2RHPZ
05-18-2004, 02:14 PM
INTO THE INFERNO
TIME Moscow bureau chief Paul Quinn-Judge spent five days in and around
Chechnya's war zones. This is the first entry in his diary.
By PAUL QUINN-JUDGE Enroute to Chechnya
After weeks of lobbying and protests by foreign journalists at official
obstructionism, a revamped government press operation announced it was taking a
first group of correspondents to Grozny. I was on the trip, along with
colleagues from the U.S., Canada, Japan, Italy and France. We were to travel
with Nikolai Koshman, the Russian government's plenipotentiary representative
for Chechnya. On Monday, several hours late, we left from Vnukovo Airport on a
government flight.
Day One, Vnukovo to Mozdok
The flight was crammed, mostly with heavily armed men. We sat with bags on our
knees and tried to eat the kerosene-scented meal. Toward the end I realized that
the white stuff on my plate was fish. The bone was a giveaway. As the plane
entered the last 45 minutes or so of its flight, some of the men in uniform
began to sprout earphones and mikes in their cuffs, Secret Service style. By the
time we had landed, several not very military-looking young men-- one dressed
like a student, one in a cheap jacket and tie--were also strapping on large side
arms and testing their mikes. Presumably some sort of covert back- up. The
soldiers behind them were standing, guns at the ready, in full Spetsnaz battle
dress, as if they were somehow expecting us to be attacked on the tarmac of the
largest Russian base in the North Caucasus. Koshman clearly takes no chances. We
landed between a line of helicopter gunships to our left and fighter bombers to
our right. Koshman--who, we had been told, was our guide for the week--said
hello and left. We never saw him again. We were escorted to a bus and headed for
town. Security around the base itself seemed strangely lackadaisical--bored,
sulky-looking guards who could have probably been ambushed by a couple of
sprightly babushki.
"Today you will rest," Slava, one of our handlers, announced. Grim words:
Soviet-speak for shut up and don't leave your hotel. The delay in Moscow in
taking off meant that we were too late to go to the liberated zones, he
explained. The zones may be liberated, but they still have a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
curfew. So today's program was canceled. It proved to be a sign of things to
come. The senior, senior handler--black shirt, bright tie, flushed face of a
heavy drinker--gave us a brief welcoming speech. He was so jaded or cynical
about the whole press operation that he could not be bothered to finish his
sentences. He would get halfway through and then wind up with "i prochee, i
prochee, i prochee (etc ... etc ... etc ...)." "We will be meeting with ordinary
people who have suffered at the hands of the bandits etc ... etc ... etc..." Or
"Enjoy the excellent food at the hotel etc ... etc ... etc ..."
The best that can be said about the hotel is that it would be hard to dynamite.
Solid concrete walls. Otherwise, classic Soviet provincial: beds with high
headboards and footboards and 1.7 m of sleeping space, that leave you feeling in
the morning as if your spine has been compressed. A tiny trickle of cold water
from a sink in the corner, and a single, fetid toilet at the end of the hall. I
asked for a single room. There aren't any, snapped the receptionist, who true to
form was furious to have guests spoiling her day. "Are you prepared to pay for
both beds?" she snarled. This would have doubled the fee to $8. Yes, I replied
rashly. "Well you can't," she declared triumphantly.
WELCOME TO HELL
Day Two
After crappy food and a miserable night we were on the road by 9. At 9:50 the
bus, now with a large complement of the Moscow OMON (Special Assignment Police,
militarized SWAT teams for use against heavily armed criminals) to protect us,
stopped at a well-guarded checkpoint on the border between Stavropol Kray and
Chechnya. On the wall of the main building was a wanted poster for Khattab, a
top Chechen commander, just in case he tried to drive through the checkpoint in
a Zhiguli, I suppose. The senior OMON cleared us through the checkpoint, then
clambered back on the bus. "Well, gentlemen, welcome to Hell," he said, a tad
melodramatically. The checkpoint, like all the others we passed, had an official
slogan painted on it: "Nasha glavnaya zadacha--presech' terrorizm." A ready
reminder in case a journalist
asks why they are there. Our destination was Znamenskoye, the main town in the
far north of Chechnya. Traditionally pro-Russian, it had surrendered without a
shot, and is notconsidered a showpiece of the pacification program. Most of the
damage you can see is due to the neglect and misrule of the Maskhadov years.
The morning started badly. We drew up at the Voenkom (military headquarters),
and were ushered into a freshly painted meeting room to find that
"representatives of the population" would be coming to address us on the reality
of the situation here. I had not encountered such primitive agitprop since Phnom
Penh in 1980, when "representatives of the masses"--workers from destroyed
factories, peasants from devastated fields, all in brand-new costumes --
"spontaneously" appeared at the opening of the puppet National Assembly.
We sulked, and asked no questions. The military commander, Major General
Vladimir Kovrov, tried to fill the silence with a little speech, ostensibly
addressed to the "comrades" in the hall, but in fact aimed at us. (The term
comrade is making a comeback, I note. A sign of the times.) One of the TV teams
listlessly filmed an elder, we listened to a few more rambling speeches and
left.
The head of the Znamenskoye administration turned out to be Akhmed Zavgayev, a
brother of Doku Zavgayev, the spectacularly unsuccessful pro-Moscow leader of
Chechnya during the last war. Doku is now ambassador to a remote African
country, presumably one without a Chechen diaspora. Akhmed did not like us. Very
nicely dressed--I presume he had been in Moscow for the past few years, and not
on the breadline--he made it increasingly clear that the role of foreigners is
to provide aid, preferably money, ideally cash. The next stop was a school.
Immaculate. A small girl in ribbons followed us from the first class to the
second, where the teacher managed to fit in her brief recital of poetry and
patriotic songs. Despair washed over me. The day was rapidly turning into a
Soviet-era press trip.
them for a translation. They were refugees, lobbying local officials to get the
food rations they were promised and were not receiving. General Kovrov waded in,
hoping to calm things. He only made it worse. "You destroy our homes and our
country and now you don't even keep your smallest promises," one woman shouted.
The general urged them not to get emotional. "Drop round my office tomorrow,
when we can talk off camera," he said. Akhmed Zavgayev lost his cool. "You want
aid, ask them," he said, and pointed disdainfully with his thumb at us. At me,
as chance would have it. He and I exchanged unpleasantries, and I suggested we
wind up the trip there and then. The general intervened and we headed for the
next stop, a refugee camp. As we drew up, General Kovrov, still rattled by the
women at the school, stuck his head into our bus and blurted: "They talk a lot
about vacuum bombs here--provocateurs--I've never seen a vacuum bomb in my
life." They did not talk about vacuum bombs, as it turned out. Instead, they
talked about daily beatings, the arrest of young men, price gouging and abuse by
drunken guards.
The refugees all came from the Staropromyslovski region of Grozny, and are
hoping to return home. After 20 minutes of more or less unfettered conversation,
we were ushered hastily from the camp itself to a large adjoining hall, where
all of the kids and many of the less obstreperous adults had been invited to a
concert-- presumably to keep them out of our way. We were greeted with a
standing ovation and a burst of karaoke. After a few minutes we were told we had
to move on, probably because no one was filming or taking notes. Bad timing. An
elderly refugee lady bushwhacked us in the narrow corridor and, as the cameras
rolled, pleaded tearfully with us for protection. "Don't let them kill us," she
wailed. The general, sick at heart, once again tried to defuse the situation.
