnya. [4]
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January 14
Russia's war in Chechnya isn't an "anti-terrorist" campaign but a war "against an entire people," the Washington Post argues in an editorial. "'Terrorist' refers to any Chechen the Russians would like to shoot. The most alarming policy, though, is the decision to round up all Chechen males between the ages of 10 and 60. Many of them will be sent to what the Russians call 'filtration camps'; these are temporary prisons that in the past, according to credible reports, have been venues for widespread torture as Russians try to force detainees to admit that they are terrorists. . . . What this amounts to is a final admission that Russia is waging a war not against a small number of bandits and terrorists, as it has insisted, but against an entire people. President Clinton's jolly defense of Russia's efforts to 'liberate' Grozny notwithstanding, most Chechens do not want to be part of Russia . . . . the United States and other governments, so cautious and deferential until now, should urge [Putin] to shift from a policy of extermination to one of negotiation."
More than 250 residents of an apartment building in Ryazan suspect the Federal Security Service (FSB) was behind an attempt to blow up their high-rise last September, a week after a second of two apartment bombings in Moscow that killed more than 200 people. The Baltimore Sun's Will Englund reports that the residents "believe that the chief of the Federal Security Service was lying when he announced, two days later, that the whole thing was a training exercise. They believe he was heading off an investigation and providing cover for whoever was behind the attempt to kill them all." Residents believe the security services planted the bomb, as in Moscow and elsewhere, to blame Chechen terrorists and justify sending troops back into Chechnya.
In the first floor of the Ryazan apartment building, police found four 100-pound sacks and what appeared to be a timing device and detonator. The FSB said the sacks contained sugar, but Ryazan police said they detected the explosive hexogen. Englund of the Baltimore Sun quotes Ryazan police officers who suspect that the FSB or "one of the other special services" was behind the attempted bombing. Building residents discussed suing the FSB, but the local FSB chief told them "it was time to drop the matter." A resident tells the Los Angeles Times, "The general opinion is that we'd better not challenge them or they will really blow us up next time."
"Of course no investigation is going on now in relation to this case," Ryazan FSB Spokesman Yuri V. Bludov tells reporters. "It was just an exercise." Bludov's statement is reported in the Los Angeles Times. [5]
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Agents accused of bomb plot
London: A bomb planted in a Russian apartment block a week after explosions killed more than 200 people in Moscow was defused after police detained Russian secret service agents who had planted the device, a bomb squad officer told Britain's Observer newspaper.
The newspaper said that the claims by Mr Yuri Tkachenko threw doubt on Moscow's insistence that Chechen terrorists were responsible for the bombings of two apartment blocks in Moscow in September last year.
On September 22, two days after the discovery of the bomb in an apartment block in Ryazan, south of the capital, the secret service, the FSB, announced that the bomb had been a training exercise, the Observer said.
But Mr Tkachenko told the newspaper:
"It was a live bomb. I was in a combat situation."
He said he tested the bomb, which was in the basement of the apartment block, and found that it was made of Hexagen - the same explosive used in the two Moscow bombs.
Members of the FSB took away the sacks of explosive, but left behind the detonator, which was set for 5.30am, when most of the building's 250 tenants would have been asleep, the report added.
The newspaper said that when local police detained the bombers they showed identity cards from the FSB, one of the successors of the KGB.
At the time of the bombs, the Russian press reported claims that the Government had planted the devices.
Britain's Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, returned on Sunday from a trip to St Petersburg where he met Acting President Vladimir Putin and denounced Chechen "terrorism".
When he was asked about the possibility that the Russian Government had planted the bombs in an attempt to justify the subsequent bloody crackdown in Chechnya, a British Government spokesman said: "We have no evidence of that".
Agence France-Presse [6]
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An article in Britain's Observer newspaper on Sunday, March 12 claims to have uncovered evidence of Russian secret service involvement in last year's bombing of two Moscow apartment houses. The blasts killed 200 people.
Acting President Vladimir Putin blamed Chechen terrorists for the explosions, which became the pretext for Russia's military offensive against Chechnya. But the Observer alleges that research it conducted, along with Channel 4's Dispatches programme, "puts secret police in [the] frame for Moscow atrocities".
