Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [5]
The FSB makes no attempt to refute these facts in its statement: it simply ignores them. The FSB is not concerned that this crime inflames and aggravates the war. The FSB is merely concerned that Politkovskaya did not have the requisite accreditation.
Actually, she did, and we print it here. Come on, Chekists! You will need to do better than this when preparing your disinformation.
In order to implement their highly intelligent campaign, the Chekists used some of our journalist colleagues as stooges. First the ultra-respectable Vedomosti carried an item to the effect that we had failed to provide a report to the Soros Foundation and that payment of our grant might be stopped. Why a serious business newspaper should suddenly start counting what by their standards is the small change in somebody else’s pocket was baffling – until Shabalkin issued his announcement.
Statements were also distributed through Interfax, by then with our comments. At no point, alas, did our colleagues have qualms about printing private correspondence between Novaya gazeta and the Soros Foundation. You would think we were squandering taxpayers’ money or the state budget.
How the correspondence was leaked is, however, a separate issue. One copy is in the possession of the Soros Foundation, and the original was received by Novaya gazeta’s editor through the post.
Neither the Foundation nor the editor of Novaya gazeta, needless to say, passed this to the press; so somebody has been intercepting our post, opening our correspondence, trying to monitor the newspaper’s activity, and perhaps, also, the activity of the Foundation. It is gratifying to report that they found nothing more substantial than a delayed report.
As in our case, only the FSB’s failures enable us to see what they are getting up to on taxpayers’ money. As usual, they are trying to suggest a link between articles which tell the truth about the Chechen War and Western intelligence services, Western money, and so on.
The FSB likes to show how well informed it is about other people’s affairs, especially when they are none of its business and not within its remit. So it is far easier for them publicly to point out problems in Russia which don’t exist, than to find terrorists like Khattab or Basayev. Or perhaps it is Politkovskaya and our delayed reports which are preventing them from being able to do that. Perhaps this is how they justify their professional incompetence. The replies to these and other questions will no doubt be obtained in court. Our lawyers are preparing to sue.
Don’t be in too much of a hurry, Mr Shabalkin, to spoil your jacket by making a hole in it for that medal you hope to receive.
WHAT NEXT?
March 4, 2002
First the Editor of Novaya gazeta requested that I, Special Correspondent Politkovskaya, should write an irate open letter to Mr Shabalkin. I thought about it and declined. Just too boring. Then the Editor said we needed to write an irate open letter to Shabalkin’s boss, Mr Patrushev, who runs the FSB. I thought seriously about this but again declined. Someone who can’t catch Basayev and Khattab with a team of many thousands is not of the slightest interest to me. He can’t even make me irate.
Then write to Putin! But instead I wrote a letter to Major Nevmerzhitsky, Commander of Reconnaissance of the Shatoy District Military Commandant’s Office.
Major Nevmerzhitsky was a witness of the Shatoy tragedy – the murder and burning of the bodies of six civilians by soldiers of the Central Intelligence Directorate (GRU), which occurred on January 11, 2002 and was officially described by Khankala as an operation to capture the injured resistance leader, Khattab. It was this atrocity I was investigating during my February assignment in Chechnya. This so irritated the FSB that they embarked on the campaign of