Drop by my office in the morning, he said grimly. Next stop, inevitably, a
hospital, then out of town.
First to a burning oil well--an example of Chechen crimes against ecology.
Françoise Marie, the French TV correspondent who insists on wearing red, high-
heeled knee-length vinyl boots, did a stand-up too close to boiling petrol and
part of a boot melted. As we stood there, unaware that Françoise Marie was in
danger of meltdown, we heard heavy artillery in the middle distance. Our
security said they did not know what it was: perhaps someone was destroying an
illegal oil well. Perhaps so, though I had difficulty understanding why they
needed long bursts of machine gun fire to finish it off. Then we were taken to
an illegal oil refinery--the same one someone on our trip had gone to a month or
so ago. Then to another refinery, where two soldiers with a rocket launcher blew
up two storage tanks. This was not a crime against ecology. The first rocket
seemed to miss completely (it's hard to be sure because of the noise and smoke)
and I had grim visions of a house somewhere down the road ceasing to exist.
There were no casualties, though. Our escorts guffawed. "Down a bit," one said
snidely.
We then headed back to town for lunch--a sumptuous spread by the standards of
the time. We waited for our hosts, Zavgayev and the general, but they did not
turn up. Unexpected business, we were told. Back to Mozdok by 6. Tomorrow, our
guides say, there is an early morning helicopter to Gudermes. Everybody
downstairs by 8.15. As if we plan to sleep in.
DIRTY SECRETS
Day Three
The escorts turned up around 12:40. Gosh, we just could not find a free
helicopter: a whole bunch of ministers had just flown in and commandeered them
all. We are in shock, they said, eyes wide to express horror. I threw a fit,
complained that we had done nothing but listen to propaganda speeches and
explanations of why the program had been canceled, said that I would leave by
the first available flight if we did not get to Gudermes today, etc ... etc ...
etc ... Others took the same line. The handlers left in search of a bus (they
had said before this was an option) and we started calculating how much time we
had. We were told it was a four-hour drive to Gudermes, and the curfew there
starts at 6 so we had to leave by 2 at the latest. They turned up at 1:43. Etc
... etc ... etc ... was fuming, and chainsmoked the whole way. I suspect we had
screwed up his afternoon social plans, though part of his anger was probably
nerves: they were far from sure the road was safe.
We drove through Chervlennaya, where Russian troops had shelled me in October,
then almost into Grozny before turning east for Gudermes. Some villages we
passed were shattered, others almost intact. But in every cemetery there were
fresh graves, lots of them. We got to Gudermes at 5. It had not changed much
since November, though the eternal flame was at least burning outside the
administration building. Do you want to meet the head of the administration? our
guides asked. No thanks, we said. Everybody had interviewed her at length. Out
she came, in a long pelt coat, pink sweater and generous half cleavage. The
French want to interview her, our guides announced shamelessly. "No we don't,"
the French protested: "we talked to her two weeks ago." But here she was, and we
went through the motions of an interview. She had no doubt that Gudermes (pop.
35,000 plus 10,000 refugees) should be the capital. But it will take money to
restore the city, she added. How much? she was asked. She thought for a moment,
eyes sparkling in anticipation. About $100 million, she said. I asked about the
Yamadayev brothers, the gunmen who rallied to the Russians and forced Chechen
troops out of town. She agreed that they had been responsible for "dirty" things
in the past. But, she said, they were playing no role in the life of Gudermes
these days. Well, other than helping defend the town. As for their nasty past,
she said, "they have amnestied themselves."
While we were talking I noticed Vadim, one of our guides (from the military
press operation, I later discovered) head off in a jeep with a couple of OMON.
They came back about 20 minutes later, when we were running out of questions for
the head of the administration. We climbed back on the bus and drove a short
distance to ulitsa Zheleznodorozhnikov (Railwaymen's street). There we parked
and walked through a muddy courtyard, surrounded by watchful OMON and curious
residents of the surrounding low rise apartments. We were taken to a small
flight of stairs leading down from the side of a 1960's apartment house--the
sort of covered stairs that in the provinces often lead to a small basement
shop. In this case, behind a padlocked door, was a primitive gym, with crude
drawings of Jackie Chan and either Basayev or Khattab, I failed to note which.
We gathered in the gym, and a well-spoken officer who identified himself only as
the commander of a special unit of the MVD (Interior Ministry) forces, briefed
us. Behind a door marked with gang style graffiti--Death--was a zindan, a secret
cell where kidnapers had held their victims. In this case the captives were two
MVD soldiers who had been captured in Dagestan sometime in August. They had
written their names in their tiny cell: Sergei and Alexei. The Russian
authorities had only found the place on 25 Dec.--two and a half months after
they had taken over the town. Alexei and Sergei had been stabbed to death,
brutally and slowly, the officer implied, the previous day. It was a nightmarish
story. But as usual, when I tried to ask more details--Who were the hostage
takers? Local people, gangsters, Islamic fundamentalists?--everyone clammed up.
The officer said he did not know details of the investigation. When I asked
Vadim, he brusquely remarked that "the comrade will tell you what he deems
necessary." As we stood around, kids on the street, using some sort of flaw in
the building, called down through the wall. What is your name? they shouted in
English, then Russian. I wondered if they had done that when the two soldiers
were there. As we left the crowd had increased: it was a densely populated area.
Some of them, perhaps a lot of them, must have known something was amiss.
We slept in a railway car, thoughtfully reinforced with concrete slabs and
cordoned off by barbed wire and trench works. Even in the middle of the station,
our escorts were clearly nervous. So were our guides: Etc... etc... etc...,
rattled by something, accused a couple of us of wanting to go for an evening
walk. "You do not yet fully understand where you are," he said with a sort of
manic glee, as if he were expecting an attack. Another of our handlers, Slava,
was based here, and said things are indeed very nasty. You keep a low profile in
the day, take security even when you go to buy cigarettes, and do not go out at
night. Znamenskoye was a little better, he said, but things would get worse
there too when the foliage was back on the trees, and the guerrillas had more
cover. During a listless, uncomfortable night, though, I heard only a few
explosions and bursts of fire.
MUD AND MADNESS
Day Four
It's about 40 minutes drive to Khankala, but our guides insist we take a
helicopter. Grozny may be liberated, but the road is very dangerous. We drive
out to the military kommendatura (headquarters) and hang around for an hour and
a half, to the irritation of the officer on watch, who feels we are making the
place look messy and moves us on. The helicopter comes around 10:22, Vadim says
goodbye with the weakest of handshakes and a faint smile, and I don't even
notice that etc ... etc ... etc ... is not with us until we stagger, caked with
glutinous mud, onto the helicopter. We fly just about tree level: this pilot is
taking no chances. 15 minutes later we are over Khankala, the hub of the Russian
military operation in Chechnya.