The newspaper reports that following the two explosions, a third apartment house was targeted to be bombed—in Ryazan, 100 miles south of Moscow. The 13-storey working class block of flats on Novosyolov Street is home to 250 people. The bomb was uncovered in the basement of the block on September 22 at 9 p.m. after Vladimir Vasiliev, an engineer, reported to police that three strangers were behaving suspiciously nearby.
Police arrested the three. According to the Observer, "They were Russian, not Chechen, and when arrested by local police they flashed identity cards from the FSB—the new styling for the KGB, the secret police Putin headed before he became acting President."
In an interview with the Observer, Vasiliev described how the car being used by the three had its front number plate covered up with a piece of paper, but the back plate displayed Moscow's regional code. The engineer heard the three checking if they had taken everything and insists that they were Russian.
Two days after the arrest, the FSB announced that the third bomb had been a "training exercise". However, the Observer reports it has evidence that the bomb involved real explosives and a detonator and carried a photograph of what it said was the bomb's detonator, pre-set to explode at 5:30 a.m.
The newspaper also interviewed bomb squad officer Yuri Tkachenko, who defused the explosive. Tkachenko told the Observer that "it was a live bomb. I was in a combat situation." Tkachenko says he tested the basement with a portable gas analyser and obtained a positive reading for Hexagen, the same explosive used in the Moscow bombs.
According to Police Inspector Andrei Chernyshev, one of the first to enter the basement, "We could see sacks of sugar and in them some electronic device, a few wires and a clock. We were shocked. We ran out of the basement and I stayed on watch by the entrance and my officers went to evacuate the people."
Vasiliev said that on September 24 he heard the official report on radio "when the press secretary of the FSB announced it was a training exercise. It felt extremely unpleasant."
The Observer report also quotes Boris Kagarlitsky, a member of the Russian Institute of Comparative Politics, stating, "FSB officers were caught red-handed while planting the bomb. They were arrested and they tried to save themselves by showing FSB identity cards." The newspaper continues, "when the FSB in Moscow intervened, the two men were quietly let go."
The Observer interviews were made as part of a Channel 4 Dispatches programme, "Dying for the President", screened on March 9. The programme reviewed Putin's appointment as acting president in the spring of 1999.
FSB head Putin had been a virtual unknown until he was selected by President Boris Yeltsin to take over when his own hold on power had become tenuous. The programme summary states that no one believed Putin—then known as the “grey cardinal”—“could win the presidential election due in 2000 unless something exceptional happened.”
The summary continues: "It did. A bomb in a block of Moscow flats killed 90 people. Another, shortly afterwards, had an equally devastating effect. Putin blamed Chechen terrorists. Denouncing them as 'mad dogs', he promised to have them 'wasted on the toilet'. He launched the Chechen war soon afterwards, rising to unprecedented popularity levels in the wake of public outrage about the bombings."
In light of the information it uncovered of a third alleged bomb attempt, Dispatches asked pointedly: "Was Vladimir Putin, now the favourite to win the imminent presidential elections in Russia, implicated in an atrocious conspiracy to justify the terrible Chechen war? Were the Moscow bombings and the massacre in Katyr Yurt [a Chechen village where an estimated 363 people were killed by Russian forces] part of the bloody price that had to be paid to get him elected to the Kremlin?"
See Also:
Background
to the Russian assault on Chechnya: a power struggle over Caspian oil
[18 November 1999] [7]
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Main Causes of the Present Russian Aggression
By Roman Khalilov
Date: December, 12, 1999
Today, when there are already more than 300.000 refugees, and some estimated 6.000 of Chechens have been killed and more than 8.500 Chechens have been wounded, question are asked about causes of present Russian aggression against Chechnya, which is the second genocide of the Chechen nation in last five years.
As the tragedy of Chechen nation and the fate of Russian democracy attracts worldwide attention, deep and full analysis of the causes of the war and the war itself will certainly be a subject of future debates among historians of modern history, academics of International Relations and Lawyers of International Law.
Thus, leaving this difficult task to them, I hereby attempt to give brief and short analysis of the causes of the war and some events that are thought to have contributed to the beginning of the present war. This analysis, therefore, is not aimed at achieving any academic recognition but only done in an attempt to clarify certain points, which presently cause much controversy and result in sometimes completely different claims.
