2RHPZ
06-01-2004, 07:59 AM
Not a Suicide Bomber? Prove it!
Created: 28.05.2004
Sanobar Shermatova
Moscow News
Russian special services launched a hunt for a group of female suicide bombers. The alleged bombers, however, were the last to know about it, and were never in hiding anyway.
On the eve of International Women?s Day, on 8 March, Muscovites were too busy with their shopping and paid little attention to the ?wanted? poster with badly printed female faces pasted near the entrance to a Moscow supermarket.
If anyone had taken a closer look at the poster, they would have found some chilling information: apparently, the 14 women in the photos were planning terrorist acts similar to the attack on the Moscow metro on 6 February.
Upon reading the poster this MN correspondent could not help but wonder how the special services had managed to get on the trail of a female suicide squad and to get hold of their pictures?
Wanted
And here they are, the fourteen women whose blurred pictures are posted across the capital, sitting in front of me in a house in central Nazran, Ingushetia. Only two of them are not expectant mothers. They are ordinary women with life-stories fitting into the general ?house-family-work? pattern. They are quite happy bringing up their children, some are even lucky enough to have grandchildren. They all have one thing in common*? they work for International Medical Corps (IMC), a US-based non-governmental medical organization.
How did they learn they had been placed on a wanted list as would-be terrorists? Employees at the IMC Moscow office had called them in Nazran and said that wanted posters bearing their names were being posted at shops and train stations across the capital.
When they first heard about it they burst out laughing. But the amusement quickly evaporated. They began receiving phone calls. A niece from Moscow reported that her aunt was on a wanted list; a female relative from Kaliningrad tried to find out what had happened.
Each day brought more news: a sister of one of the ?suspects? was detained together with her children at the Paveletsky train station in Moscow and brought to a police station where she saw the same wanted poster on the table of the duty officer.
The wanted women had already addressed the republican prosecutor?s office asking them to look into the situation and were awaiting an explanation. But the nightmare would not stop. The doctors were worried: if they had been included in a suicide squad by mistake, then why were new posters continuing to appear in Moscow? And if it wasn?t a mistake, what would happen to them?
Birlant Shishkanova, a mother to two small children, developed a heart condition; Khava Dolgiyeva?s stomach ulcer got worse, but she is afraid to go to Krasnodar to see her doctor.
Some women suffered increased blood pressure; the chronic maladies of others were exacerbated. Some of them were forced to conceal what was happening from their relatives. Fatima Mukhiyeva did not say a word to her invalid mother, fearing that it would break her heart.
Mariam Yusupova at first decided to conceal the news from her relatives, but then changed her mind: what if they come to arrest her at night, what would her parents think? She informed them so they would be prepared for anything.
People sometimes act strangely when strange things happen to them. Imagine a dignified mother instructing her son as she sees her older son off to Stravropol, when you see a wanted poster, do not approach it, do not look at it, do not show that you recognize me
Another woman is afraid to call her son, who lives in Moscow, to tell him what is happening: what would he think of his mother? After hearing the adults? talking so much, Motya Mogushkova?s small granddaughters accost her: ?Granny, show us the pictures, where you are a terrorist.?
Too much zeal
Anna Uzhakova?s case is especially remarkable. Unlike her colleagues, she is suspected not just of preparing subversive and terrorist acts*? a standard charge indicated in the descriptions under the pictures of all the ?wanted? women. Anna, as follows from the posters, has been identified as the elder wife of the most-wanted Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev.
For a family in the Caucasus it is scarcely possible to imagine an insult worse than accusing a married woman of being married to someone else.
Having somehow reconciled himself with the alleged terrorist activities of his wife, who has been at his side each day for over twenty years, the head of the family jealously questioned her: ?Why of all the fourteen was it you who was named as Basayev?s wife??
She asks herself the same question. But it is easier to refute the allegation. Anna, the mother of five, is much older than Basayev. This is an unassailable alibi: in Ingushetia, just as anywhere in the Caucasus, men rarely marry older women.