It looks massive, like Tan Son Nhat or Danang at the height of the war, armor as
far as the eye can see, batteries of rocket launchers defending the periphery,
APC's aimlessly lurching across an endless sea of mud, a long line of railway
cars in the distance, with heavy trucks buzzing busily around them. (The cars
are full of ammunition, I notice later.) We land and our helicopter, a psywar
bird that carries speakers where its rockets usually are, pumps out a stream of
Russian disco-crap while we wait for the bus. And wait. The bus--there appears
to be only one--has broken down, it transpires. A Kamaz (heavy truck) eventually
comes to collect us, and takes us to our billet, another railway car. Yet again
without washing facilities--none of us have washed since Moscow.
Twenty meters through the mud are our outhouses. The trudge leaves you with
slabs of dirt on your boots the size of snow shoes. And the huts sway scarily
when a helicopter passes overhead--disturbing when you have already assumed the
position. At the railway carriage we are told that we will have lunch and
discuss our program. We say we are going to Grozny. Colonel Ushakov, the
glabrous staff officer who is in charge of us for this leg of the trip, tries
the old line on us: all decisions have to be made by my superior, and he is not
available. (The unspoken message: hey guys, I am on your side, but I'm just a
little person, have pity). We had no pity. Contact your superior. Use a radio.
He's out of range, Ushakov protests. This is an army? we counter. You can't
contact your commander? He keeps having long conversations on his radio. I never
hear a reply, though am openly eavesdropping, and suspect he has not turned the
thing on. If you don't want us to go Grozny, why don't you have the honesty to
tell us, I ask. He is shocked. Canadian TV blows a fuse. Come on, says Paula the
correspondent, let's do a stand up with these guys. Greg, the producer-interpreter
groans. On camera Paula asks Ushakov and Konstantin Makeyev, our Moscow handler,
why they are stopping us from doing our job--why they have been stopping us for
the past four days for that matter. They are hurt. All delays have been due to
"technical, objective reasons," Makeyev protests. "And you have only been under
my responsibility for three hours," Ushakov added with what I thought was a
touch of smugness. Relax, they say. We are getting you a truck. An hour later
the truck is still getting gassed up. The tactic is clear: take us into Grozny
as late as possible in the day, so there is the bare minimum of viewing--and
more importantly, filming--time.
The truck came after 3pm, over a four-hour wait. Khankala base is so big, and
the mud so deep, that it took us 20 minutes driving in first gear to get to the
edge of the base--a hole knocked in the concrete perimeter wall. From that point
on we could see why they did not want us to go into the city. Bosnia, Somalia,
Vietnam pale in comparison. It is totally, utterly destroyed. I was left
wondering through what bizarre thought processes a man has to pass before
describing this city as liberated. They have pulverized it. I'm reminded of
Tacitus: they create a desert and they call it peace. We were speechless. On the
edge of town our truck got stuck--hung up on a trees that had been flattened to
make a path. (All trees destroyed--beheaded and lacerated by gunfire.) Our guide
Colonel Vladimir Klimashin, jumped off the back and flagged down an APC, which
pushed us out. (Ushakov tried to stop some tanks, but they seemed to ignore
him.)
Klimashin was a no-nonsense combat officer. Instead of nice clean staff fatigues
? la Ushakov, he wore an old canvas coat of a color halfway between the red
brick of the destroyed houses and the dark brown of the mud; he bore no signs of
rank and had an AK slung over his shoulder. The first place he showed us was
Ulitsa Serzhen'-Yurt, in the so-called chastny sektor (private sector). It was
once an upscale street of comfortable one story houses, quite a few of them new,
red-brick, most with neat but high fences around them. All without exception had
been destroyed. The street had been an ukreprayon (fortified district), he said.
It had been held first by Khattab's people, then had been handed over to another
commander, he said. The fortifications were "very professional," he said,
repeatedly. "In fact we are facing a professional army." He did not respond
directly to our expressions of amazement at the destruction, but gradually and
subliminally the military rationale began to emerge. We were wrong about the
number of defenders, Klimashin said. It was not 2,000-2,500; we were facing
10,000. (A Russian military correspondent for the MVD paper had done the rounds
of combat officer, and was told consistently that 1,400 defenders had broken out
of the city, 350 had been killed during the retreat, and that the average number
of defenders at any given time was 2,000.) And on a street like this, there is
no way that the defenders could have worked without the support of the local
population. Sounds like a people's war, I remarked, using their old jargon. He
did not comment.
The defenses were built with cabinet-maker's precision: deep, log-and stone-reinforced
block-posts on street corners, where two men, a sniper and a machine gunner
could control movement along two streets. A couple of teams could defend a whole
district, he added. (So who needs 10,000?) Sharply zigzagging trenches, 1.5
meters deep, starting in a garden, going under a fence, and finishing almost
imperceptibly in the middle of a road. At the end of the trenches, a wolf hole
(volchyaya yama), a shelter scooped out of the side of the trench. As he pointed
to the block-posts and the wolf-holes, Klimashin repeated the same refrain: a
direct hit from a tank-shell, nothing smaller, would be needed to neutralize
this. And when they left, the guerrillas mined everything, Klimashin said. A few
days earlier, snipers in a five story building half a block away had targeted 8
of his men. Adroitly the sniper or snipers nudged them towards the shelter of
one house, like a sheep dog with his ewes. Then they detonated a remote
controlled charge. All the men were killed; it took two days to recover the
bodies.
We walked slowly round the corner to the five-story building. Upper floors were
burned or gutted by explosions, the yard was littered with small, disposable
rocket launchers. A couple of old women sat in the yard. Nina, who did a lot of
the talking, and the older Mariya Idrisova, (born 1926). They had spent over
four months in a cellar. Three cellars in the building had been inhabited, with
perhaps 25 in all. I went into one cellar: the first room dank, covered in
firewood, their life support system. Then deeper inside, through pitch darkness,
to a second room sealed off from cold and light by a thick blanket. There a low-ceiling,
dimly lit room heated by a makeshift stove, where they all had lived. When the
fighting was over the soldiers came, said Idrisova. They took everything. They
did not even leave a pillow, she said. "They are animals and bastards." Ushakov
and Klimashin said nothing.
At the far end of the yard I saw a husky kid in a beat-up fake leather jacket
watching us. Islam, age 9. Russian officials repeatedly say that no schools
worked here, but Islam had been in 3rd grade when the offensive started. His
Russian was good, which means he certainly was not in a religious school. Islam
lived here with his mother. His father was in Gudermes, he said. He had spent
over three months in the cellar with his mother, four relatives and two other
women. Talking to him was painful: he spoke like a zombie, and each question
seemed to drag him out of a walking sleep. Islam said he had not seen any
boyeviki (Chechen gunmen) here, though he had seen plenty at Minutka, a couple
of hundred yards away. He must have gone out to watch them in quieter moments;
it must have seemed quite exciting at the time. The place was heavily shelled,
he said. "Nekrasivo bylo." (It wasn't pretty.) When the Russian soldiers came,
he said, they camped in the yard for two days. Some gave them food. The MChS
(Ministry of Emergency Situations) delivered supplies once. Most of the soldiers
looted everything they could carry away, however. One threw a smoke grenade into
their cellar. Later, he added blankly, during a zachistka (a house to house
search), a soldier threw a hand grenade in. The two women were injured, he said,
and were taken away to Khankala. He doesn't know what happened to them. I gave
him some money, and he tried to refuse, so I told him roughly to take it.
