A Dirty War, by Anna Russian president R Viadimir Putin has always called his present war aramise noccdence fighters in Chechnya a " war against internatext for this was an incursion into neighbouring Dagestan by some Checaen separausts craiming adherence to Wahhabite Islam, and of bombings in Moscow which killed over 200 people.
These bombings were blamed on "Chechen terrorists" said to be linked to none other than Osama bin Laden-although they are widely thought in Russia to be the work of Putin's own secret police, the FSB.
And the fighters in Dagestan turned out to have been financed Dysi Soc HHORH businessman and alleged arms TIC DOs DOsKR Nevertheless, a government-led Chechen feeling throughout Russia and in October 1999 Federal troops were sent to the Caucasus. The brutality of the occupying forces and the imposition of a Moscowfriendly regime in Chechnya answerable to the FSB have met with sustained resistance.
Anna Politkovskaya is A reous Russian reporter: ho went herself to dis the war. Her book, A Dirty War gathers together the articles she wrote for the Russian Newspaper Nosaya Gaceta between the sumThe book does not give answers U OVe Suu o uc ward Instead Politkovskaya offers us damning criticism and passionate condemnation of its realities, both in her own commentaries and and villains, victors and victims, as Incy speak nere for tnemscives During the build-up to the war, Politkovskava writes scathingiy of the cynicism and corruption of already damaged and demoralised compassion for the frightened, unwilling conscripts about to be sent wholly unprepared into comMothers Committees - women in their sons killed and maimed in a themselves to the battle zones and forcibly bring them back home.
Sometimes these are mothers who have already had sons lost or disabled in the previous war, like Lydia Burmistrova:
"I brought my sons up by myself. The state gave me nothing, not a kopek. But when they needed someone to die for them, then they were at the door, in a flash. conflict itself, so they decided to go Now we must hand over our children to correct other people's mistakes. Never."
Nothing has really prepared Politkovskaya for the suffering she witnesses when she arrives in Chechnya. Grozny, the capital has been called "the Hiroshima of the Caucuses".
The centre is completely flattened, a wasteland of rubble, peppered with lethal or horribly maiming landmines. Here the remaining population survive in cellars or on the town's outskirts.
U ntil recently no water, heating, sewerage or although efforts have been made to restore some gas and water supplies. Besides this destruction. neople also live in tear of constant Russian sniping .
hen there are the "zachistki or "clean ups" - arbitrary arrests and detentions, usually involving bearines and somcumes acatas or anyone accused of supporting the guciuas. sna m tac nigat colle the looters allegedly from both sides, whotave found no othc way to survive in this chaos.
Given similar conditions in othe: cowns and villages up to 250,000 -nearly one quarter of the population - have fled the country during fighting and live in appalling conditions of hunger, cold and discase in refugee camps in neighbouring One of the most shocking and cerns the refused eracuation of the Grozny Old Peoples Home ing up to 100 old, sick and infirm peopic to cadure tac bombaramcht of the city:
Politkovskaya's anger boils over when she discovers this is not due merely to cold inhumanity, but is because a local bureaucrat fears his previous embezziement of funds will be discovered in the home's files.
Ye is CC COROTS R such eracuations could be highly dangerous because "terrorists might thereby enter Russian territory from Chechnya" - presumably disguised as busloads of pensioners.
Politkovskaya has a splendid nose ply profitting from the economic chaos and social breakdown caused by the war.
But she also recounts many tales of self-sacrifice, solidarity and courage - like that of the most popular doctor in Chechnya, Salman Yandarov, who gave up his wealthy practice in St Petersburg to return to his homeland, and now daily risks his life working in hospitals lacking basic medicines and equipment.
She describes the many teachers bombed out building and the workers who take it in turns round the clock to guard their ruined factories from looters, while they wait for rebuilding material to arrive Trom Moscow - which net'er LUBIC One reason behind Chechen sepPolitkooskaya captures the horror of Grosny's decassation - and has accompanied the tever. aratists bid for independence as the that oil and gas reserves and a skilled workforce would help ensure viability as a separate state. therefore of aid and investment from Russia and the rest of the world prevented the new Republic from rebuilding itself.
But Politkovskaya also sces the weakness of Chechnya's own leaders as partly responsible. She argucs that both former presidents Dudayev and Maskhadov handed out oil wells as booty to their fellikely that neither of them were and corruption caused by the war.
Chechnya's own oil deposits are now much depieted, but syphoning off from the Bakuwidespread and lucrative. Local Chechen and Russian gangs simply into pits in the ground and burn off the unwanted fuel oil before There are hundreds of such 'barns" with their smoking "samorars" in Chechnys, - and plenty of buyers in the illegal trade. cyc - maybe in exchange for Chechen silence over the astonish ingly corrupt but also widespread Russians in Chechnya of selling off their own weponry to the guernllas they are fighting.
As one Chechen dealer boasted after stocking up on automatic weapons, grenades and ammuniton,i cowa nave pourat a tank from them if I'd wanted to". Who knows, ne was probabi riget What is clear is that the majority of people in Chechnya do not bencfit at all from the thousands of tons of oil illegally shipped out of the country, nor from the endless prohieratsn nistms At the same time it is proved by the involvement of people like Berezovski that the corruption trail goes right to the top. It is people in Moscow itself who are profiting most from this very dirty war.
