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.