I wandered back to the main part of the yard and was accosted by a fey looking
old man. Like everyone else his face was gray and he had a dry cough. He was
either slightly crazed, or had a sort of Spike Milligan view of the world. Or
both, of course. I don't know how to describe our conversation: something out of
Samuel Becket, perhaps, or King Lear. "So where is this group from," he asked
no-one in particular. I ran through the group: France, Japan, Italy, U.S.,
Canada. "France," he exclaimed. "Jacques Chirac. Big guy. Just one bang on
Yeltsin's head"--at this point he linked his fists together and mimicked Chirac
disposing of Yeltsin punch and judy style--"and none of this would have
happened."
"Now I know you're probably from the FSB [the Federal Security Service]," he
said, turning to me. I pulled out my passport, but he brushed this evidence
away. "Documents can be faked," he explained. "I want to talk about Brigitte
Bardot. Do you remember she wrote to Putin asking him to take better care of
dogs." A month or so ago she did indeed send him an e-mail, asking him to outlaw
dog-fights, I think. "Well, do you think she could organize a society for the
protection of Chechens." At this point Ushakov sauntered up, with the sort of
smile on his face the squire reserves for the village idiot. My companion turned
to him, looked his uniform up and down, and asked after a well-timed pause, "So,
you're from France too?" I left them to it. The officers were not pleased by the
locals' lack of gratitude for the liberation of their city "Granny Nina shot her
mouth off again," Ushakov remarked to Klimashin under his breath as they left.
The old man, still grinning at some private joke, stood with a couple of others
to see us off. Look after yourselves, he shouted. "Sud'ba ona kruta" (Fate is
nasty). He should know.
The next stop was Minutka (Grozny's main traffic thoroughfare). Unrecognizable.
Everything destroyed; some of the worst damaged buildings had been dynamited by
military engineers. Then to the kommendatura of Oktyabrsky rayon (district).
Presumably the best building in the area, but derelict by any other standards:
no roof, no windows. It had been attacked at noon yesterday by snipers, we were
told. By now the light was falling, gunfire and artillery were becoming more
frequent, and our escorts were eager to get us out of there. Just as we were
leaving the ABC/CTV crew asked a soldier who was strumming tunelessly in the
back of a truck why exactly they had flattened the city. "So that people could
have a better life," he said after a little thought. Back to Khankala, quite
silent in the truck. No supper--no one felt like a twenty minute trudge through
the mud. I got some hot water for tea from the carriage attendant, Lyuba. She
looked in her late 60's, was in fact 51. An ethnic Russian who had lived here
since her teens. Her daughter died after the first war: headaches, stress, Lyuba
said, she never recovered. Her home has been destroyed. "What's it like there?"
she asked. Nothing left, I said. "I don't understand," she answered. She has
been working here for a month or so, but has not been paid. No wash again.
Everyone praying for constipation. As we sleep on the gnome-size beds in the
carriage, our feet stick out into the narrow corridor. Throughout the night
drunken soldiers bump up against my feet with their rifle butts.
HOME TO HOME BASE
Day Five
The last day went with such clockwork precision that I am all the more certain
the previous days were man-made. The 'copter arrived for us a little after 9,
and we flew straight to the Military HQ at Avturi, about 18 or so kilometers
south of Grozny, in the rough direction of the Vedeno gorge. Two Hind gunships
were parked on the edge of the open field that served as a helicopter pad. As
usual the local commander seemed underwhelmed by the prospect of visiting
journalists. He and Makeyev consulted in the field. The helicopter blades
drowned out the words, but their gestures suggested a lively debate. For once it
seemed that our handlers were pushing for something. There is fighting 3-4
kilometers down the road, near Serzhen' Yurt, Konstantin said and left us in the
field while he went to consult.
We wandered round the field, occasionally stopping to try, vainly, to scrape mud
off our boots. Armor passed in the direction of the fighting, and we could hear
automatic fire, but it seemed a long way away.
Makeyev came back and I noticed that he was wearing a black bulletproof vest
under his fatigues. I wondered idly whether he had just put it on. It made him
look slightly like a chaplain. A BTR (light armored car used for reconnaissance)
suddenly pulled up next to our group. I was a little groggy with lack of sleep
by then: the BTR suddenly reminded me of traffic stopping at a school crossing
in Bethesda. This was our transport. We clambered on top. Not a good idea to get
inside, the commander said: he did not explain why, but these things are mobile
coffins, highly inflammable. We bounced off for a 45-minute ride, through
pleasant open countryside, now gouged by tank tracks. At one point we stopped
dead on a steep hill, then sharply reversed. Over to our left two soldiers were
running, ungainly in their great boots, holding a stretcher. To our right was a
small fenced Muslim graveyard, with perhaps six of its 10 or so graves so fresh
that grass had not sprouted. A soldier had just been killed by a mine, we were
told. We would take another route. Finally we pulled into a base. A collection
of former Pioneer Camp dormitories, their bright blue walls decorated with
cartoon characters. The paint was surprisingly bright, given that the roof and
outer walls had been blown away. Soldiers had given the cartoon figures
unflattering names: a monkey with a drum was Maskhadov, and a mouse was Khattab.
This was Khattab's former training base, where by both Chechen and Russian
accounts he trained a couple of thousand Islamic warriors to a high-level of
modern guerrilla warfare. The base commander, a major who would not give his
name, was not helpful about the details; he seemed to think everything was
classified. He was young, earnest but unfocused, genuinely unable to stay on
track when answering a question. The colonel with us would sometimes try to
nudge him back on subject, but to no avail. What was clear was that he was
absolutely committed to this war against Islam, and could not understand why the
English and other civilized nations did not support it. The enemy, one of
Khattab's commanders, was 300-400 meters away, he said. A mixed bunch, drug-crazed
Chechens, Arabs and Taliban, he says. Armed with light weapons, but ones that
are far superior to his equipment, he says. There are of course good Chechens,
he added. But there are a lot of criminals round here.
At night he and his men sometimes watch atrocity tapes--they have one that shows
a junior Spetsnaz officer being tortured to death, the major says. First they
cut his arms off, then his legs, then slit his throat. Last night he watched an
American action movie, the 13th Warrior. That reinforced what the major felt was
an underlying truth--Arabs are animals. Back to the base, this time through the
village. A couple of locals made gestures that did not seem welcoming. At HQ
lunch, our first real meal in 24 hours or more: smoked pork fat, soup, tushenka
(corned beef) and kasha (porridge). Delicious. On the helicopter back--brief
change at Khankala, then straight to Mozdok. A slightly drunk airforce colonel
conversed with me by pulling my ear close to his mouth and shouting. He had
served in Dudayev's Airforce Division, he said (Jokhar Dudayev, Chechen leader
during the 1994-96 war, former Soviet general). He was a "normal Soviet
general," the colonel said. "We could have done a deal with him. The politicians
screwed it up."
