Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches (7 page)

My present assignment to report on the war in the North Caucasus has immersed me in the suffering of our people, interspersed with this kind of insolent frontline and near-frontline cynicism. The war-zone slang is little better than what is going on there. They refer to Chechen men, even the resistance fighters, with the more or less respectable label of “Chechies.” All other Chechens, particularly boys, children, and young people generally they call “little furry animals.” Who does? The entire military and administrative infrastructure waging and servicing the present
war. Even the hospital doctors have this wretched expression on the tip of their tongue. It is bad enough coming from sergeant majors, but a complete disgrace coming from the intelligentsia.

When this nightmare was inaugurated in September 1999, one did secretly hope in the depths of one’s heart that the state would catch terrorists and refrain from waging war against everyone in Chechnya. Some hope! Today it is obvious that the policy from the outset was genocide. The genocide of one people, however, soon leads to the genocide of another, a truism borne out through the centuries by successive generations of invaders and those invaded. For the totalitarian empire being constructed in front of our eyes, punitive expeditions give life meaning. Today one group is sent to the guillotine, tomorrow a different one. The day after tomorrow it will be the turn of little Liana, and later still, we need have no doubt, it will be our turn.

Perhaps the genocide would be justified if the villains who grew rich by holding hostages to ransom and selling oil illegally were totally eradicated? There is no chance of that happening. The kidnappers are quietly resuming their business under a different guise. Petrol tankers from the liberated regions of Chechnya are again turning up in Plievo in Ingushetia. Refining continues at full tilt. The Chechen oil irregulars have sat out the cataclysm and are back in business.

But what about the so-called Wahhabis, the Islamist extremists? Perhaps they have been melted down by the flamethrowers, or have slunk away to caves in the mountains? Wrong again! On January 18, Idris Satuyev, a Chechen refugee, Headmaster of the school in Alkhan-Yurt, was shot at point blank range by unidentified individuals in Maiskoye, Ingushetia, just for wearing a tie. “I told them that had been my custom throughout a long working life in the school. My lifestyle is European and secular,” the headmaster wheezes. He has survived but is now very ill in the overcrowded Nazran Hospital, in Ward 3 of the accident department. Idris lies there dreaming of the only way out of his situation: to emigrate once and for all from our sixth of the world’s land surface; no longer to be a Chechen obliged to live anywhere near us Russians.

HOW TO RECRUIT A DISPOSABLE WOMEN’S BRIGADE

June 9, 2003

On June 15, 2003, 17 people died and 16 were injured as the result of an explosion on a bus transporting military and civilian personnel to the military air base at Mozdok. The attack was carried out by a female suicide bomber. On August 1, as the result of another terrorist attack at the Mozdok military hospital, 51 people died and more than 100 were wounded.

Once again, words flood from the television screen … “suicide bomber,” “that bastard Basayev,” “Maskhadov knew,” “zombified by centers of international terrorism beyond the borders of Russia …” Instead of analysis, primitive ideological war cries: “Enemies of the political process, trying to keep it from developing;” “We will deal with Basayev and there will be no more suicide bombers.” Oversimplification of the problem to a level which only moves us further away from taking a sensible decision on how to deal with this new phase of Russia’s Chechen tragedy.

So, what is really going on? What is happening to Chechen women in this fourth year of the Second Chechen War? Do they really need to be brainwashed and “zombified” by centers of international terrorism?

No, actually they don’t. No external input is required to make a Chechen woman decide to become a disposable terrorist bomber, because the work has already been done. A typical Chechen woman today really is a zombie: she has been turned into one by the grief in which she has been immersed for year after year, by the environment surrounding her family. She has been trained to be a suicide bomber not in foreign training camps but by the brutality shown by the warring sides towards the civilian population in Chechnya. This is what has engendered an overriding desire in thousands of mothers, wives and sisters to take their own cruel revenge for their disappeared sons, husbands and brothers.

