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Russian bazaar November 26th, 2004, was the tenth anniversary of the assault on the city of Grozniy by a Russian tank column.
Victor Shenkerovich: «Let’s remember Chechnya, which marked its ten-year anniversary of our fraternal aid (and give my personal regards to General Grachev and Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin). Evaluating the prospects for further efforts of this kind, film director and military journalist Sergey Govorukhin, in an interview with publication Gazeta, said: ‘Any normal military man, after the third glass, will say that nothing can be done in Chechnya, so it's time to get out of there’. Very well, if one has to get drunk in order to tell the truth, then I’m for alcoholism…» From an appeal by the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia (October 13th, 2004): We know the terrible price of a decade of armed violence in Chechnya. It’s the loss of thousands of our sons, both soldier and officer. It’s hundreds of innocent victims of terror. It’s an entire generation of young Chechens and Russian soldiers mutilated by the experience of violence and caprice. Ten years of war did not bring the desired results for either you or the federal authorities. As always, there is no way out of the 'Chechen dead-end'.
Commanders of the Chechen groups under arms! You will kill them, or you they will kill you, without end. You won't be able to change a thing until they recognize you through negotiations. The soldiers' mothers appeal to those of you, who actually want some good for the Chechen people, with this proposal: give peace a chance and to begin negotiations about the peaceful settlement. We are ready to go anywhere convenient for you, to meet with those authorized by you, provided you stop this deadly race. Taking the initiative for negotiations, we will exert all efforts necessary in order to start the negotiating process between representatives of the governments of the Chechen Republic and Russian Federation, intergovernmental and peacemaking organizations, as well as with influential and respected members of the public.
The beginning of negotiations will help break the vicious cycle, and open up prospects for the return to a normal life for you and for us. We await your answer.
Members of the coordinating council of the Union of committees of soldier mothers of Russia, Valentina Melnikova, Mariya Fedulova, Natalya Zhukova. Two women, one Russian and the other Chechen, both of whom lost children on either side of Chechen conflict, appeared in support of a peace initiative by the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia. Svetlana Gubareva, whose 13-year-old daughter perished at Dubrovka, and Roza Kungayeva, mother of the Chechen girl killed by Colonel Budanov, handed an open letter to the Belgian foreign minister, Karel De Gucht. From an open letter by Svetlana Gubareva and Roza Kungayeva to the foreign minister of Belgium, Karel De Gucht December 20th, 2004
Dear Minister De Gucht!
We are the inconsolable mothers of two girls who were killed on both sides of the Chechen conflict, and are shocked by a resolution of Belgian government to prevent talks in Brussels between the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, and Chechen representative Akhmet Zakayev.
These negotiations are very important and deserve your support. We challenge you to rise above diplomatic restraint, to recognize the historic and humanitarian value of this situation, to not knuckle under to Kremlin pressure, and greet the soldiers’ mothers and Akhmet Zakayev in Brussels.
We do not seek vengeance for our children, and we do not make heroes out of terrorists and war criminals, even when they claim to act in our name. We only want that no mother would have to bury her children or experience our pain.
We have sufficient reasons to desire the end of this war. On March 27th, 2000, Russian soldiers in Chechnya abducted from her home one of our daughters, 18 year-old Elsa Kungayeva. That same night she was raped and killed by a Russian officer, who ended up with a laughable punishment and became a hero for many Russians. Nineteen months later, on October 23rd, 2002, another of our daughters, 13-year-old Sasha Letyago found herself among the hostages seized by Chechen gunmen in the Moscow theater. Sasha perished when President Putin ordered the use of a lethal gas during the assault on the building. The terrorists killed in the assault became heroes for many Chechens. Svetlana Gubareva is now in the United States. She arrived here on the invitation of friends of Sandy Booker — Svetlana's fiancé, a native of Oklahoma, who was the only American citizen killed at Dubrovka. I called up Svetlana, and she answered my questions. How, in your opinion, would a meeting between soldiers' mothers and the Chechen commanders' representative, Akhmet Zakayev, influence the course of events in Chechnya?