First part starts at:
http://www.time.com/time/europe/webonly/chechnya/diary2.html
TIME Moscow bureau chief Paul Quinn-Judge spent five days in and around
Chechnya's war zones. This is the first entry in his diary.
By PAUL QUINN-JUDGE Enroute to Chechnya
After weeks of lobbying and protests by foreign journalists at official
obstructionism, a revamped government press operation announced it was taking a
first group of correspondents to Grozny. I was on the trip, along with
colleagues from the U.S., Canada, Japan, Italy and France. We were to travel
with Nikolai Koshman, the Russian government's plenipotentiary representative
for Chechnya. On Monday, several hours late, we left from Vnukovo Airport on a
government flight.
Day One, Vnukovo to Mozdok
The flight was crammed, mostly with heavily armed men. We sat with bags on our
knees and tried to eat the kerosene-scented meal. Toward the end I realized that
the white stuff on my plate was fish. The bone was a giveaway. As the plane
entered the last 45 minutes or so of its flight, some of the men in uniform
began to sprout earphones and mikes in their cuffs, Secret Service style. By the
time we had landed, several not very military-looking young men-- one dressed
like a student, one in a cheap jacket and tie--were also strapping on large side
arms and testing their mikes. Presumably some sort of covert back- up. The
soldiers behind them were standing, guns at the ready, in full Spetsnaz battle
dress, as if they were somehow expecting us to be attacked on the tarmac of the
largest Russian base in the North Caucasus. Koshman clearly takes no chances. We
landed between a line of helicopter gunships to our left and fighter bombers to
our right. Koshman--who, we had been told, was our guide for the week--said
hello and left. We never saw him again. We were escorted to a bus and headed for
town. Security around the base itself seemed strangely lackadaisical--bored,
sulky-looking guards who could have probably been ambushed by a couple of
sprightly babushki.
"Today you will rest," Slava, one of our handlers, announced. Grim words:
Soviet-speak for shut up and don't leave your hotel. The delay in Moscow in
taking off meant that we were too late to go to the liberated zones, he
explained. The zones may be liberated, but they still have a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
curfew. So today's program was canceled. It proved to be a sign of things to
come. The senior, senior handler--black shirt, bright tie, flushed face of a
heavy drinker--gave us a brief welcoming speech. He was so jaded or cynical
about the whole press operation that he could not be bothered to finish his
sentences. He would get halfway through and then wind up with "i prochee, i
prochee, i prochee (etc ... etc ... etc ...)." "We will be meeting with ordinary
people who have suffered at the hands of the bandits etc ... etc ... etc..." Or
"Enjoy the excellent food at the hotel etc ... etc ... etc ..."
The best that can be said about the hotel is that it would be hard to dynamite.
Solid concrete walls. Otherwise, classic Soviet provincial: beds with high
headboards and footboards and 1.7 m of sleeping space, that leave you feeling in
the morning as if your spine has been compressed. A tiny trickle of cold water
from a sink in the corner, and a single, fetid toilet at the end of the hall. I
asked for a single room. There aren't any, snapped the receptionist, who true to
form was furious to have guests spoiling her day. "Are you prepared to pay for
both beds?" she snarled. This would have doubled the fee to $8. Yes, I replied
rashly. "Well you can't," she declared triumphantly.
WELCOME TO HELL
Day Two
After crappy food and a miserable night we were on the road by 9. At 9:50 the
bus, now with a large complement of the Moscow OMON (Special Assignment Police,
militarized SWAT teams for use against heavily armed criminals) to protect us,
stopped at a well-guarded checkpoint on the border between Stavropol Kray and
Chechnya. On the wall of the main building was a wanted poster for Khattab, a
top Chechen commander, just in case he tried to drive through the checkpoint in
a Zhiguli, I suppose. The senior OMON cleared us through the checkpoint, then
clambered back on the bus. "Well, gentlemen, welcome to Hell," he said, a tad
melodramatically. The checkpoint, like all the others we passed, had an official
slogan painted on it: "Nasha glavnaya zadacha--presech' terrorizm." A ready
reminder in case a journalist
asks why they are there. Our destination was Znamenskoye, the main town in the
far north of Chechnya. Traditionally pro-Russian, it had surrendered without a
shot, and is notconsidered a showpiece of the pacification program. Most of the
damage you can see is due to the neglect and misrule of the Maskhadov years.
The morning started badly. We drew up at the Voenkom (military headquarters),
and were ushered into a freshly painted meeting room to find that
"representatives of the population" would be coming to address us on the reality
of the situation here. I had not encountered such primitive agitprop since Phnom
Penh in 1980, when "representatives of the masses"--workers from destroyed
factories, peasants from devastated fields, all in brand-new costumes --
"spontaneously" appeared at the opening of the puppet National Assembly.
We sulked, and asked no questions. The military commander, Major General
Vladimir Kovrov, tried to fill the silence with a little speech, ostensibly
addressed to the "comrades" in the hall, but in fact aimed at us. (The term
comrade is making a comeback, I note. A sign of the times.) One of the TV teams
listlessly filmed an elder, we listened to a few more rambling speeches and
left.
The head of the Znamenskoye administration turned out to be Akhmed Zavgayev, a
brother of Doku Zavgayev, the spectacularly unsuccessful pro-Moscow leader of
Chechnya during the last war. Doku is now ambassador to a remote African
country, presumably one without a Chechen diaspora. Akhmed did not like us. Very
nicely dressed--I presume he had been in Moscow for the past few years, and not
on the breadline--he made it increasingly clear that the role of foreigners is
to provide aid, preferably money, ideally cash. The next stop was a school.
Immaculate. A small girl in ribbons followed us from the first class to the
second, where the teacher managed to fit in her brief recital of poetry and
patriotic songs. Despair washed over me. The day was rapidly turning into a
Soviet-era press trip.
them for a translation. They were refugees, lobbying local officials to get the
food rations they were promised and were not receiving. General Kovrov waded in,
hoping to calm things. He only made it worse. "You destroy our homes and our
country and now you don't even keep your smallest promises," one woman shouted.
The general urged them not to get emotional. "Drop round my office tomorrow,
when we can talk off camera," he said. Akhmed Zavgayev lost his cool. "You want
aid, ask them," he said, and pointed disdainfully with his thumb at us. At me,
as chance would have it. He and I exchanged unpleasantries, and I suggested we
wind up the trip there and then. The general intervened and we headed for the
next stop, a refugee camp. As we drew up, General Kovrov, still rattled by the
women at the school, stuck his head into our bus and blurted: "They talk a lot
about vacuum bombs here--provocateurs--I've never seen a vacuum bomb in my
life." They did not talk about vacuum bombs, as it turned out. Instead, they
talked about daily beatings, the arrest of young men, price gouging and abuse by
drunken guards.
The refugees all came from the Staropromyslovski region of Grozny, and are
hoping to return home. After 20 minutes of more or less unfettered conversation,
we were ushered hastily from the camp itself to a large adjoining hall, where
all of the kids and many of the less obstreperous adults had been invited to a
concert-- presumably to keep them out of our way. We were greeted with a
standing ovation and a burst of karaoke. After a few minutes we were told we had
to move on, probably because no one was filming or taking notes. Bad timing. An
elderly refugee lady bushwhacked us in the narrow corridor and, as the cameras
rolled, pleaded tearfully with us for protection. "Don't let them kill us," she
wailed. The general, sick at heart, once again tried to defuse the situation.
