Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [41]
So then we turned to Kofi Annan. Could we pin our hopes on him? Back then, in late April, Security Council diplomats already foresaw events taking the turn we have seen in Moscow in the last last few days: Kofi Annan, they felt, turns a blind eye to the human rights situation in Chechnya and, accordingly, also to the Human Rights Watch report. These, incidentally, were high-ranking diplomats working immediately under Kofi Annan, and they assured me that today he does not want to focus on the suffering in a tiny spot on the planet which is situated on the territory of the Russian Federation. After all, his prospects of getting a second term as Secretary-General are nil without Russia’s help.
What does all this add up to? There are occasions in life when everybody distances themselves from you. When the going gets really tough, even close friends slip away. You find you have no real allies, so you just have to go it alone. This is exactly what is happening with Chechnya: we must stop the war ourselves. Nobody is going to help us. Remember, we have been here before. It was the tacit willingness of the international community not to challenge the authenticity of the Chernokozovo “model” pre-trial detention facility in Chechnya, which gradually acquired the status of a sham Potemkin Village for receiving international VIPs, that led to later disgraceful developments. By the dozen, and later in their hundreds, people began not to be imprisoned but simply to disappear, after which their bodies might be found only by chance, buried in unspeakable circumstances.
Even if Moscow gives in to the pressure from Human Rights Watch and agrees to resume the inquiry into the mass grave in Dachnoye, it too will go the way of Chernokozovo. No matter how obscene it may sound, Dachnoye would become a model mass grave. The state authorities would find a way to wriggle off the hook. Before you knew it, foreign journalists and parliamentarians would be transported in droves to visit Dachnoye. That would be the end result of the report Human Rights Watch produced with the intention of putting pressure on the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Sad but true.
Meanwhile, what is going on in Chechnya? More of the same: a wave of atrocities, lies and terror. There are rumors that on May 13 in Urus Martan, Arbi Barayev himself – a field commander and brutal murderer – was detained but released the same day by the Commandant of the Urus Martan District, citing orders from his superiors. On May 14, also in Urus Martan, an unmarked infantry fighting vehicle drove up to the home of the Bardukayev family. Six men had been taken from this house during a security sweep in January. Three were released shortly afterwards, but for almost half a year the family knew nothing about the fate of the others. The officer who climbed down from the vehicle, using exactly the same methods as Arbi Barayev (you remember the severed heads of Western engineers lying in the snow?), showed photographs of the bodies of the Bardukayev brothers to their relatives, who confirmed their identity. The officer demanded $1,500 to disclose where they were buried. Exactly the same routine as with the body of Adam Chimayev in Dachnoye. Only here fewer bodies were involved, so the price was lower: not $3,000, only $1,500.
A FUGITIVE FROM HIMSELF. WHY THE INTERVIEW WAS CENSORED
May 21, 2001
Man as he is rarely suits us. Like life itself. You keep wanting to substitute what you would like to believe for reality and either view it through rose-tinted spectacles or give it horns and a tail, depending on your personal inclinations.
Aslan Maskhadov today is a virtual person. He is neither really there, nor not there. Society has seen and heard nothing of him for a long time, so when