«If the government doesn't want these negotiations, then that means that they may actually help find a way out of that dead-end. In our open letter, we stated that the initiative by the soldiers' mothers was a breath of fresh air in the atmosphere of distrust, hatred, and vengeance that feeds this war. It gave real hope that the slaughter could be stopped. The soldiers' mothers and their partners in the Chechen leadership could change the situation, but they need every kind of aid. For this very reason we requested help from the Belgian foreign minister.
What was Mr. De Gucht's reaction to your letter?
In a radio interview on Echo of Moscow, he answered a question about the possibility or impossibility of Akhmet Zakayev meeting with the soldiers' mothers in Brussels. Mr. De Gucht stated that since Belgium is collaborating bilaterally with Russia in fighting terrorism, and since Zakayev is on the wanted lists of Interpol and the EC nations, Zakayev would be arrested as soon as he appeared in Belgian territory, and extradited to Great Britain. Mr. De Gucht also said that the Belgian government does not want to be discredited for conducting negotiations on its territory with people who are terrorists, as many assert. He also noted that negotiations between the soldiers' mothers and Zakayev could not enjoy any kind of success, and would never solve the Chechen problem.
You call yourself a victim of the Chechen war. Why?
Yes. The only demand the Chechens who seized the theater made was to stop the war. My friends, as they burst into the hospital on the 27th, said: 'we are all hostages of this war'.
In the open letter by you and Kungayeva, you state that you are not seeking vengeance for you children.
I'm not one of those people who turn the other cheek, but vengeance is not in my nature. What do I seek? First I want justice. Evil was performed at Dubrovka, and it must be named evil, and the guilty parties must be found and punished. Secondly, I couldn’t protect my family, my daughter, but I can at least try to do something to save other children, to make sure this doesn't happen again.
How did you feel when hostages were seized in Beslan?
I already knew that for the Russian government a person's life is worth nothing; therefore I expected the worse — a poorly executed assault. That was exactly what happened. There was a tiny hope that it wouldn't happen right away, that they would have some time to free a few of the hostages. On September 2nd, when I heard on the news that the school was cordoned off, I knew that an assault would happen at any moment. I was in Moscow then, at a meeting of 'Nord-Ost' survivors, and everyone was in a frightful state. Later I learned that a coworker's 10-year-old grandson, Zaur Gutnov, who had been born in Karaganda, had died at Beslan. Can this war really be an internal Russian matter, when it's our children dying in it?
A little more than a year ago, on radio station 'Narodnaya Volna', you talked about yourself and took the listeners' questions. What's been going on in your life since then?
After I got back from America last year, I wrote an open letter to the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. In this letter I asked: why do the Russian authorities refuse to answer my questions? Who organized and financed this act of terror? Why does Putin speak of a 'harmless' gas, when the application of this preparation, according to specialists, disrupts the liver, kidneys, lungs, and causes toxic hepatitis, and has a large probability of causing death if an antidote is not given immediately? Why did they not organize medical assistance for the hostages while planning the special operation, which led to the loss of 129 persons? Would the Republic of Kazakhstan undertake any action due to the loss of its citizen, Alexandra Letyago? Will my country defend my rights and interests?
What answer did you receive from President Nazarbayev?
The president ordered the internal ministry and attorney general of Kazakhstan to investigate the charges in my letter. After a certain time I actually received an answer from them, which stated that as a citizen of Kazakhstan: 'I have the right to freely and without hindrance turn to the courts, district attorneys, and internal affairs organs' of the Russian Federation. Thus, it became clear that our nation was not about to investigate the loss of my daughter, a 13-year-old citizen of Kazakhstan. They promised, however, to render 'any type of assistance in sending the necessary documents to the competent Russian authorities through diplomatic channels'.
Did you make use of this offer?
I hadn't really counted on anything more, and so I decided to contact the Russian attorney general with the same questions, as well as a few new ones. For example, who in the staff headquarters planning the hostage rescue was responsible for providing medical assistance to the hostages? Why do they keep secret the composition of the gas used on the hostages?
