Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [7]
From the District Administration I set off to the District Military Commandant’s Office, to see the Commandant, Colonel Victor Malchukov. Why did I go to see him? Because, quite simply, I have known him for a long time, and respect his ability to talk to people in the villages, thereby resolving innumerable conflicts which arise between the Army and the civilian population.
We sat together and worked out a plan of how I could best do the job my newspaper had entrusted me with. The Colonel said that he had to fly to a meeting in Khankala the next morning, so alas there was a limit to the help he could give me.
My journalistic colleagues reported that I had been “detained,” and had “escaped.” This was complete nonsense, although admittedly only in respect of February 8, before the FSB piled in. By February 9, it was already clear that the massacre near the village of Dai in Shatoy District by soldiers of the elite special division of the Central Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence had its roots, as people in Chechnya say, in Army Headquarters in Khankala.
At 11:00 a.m. on February 9, I had arranged an interview with Colonel Andrey Vershinin, the Military Prosecutor for Shatoy District, who is presently conducting a criminal investigation into the executions, and whose office is located within the headquarters of 291 Regiment, near the village of Barzoy, a few kilometres from Shatoy. The Military Prosecutor quite properly scrupulously checked all my documents, and then gave me a long interview in which he was as frank as it is possible to be while a case has yet to come before the courts. My sincere thanks to Colonel Vershinin. He is a terrific person to have in that job. We parted on friendly terms.
The surprises began immediately after this. During the interview, I discovered, my militia security officers had been questioned by FSB agents about me. What were they after? Why? Who gave them permission? Officers I did not know approached me, said they were well-wishers, and quietly advised me to get out of the regiment quickly, warning that preparations were being made to detain me, and that the FSB was categorically opposed to journalists sticking their noses into this case, which involved military commanders right at the top.
This was the moment when my “disappearance” began; a change of cars, covering my tracks, searching for a place to sleep where no one would find me. There were many signs that this was far from a joke, and that it was vitally important to behave in just this manner. I very much wanted to stay alive and to get back home, in the face of a manhunt mounted by men armed to the teeth and with malice in their hearts. For this reason I had to dissolve in time and space, and not, as my press colleagues and the Khankala ideologists were shortly to write, in order to create a fuss and draw attention to myself.
Early in the morning of February 10, I slipped on foot into Starye Atagi, heavily disguised, avoiding checkpoints and the security sweep which was beginning in the neighbouring village of Chiri-Yurt. Moving very quietly, almost crawling on the ground, my main concern was not to attract any attention in order not to be killed. Escaping from Shatoy and from rabid FSB agents was only half the problem. Getting into Starye Atagi, which is now in the hands of the Wahhabis, was the next challenge. No federal soldiers or representatives of the new Chechen government walk the streets. They are very, very afraid of being killed. It’s only journalists and human rights activists covertly collecting information who creep about like this, because journalists like me have no option, given how things have worked out in Chechnya, other than to keep a very low profile.
Perhaps you will think that this is playing at spies, that it amounts to militaristic thrill-seeking.