I will suggest here that four main causes have led to the breakdown of the present war. Namely: 1). Disastrous and humiliating defeat of Russian Army in Chechnya in August of 1996, 2) Political situation in Russia in the face of coming Parliamentary and Presidential election, 3) Chechen failure to erect and maintain political stability in Chechnya during the period from 1996 to 1999, and 4) Response of International community to the last war (1994-1996) and the post-war (1996-1999) political and economical problems of Chechnya. At the end of this essay I intent to try to define relative importance of the four causes.
1) Disastrous and humiliating defeat of Russian Army in Chechnya in August of 1996: Events of August of 1996 in Chechnya and those that led to them are perhaps well known and hardly require detailed explanation. Nevertheless, short restatement of some key facts might be useful. To those who have little or no knowledge of Chechnya and history of Russian-Chechen relations much of the story might seem like a story told by a writer of fantastic advantages full of unprecedented bravery, distinguished heroism and perhaps somewhat unbelievable happy end. However, for Chechens this was a story full of blood, tragic tears, unrecoverable losses, and full devastation of their homes and their motherland.
At the beginning of the breakdown of former Soviet Union, Chechens were given hope that their 300 years old struggle against the mighty and cruel Russia was about to end. Following this hope Chechens declared independence of Chechnya on 1 November 1991- a new page of Chechen tragic story was about to be written. Russian response to the Chechen declaration of independence was based on anything but respect of Chechnya and the right of Chechens to self-determination.
Having failed to succeed in its half-criminal attempts to destabilise Chechnya, Russia on 11 December 1994 began its cruel war against Chechnya which was to last up to August 1996 and end with humiliating defeat of Russian Army which was followed by an agreement signed between Russia and Chechnya by Head of Russian Security Council, General Alexander Lebed and head of Chechen Army, General Aslan Maskhadov. The fantastic Chechen victory can hardly be put in better words that those of Corlotta Gall and Thomas De Waal: "And - most incredibly - a small Chechen guerrilla army that had been dismissed as 'bandit groups' brought the Russian army to its knees and forced it to withdraw." ("A small Victorious War" C. Gall & T. De Waal).
Despite the obvious Chechen victory the cost of the war was incredibly high. Some estimated 80.000 people were killed in the war and a whole Chechen economy, infrastructure, both private and public premises, were almost totally destroyed. Perhaps, most harmful damage done to Chechens by the war was the fact that it created generations of fighters and total unemployment. These two things were to expose the real danger of their coexistence in the post-war period.
On the other hand, the war turned once victorious Russian Army into shameful mass of armed forces members of which often preferred to conceal their membership of the humiliated and unpopular army. Generals and politicians were blaming each other for the Russian defeat in Chechnya. Furthermore, NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999 was seen by many Russian officers and politicians as almost direct result of the defeat: it seemed that Russian army was no longer thought to be capable of causing a real threat to the West (except, of course, Russian nuclear arsenal).
In addition, hundreds of Russian tanks and other armed vehicles that were destroyed by Chechens during the war meant that Russian traditional weapons were less attractive to their previous buyers. This, of course, meant that powerful arm-sales lobby in Russia was also interested in restoring the traditional image of Russian arms.
These facts together meant that Russian top generals and interest groups in the area were ready to exploit any opportunity to 'restore face' by a new war. And the new war was, of course, to be directed against Chechnya. However, two pre-conditions were required to begin the new war: political will on the side of Russia, and support of Russian population - which, inter alia, meant that traditional 'freedom-loving' image of Chechens was needed to be changed in somewhat barbaric and terrorist one.
2) Political situation in Russia in the face of coming Parliamentary and Presidential election:
It is, perhaps, by now almost undisputed that Elzin and the family (the term 'the family' is widely used in Russia and refers to not only biological members of Elzin's family but also to top level officials and oligarchs who feel that they have much to fear once Elzin is gone) has been desperately looking for an acceptable candidate (acceptable in the sense as being able to guarantee the future of the family) to replace Elzin.
Finding such a candidate was crucial for Elzin because he feared being prosecuted not only for war crimes committed in Chechnya but also for the events of November 1993 in Moscow (the dissolution of Russian Parliament by using Russian military which is believed to have taken about 1.000 lives).