Drop by my office in the morning, he said grimly. Next stop, inevitably, a
hospital, then out of town.
First to a burning oil well--an example of Chechen crimes against ecology.
Françoise Marie, the French TV correspondent who insists on wearing red, high-
heeled knee-length vinyl boots, did a stand-up too close to boiling petrol and
part of a boot melted. As we stood there, unaware that Françoise Marie was in
danger of meltdown, we heard heavy artillery in the middle distance. Our
security said they did not know what it was: perhaps someone was destroying an
illegal oil well. Perhaps so, though I had difficulty understanding why they
needed long bursts of machine gun fire to finish it off. Then we were taken to
an illegal oil refinery--the same one someone on our trip had gone to a month or
so ago. Then to another refinery, where two soldiers with a rocket launcher blew
up two storage tanks. This was not a crime against ecology. The first rocket
seemed to miss completely (it's hard to be sure because of the noise and smoke)
and I had grim visions of a house somewhere down the road ceasing to exist.
There were no casualties, though. Our escorts guffawed. "Down a bit," one said
snidely.
We then headed back to town for lunch--a sumptuous spread by the standards of
the time. We waited for our hosts, Zavgayev and the general, but they did not
turn up. Unexpected business, we were told. Back to Mozdok by 6. Tomorrow, our
guides say, there is an early morning helicopter to Gudermes. Everybody
downstairs by 8.15. As if we plan to sleep in.
DIRTY SECRETS
Day Three
The escorts turned up around 12:40. Gosh, we just could not find a free
helicopter: a whole bunch of ministers had just flown in and commandeered them
all. We are in shock, they said, eyes wide to express horror. I threw a fit,
complained that we had done nothing but listen to propaganda speeches and
explanations of why the program had been canceled, said that I would leave by
the first available flight if we did not get to Gudermes today, etc ... etc ...
etc ... Others took the same line. The handlers left in search of a bus (they
had said before this was an option) and we started calculating how much time we
had. We were told it was a four-hour drive to Gudermes, and the curfew there
starts at 6 so we had to leave by 2 at the latest. They turned up at 1:43. Etc
... etc ... etc ... was fuming, and chainsmoked the whole way. I suspect we had
screwed up his afternoon social plans, though part of his anger was probably
nerves: they were far from sure the road was safe.
We drove through Chervlennaya, where Russian troops had shelled me in October,
then almost into Grozny before turning east for Gudermes. Some villages we
passed were shattered, others almost intact. But in every cemetery there were
fresh graves, lots of them. We got to Gudermes at 5. It had not changed much
since November, though the eternal flame was at least burning outside the
administration building. Do you want to meet the head of the administration? our
guides asked. No thanks, we said. Everybody had interviewed her at length. Out
she came, in a long pelt coat, pink sweater and generous half cleavage. The
French want to interview her, our guides announced shamelessly. "No we don't,"
the French protested: "we talked to her two weeks ago." But here she was, and we
went through the motions of an interview. She had no doubt that Gudermes (pop.
35,000 plus 10,000 refugees) should be the capital. But it will take money to
restore the city, she added. How much? she was asked. She thought for a moment,
eyes sparkling in anticipation. About $100 million, she said. I asked about the
Yamadayev brothers, the gunmen who rallied to the Russians and forced Chechen
troops out of town. She agreed that they had been responsible for "dirty" things
in the past. But, she said, they were playing no role in the life of Gudermes
these days. Well, other than helping defend the town. As for their nasty past,
she said, "they have amnestied themselves."
While we were talking I noticed Vadim, one of our guides (from the military
press operation, I later discovered) head off in a jeep with a couple of OMON.
They came back about 20 minutes later, when we were running out of questions for
the head of the administration. We climbed back on the bus and drove a short
distance to ulitsa Zheleznodorozhnikov (Railwaymen's street). There we parked
and walked through a muddy courtyard, surrounded by watchful OMON and curious
residents of the surrounding low rise apartments. We were taken to a small
flight of stairs leading down from the side of a 1960's apartment house--the
sort of covered stairs that in the provinces often lead to a small basement
shop. In this case, behind a padlocked door, was a primitive gym, with crude
drawings of Jackie Chan and either Basayev or Khattab, I failed to note which.
We gathered in the gym, and a well-spoken officer who identified himself only as
the commander of a special unit of the MVD (Interior Ministry) forces, briefed
us. Behind a door marked with gang style graffiti--Death--was a zindan, a secret
cell where kidnapers had held their victims. In this case the captives were two
MVD soldiers who had been captured in Dagestan sometime in August. They had
written their names in their tiny cell: Sergei and Alexei. The Russian
authorities had only found the place on 25 Dec.--two and a half months after
they had taken over the town. Alexei and Sergei had been stabbed to death,
brutally and slowly, the officer implied, the previous day. It was a nightmarish
story. But as usual, when I tried to ask more details--Who were the hostage
takers? Local people, gangsters, Islamic fundamentalists?--everyone clammed up.
The officer said he did not know details of the investigation. When I asked
Vadim, he brusquely remarked that "the comrade will tell you what he deems
necessary." As we stood around, kids on the street, using some sort of flaw in
the building, called down through the wall. What is your name? they shouted in
English, then Russian. I wondered if they had done that when the two soldiers
were there. As we left the crowd had increased: it was a densely populated area.
Some of them, perhaps a lot of them, must have known something was amiss.
We slept in a railway car, thoughtfully reinforced with concrete slabs and
cordoned off by barbed wire and trench works. Even in the middle of the station,
our escorts were clearly nervous. So were our guides: Etc... etc... etc...,
rattled by something, accused a couple of us of wanting to go for an evening
walk. "You do not yet fully understand where you are," he said with a sort of
manic glee, as if he were expecting an attack. Another of our handlers, Slava,
was based here, and said things are indeed very nasty. You keep a low profile in
the day, take security even when you go to buy cigarettes, and do not go out at
night. Znamenskoye was a little better, he said, but things would get worse
there too when the foliage was back on the trees, and the guerrillas had more
cover. During a listless, uncomfortable night, though, I heard only a few
explosions and bursts of fire.
MUD AND MADNESS
Day Four
It's about 40 minutes drive to Khankala, but our guides insist we take a
helicopter. Grozny may be liberated, but the road is very dangerous. We drive
out to the military kommendatura (headquarters) and hang around for an hour and
a half, to the irritation of the officer on watch, who feels we are making the
place look messy and moves us on. The helicopter comes around 10:22, Vadim says
goodbye with the weakest of handshakes and a faint smile, and I don't even
notice that etc ... etc ... etc ... is not with us until we stagger, caked with
glutinous mud, onto the helicopter. We fly just about tree level: this pilot is
taking no chances. 15 minutes later we are over Khankala, the hub of the Russian
military operation in Chechnya.