In recent weeks Putin has mouthed some words about a ousted president Aslan • Maskhadov. But his real message, and the one delivered to the US and world leaders after DOBRS CiCal *I have been fighting terrorism for years in Chechnya, Now you in the West must keep quict about alleged killing, atrocities and human rights abuses down there. Then I will, of course let you use my old military bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to do whatever you want in Afganistan in pursuit of your own recently proclaimed 'war on terrorism"
The human tragedy behind this cynical horse-trading is not only that Soviet troops also entered Afganistan in 1979 from Uzbekistan, and were bogged renowned for its savagery on both sides. Tens of thousands died, the country was torn apart and ruined and the Soviet Union forced eventually to withdraw. It is also the case that over the last 10 years Russia has been caught up in and bogged down in rwo equally brutal and unwinnable wars in Chechnya. Up to 50,000 died in the 1994-6 invasion and an estimated S0 Russian soldiers a week and many more - mostly civilian - Chechens are dying in international terrorism" of today. largely ignored by world leaders and unreported in the world's press. The Council of Europe did Russian voting rights for a brief neriod of a few months, and antiwar and human rights organisaend to the conflict. But the US and UK and Blair in particular have always seen Putin as a good man to do business with - a lavourca ally. Now tuat Dis support for their war coalition is demanded over Chechnya will cassequence, as with all hidden wars Meanwhile Politkovskaya's book is a moving and valadorc testamiea to the people who actually suffer The most common graffitti on the walls of Russian conscripts" quarters are simply "I want to go Some"; the most common pica of tne CaecnensPicasc icavc us alone". Their voices are the 1 3 diate withdrawal of federal troops and toc grantas or boccacn mac ponacace
SINCE September ing and she switched on the 11, the world's press car from a distance, with the has been filled with car remote key, at that exact moment, the Israclis started eye-witness accounts firing heavily at us. of the events of September 11 in W New York and the aftermath. But this grim result of terrorism should not be allowed to obscure the daily So the Isracis started reality of state terror wielded by the Zionist state in its efforts to maintain machine guns. However, we did not see the policemen its control over the dispossessed Palestinian building and only saw the population. The following eyewitness account from and a were just a lew steps a Palestinian woman away from Reem, but still - who for understandable reasons does not enter and the three of us just want her name fell on the ground with the revealed - describing recent events in Ramallah helps to how Reem managed to fall redress the balance.
Luckily she did fall quickly. Y ou would not The shooting did not stop believe what we HaVe Del through two days ago. I saw death the building without any with my own eves and to tell you the truth it was not pleasant. I thought to write you all about it just as an example of what people have hit and kept on shouting till го ко шока пего суслу day. I finished my course in Birzeit on Monday, my last We did not see the three days were very intensive where I had 15 hours of teaching. In celebration, I decided to go out with my found out that they escaped mother and sister to my T Ramallah. The building is opposite to one of the Israeli tiring posts So we drove to her house and went to the thind floon were she lives. We spent a bullets were barely missing us. We shouted for someone decided to leave around 8:30 in the erening. Reem, my sister, went first because she drives the car, through everything. followed down the stairs. I really do not know if the We got to the bottom of the stairs, Reem was just outside were open and the bullets time for me. Then suddenly the flying bullets over our water, the Isracli bullets hit all the water tanks on the The sudden water burst started screaming to let us in W be 3 years old. The mother and the children were seemed so helpless.
The room that we walked mattresses on the floor and a small table with a TV set on they could not open the door Their kitchen is right door and hitting the main door. So it would have been it was not for that water burst that made things calm Anyhow, the minute we walked in, we all clustered safest in that flat away from was shelling, the woman and the children were screaming. Rubble and dust covrywhere: daily life for so many Palestinians under Zionist rule to a minute ago.
T attached to the room where we badly. Just rubble and dust Then a flying bullet hit the opposing wall and bounced not say anything and did not died, the poor thing, we all walk outside the flat to run carry the children on our laps and try to calm them With every shell fired we she was totally yellow, she was the most exposed to the firing. I felt so bad for her, people who will later mourn us. We all knew deep in our matter of time.
The bullets kept on flying tering and waiting. Then the Eventually it calmed down firing with regular guns and no need to knock or any.
It was my cousin's busband, he was on his tummy to see what happened to us. He said that the rest of the were was shelled because it is the most exposed.
H that flat because from the upper floors as well It took us some time to get inside the building from the windows and main door of everyone living on that floor believe it when they saw us another half an hour, but not were pale as the freshest two statues petrified with fear. There was a mother nandie tac terror and kept on fainting. We then started whole building will crumble down. We were not sure if ing. There was no back door T 50 people in that somcining out, it it is shot at, then we will not leave, if to the flats facing the Isracli lets turned it into liquid plastic. So there was no policemen whose passing near that building initially neighbourhood. the ambulance maybe the ently they were just 100 building and not able to do came and stood next to the doors of the building. flat was totally damaged. stayed in bed. But I am the psychological scars will I really do not wish that
T2- plus c'est la Outlook The Good today sitt officially in crisis. As we go to press it seems oral in a Crisis in Ireland tIve. Baubleke America to behave fairly.
and, led by they are neck and weapons.
stability adopting the programme of his critics on the He intends to put a motion demanding that Sinn Fein be expelled from the execuIf this falls (as it must - the sectarian rules of Stormont demand that a majority of vote for it also) he will collapse the executive by withdrawing the unionist
Outlook lerror as usual - style