The family, in turn, not only hoped to keep the power but also feared being prosecuted for corruption.
Here, we come to the obvious question: that is, 'Why the wartime prime minister of Russia, Mr. Chernomyrdin, was not acceptable for the family. The answer to this question lays in both the wartime behavior of the Prime Minister and his personal wealth. During the war, Chernomyrdin somehow managed not to be associated with Russian aggression (indeed, he seemed to have created somewhat peacemaker's image of himself during the June 1995 events in Budyonnovsk). Most of the time he always pretended that he was dealing only with economic problems of Russia. In my personal opinion his behavior was well chosen: if the war was to be praised he could have almost at any point of time claimed laurels of the winner of the war, if the war was to be condemned - he was not to be blamed neither for the failure nor for the atrocities of Russian army.
His personal wealth also mattered a lot. Chernomyrdin's future is dependent on political changes in Russia only to minor degree. It is believed that he managed to create not only unimaginable personal wealth but also a great deal of both personal influence within Russian business (particularly, "GAZPROM") and the ability to sustain unfavourable changes in the leading actors in 'behind-the scenes' deals of Russian politics. Thus, not surprisingly, he has hardly had been in trouble since he left the Prime Minister's office.
Since then, there have been (except the present one, Mr. Putin) three Prime Ministers of Russia. The first of them, Mr. Kirienko, seemed to have been chosen as only a short-term instrument to be used while a search for a more appropriate candidate was under way.
The second of them, Mr. Stepashin, might have been a reasonable choice: he was strongly associated with the first war in Chechnya and his future was almost totally dependent on the will of the family because he had neither a significant amount of personal wealth nor a substantial degree of influence. However, the family was not sure that he could win the presidential elections and he got fired.
The third of them, Mr. Primakov, was seen as if not powerful then at least a respected one. He might not have been 'the right choice' for at least three reasons. First, he was too old - the family needed someone who could last long. Second, his future behavior might not have been seen as a predictable one. And finally, to be 100% sure the family needed someone that was ready to cover himself with Chechen blood - the best guarantees of future behavior.
Finally, however, the family made its choice - it was Mr. Putin. Putin was, perhaps, the best candidate that the family could ever have wished for. He was young and ambitious and was ready to pay almost any price to succeed. He was a political 'nobody', which meant that his future success depended almost totally on the 'good will' of the family. Furthermore, he was ' a raw material' that had no value for the family's key rivals - so, there was no danger of a betrayal. Once chosen for the task, he was to pass a beginner's test of being in charge of the FSB (it should be noted here that all of the last three Russian prime ministers have had direct connection with the KGB and later with FSB) in which he succeeded. And as a result of a determined search for the means of survival on the side of the family, he got the job of a Prime Minister and became a potential candidate for the office of Russian President. By then, the time was right to create 'the desirable' image of Chechens.
3) Chechen failure to erect and maintain political stability in Chechnya during the period from 1996 to 1999:
In Chechnya that time the Russian Secret Service and Russian Military Intelligence were enjoying their first victories in the attempt to destabilise Chechnya and to create the much-needed image. There were two ways of achieving the objectives. First, the Islamic factor, if developed, was useful means of playing the game of the 'danger of Islamic State' of Chechnya. But this factor alone might not have been sufficient. Thus, the second way which would make the first even more powerful was 'to show' the world that freedom-loving Chechens that have much been praised by the first wartime journalists in Chechnya were 'becoming' 'kidnappers', 'killers' and so on.
It all seem to have began at the time when Russian 1994-96 military campaign's failure was becoming more and more obvious. It is, unfortunately, out of the limits of the information that I posses to state when was the first case of kidnapping in Chechnya. Nevertheless, one thing is obvious: the roots of the evil lay in the Russian practice in Chechnya at the first part of the first war. Faced with, perhaps, unprecedented resistance, heavy casualties, and a systematic cases of surrender of Russian soldiers, the top level Russian intelligence was working hard to find the ways of out of the disaster.
Various ways such as indiscriminate bombings of Chechen villages till Chechen fighters were asked by their own families to leave in order to limit the damage done by the bombings, attempts to 'buy' certain Chechen leaders, systematic jailing Chechen male civilians, and creating 'new' pro-Russian 'Chechen governments', were tried. However, none of them seemed to work.