?And have you met Basayev?s wife?? Anna asks me as other women laugh and tease her. ?Interested in your rival??
What can I tell her? Everyone in Chechnya, the security services included, knows that Basayev has been married to an ethnic Abkhaz since the days of his crusade in that North Caucasian republic. Indeed, in theory he may take a second, and a third wife, but Anna will definitely never be his first wife.
The aims and the means
Having seen a wanted poster, the women quickly guessed when and where their pictures had been taken. The photos were made for an office album. In response to an inquiry from the State Duma deputy for Ingushetia, Bashir Kodzoyev, the Federal Security Service claims that photos with names of the 14 women had been discovered in a rebel hideout in Grozny. The seized papers, the FSB said, belonged to the leader of a terrorist group who went by the name Tazabayev.
How an internal document from a non-governmental medical organization ended up in a rebel hideout is quite another matter. But even if it was the case, why wasn?t the information verified? After all, a caption under each picture indicated the surname, the name and the occupation of each ?suspect?. All of them are doctors.
All those women are well known in Ingushetia and Chechnya: they do not only render medical aid to the pregnant and monitor the state of health of children under five, they also give lectures to medical staff from all the three districts of Ingushetia.
Almost all of them are specialists who have received family doctor certificates upon completion of specialized courses. ?Our medical elite,? IMC representatives proudly call them. ?We invited the teaching staff from the Moscow Medical Academy to hold courses for them.?
Ironically, the names of the ?suicide bombers? are not included in the wanted lists of the Interior Ministry?s Main Information Centre, the ministry told the senator for Ingushetia Issa Kostoyev in response to his inquiry. This means their names are not mentioned in police databases. Nonetheless, each police station has received a copy of the wanted poster issued with their names.
This is not the only question, to which there is no answer. Why, for instance, are the names of the wanted women in the descriptions under the photos written in Latin letters and not in Cyrillic?
Moreover, the dates mentioned in the descriptions may seem surprising to anyone who inspects the leaflets closely. For instance, what does the date ?18.04.00? signify under the photo of someone clearly born much earlier than 2000? It is actually the date that woman joined IMC.
And then, there is another question. Maybe, there was no mistake after all, and unknown security officers are not targeting those women in particular but the agency operating in the hot spot? This, at least, may explain why an internal office document was posted in public for everyone to see.
It is no secret that foreign agencies operating in the Northern Caucasus, and especially in Chechnya, are not, to put it mildly, welcomed by the Russian authorities. IMC could well have been given a warning.
There may be still another explanation, but one thing is for sure, without any proof fourteen doctors have been called terrorists. In its response to deputy Kodzoyev the FSB wrote: ?Given the lack of confirmation to the initial report the investigative procedures against the mentioned women have been stopped.?
However, the doctors? photos are still posted on certain web-sites with the inscription ?wanted?.
Will we ever know the truth?
Diplomats rarely comment on scandals. But the ?doctors? case? is an exception. The US embassy?s coordinator for the affairs of refugees, Timothy Richardson, met with this MN correspondent.
IMC is a non-governmental organization, however, as far as I know, its projects in Chechnya are sponsored by the US administration?
Richardson*? Yes, that is true.
Such things are rare, aren?t they?
- The project is confined to Chechnya and Ingushetia, although the US administration supports plenty of projects in other regions.
What do you think has brought about the Ingush case? Did you contact the FSB or the prosecutors?
- I am afraid we will never be able to shed light on that story. Of course, we attach the most serious importance to it, and are conducting a probe together with the Russian authorities. I would like to point out that during the investigation Russian officials were highly responsive and cooperative.
Have there been any results?
- As far as I know, the data on the doctors? alleged links to terrorists saw no confirmation. I know the project very well; I even visited Ingushetia and saw how the organization operates. The doctors are doing a great job in very hard conditions. The question is who will bear responsibility for the mistake?