In Moscow, together with my attorney Karinna Moskalenko, I filed a petition with the court, which was sent to the Russian ministry of internal affairs. The court decided to grant this petition and allow us access to documents from the investigation. For the first time we could read the district attorney's resolution refusing to bring a criminal complaint.
(Attachment) by Novaya Gazeta reviewer Anna Politkovskaya: It would have been better had they not read it. It was a terrible fairy tale on why no one was guilty of the loss of 129 persons. The resolution refusing to bring charges was packed with contradictory and strange information, which did not clear up toward the end, in the conclusions sections. The resolution held practically no references to specific case volumes with proofs, or statements by official experts (including their names and job titles), as are required in such documents. Nowhere does it explain, for example, why the participation of military physicians was not required. It turned out that this entire document was nothing more than belles-lettres (fiction).
For two years the investigative group hid the results of its work from the families of those be killed, as well as from society. To many it seemed that these secret case materials would contain answers to their main questions (and that was indeed why they were secret). This secret was specifically what the relatives of the deceased hostages were struggling for. And what? The secret proved to be a falsehood, substituting as a thesis. For that matter, the secret was not even about that. The deepest concern now concerns the concealment of the truth. No one explained the true composition of the gas, and it was not established who ordered to its application and hid the antidote from the doctors.
The materials of the case are vague and have many discrepancies, such as what the physicians needed to do on October 26th. And the same vagueness and indistinctness is found in the reasons for refusing to initiate a criminal complaint. Their refusal was based on this indistinctness and obscurity. But the story does not end tomorrow, and that means that hope remains for a revision of the case, and an official explanation.» Is there really any hope for a revision of the case?
The attorney discovered many contradictions in the declassified documents, and they seized upon them. If they succeed, then it may be possible to bring charges in accordance with the Russian criminal codex for 'exceeding authority' and 'causing death through negligence'.
I'm often told that my efforts are in vain, like a fly battling an elephant. In part, this is true, since fighting the government machine alone is almost impossible, but it's also impossible to hold one's peace. I couldn't save my family. What I'm doing no is an attempt to protect you and your families, so that they don't kill them as easily as they killed my family.
By Krasnaya Zvezda correspondent Capt. (reserves) Vladimir Yermolin: On 26 Nov 1994, tanks with white turrets crept out onto a black field near a Grozniy suburb. The rebels, blowing up one machine after another, mentally thanked the clever Russian staff officer who decided to camouflage the tanks in winter colors. Five days later, when I came to Grozniy as a journalist in Sergey Yushchenko's group, one of President Dudayev's guards told me: «They had orders to wear winter uniforms.» Still later, in the basement of the capitol building, a tank crewmember with burned hands explained cynically: «They gave this order to help identification from the air.» Of 30 tank crews taking part in the assault, almost half perished. This devil-may-care assault (without communications, the necessary support, or even a concrete plan of action) can be considered the first act of the Chechen war.
The result of that first attempt to solve the whole problem in one crushing blow, of this 'victorious' operation to introduce law and order onto Chechen soil, could clearly be seen in the frames of the burnt-out tanks, the disfigured corpses of the soldiers, the dirty, emaciated Russian prisoners with fatal melancholy in their eyes, the self-indulgence and illiteracy of the Arbat generals and their neglect of this human 'cannon fodder', and in the lies and treachery of our government officials.
I later asked Dudayev why he would not negotiate with Moscow. He grabbed a file folder tied up with string and packed with papers, and began to shake it under my nose: «Here, here are hundreds of my appeals and telegrams to Yeltsin, to the government, to the Duma, to the bald devil. I offered and I am still offering: let's meet in any convenient place, let's talk, and negotiate. As for an answer — either ultimatums, or silence.»
He could have added that the answer was war. For some reason, however, it seemed to me that back then, exactly one week into the assault, that this highly experienced general had not surmised that everything had already been decided beforehand. His fate, and the fate of thousands and thousands of other Russians — ethnic Russian and Chechen, soldier and peaceful civilian, Groznian and Muscovite. The fate of Chechnya, and all of Russia. Marina Daineko
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