Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [86]
Whoever it was who turned up in APCs on September 7 – current Kadyrovites, former Kadyrovites now reclassified as officers belonging to battalions of the Russian Interior Ministry, or some other kind of thugs – what happened is a manifestation of the long-established Kadyrov syndrome whose principal distinguishing features are insolence, loutishness, and brutality masquerading as courage. In Chechnya the Kadyrovites beat men and women at will, in exactly the way the Wahhabis beat people in the days of Maskhadov’s Ichkeria. They behead their enemies just as the Wahhabis did, and the institutions of law and order turn a blind eye or even officially refer to this behaviour as the result of a heightened national awareness following the Chechen people’s irrevocable choice in favor of Russia.
In Chechnya itself there has been no attempt to halt the spread of this infection. Rather, it has been encouraged. “Come on, guys, we’re something else. We’ll show them who’s boss. We have every right!” The Kadyrov syndrome is catching on among Chechen teenagers who are known as the New Wahhabis, or the R. Kadyrov Fan Club. They “graduate” from the Fan Club and take their place in adult life and the world of work.
For a couple of years all this was festering only in Chechnya, with occasional outbreaks in Dagestan, mainly in the bordering Khasavyurt District. Now, however, the Kadyrov syndrome is spreading. Today many Chechens living outside Chechnya and even outside Russia are being infected with the virus.
Those around them have also moved on, though. By no means everybody is taken in by the televised fairy tales depicting Ramzan Kadyrov as a Hero of Russia. Many are getting very tired of the Kadyrov syndrome and it has produced a countervailing tendency in the form of a movement called “We Will Beat You.” Not everybody is willing, like many Chechens, to let the Kadyrovites walk all over them. This is what led to the anti-Chechen disturbances in Kondopoga, Karelia, and now also this incident in Alkhasty.
3. The Cadet
The failure of Russia’s rulers, despite their public pronouncements, to support the rule of law has allowed war criminals to flourish in Chechnya. The courage and tenacity required to stand up to forces bent on perverting the course of justice is illustrated by several cases which Anna Politkovskaya reported; as a result she successfully had evil men brought to book.
THE CADET AFFAIR: THE DISAPPEARED
September 10, 2001
Imagine that a group of unidentified men in Army uniform burst into your house, drag off a member of your family, and …
And nothing. Someone existed but now they don’t. It is as if they have been rubbed out, like a matchstick man from a school blackboard. You can rush around, go out of your mind, beg for at least some modicum of information, but the official who should be searching for them quite straightforwardly advises you, “Forget it.” And that is the end of that.
The most appalling tragedy in Chechnya today is the disappeared, those who vanish without trace. Officially they currently number about 1,000; unofficially, almost 2,000. They have been disappearing throughout the war, right up to the present, from different towns and villages and in different circumstances, but all such stories have two common characteristics. The first is that those who disappeared were last seen being taken away by soldiers; the second is that the numerous ramified law enforcement agencies of Chechnya are incapable of finding anyone.
Once a month a special meeting on abductions is held in the new government offices in Grozny. Another job ticked off the list. It is usually chaired by Vladimir Kalamanov, the President’s Special Representative for the Observance of Human Rights and Freedoms in Chechnya.