She does this not because of the dictates of a Chechen form of Islam or the traditional
adats
or laws which govern life in her country,
but out of despair. The Constitution adopted by referendum on March 23 has only increased the numbers queuing up to join the women’s brigade for these special operations because there were high hopes that it might change something. Alas, the new Constitution has proved to be just so much paper. It has not stopped the Army’s anarchy and is protecting nobody.

The number of civilian men and women “disappeared” by the federals during the spring of 2003 has been far higher than during the same period last year. Worse, the authors of the fake political process leading up to March 23 unforgivably promised those searching for their abducted relatives that if they would just vote, some of the disappeared would return home; they would be released from prison. “The Kremlin has given the go-ahead,” they lied. “Just vote!”

Nobody returned, so let us not delude ourselves that the increase in terrorism since the referendum is a coincidence which Basayev is exploiting. It is all far more complicated than that.

Who is she, today’s Chechen woman? The traditional upbringing of a Chechen woman is ascetic in the extreme. Her obligation is to endure everything without complaint. She should not speak of her personal feelings. For her, virtue is concealment, the ability to hide her feelings deep down, not to show them – not only publicly but even at home in front of her closest male relatives. All her turbulent emotions are bottled up. But can that last for ever?

The devotion and love of a Chechen sister for her brothers, and especially of a Chechen mother for her sons, is passionate and absolute. The strength of feeling is volcanic, and most Chechen women believe that with the loss of a brother, a son or a husband their own life comes to an end.

During the first and second years of the war these private volcanoes did not erupt. The Chechen women were waiting in the hope that everything would come right. They said they had faith that their menfolk would fulfil their traditional role. A Chechen boy is brought up to believe that a man’s first duty is to defend woman and home. Unlike a girl, a boy can be spoilt; much can be overlooked by a woman in return for his willingness to die protecting her, if that should be required.

That is not what happened. The war dragged on, until finally all the traditions collapsed under the pressure of the style of war so mercilessly imposed by the federals. Chechen men found themselves having to be defended by the women. It was the women who haggled in bazaars in order to feed their families, and threw themselves under Army vehicles in an attempt to stop them kidnapping their men; while the men mostly stayed out of sight in cellars in order not to be abducted, “swept” or blown to pieces.

This is how Chechen women were propelled into the foreground of the struggle. They were radicalized more quickly than the men hiding behind them, even if the men continue to believe they still have at least some measure of authority. The Chechen woman finally found a way of letting her powerful emotions burst out. The volcano erupted with molten lava whose bounds are only those it sets itself, vigilante justice as the only effective response to unbridled violence. Women rose up to defend their families, inflicting personal retribution on those they themselves pronounced guilty of murder. They chose to die rather than go on living, unable to defend their sons, brothers, or husbands.

I can already hear my opponents protesting, “But Basayev claimed responsibility.”

Of course he did. He will claim responsibility for anything he can. The terrorist mantle of Salman Raduev, who “died” in prison, had to be inherited by somebody. Far more important is not who claims responsibility, but that there are women prepared to carry out the acts for which somebody else subsequently claims responsibility. There is no shortage of women prepared to blow themselves up, and their ranks are growing the longer the Army’s atrocities continue.

But what about the Chechen men? After the suicide bombings in Znamenka and Iliskhan-Yurt on May 12 and 14 many spoke harshly against the women who carried out those attacks. “They have humiliated us,” they said. “They have shown us we are impotent.”

And so they did. They did humiliate the men and show them they were impotent. The reversal of traditional roles was complete. The women had independently dotted the i’s. They would no longer rely
on the men, discuss matters with them first, ask their advice. Instead, they would decide things for themselves, very quietly and privately, and the world would see only the result.

That’s the reality, but everybody keeps prattling on about al-Qaeda, that lifebelt for failed politicians.

What is to be done now? We really cannot take seriously the security agencies’ assurances that they are reinforcing checkpoints and sealing the administrative border of Chechnya, and that everything is “under control.”

In the first place, nothing is under control other than the sloshing of black market currency through the checkpoints. In the second place, imposing even more severe restrictions will not stop women participating in terrorist attacks. In the third place, it is absurd to demand that Maskhadov should call upon the women to abandon these tactics: the women have reached boiling point because of the actions of many men, including Maskhadov. They will simply ignore him.