It looks massive, like Tan Son Nhat or Danang at the height of the war, armor as
far as the eye can see, batteries of rocket launchers defending the periphery,
APC's aimlessly lurching across an endless sea of mud, a long line of railway
cars in the distance, with heavy trucks buzzing busily around them. (The cars
are full of ammunition, I notice later.) We land and our helicopter, a psywar
bird that carries speakers where its rockets usually are, pumps out a stream of
Russian disco-crap while we wait for the bus. And wait. The bus--there appears
to be only one--has broken down, it transpires. A Kamaz (heavy truck) eventually
comes to collect us, and takes us to our billet, another railway car. Yet again
without washing facilities--none of us have washed since Moscow.
Twenty meters through the mud are our outhouses. The trudge leaves you with
slabs of dirt on your boots the size of snow shoes. And the huts sway scarily
when a helicopter passes overhead--disturbing when you have already assumed the
position. At the railway carriage we are told that we will have lunch and
discuss our program. We say we are going to Grozny. Colonel Ushakov, the
glabrous staff officer who is in charge of us for this leg of the trip, tries
the old line on us: all decisions have to be made by my superior, and he is not
available. (The unspoken message: hey guys, I am on your side, but I'm just a
little person, have pity). We had no pity. Contact your superior. Use a radio.
He's out of range, Ushakov protests. This is an army? we counter. You can't
contact your commander? He keeps having long conversations on his radio. I never
hear a reply, though am openly eavesdropping, and suspect he has not turned the
thing on. If you don't want us to go Grozny, why don't you have the honesty to
tell us, I ask. He is shocked. Canadian TV blows a fuse. Come on, says Paula the
correspondent, let's do a stand up with these guys. Greg, the producer-interpreter
groans. On camera Paula asks Ushakov and Konstantin Makeyev, our Moscow handler,
why they are stopping us from doing our job--why they have been stopping us for
the past four days for that matter. They are hurt. All delays have been due to
"technical, objective reasons," Makeyev protests. "And you have only been under
my responsibility for three hours," Ushakov added with what I thought was a
touch of smugness. Relax, they say. We are getting you a truck. An hour later
the truck is still getting gassed up. The tactic is clear: take us into Grozny
as late as possible in the day, so there is the bare minimum of viewing--and
more importantly, filming--time.
The truck came after 3pm, over a four-hour wait. Khankala base is so big, and
the mud so deep, that it took us 20 minutes driving in first gear to get to the
edge of the base--a hole knocked in the concrete perimeter wall. From that point
on we could see why they did not want us to go into the city. Bosnia, Somalia,
Vietnam pale in comparison. It is totally, utterly destroyed. I was left
wondering through what bizarre thought processes a man has to pass before
describing this city as liberated. They have pulverized it. I'm reminded of
Tacitus: they create a desert and they call it peace. We were speechless. On the
edge of town our truck got stuck--hung up on a trees that had been flattened to
make a path. (All trees destroyed--beheaded and lacerated by gunfire.) Our guide
Colonel Vladimir Klimashin, jumped off the back and flagged down an APC, which
pushed us out. (Ushakov tried to stop some tanks, but they seemed to ignore
him.)
Klimashin was a no-nonsense combat officer. Instead of nice clean staff fatigues
? la Ushakov, he wore an old canvas coat of a color halfway between the red
brick of the destroyed houses and the dark brown of the mud; he bore no signs of
rank and had an AK slung over his shoulder. The first place he showed us was
Ulitsa Serzhen'-Yurt, in the so-called chastny sektor (private sector). It was
once an upscale street of comfortable one story houses, quite a few of them new,
red-brick, most with neat but high fences around them. All without exception had
been destroyed. The street had been an ukreprayon (fortified district), he said.
It had been held first by Khattab's people, then had been handed over to another
commander, he said. The fortifications were "very professional," he said,
repeatedly. "In fact we are facing a professional army." He did not respond
directly to our expressions of amazement at the destruction, but gradually and
subliminally the military rationale began to emerge. We were wrong about the
number of defenders, Klimashin said. It was not 2,000-2,500; we were facing
10,000. (A Russian military correspondent for the MVD paper had done the rounds
of combat officer, and was told consistently that 1,400 defenders had broken out
of the city, 350 had been killed during the retreat, and that the average number
of defenders at any given time was 2,000.) And on a street like this, there is
no way that the defenders could have worked without the support of the local
population. Sounds like a people's war, I remarked, using their old jargon. He
did not comment.
The defenses were built with cabinet-maker's precision: deep, log-and stone-reinforced
block-posts on street corners, where two men, a sniper and a machine gunner
could control movement along two streets. A couple of teams could defend a whole
district, he added. (So who needs 10,000?) Sharply zigzagging trenches, 1.5
meters deep, starting in a garden, going under a fence, and finishing almost
imperceptibly in the middle of a road. At the end of the trenches, a wolf hole
(volchyaya yama), a shelter scooped out of the side of the trench. As he pointed
to the block-posts and the wolf-holes, Klimashin repeated the same refrain: a
direct hit from a tank-shell, nothing smaller, would be needed to neutralize
this. And when they left, the guerrillas mined everything, Klimashin said. A few
days earlier, snipers in a five story building half a block away had targeted 8
of his men. Adroitly the sniper or snipers nudged them towards the shelter of
one house, like a sheep dog with his ewes. Then they detonated a remote
controlled charge. All the men were killed; it took two days to recover the
bodies.
We walked slowly round the corner to the five-story building. Upper floors were
burned or gutted by explosions, the yard was littered with small, disposable
rocket launchers. A couple of old women sat in the yard. Nina, who did a lot of
the talking, and the older Mariya Idrisova, (born 1926). They had spent over
four months in a cellar. Three cellars in the building had been inhabited, with
perhaps 25 in all. I went into one cellar: the first room dank, covered in
firewood, their life support system. Then deeper inside, through pitch darkness,
to a second room sealed off from cold and light by a thick blanket. There a low-ceiling,
dimly lit room heated by a makeshift stove, where they all had lived. When the
fighting was over the soldiers came, said Idrisova. They took everything. They
did not even leave a pillow, she said. "They are animals and bastards." Ushakov
and Klimashin said nothing.
At the far end of the yard I saw a husky kid in a beat-up fake leather jacket
watching us. Islam, age 9. Russian officials repeatedly say that no schools
worked here, but Islam had been in 3rd grade when the offensive started. His
Russian was good, which means he certainly was not in a religious school. Islam
lived here with his mother. His father was in Gudermes, he said. He had spent
over three months in the cellar with his mother, four relatives and two other
women. Talking to him was painful: he spoke like a zombie, and each question
seemed to drag him out of a walking sleep. Islam said he had not seen any
boyeviki (Chechen gunmen) here, though he had seen plenty at Minutka, a couple
of hundred yards away. He must have gone out to watch them in quieter moments;
it must have seemed quite exciting at the time. The place was heavily shelled,
he said. "Nekrasivo bylo." (It wasn't pretty.) When the Russian soldiers came,
he said, they camped in the yard for two days. Some gave them food. The MChS
(Ministry of Emergency Situations) delivered supplies once. Most of the soldiers
looted everything they could carry away, however. One threw a smoke grenade into
their cellar. Later, he added blankly, during a zachistka (a house to house
search), a soldier threw a hand grenade in. The two women were injured, he said,
and were taken away to Khankala. He doesn't know what happened to them. I gave
him some money, and he tried to refuse, so I told him roughly to take it.
