Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [114]
“But you do know that peace negotiations are being conducted by Ilias Akhmadov in America, and Akhmed Zakayev in Europe, who both represent Maskhadov. Perhaps you would like to contact them now? Or let me dial them. Yours is the same cause.”
“What for? We don’t acknowledge them. While we are dying in the forests they are slowly conducting their negotiations because it is not their heads the rain is falling on. We are fed up with them.”
There is no real fourth point to their plan, other than some strongly felt remarks of Bakar’s own: “People have been asking to come here as suicide bombers for a year and a half,” and “We have come to die.” I have no doubt of that. These are doomed men and women prepared to die, and to take with them as many lives as they see fit.
The mobile phone rings again. Bakar listens. It is a phone call from home, from the Vedeno District of Chechnya. He starts shouting and raging: “Don’t ring here any more. Ever. This is the office. You are interfering with my business.”
“May I talk to the hostages?”
“No.”
But five minutes later, he says to a “brother,” sitting almost behind my back, “OK, bring one.”
He goes and brings from the auditorium a terrified, pretty girl called Masha. The hostages have had nothing to eat and she is so frightened and weak that she can’t speak.
Bakar is irritated by her mumbling and orders her to be taken away. “Bring another one, older.” In the interim, Bakar tells me how noble they all are. They have so many pretty girls in their power – and Masha really is very pretty – but they have no desire. All their strength is being kept for the struggle for the liberation of their land. I understand him to mean that I should be grateful for their not having raped Masha.
We speak briefly about morality and ethics, if these are the right words.
“You won’t believe it, but morally we feel better here than at any time in the past three years of the war. We are finally doing something. We feel entirely at home. We feel better than ever. We will be glad to die. The fact that we will go down in history is a great honor. Don’t you believe me? I can see you don’t believe me.”
Actually, I very much do believe him. This kind of talk has been heard among Chechen fighters for a year already. Resentful of the virtual Maskhadov’s inaction, many resistance units have sat through an entire winter in the forests and have now had enough. They can’t come out of the forests, they can’t fight. They need something to do, but there are no orders from their Commander-in-Chief. As this mood has grown, units have either fallen apart or become radicalized, in effect embarking on parallel wars over which Maskhadov has no authority.
The “brother” brings another pretty girl in a state of extreme nervous exhaustion.
“I am Anna Andriyanovna, a correspondent of Moskovskaya Pravda. Everyone outside must please understand, we are already expecting to die. We realize that Russia has abandoned us. We are a second Kursk [a submarine which sank with the loss of all hands shortly after Putin became President]. If you want to save us, come out to demonstrate in the streets. If half of Moscow begs Putin, we will survive. We can see clearly that if we die here today, a new slaughter will start in Chechnya which will rebound on Russia and cause new carnage.”
Anya talks incessantly. Bakar is getting edgy but she doesn’t notice. I am again very much afraid that he will decide to be masterful. Finally she is taken away and we agree that I shall organise things at once and bring some water into the building. Bakar unexpectedly adds, “And you can bring some juice.”
“For you?”
“No, we are preparing to die; we are not eating or drinking anything. For them.”
“And perhaps some food? If only for the children.”
“No. Ours are starving, so let yours starve too.”
I go outside. I find that