Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [60]
The other thing to note is that, since the beginning of this year, a recurring theme in the accounts of those who witnessed abductions subsequently traced to Tsentoroy and Youth Soviet Farm No. 15 is that unidentified men in combat fatigues, flak jackets, masks, and helmets with built-in microphones came very quietly into the victim’s house, communicating between themselves in a whisper. They have become known as “The Silent Ones” because they work so soundlessly, co-ordinating their actions by radio and moving around in shoes with thick, springy rubber soles. There have been instances when relatives sleeping in neighbouring rooms didn’t even wake up until the door closed behind the Silent Ones, and it was only when a mother went into the room where her sons had been sleeping that she realized they had been taken.
This stealth technique is Kadyrov’s modus operandi. These abductors are not Kadyrovites at all, but most probably agents from the federal Central Intelligence Directorate, the GRU. This leads to the very unpleasant conclusion that GRU agents are either acting under direct orders of the Kadyrovites, abducting citizens on their instructions, or that, if they find they have abducted the wrong person, are handing him over to the tender mercies of Kadyrov’s “security service.”
I have talked to officials in the Chechen Prosecutor’s Office about the Kadyrov gang often enough to know that they are fully aware of what is going on and have tried to oppose this lawless mayhem. But they have also admitted that Kadyrov’s “security service” acts as it does because Kadyrov is now effectively beyond the reach of the law, thanks to his intimate relationship with the Russian authorities.
This state of affairs is not going to last for ever. Interests will diverge, and when they do Kadyrov and the Kadyrovites will be in an unenviable position. It is difficult to imagine anywhere on the planet where they will be able to find refuge.
ABUSE OF ADMINISTRATIVE AND MILITARY RESOURCES, UNBRIDLED AMBITION WITH GANGSTER TENDENCIES, ONLY THIS TIME THE ELECTIONS ARE NOT IN RUSSIA, BUT IN CHECHNYA
September 23, 2002
We continue sketching in our portrait of Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov, the “Chief” of the Chechen Republic appointed by President Putin more than two years ago.
Why is Kadyrov allowed to act without constraint? Why is it all ignored by the intelligence agencies? As usual, when things are complicated there are simple explanations. The answers in this case are crude and cynical. The victims who are traced to Tsentoroy are tortured and disappear purely because of Kadyrov’s electoral weakness.
The former Mufti is possessed by a desire to be “democratically elected.” Whatever the cost, he wants to feel the equal of Maskhadov, enjoying the same measure of legitimacy. Kadyrov may today be Chief of the Chechen Republic, but only because he was appointed, which is not the real thing. In actual fact his power is derisory, but he wants genuine power, and he craves it so insanely that common sense is banished.
Accordingly, the illegal armed group commonly known as Kadyrov’s “security service” is hunting down his enemies, by which he means those who would be obvious rivals if the militarised political process in Chechnya ever finally came to the point of an election.
His primary enemies are the so-called Ichkerians, those who served in and supported the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and President Maskhadov, the Islamist Wahhabis, members of their jamaat groups, terrorists who sympathise with any of the above, and anybody associated with the separatist ideals of Djohar Dudayev, who supported the idea of Chechnya seceding from Russia.
These are the targets against whom the Kadyrovites direct their main efforts and, naturally, they enjoy the support of the Joint Military Command and FSB who are responsible for conducting the “anti-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus.” Since all debate about