Then, the only solution seemed to have been to discriminate Chechens and their struggle. Soon, killings of members of the Red Cross mission in Chechnya followed. However, the attempt to make public believe that behind the attack were Chechens seemed to have failed, mainly because even 'the inventory' minds of Russian Intelligence failed to find any rationale reason for Chechens to carry out the attack.
Next, step was to let Chechens know that they could get paid for human lives. However, it was still impossible to make Chechens to kidnap people. This evil was not yet known to Chechens. The solution, however, was soon found. Russians began to offer money for releasing captured Russian soldiers and officers. The amounts offered often made Chechens wonder where the money was coming from - the limits of the budget of Russian military was very well known. Here, it is important to remember that at the first part of the first war Chechens simply would give the Russian captives to their mothers without any conditions (the facts were very well covered in the media). Once Chechens saw that this was one of the very few available to them ways of obtaining means of survival, the Russian Intelligence success was achieved - it just required to be further maintained.
However, when the war was over there were no longer Russian soldiers and officers to be captured. And, then, it was the beginning of Chechen disgrace, which is, perhaps, yet to be realized and asked for forgiveness. Foreign journalists, aid workers, businessmen, and some of the Chechen collaborators with Russia during the war became victims of criminal elements in Chechnya.
Although it is impossible to justify the followed cases of kidnapping, in order to be objective one needs to know the economical and social conditions in Chechnya right after the war. As it was mentioned earlier, Chechnya literally was ruined by the war. Strong and well-planned economic and social programs were needed. And yet it was impossible to have them in the absence of any kind of investment, access to foreign markets, and the ability of Chechen government to finance even its basic expenditure. Thus, faced with estimated 95% of unemployment, which, of course, meant that these 95% of workable citizens of Chechnya and their dependants had no income and indeed no means even to deal with basic needs, Chechnya almost inevitably was to face increased criminality.
However, this was not the only evil to be faced by Chechens and Chechen state. Islamic factor was increasingly playing its part of the drama. For Russia to succeed totally was needed strongly developed contradictions within Chechnya between those who believed that Chechen State should follow its civil Constitution and those who favored a State based on Islamic Law.
For the government of Chechnya (which favored civil state and norms of International Law) faced with unsettled status of Chechen State and at least a potential danger of new Russian aggression, to use force (although it would have been perfectly legitimate since in no state an armed opposition can be accepted) meant the possibility of dividing Chechnya into two parts, which, of course, was desirable for Russia. Thus, whatever criticism of Chechen government can, perhaps, rightly been raised, the government succeeded in its main duty of keeping peace in Chechnya.
However, the greatest damage was still to come. Russia could not afford to take any chances: it needed to be certain in its success. The fighting in Dagestan was to play its part. Although some of the details of the events of the August 1999 conflict in Dagestan are relatively well known, the events that led to this are often misrepresented.
A number of Dagestanian villages (here, I would like to refer the reader to a map of 19th century Chechnya, which can be found in John F. Baddeley book 'The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus' first published in London 1908 - perhaps, the villages became Dagestanian when Chechens were deported to Kazakhstan in 1994) in the border of Dagestan and Chechnya had declared a Sharia law and this had been ignored for a time by official authorities of Dagestan and Russia.
Moreover, a movement for Dagestanian independence from Russia was also in progress within Dagestan. A relatively strong and lightly armed group of Dagestans was the core of the movement, which was mainly based in the villages. Perfectly aware that a military action against them would cause calls from the movement for help from Chechens, Russians launched their military operation. When Russians began to use heavy artillery and aircraft, the calls for help were addressed to extremists within Chechnya.
Whatever the actual facts might be, one thing is pretty obvious: a large number of volunteers from Chechnya headed by Khattab and
Shamil Basayev entered the territory of Dagestan and by doing so diverted some of the fire from the armed Dagestanian group.