In the fourth place, finally and most crucially, the mind of someone bent on retribution functions extremely efficiently. You will not keep up with it or be able to guess which weak point it has identified. Checkpoints and checking everybody’s documents will be ineffective against women carrying explosives on their person. “We will pass through your checkpoints ‘pregnant,’ ” some of them say. “Your lot are not going to look under our skirts, and you can’t keep a gynaecologist at every checkpoint.”

The only solution is to overhaul Russia’s policy towards Chechnya. We need to take a step in their direction if we want to survive. This means a complete clamp-down on the Army’s anarchy. It means beginning peace negotiations (nominally between Maskhadov – if you can talk to Arafat you can talk to him – and nominally the Kremlin), under the watchful eye of authoritative international observers, in order to effect a rapid demilitarisation of the Republic, cessation of hostilities, and bringing of war criminals to justice. The sole result of the referendum was to tack the title of “Acting President of the Chechen Republic” on to Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov. It is self-evident that Kadyrov, as someone incapable of anything other than feathering his own nest, should be removed.

The future political status of Chechnya? There will be time to think about that later. First, let’s survive.

Nobody can doubt that it will take a hero to disentangle this mess, and heroes are currently in short supply. We need, nevertheless, to find such a hero, because we have already burned every other bridge.

A WEIRD BATTLEFIELD FOR THE PRESIDENT’S IMAGE

February 16, 2004

By March 1, officials promised Putin, there would be no refugee camps outside Chechnya. Anybody who persisted in their reluctance to move from a camp in Ingushetia to a camp in Chechnya would be “entitled” under the Government’s Guarantee to have their water, electricity and gas cut off, and would lose the right to medical care and education. Glory be to the Guarantee! That stout defender of the Guarantee, Ella Pamfilova, Chairwoman of the President’s Commission on Human Rights, has been appointed to oversee this massive violation of human rights and of the Constitution.

It would be difficult to call Okruzhnaya a township, a suburb, or even a farm. The most truthful name for it is simply a camp, consisting of unpainted huts hastily knocked together. There is no gas, no water, and there are no amenities, not even in the courtyards. The workers look at me warily for reasons which become apparent later. The so-called Renovation Board, which rules the roost here, is chronically incapable of paying them for their work, but takes the ideological approach: “Build a settlement! Just do it! Putin has spoken!”

“What work is that?” I ask Supian Sambayev, who introduces himself as the site foreman. He and I walk over an area strewn with wooden structures and a defunct lattice of rusting pipes which is the battlefield for the image of the President as Architect of Peace in Chechnya.

“For the houses,” the foreman insists grumpily. “They ought to pay us for them.”

“But what houses?”

Supian looks away. These half-finished shacks on the outskirts of Grozny have a history. They were hastily erected along the road shortly after last year’s flooding and were the material evidence of the budget resources allocated to aid the flood victims. Despite their desperate situation, the flood victims refused as one to move to this out-of-the-way site with no infrastructure. They decided they might as well stay in the ruins of their houses as move to a bare field.

Then the Chechen Government; Kadyrov’s Administration; Stanislav Iliasov, Minister for Chechnya; the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation as represented by its Migration Service, which is responsible for forcing refugees out of Ingushetia and back into the zone of what the President calls the continuing “struggle against international terrorism;” two Boards for rebuilding, one in Grozny and the other in Moscow; all of them held a great big meeting and dreamed up a proposal to the Russian Government to turn this camp which the flood victims had spurned into, in Iliasov’s expression, an “excellent location for refugees choosing to return from Ingushetia.” It was a moment of pure bureaucratic black magic, although they didn’t tell you afterwards how they had done it. Commissions came from the capital and the Southern Federal Region. Grave gentlemen furrowed their statesmanlike brows, condemned the concrete floors which, according to the specification, were already covered with linoleum, and resolved that there should at least be floorboards.