About IMC:
International Medical Corps (IMC) is a global humanitarian nonprofit organization established in 1984. IMC?s doctors and nurses work in more than 40 countries across the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine. IMC?s mission is to improve the quality of life through health interventions and related activities that build local capacity in areas worldwide where few organizations dare to serve. By offering training and health care to local populations and medical assistance to people at highest risk, and with the flexibility to respond rapidly to emergency situations, IMC rehabilitates devastated health care systems and helps bring them back to self-reliance.
Picture at: http://www.mosnews.com/files/2061/picture.jpg
Created: 28.05.2004
Sanobar Shermatova
Moscow News
Russian special services launched a hunt for a group of female suicide bombers. The alleged bombers, however, were the last to know about it, and were never in hiding anyway.
On the eve of International Women?s Day, on 8 March, Muscovites were too busy with their shopping and paid little attention to the ?wanted? poster with badly printed female faces pasted near the entrance to a Moscow supermarket.
If anyone had taken a closer look at the poster, they would have found some chilling information: apparently, the 14 women in the photos were planning terrorist acts similar to the attack on the Moscow metro on 6 February.
Upon reading the poster this MN correspondent could not help but wonder how the special services had managed to get on the trail of a female suicide squad and to get hold of their pictures?
Wanted
And here they are, the fourteen women whose blurred pictures are posted across the capital, sitting in front of me in a house in central Nazran, Ingushetia. Only two of them are not expectant mothers. They are ordinary women with life-stories fitting into the general ?house-family-work? pattern. They are quite happy bringing up their children, some are even lucky enough to have grandchildren. They all have one thing in common*? they work for International Medical Corps (IMC), a US-based non-governmental medical organization.
How did they learn they had been placed on a wanted list as would-be terrorists? Employees at the IMC Moscow office had called them in Nazran and said that wanted posters bearing their names were being posted at shops and train stations across the capital.
When they first heard about it they burst out laughing. But the amusement quickly evaporated. They began receiving phone calls. A niece from Moscow reported that her aunt was on a wanted list; a female relative from Kaliningrad tried to find out what had happened.
Each day brought more news: a sister of one of the ?suspects? was detained together with her children at the Paveletsky train station in Moscow and brought to a police station where she saw the same wanted poster on the table of the duty officer.
The wanted women had already addressed the republican prosecutor?s office asking them to look into the situation and were awaiting an explanation. But the nightmare would not stop. The doctors were worried: if they had been included in a suicide squad by mistake, then why were new posters continuing to appear in Moscow? And if it wasn?t a mistake, what would happen to them?
Birlant Shishkanova, a mother to two small children, developed a heart condition; Khava Dolgiyeva?s stomach ulcer got worse, but she is afraid to go to Krasnodar to see her doctor.
Some women suffered increased blood pressure; the chronic maladies of others were exacerbated. Some of them were forced to conceal what was happening from their relatives. Fatima Mukhiyeva did not say a word to her invalid mother, fearing that it would break her heart.
Mariam Yusupova at first decided to conceal the news from her relatives, but then changed her mind: what if they come to arrest her at night, what would her parents think? She informed them so they would be prepared for anything.
People sometimes act strangely when strange things happen to them. Imagine a dignified mother instructing her son as she sees her older son off to Stravropol, when you see a wanted poster, do not approach it, do not look at it, do not show that you recognize me
Another woman is afraid to call her son, who lives in Moscow, to tell him what is happening: what would he think of his mother? After hearing the adults? talking so much, Motya Mogushkova?s small granddaughters accost her: ?Granny, show us the pictures, where you are a terrorist.?
Too much zeal
Anna Uzhakova?s case is especially remarkable. Unlike her colleagues, she is suspected not just of preparing subversive and terrorist acts*? a standard charge indicated in the descriptions under the pictures of all the ?wanted? women. Anna, as follows from the posters, has been identified as the elder wife of the most-wanted Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev.
