A Russian Diary Page 18

  July 16-17

  In the Chechen hill village of Sernovodskaya on the border of Chechnya and Ingushetia, soldiers arrived in armored personnel carriers and abducted six men: the two Indarbiev brothers, one a major in the militia; the three Inkemirov brothers, aged fifteen to nineteen; and the disabled Anzor Lukaev. A protest meeting held by their womenfolk to demand their return was dispersed by warning gunfire. The first to fire were bodyguards of Alu Alkhanov, the “chairman of the Public Committee for the Restoration of Chechnya.” He is the leading presidential candidate, a member of the militia and minister of the interior—the same Alu Alkhanov who never tires of telling us on television that “the wave of abductions is declining, we have succeeded in achieving that.” It is easier to make that claim when you shoot at anyone who reminds you that it is not the case.

  July 20

  At about 4:00 a.m. today in Galashki, Ingushetia, Beslan Arapkhanov, a tractor driver, was beaten up in front of his wife and seven small children before being shot dead. By mistake. The security forces were attempting to arrest the fighter Ruslan Khuchbarov. According to highly secret intelligence, Khuchbarov was sleeping that night at No. 11 Partizanskaya Street.

  For some reason, however, the soldiers came and shot the guiltless Arapkhanov at No. 1 Partizanskaya Street. Immediately after the murder, an officer entered the Arapkhanovs’ house, introducing himself to the shocked wife as FSB Investigator Kostenko, and presented a warrant to search “No. 11 Partizanskaya Street.” At this point the error became evident, but Kostenko did not so much as apologize to the grieving widow.

  That is the reality of our “antiterrorist operation.” What are the seven children of Beslan Arapkhanov going to make of this? What chance is there that they will forgive and forget?

  *

  Kostenko was not to apologize either to the mothers of the children who died in the subsequent terrorist atrocity at the First School in the town of Beslan, which was directed by the same Khuchbarov whom Kostenko had failed to arrest.

  July 23

  The team investigating the Nord-Ost hostage taking has been disbanded. In three months’ time it will be the second anniversary of Nord-Ost, and the public have wearied of hearing about it. This is precisely why the investigation has been wound up, even though it had yet to identify most of the terrorists, to establish the composition of the gas with which people were poisoned, or say who made the decision to use it.

  An inquiry of crucial importance to the political progress of the Russian state has been put on ice. Of the entire team, supposedly “a group of our best investigators working to repay a debt of honor,” as our official spokesmen put it, there remains in their empty rooms at the Moscow procurator's office only Mr. V. I. Kalchuk.

  He is meeting those who have suffered—hostages who survived and relatives of those who died—and gives them his findings to read: there was no criminal guilt on the part of any of the personnel of the security agencies, who used a deadly gas to simplify the “rescue operation” at the cost of 129 lives and the health of hundreds of others.

  His findings are shocking in their cynicism. In the document everything is blamed on Basaev:

  Investigator V. I. Kalchuk established: that Basaev after 1995 … devised … committed … selected … delegated … an international search warrant was issued through Interpol on May 5, 2003 … under the pretext of fighting for the freedom and independence of the illegal, self-proclaimed state of Ichkeria … in the period indicated, in order to induce the state institutions of the Russian Federation to make a decision to withdraw troops from the territory of the Chechen Republic where an antiterrorist operation is being conducted, did conspire with leaders of an illegal armed grouping and of Chechen separatists not identified by the investigation to cause explosions in densely populated and socially significant places and to take hostage a large number of people…

  One might reasonably expect the report to conclude that it was Basaev himself who was guilty of leaving the intelligence services no option but to use a deadly chemical. Basaev's guilt, however, is described only in the preamble. There is not a word about him in the concluding section, which considers the question of blame.

  At various stages of the preparations to commit the terrorist acts, Basaev and other organizers of the criminal grouping selected no fewer than fifty-two persons, and these became members of the group. To implement the hostage taking the following were recruited and trained:

  A terrorist unidentified by the investigation … corpse No. 2007,

  A terrorist unidentified by the investigation … corpse No. 2028,

  A terrorist unidentified by the investigation … corpse No. 2036…

  Who are they? Heaven only knows. And yet one of the reasons for setting up the inquiry was to attach a first name, patronymic, and surname to all these unidentified individuals. Mr. Kalchuk does, as we can see from his findings, know the names of one or two of the terrorists. These are the ones whose identities are known to everybody, whose names were published in the newspapers and broadcast on television.

  “Faced with a serious threat to the life and health of the large number of people taken hostage, the competent agencies of the Russian Federation decided to conduct a rescue operation.” But who were these “competent agencies”? We find that the main question relating to Nord-Ost—who made the decision to use the gas and, accordingly, who is responsible for these deaths—is completely sidestepped. This only increases the suspicion that the competence mentioned was primarily in concealing what really went on, by killing all the terrorists.

