Anna Politkovskaya (1958-2006) Chechyna: A Dirty War (1999—2002)

Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist, author and critic of Vladimir Putin was murdered in her apartment in central Moscow 7^th October 2006.

Ryszard Kapuscinski. Imperium: ‘All dictators, regardless of epoch or country have one common trail: they know everything, are experts on everything.’  

Chechnya: A Dirty War 4^th November 1999.

‘You probably think I’m writing this to stir your pity. My fellow citizens have indeed proved a heard-hearted lot. You are enjoying your breakfast, listening to stirring reports in the North Caucasus in which the most terrible and disturbing facts are sanitised so that voters don’t choke on their food.

But my notes have a quite different purpose, they are written for the future.’

Vladimir Putin, the new Russian prime-minister had been head of the FSB, formerly the KGB. The breakup of the former Soviet Union had been relatively peaceful, unlike the genocidal wars in the former Yugoslavia. But when two Chechen warlords staged an armed rebellion against the former Soviet Union, Russian troops attacked two villages in Daghestan. Apartments in Moscow and other cities suffered bomb explosions. Around 300 Russian citizens were killed. Russian propaganda linked the attacks to Chechnya separatists and the international terrorism of Osama Bin Laden.

Alexander Litvinenko, a British naturalised Russian defector and former agent of the FSB, was poisoned with polonium in London and died 23^rd November 2006. He helped coin the term Mafia State. He accused Putin and FSB agents of planting the bombs in Russian cities. Chechnya separatists denied any involvement. Putin’s goal was to become President of Russia. His war against Chechnya and uncompromising stance was widely supported by the Russian public.  

Claud Cockburn the maverick Irish journalist put it quite simply, ‘Never believe anything until it is officially denied’.

‘The [Chechnya] refugees are unanimous. They talk today of a slaughter of the civilian population and the death of children, of pregnant women and old men.’          

March 2000

‘In December 1999 I went with Galina Matafonova to Pavletsky Station in Moscow to meet her son Lyonya. All that remained of this young man over six-feet tall was some ashes in a little box no bigger than the palm of my hand.

My name is Galina Nikolayevna Matafonova, I’m the mother of three children. My eldest son Alexi was taken into the army on 15 May 1998. He went out of a sense of duty and served for a year and a half. Every night he wrote home. Suddenly there was silence for two months and I began to fret. I was afraid he was in Daghestan. But I was reassured by the words of [Prime Minster] Putin: our boys would not be sent to fight without their voluntary agreement.   

The letter arrived in September…The boys in Alexi’s regiment told us how they were forced to sign a formal declaration of their agreement to fight. They were brought to the banks of the Terek River and told: ‘If you don’t agree, hand back your weapons. You’re free to go. You can make your own way back. Your Russian soldiers wearing uniform and you won’t make your own way back alive…It’s that or sign up.’  

‘My Homeland’ 27^th December 1999.

We are in Ingushetia on the outskirts of the village of Yandara, not far from the Chechen border at a refugee camp called Goskhooz. Tents, sheds and dugouts. Nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, no clothes to wear and nowhere to wash, not even once a month…Yet the [tent] school is working. Many children cannot attend regularly, they have nothing to wear. As a rule one child attends the school today, and tomorrow a different child.

Abdlezim Makhauri: Composition for eight and nine-years-old.

I have only one homeland, Grozny. It was the most beautiful city in all the world. But my beautiful city was destroyed by Russia, and together with it all of Chechnya and the people living there. The people that Russia had not yet managed to destroy went to Ingushetia, as I did. But I miss my home. I so terribly want to go home although I know my house has already been bombed to pieces. All the same I want to go…LEAVE US ALONE, RUSSIA. WE’RE ALREADY FED UP WITH YOU…GO HOME.'

Richard Powers, The Overstory.

‘There’s a Chinese saying. When is the best time to plant a tree?

Twenty years ago.’

Putin’s ‘anti-terrorist’ campaign destroyed Grozny. The Russian Prime Minister refused Western mediation. He pointed to NATOs bombing of Serbia. The Council of Europe had temporarily suspended the voting rights of the Russian deletion. But Tony Blair invited Putin to London. The British Prime Minister offered his support and that of Washington for the ‘terrorist insurrection’ in Chechnya.

The price of oil up over $100 a barrel.     

‘When’s the next best time to plant a tree?’

Now.’