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In the first place, nothing is under control other than the sloshing of black market currency through the checkpoints. In the second place, imposing even more severe restrictions will not stop women participating in terrorist attacks. In the third place, it is absurd to demand that Maskhadov should call upon the women to abandon these tactics: the women have reached boiling point because of the actions of many men, including Maskhadov. They will simply ignore him.

In the fourth place, finally and most crucially, the mind of someone bent on retribution functions extremely efficiently. You will not keep up with it or be able to guess which weak point it has identified. Checkpoints and checking everybody’s documents will be ineffective against women carrying explosives on their person. “We will pass through your checkpoints ‘pregnant,’ ” some of them say. “Your lot are not going to look under our skirts, and you can’t keep a gynaecologist at every checkpoint.”

The only solution is to overhaul Russia’s policy towards Chechnya. We need to take a step in their direction if we want to survive. This means a complete clamp-down on the Army’s anarchy. It means beginning peace negotiations (nominally between Maskhadov – if you can talk to Arafat you can talk to him – and nominally the Kremlin), under the watchful eye of authoritative international observers, in order to effect a rapid demilitarisation of the Republic, cessation of hostilities, and bringing of war criminals to justice. The sole result of the referendum was to tack the title of “Acting President of the Chechen Republic” on to Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov. It is self-evident that Kadyrov, as someone incapable of anything other than feathering his own nest, should be removed.

The future political status of Chechnya? There will be time to think about that later. First, let’s survive.

Nobody can doubt that it will take a hero to disentangle this mess, and heroes are currently in short supply. We need, nevertheless, to find such a hero, because we have already burned every other bridge.

A WEIRD BATTLEFIELD FOR THE PRESIDENT’S IMAGE

February 16, 2004

By March 1, officials promised Putin, there would be no refugee camps outside Chechnya. Anybody who persisted in their reluctance to move from a camp in Ingushetia to a camp in Chechnya would be “entitled” under the Government’s Guarantee to have their water, electricity and gas cut off, and would lose the right to medical care and education. Glory be to the Guarantee! That stout defender of the Guarantee, Ella Pamfilova, Chairwoman of the President’s Commission on Human Rights, has been appointed to oversee this massive violation of human rights and of the Constitution.

It would be difficult to call Okruzhnaya a township, a suburb, or even a farm. The most truthful name for it is simply a camp, consisting of unpainted huts hastily knocked together. There is no gas, no water, and there are no amenities, not even in the courtyards. The workers look at me warily for reasons which become apparent later. The so-called Renovation Board, which rules the roost here, is chronically incapable of paying them for their work, but takes the ideological approach: “Build a settlement! Just do it! Putin has spoken!”

“What work is that?” I ask Supian Sambayev, who introduces himself as the site foreman. He and I walk over an area strewn with wooden structures and a defunct lattice of rusting pipes which is the battlefield for the image of the President as Architect of Peace in Chechnya.

“For the houses,” the foreman insists grumpily. “They ought to pay us for them.”

“But what houses?”

Supian looks away. These half-finished shacks on the outskirts of Grozny have a history. They were hastily erected along the road shortly after last year’s flooding and were the material evidence of the budget resources allocated to aid the flood victims. Despite their desperate situation, the flood victims refused as one to move to this out-of-the-way site with no infrastructure. They decided they might