Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [43]
ASLAN MASKHADOV: “WE TOO ARE WONDERING HOW TO BREAK THE DEADLOCK”
May 28, 2001
Our country is limping into the third successive summer of the Second Chechen War. There are thousands of victims on both sides, and perhaps one million damaged souls. Why is this war lasting so long? Are we really to believe that a large, well-equipped army continues to pursue a dozen field commanders through little Chechnya and for some reason can’t catch them? With the coming of spring the television brainwashing will start up once again, explaining how it is “leaf cover” which is the main obstacle to bringing the war to a victorious conclusion. As a country we have plainly lost our way.
Here we offer the viewpoint of the other side: an interview with Aslan Maskhadov, given at a time when every highly placed official in Moscow would claim it was impossible to meet him, in the very area where “everything is under control.” That is, in the very thick of the federal troops’ fortified positions.
What do you think comes next? How can the war be ended?
We are also wondering about this. Where do we go from here? How do we get out of the current stalemate? After all, we too recognise that there is a stalemate, and that the war is just useless, senseless slaughtering of each other – murder carried out with exceptional brutality, fuelled by extraordinary hatred.
There is no point trying to pretend that the military operation has ended, let alone been brought to a successful conclusion, and that now the FSB under the leadership of Patrushev will proceed to catch terrorists. That is laughable. The outcome of the military operation is that Marshal Sergeyev, the Russian Minister of Defence, has been removed from his post. Victors are not sacked, they are promoted.
Russia has lost the war. That much is clear even to the hawks in the Kremlin and to Russia’s leaders. The victorious blitzkrieg which the generals promised Putin has not come to pass. The Russian Army is exhausted, demoralised and disintegrating.
I have worn a soldier’s uniform for 25 years. I served in the Soviet Army, helped raise its fighting capability, was proud of it, and put my soul into it. I too wonder where all these psychopathic Kvashnins [General, Chief of GHQ] and Budanovs in this Army – which, at one time, we were all proud of – have come from. Where have all the criminals who serve in it appeared from? The labor camps? Are they contract soldiers? Are they looters?
Well, where have they come from?
An enormous military machine is now beyond the control of its generals. So what is to be done? Moscow has started flirting with “good” Chechen field commanders and “bad” Chechen field commanders, and is openly talking about who it is prepared to conduct negotiations with and who it isn’t. It is recruiting to its ranks puppets and traitors to their country.
From the experience of the last Chechen War we know that this is a dead end. Remember the incident with the former Minister of State Security, Geriskhanov. Anybody, no matter how great a celebrity he might be, commanding officer or field commander, has only to cross the line of what is permissible to find his status has changed to that of a traitor. He crosses that line today, and tomorrow he finds he has no one behind him, he is on his own. When that happens the traitor is no longer any use to anybody. Neither to us nor to our opponents.
How do you regard the possibility of peace negotiations conducted by the federal side with Field Commander Gelayev? You must know that recently the federal side has been publicising precisely such negotiations. Presidential Representative Victor Kazantsev made an announcement about it.
Gelayev, you say? Well, what of him? Anybody, including Gelayev, who oversteps the mark of the permissible must expect the same fate as befell Geriskhanov. For the Chechen side it is quite clear the war needs to be stopped. Chechens do not need it – it is mainly civilians who are being killed – but we are also aware of what awaits our people if we do not persist, if we give in, if