  The final conclusion is this:

  The death of almost all the hostages was caused by acute respiratory and cardiovascular failure resulting from a life-threatening combination of adverse factors that arose during the period they were held hostage. The multiplicity of the factors causing death … excludes a direct causal link between the effect on the organism of a gaseous chemical substance or substances and death … there are no objective grounds to suppose that the use of a gaseous chemical substance or substances might have been the sole cause of death.

  How is it possible to say anything about “objective grounds” if the composition of the gas remained unknown?

  These findings, signed by Mr. Kalchuk, are altogether very short on fact. The most detailed moment comes when the author tries to explain why all the terrorists, without exception, were killed, even though it was officially declared a major achievement of the operation that they all lost consciousness. Mr. Kalchuk is having none of that. “They actively returned fire using thirteen assault rifles and eight pistols.”

  Here is the grand finale: “As a result of a decision made correctly by the competent agencies of the Russian Federation and the actions of skilled operatives of the intelligence services, the criminal activity of the terrorists was terminated and a much worse catastrophe averted, which might have led to the undermining of the authority of Russia in the international arena.”

  It is a terrible thing when the citizens of a single state have fundamentally different views on the value of human life. This is what led to the victory of the Bolsheviks and the emergence of Stalin, and this evil feature of our national life is coming relentlessly back into fashion among those who make the decisions on whether we are to live or die.

  There is more: “The application to bring criminal charges against the agents of the special services carrying out the freeing of the hostages is refused. The criminal case in respect of the terrorists who seized and detained the hostages is closed.”

  The government has been granted an indulgence from the procurator, both for itself and for its special operations forces who are there to protect us from terrorists and their attacks in the future. That there will be more of these, few of us have any doubt.

  July 27

  Igor Sechin, the éminence grise of the Kremlin, a deputy head of Putin's administration, has been appointed chairman of the board of directors of the state oil company Rosneft. Sechin personally
oversaw the dismemberment and destruction of Yukos and the arrest of Khodorkovsky His appointment to head Rosneft, which claims the choicest parts of Yukos, proves the Kremlin destroyed Yukos for its own benefit. Its ideology requires the formation of a “state economy,” supposedly run on behalf of the people. In reality, it is a bureaucratic economy whose principal oligarch is the government official. The higher the official, the bigger the oligarch.

  This ideal of state oligarchy appeals to Putin and to an exclusive coterie around him. The underlying concept is that Russia's major revenues come from the export of raw materials, so the state should control natural resources, and “L’état, c'est moi.” They suppose they are the cleverest people in the country, know best what is good for the rest of us, and accordingly what those revenues should be used for. In order to service the supermonopolies of Rosneft and Gazprom, monster financial conglomerates like Vneshtorgbank are being enlarged and are conquering new territories with the aid of the presidential administration.

  These supermonopolies are generally controlled by former secret policemen who are now oligarchs. Putin trusts only these Chekist oligarchs, believing that, because of their common origin in the intelligence services, they understand what is in the best interests of the people. Everything must go through their hands. Putin's immediate circle and, seemingly, Putin himself believe that whoever controls the natural resources markets has a monopoly of political power. While they are in business, they are in power.

  There is some truth in this. Many Latin American military juntas remained in power by ensuring that the institutions of repression and the government—which was part of those institutions—controlled all major business. The detail overlooked by the Putin regime is that such juntas were invariably overthrown by other juntas, and often quite soon.

  There is no place in our junta for the youth wing of Yabloko or the young National Bolsheviks. In Moscow “Youth Yabloko” have mounted a demonstration lasting several seconds outside the FSB building in Lubyanka Square. The young people are increasingly independent of the “old” democrats.

  The demonstration was not officially sanctioned. The young people threw ball bearings with red paint at the memorial plaque on the building depicting Yury Andropov (the new cult of Andropov, as someone who planned to reform the Soviet system without destroying it, is being meticulously fostered by Putin's administration) and wore uniform black T-shirts with a portrait of Putin crossed out and with the slogan “Down with Big Brother!” They carried placards reading “Down with the police autocracy!” They chanted, “Demolish the Lubyanka and smash the regime!” and “Down with the power of the Chekists!”

  The demonstration was rapidly broken up; there are always plenty of militia around in Lubyanka Square. Nine activists were taken away to the FSB before being moved to the Meshchansky militia station. At about 8:00 in the evening, eight of them were released. Two are in the hospital: Irina Vorobiova, twenty-one, and Alexey Kozhin, nineteen. They were taken away in an ambulance summoned to FSB reception. The chairman of the youth wing of Yabloko, Ilya Yashin, stated that Kozhin had been beaten up during interrogation by FSB Sr. Lt. Dmitry Streltsov. The activists said that when they began to disperse after the demonstration, they were trapped in the side streets by people in civilian clothes who assaulted them. A number of journalists from NTV, Echo TV, and Nezavisi-maya Gazeta were also detained, the militiamen threatening to confiscate their cameras. The journalists were released only after everything they had filmed had been taken from them.