This conflict requires a detailed and deep analysis that is out of my present intentions. Nevertheless, two facts seem to be obvious by know. First, this was not military intervention of Chechnya to the Russian/Dagestanian territory since none of the troops of official Chechen army took part in the conflict. And second,
Shamil Basayev who led the intervention to Dagestan was either fooled or somewhat manipulated by outsiders. This is so because Shamil Basayev, whatever impressions he might make, is not an Islamic fundamentalist but a Chechen nationalist. Thus, he could have been led by anything but not the desire to build an Islamic State in Dagestan. This, however, is not the case for Khattab - I believe that he, indeed, is led by Islamic Fundamentalist Ideas.
It might be seemed that the war in Dagestan, which was presented by Russian propaganda as a Chechen intervention, was a sufficient excuse for the new Russian aggression against Chechnya. But this was not the case - Russian public opinion was not still ready to accept a new war against Chechnya. To understand this, one needs to know Russians: although Dagestan is a part of Russia and Dagestans are citizens of Russia, the conflict in Dagestan was somewhere far away for many Russians - to claim a certain territory a part of Russia is one thing for Russians but to feel about the inhabitants of that part in the same way as Russians do for Russians is a completely different one. Thus, the masterminds within Russian intelligence were about to bring 'the threat' of Chechens to the very hart of Russia - Moscow.
The unfortunate fate of victims of 'terrorist' attacks in Moscow, which were followed by the same attack in Volgodonsk (another Russian city) is well known and all human beings in this world should feel sorry about them. By no means I intent to decrease the degree of their tragic suffering, but one also must be objective to Chechens who were traditionally blamed for the attacks.
Although Russian masterminds achieved their goals by the tragic outcome of that attacks, it is hardly possible to say that Russian FSB's arguments in blaming Chechens for the attacks were even simply intelligent.
First, the FSB failed to produce any evidence that Chechens were behind these attacks. And if the FSB, the daughter of the former almighty KGB, cannot produce not only any evidence but also link any Chechen national to the attacks, what does it implies? - It is for you yourself to answer this.
Second, even during the most awful and difficult times of the last Russian aggression against Chechnya, even after Russian troops murdered about 400 civilians in a Chechen village called
Semaski in April 1995, even when first Chechen President
Djohar Dudaev was murdered by Russians, even when the truth about torturing of Chechens in Russian 'filtration camps' was revealed, never Chechens did blow up any civilian buildings.
Third, these attacks did not bring any benefits to Chechens nor they could have brought.
Forth, in an incident in Ryazan (another Russian city), which happened just after the explosions in Moscow, Russian security forces were caught red-handed planting explosives in a block of flats (of course, the FSB claimed that it was caring out 'a training exercise').
And finally, none of Chechens claimed responsibility for the attacks. One would think terrorists should proudly take credit for their work - unless, of course, they are members of Russian Security Service.
4) Response of International community to the last war (1994-1996) and the post-war (1996-1999) political and economical problems of Chechnya:
When Chechens declared their independence, many of them somewhat naively believed it would have a favorable response from both the Western democratic world and Eastern Islamic world. This was so because, on one hand, they believed that the West would welcome the fact that another nation was getting out of the brutal rule of Imperial Russia which was followed by Godless Soviet Union. They thought that the West would help them to exercise their right to the freedom of self-determination and to build a real democracy.
On the other hand, they hoped that Islamic World would welcome the liberation of Chechens from the evil's hands and would employ a policy of recognition of much needed but even much more deserved Chechen independence. Unfortunately, none of these dreams were to become reality.
However, when the first Russian aggression against Chechnya began, the hopes were once more in the air. Chechens, this time believed that at least a gross abuse of human rights should not be tolerated. Nonetheless, their hopes deceived them once again.
Next time was when Chechnya defeated Russia. This time Chechens thought that they have proven their right to be free by being able to defend their country and by paying a heavy price of 80.000 lives for their independence. Once again naive Chechens were fooling themselves: the World was not just, although they thought it was.
The international community did nothing not only to recognize Chechnya but also to help Chechnya to recover from the damage of the war. Chechens saw it finally but they were not the only ones who saw it - Russia also saw that the International community was quite willing to ignore Chechnya and by doing so was in effect freeing Russian bloody hands once again.
When NATO (thanks God) intervened to Serbia to stop the genocide of Kosovars and when we all were told that Bosnia and Kosovo must never be repeated, Chechens thought that at least now they were secure from future genocide. This hope was even more increased when the UN intervened in the East Timor to stop the mass killings that were taking place there.
