Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [136]
What did you learn from your work in the Commission that was new?
The most unexpected discovery was the activity of the human rights organizations. My attitude towards them was that they were “little shits,” to use the expression of Pavel Grachev [the Russian Minister of Defence during the First Chechen War]. My view of the little shits dated from 1993–5 when I was meeting refugees from Chechnya and realized that what was happening there was a genocide of the Russians, and that the human rights activists were not speaking up for them but only for the Chechens. That infuriated me. Today, though, I have to admit that the human rights organizations have overcome that bias. They are fighting for the rights of people in the Caucasus irrespective of nationality, protecting the rights of ordinary people, not of the nouveaux riches. They take risks. They don’t spare themselves. At any moment they could be knifed or shot.
One final question: Gryzlov, as you describe it, on one occasion effectively took over the chair of the Commission, but the Commission was also visited by Lyubov Sliska, the Deputy Speaker of the Duma. What justification did she offer for interfering?
In November Sliska and Mironov came to the Commission and told us we should have our conclusion out before the New Year. She said the public were very stirred up and we needed to work as quickly as possible. They got support. Lyubov Sliska is an extremely glamorous woman who gets featured in the glossy magazines. How could you refuse her? Of course, Gryzlov had no business delegating Sliska to come and tell us what to do, but I would not call it interference. Let us just say it was less a meeting of the Commission than a meeting with a glamorous woman. She asked the Commission to bring its work to a conclusion. We agreed and passed a resolution, but then changed our minds. Instead of the final report, what Torshin presented on December 28 was an account of the work we have done. Incidentally, neither Gryzlov, Mironov nor Sliska turned up to hear it.
I asked Torshin to state publicly that I was opposed to the account both in form and in substance. He did not do so, and has effectively obliged me to go to the press. That is why I am giving this interview, addressing the Russian public myself.
BASAYEV BLOWN TO BITS: CHECHNYA WITHOUT TERRORIST NO. 1
July 13, 2006
A long-awaited event occurred this week: according to official sources, Terrorist No. 1, Shamil Basayev, has been killed, a man responsible for dozens of terrorist acts and the taking of hundreds of lives. If this was, as claimed, a successful operation by the intelligence services, they are to be congratulated, as are we all.
There remain not a few questions in respect of the fatal explosion in the village of Ekazhevo. Distrust of the official version is entirely understandable: Basayev has been “killed” several times before, only for it to be found that the claims were premature. Even more often he has managed to slip out of what appeared to be totally inescapable situations, as during the raid on Dagestan in 1999 [suspected to have been orchestrated by the FSB, and used as a pretext to start the Second Chechen War] when his rabble marched out unscathed, in formation, under the puzzled gaze of special operations soldiers watching the procession through their telescopic sights.
Be that as it may, whether Basayev was liquidated or liquidated himself, the bastard is no longer a player in either politics or terrorism. We can breathe more easily, but can we really relax?
The Career of Terrorist Basayev
1991, October 5: Took part in occupation of the KGB building in Grozny. Still a secondary figure, under Labazanov and Gantamirov.
1991, November 9: Took part in hijacking a TU-154 passenger aircraft from Mineralnye Vody Airport. The hijackers were led by Said Ali Satuyev, a professional civil aviation pilot.
1991: Following a decision of the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, supported by the