  *

  Youth Yabloko's protest was an all too rare example of political resistance to the autocratic police state in Russia. By the summer of 2004, dissidence has been reduced to just two varieties: that of the very rich and that of the very poor. The breakup of Yukos, the brazen devouring of Guta-Bank, and the raid on Alfa-Bank have all outraged the business elite, who are moving their capital abroad. The second variety comes from the very poorest, as the government moves to reduce the social welfare benefits in kind of the most vulnerable. This too is financially motivated rather than political dissidence.

  In July, Russia saw the first, as yet fairly weak, demonstrations against Putin by ex-servicemen incensed at the impending abolition of these benefits in kind. These are essential to survival for the majority of them, but they are also seen as a material token of respect. Some of the ex-servicemen threatened to boycott the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of victory in the Second World War, which is going to be a very big event. Those disabled by the Chernobyl nuclear accident embarked on a march from Rostov-on-Don to Moscow to protest the proposal to pay 1,000 rubles [$34] a month compensation in place of the free medicine without which they cannot survive, and which costs well over 1,000 rubles. There are rumblings of discontent from those in the army, who are also losing benefits.

  The social strata between the richest and poorest are asleep for the time being. Anyone who hasn't been hit in the pocket has nothing to say.

  August 1

  Here is how the Kremlin removes election candidates it disapproves of. Malik Saidullaev has just been disqualified from standing in the presidential election of the Chechen Republic for having an “invalid” passport. He was the most serious rival of Alu Alkhanov, whom the Kremlin has already decided is to be the next president, even though the election does not take place until August 29. Saidullaev has been disqualified on the grounds that his place of birth is described incorrectly on his passport: “Alkhan-Yurt, Chechnya” should read “Alkhan-Yurt, Checheno-Ingush ASSR,” since at the time he was born the village of Alkhan-Yurt was in a territory called the CI ASSR.

  This is quite correct, except that it was not Malik Saidullaev who made out his passport, but an official in the Balashikhin internal affairs office in Moscow Province when old Soviet-style passports were replaced. “Of course, I fully expected them to find a way of blocking me,” Malik Saidullaev said in an interview with Novaya Gazeta, “but not one quite so ridiculous. When I heard them claim the passport was invalid, I didn't take it seriously.”

  “Do you intend to challenge the Electoral Commission's decision?”

  “No. Whom should I challenge? That lot? They were acting on orders from Moscow. The same group of five people are back. The ones from the Central Electoral Commission of the Russian Federation who operated in the previous election. They were told to find a way of disqualifying me and that is what they have done, only they have turned themselves into an international laughingstock in the process. The International Helsinki Federation is preparing a protest. They phoned me yesterday. I had a warning that I would not be allowed to stand. When I arrived in Grozny and went to register as a candidate at the Central Electoral Commission, their offices and I myself were surrounded by armed men. About a hundred of them.”

  “On the territory of government offices with their own security? Who were they?”

  “Kadyrov's troops, OMON* people. They were under the command of Sultan Satuev, the deputy minister of the interior, and Ruslan Alkhanov was there, another deputy minister. They demanded that the nomination be deleted and that I leave. I went to see Arsakhanov, the commission chairman. Armed men threw him out of his seat. He ran away and was replaced by Taus Dzhabrailov [appointed by Ramzan Kadyrov as ‘chairman of the State Council of the Chechen Republic’]. Taus said, ‘In this place, what we say goes.’ ”

  “And what did they say?”

  “They told me to leave. There was a heated conversation. They realized they could do nothing with me by force. The gang tried to disarm my bodyguards, but that was impossible, so they had to retreat. They warned me several times they would have my name removed anyway. Three days before the passport saga, I was phoned from the Central Electoral Commission and invited to withdraw voluntarily because, as they said, they would get me out in any case. I refused. This disqualification is the beginning of their falsification of the August 29 election. I also know they have already ordered two hundred thousand extra ballot papers from printers in Dagestan, at s
ix rubles per paper. These will stuff the ballot in favor of Alkhanov.”

  “Quite apart from all these electoral games, what do you see happening in Chechnya this autumn and winter?”

  “There will be trouble. All these legalized gangs currently rampaging around Chechnya are quite incapable of opposing the forces that carried out that operation in Ingushetia. The population has turned to favor those in the mountains. Those who seized power here have done everything conceivable to make that come about.”

  “There is a lot of talk in Chechnya now that a third war is inevitable. People are excavating new cellars and building shelters, taking into account their experience of the second war. That has been one of the main preoccupations this summer. How seriously do you take that?”

  “Very seriously indeed, because I know it is true. After Putin's reelection I said there would be major operations by the fighters unless a stop was put to it now. It's the same thing, only worse. The fighters will not be inactive this summer, especially because they didn't previously have the kind of support they have today. They will force the other side to the negotiating table. That seems obvious to me.”

  “What fate awaits Ramzan Kadyrov?”

  “He's not worth talking about. He has no serious place in the republic.”

  “It is difficult to agree with that.”

  “From a criminal point of view, of course, he matters, but he's illiterate. He didn't receive even an elementary education. If he's lucky enough to survive, and if people forgive his sins, Ramzan should be given good psychiatric treatment and an education.”