I wandered back to the main part of the yard and was accosted by a fey looking
old man. Like everyone else his face was gray and he had a dry cough. He was
either slightly crazed, or had a sort of Spike Milligan view of the world. Or
both, of course. I don't know how to describe our conversation: something out of
Samuel Becket, perhaps, or King Lear. "So where is this group from," he asked
no-one in particular. I ran through the group: France, Japan, Italy, U.S.,
Canada. "France," he exclaimed. "Jacques Chirac. Big guy. Just one bang on
Yeltsin's head"--at this point he linked his fists together and mimicked Chirac
disposing of Yeltsin punch and judy style--"and none of this would have
happened."
"Now I know you're probably from the FSB [the Federal Security Service]," he
said, turning to me. I pulled out my passport, but he brushed this evidence
away. "Documents can be faked," he explained. "I want to talk about Brigitte
Bardot. Do you remember she wrote to Putin asking him to take better care of
dogs." A month or so ago she did indeed send him an e-mail, asking him to outlaw
dog-fights, I think. "Well, do you think she could organize a society for the
protection of Chechens." At this point Ushakov sauntered up, with the sort of
smile on his face the squire reserves for the village idiot. My companion turned
to him, looked his uniform up and down, and asked after a well-timed pause, "So,
you're from France too?" I left them to it. The officers were not pleased by the
locals' lack of gratitude for the liberation of their city "Granny Nina shot her
mouth off again," Ushakov remarked to Klimashin under his breath as they left.
The old man, still grinning at some private joke, stood with a couple of others
to see us off. Look after yourselves, he shouted. "Sud'ba ona kruta" (Fate is
nasty). He should know.
The next stop was Minutka (Grozny's main traffic thoroughfare). Unrecognizable.
Everything destroyed; some of the worst damaged buildings had been dynamited by
military engineers. Then to the kommendatura of Oktyabrsky rayon (district).
Presumably the best building in the area, but derelict by any other standards:
no roof, no windows. It had been attacked at noon yesterday by snipers, we were
told. By now the light was falling, gunfire and artillery were becoming more
frequent, and our escorts were eager to get us out of there. Just as we were
leaving the ABC/CTV crew asked a soldier who was strumming tunelessly in the
back of a truck why exactly they had flattened the city. "So that people could
have a better life," he said after a little thought. Back to Khankala, quite
silent in the truck. No supper--no one felt like a twenty minute trudge through
the mud. I got some hot water for tea from the carriage attendant, Lyuba. She
looked in her late 60's, was in fact 51. An ethnic Russian who had lived here
since her teens. Her daughter died after the first war: headaches, stress, Lyuba
said, she never recovered. Her home has been destroyed. "What's it like there?"
she asked. Nothing left, I said. "I don't understand," she answered. She has
been working here for a month or so, but has not been paid. No wash again.
Everyone praying for constipation. As we sleep on the gnome-size beds in the
carriage, our feet stick out into the narrow corridor. Throughout the night
drunken soldiers bump up against my feet with their rifle butts.
HOME TO HOME BASE
Day Five
The last day went with such clockwork precision that I am all the more certain
the previous days were man-made. The 'copter arrived for us a little after 9,
and we flew straight to the Military HQ at Avturi, about 18 or so kilometers
south of Grozny, in the rough direction of the Vedeno gorge. Two Hind gunships
were parked on the edge of the open field that served as a helicopter pad. As
usual the local commander seemed underwhelmed by the prospect of visiting
journalists. He and Makeyev consulted in the field. The helicopter blades
drowned out the words, but their gestures suggested a lively debate. For once it
seemed that our handlers were pushing for something. There is fighting 3-4
kilometers down the road, near Serzhen' Yurt, Konstantin said and left us in the
field while he went to consult.
We wandered round the field, occasionally stopping to try, vainly, to scrape mud
off our boots. Armor passed in the direction of the fighting, and we could hear
automatic fire, but it seemed a long way away.
Makeyev came back and I noticed that he was wearing a black bulletproof vest
under his fatigues. I wondered idly whether he had just put it on. It made him
look slightly like a chaplain. A BTR (light armored car used for reconnaissance)
suddenly pulled up next to our group. I was a little groggy with lack of sleep
by then: the BTR suddenly reminded me of traffic stopping at a school crossing
in Bethesda. This was our transport. We clambered on top. Not a good idea to get
inside, the commander said: he did not explain why, but these things are mobile
coffins, highly inflammable. We bounced off for a 45-minute ride, through
pleasant open countryside, now gouged by tank tracks. At one point we stopped
dead on a steep hill, then sharply reversed. Over to our left two soldiers were
running, ungainly in their great boots, holding a stretcher. To our right was a
small fenced Muslim graveyard, with perhaps six of its 10 or so graves so fresh
that grass had not sprouted. A soldier had just been killed by a mine, we were
told. We would take another route. Finally we pulled into a base. A collection
of former Pioneer Camp dormitories, their bright blue walls decorated with
cartoon characters. The paint was surprisingly bright, given that the roof and
outer walls had been blown away. Soldiers had given the cartoon figures
unflattering names: a monkey with a drum was Maskhadov, and a mouse was Khattab.
This was Khattab's former training base, where by both Chechen and Russian
accounts he trained a couple of thousand Islamic warriors to a high-level of
modern guerrilla warfare. The base commander, a major who would not give his
name, was not helpful about the details; he seemed to think everything was
classified. He was young, earnest but unfocused, genuinely unable to stay on
track when answering a question. The colonel with us would sometimes try to
nudge him back on subject, but to no avail. What was clear was that he was
absolutely committed to this war against Islam, and could not understand why the
English and other civilized nations did not support it. The enemy, one of
Khattab's commanders, was 300-400 meters away, he said. A mixed bunch, drug-crazed
Chechens, Arabs and Taliban, he says. Armed with light weapons, but ones that
are far superior to his equipment, he says. There are of course good Chechens,
he added. But there are a lot of criminals round here.
At night he and his men sometimes watch atrocity tapes--they have one that shows
a junior Spetsnaz officer being tortured to death, the major says. First they
cut his arms off, then his legs, then slit his throat. Last night he watched an
American action movie, the 13th Warrior. That reinforced what the major felt was
an underlying truth--Arabs are animals. Back to the base, this time through the
village. A couple of locals made gestures that did not seem welcoming. At HQ
lunch, our first real meal in 24 hours or more: smoked pork fat, soup, tushenka
(corned beef) and kasha (porridge). Delicious. On the helicopter back--brief
change at Khankala, then straight to Mozdok. A slightly drunk airforce colonel
conversed with me by pulling my ear close to his mouth and shouting. He had
served in Dudayev's Airforce Division, he said (Jokhar Dudayev, Chechen leader
during the 1994-96 war, former Soviet general). He was a "normal Soviet
general," the colonel said. "We could have done a deal with him. The politicians
screwed it up."
First part starts at:
http://www.time.com/time/europe/webonly/chechnya/diary2.html