Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [83]
Only one question is rather worrying: whose money is actually paying for this restoration? It seems reasonable to ask. The official answer, being drummed into the heads of the Chechen population, is that it is all being done with Ramzan’s money. OK, he is admittedly very good at extracting money from people, but he isn’t doing this for himself: he’s doing it for the People.
Is that good? Why, it’s absolutely marvellous! Chechnya is, however, awash with rumors about the mechanism of this pumping operation. By word of mouth one hears how much, exactly, each worker is shelling out to the ruling family. For example, the latest of a series of preparatory measures for the Hundred Days celebration concerns the personnel of the Interior Ministry’s Interdepartmental Security Service. (Alkhanov, the Interior Minister, is a relative of the Kadyrovs and former bodyguard of Kadyrov Senior.) The commanding officers announced at morning parade that the new rates for contributions to the Restoration of Chechnya Fund would be $1,000 each for officers, and 10,000 roubles each for the rank and file (which is quite a whack: these are some rank and file!). Anybody who can’t or doesn’t want to pay up is to be dismissed.
There have no been no reports of dismissals: the Interdepartmental Security Service went to persuade those it protects, the overwhelming majority of whom were only too happy to comply: it was, after all, for the People. All for the sake of the People.
It has to be admitted that Kadyrov Junior is an outstandingly fast-learning pupil of his senior Moscow comrades, including the President of the Russian Federation. What matters is not to actually do things, but to say it was you who did them. This is the main lesson he has learned. Let us dip into the text of Chechen Government Instruction No. 184–r of April 25, 2006, signed by R. Kadyrov. It lists projects financed by capital investment in 2006.
What do we see? Of 27 planned projects, only six are due to be partially financed from “supplementary revenues,” where we may at least surmise the personal participation of Ramzan the Builder with a contribution from the so-called Kadyrov Regional Fund, the chest into which the voluntary contributions of citizens pour. Eighteen projects were fully financed from the Federal Budget by us, the taxpayers of Russia. That covers all repairs to school and boarding-school buildings, the promised gas pipelines to villages, construction of outpatient clinics, even the restoration of the “Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov State Museum.” Two other projects are financed jointly by the federal budget and the Federal Regional Development Fund. In other words, in 19 projects out of 27 Kadyrov Junior has played no part whatsoever. He has only had to keep an eye on things to stop the funds from being trousered. Or …?
An “or” has to be conceded. Ramzan is allowed to do anything he likes. As the sole inheritor of the noble mission of Kadyrov Senior, he knows better than the Chechens how to spend money on the People. The basis of this claim is the belief that Kadyrov Senior was the middleman between the Almighty and the People, the Best of the Best, as he was called, and that he has bestowed this vicarious mission upon his son.
The legend of the Best of the Best, of course, requires constant cosmetic attention. Leaving it to develop spontaneously would be the utmost folly, and that is why Kadyrov Junior’s Hundred