Paradoxically, in turned out that Chechens were about to experience another genocide of their nation by the very same enemy - Russia. Now they only can hope that the International community and International Humanitarian Law shall not betray them this time. Whether they are still naive remains yet to be seen.
Finally, judging the relative importance of the four main causes, outlined above, it seems prudent thing to do to ask a question: "Absence of which of the four main causes would have prevented the war? It might be up to the readers to answer this question themselves but it seems to me that the answer is that: absence of the present political situation in Russia in the face of coming Parliamentary and Presidential election would have made it impossible for Russia to wage a new war against Chechnya.
[8]
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Berezovsky Film Seized at Customs
By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer Two liberal lawmakers entered the country Sunday with copies of a
controversial documentary presented last week by one-time Kremlin insider Boris
Berezovsky, but only one of them was allowed to bring in the politically charged
consignment.
Sergei Yushenkov, a leader of the Liberal Russia political movement funded and
co-chaired by Berezovsky, returned to Moscow with 1,000 copies of the film,
which accuses the Federal Security Service of complicity in a series of deadly
apartment bombings in 1991. Yushenkov told Ekho Moskvy radio he had had no
problems with customs.
But his fellow State Duma deputy and Liberal Russia member Yuly Rybakov, who
tried to bring 100 copies of the film to St. Petersburg, said his batch of the
videotapes was confiscated.
Rybakov told Ekho Moskvy that customs officers at Pulkovo Airport disregarded
his immunity as a lawmaker and took the tapes "without legal grounds."
"They said the consignment might be for commercial use and sealed the boxes,
giving me a receipt saying I had given them over for storage," Rybakov told NTV
television. "But I did not hand them over -- they were taken from me."
Showing the receipt to cameramen, Rybakov read out the small print on the back:
"Items confiscated on grounds of a political nature are not subject for return."
Reuters reported that a customs spokesman at Pulkovo confirmed the tapes had
been confiscated, but no further comment was available Sunday.
Rybakov said he plans to discuss the incident with top customs officials and
prosecutors and to raise the issue for discussion in the Duma, Interfax said.
However, Pavel Krasheninnikov, a liberal deputy from the Union of Right Forces,
or SPS, warned against looking for political motives behind the seizure.
"It was just the [professional] zeal of St. Petersburg customs officers," he
said on NTV. Krasheninnikov also said that, if the information in the film
proves untrue, those involved in its production and broadcast could face libel
charges.
A 10-minute clip of the documentary, produced by French journalists on the basis
of NTV footage, was shown to journalists last week in London, where Berezovsky
lives in self-imposed exile.
Berezovsky said the film contained proof that the Federal Security Service, or
FSB, was involved in the 1999 apartment blasts that killed some 300 civilians
and in a foiled blast attempt in Ryazan. But the clip offered no new data or
conclusive evidence to support the charge.
The FSB denied Berezovsky's accusations, hitting back with charges that he had
financed an armed incursion by Chechen rebels into Dagestan in August 1999 and
plotted the kidnapping of an Interior Ministry general in 1998.
Yushenkov said he would try to get the film shown in Russia.
"Evidence contained in the film is rather persuasive," he said on NTV, as he
distributed the tapes among reporters who met him at Sheremetyevo Airport. "It
demonstrates how the secret services deceived Russian citizens."
Russian television channels are highly unlikely to risk airing the film.
"If a television channel can be found that is not afraid to show the film, that
will make the task [of disseminating it] much easier," Yushenkov said on Ekho
Moskvy. He added that screenings at movie theaters were also an option and that
the top-priority site for a showing would be Ryazan.
[9]
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Sources:
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3977770,00.html
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3973053,00.html
[3] http://edwardjayepstein.com/question_putin.htm
[4] http://chechnya.jamestown.org/pubs/view/che_002_031_001.htm
[5] http://www.afpc.org/rrm/rrm736.htm
[6] http://www.smh.com.au/news/0003/14/world/world07.html
[7] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/mar2000/chec-m15.shtml
[8] http://www.amina.com/article/main_causeswar.html
[9] http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2002/03/11/012.html