For a family in the Caucasus it is scarcely possible to imagine an insult worse than accusing a married woman of being married to someone else.
Having somehow reconciled himself with the alleged terrorist activities of his wife, who has been at his side each day for over twenty years, the head of the family jealously questioned her: ?Why of all the fourteen was it you who was named as Basayev?s wife??
She asks herself the same question. But it is easier to refute the allegation. Anna, the mother of five, is much older than Basayev. This is an unassailable alibi: in Ingushetia, just as anywhere in the Caucasus, men rarely marry older women.
?And have you met Basayev?s wife?? Anna asks me as other women laugh and tease her. ?Interested in your rival??
What can I tell her? Everyone in Chechnya, the security services included, knows that Basayev has been married to an ethnic Abkhaz since the days of his crusade in that North Caucasian republic. Indeed, in theory he may take a second, and a third wife, but Anna will definitely never be his first wife.
The aims and the means
Having seen a wanted poster, the women quickly guessed when and where their pictures had been taken. The photos were made for an office album. In response to an inquiry from the State Duma deputy for Ingushetia, Bashir Kodzoyev, the Federal Security Service claims that photos with names of the 14 women had been discovered in a rebel hideout in Grozny. The seized papers, the FSB said, belonged to the leader of a terrorist group who went by the name Tazabayev.
How an internal document from a non-governmental medical organization ended up in a rebel hideout is quite another matter. But even if it was the case, why wasn?t the information verified? After all, a caption under each picture indicated the surname, the name and the occupation of each ?suspect?. All of them are doctors.
All those women are well known in Ingushetia and Chechnya: they do not only render medical aid to the pregnant and monitor the state of health of children under five, they also give lectures to medical staff from all the three districts of Ingushetia.
Almost all of them are specialists who have received family doctor certificates upon completion of specialized courses. ?Our medical elite,? IMC representatives proudly call them. ?We invited the teaching staff from the Moscow Medical Academy to hold courses for them.?
Ironically, the names of the ?suicide bombers? are not included in the wanted lists of the Interior Ministry?s Main Information Centre, the ministry told the senator for Ingushetia Issa Kostoyev in response to his inquiry. This means their names are not mentioned in police databases. Nonetheless, each police station has received a copy of the wanted poster issued with their names.
This is not the only question, to which there is no answer. Why, for instance, are the names of the wanted women in the descriptions under the photos written in Latin letters and not in Cyrillic?
Moreover, the dates mentioned in the descriptions may seem surprising to anyone who inspects the leaflets closely. For instance, what does the date ?18.04.00? signify under the photo of someone clearly born much earlier than 2000? It is actually the date that woman joined IMC.
And then, there is another question. Maybe, there was no mistake after all, and unknown security officers are not targeting those women in particular but the agency operating in the hot spot? This, at least, may explain why an internal office document was posted in public for everyone to see.
It is no secret that foreign agencies operating in the Northern Caucasus, and especially in Chechnya, are not, to put it mildly, welcomed by the Russian authorities. IMC could well have been given a warning.
There may be still another explanation, but one thing is for sure, without any proof fourteen doctors have been called terrorists. In its response to deputy Kodzoyev the FSB wrote: ?Given the lack of confirmation to the initial report the investigative procedures against the mentioned women have been stopped.?
However, the doctors? photos are still posted on certain web-sites with the inscription ?wanted?.
Will we ever know the truth?
Diplomats rarely comment on scandals. But the ?doctors? case? is an exception. The US embassy?s coordinator for the affairs of refugees, Timothy Richardson, met with this MN correspondent.
IMC is a non-governmental organization, however, as far as I know, its projects in Chechnya are sponsored by the US administration?
Richardson*? Yes, that is true.
Such things are rare, aren?t they?
- The project is confined to Chechnya and Ingushetia, although the US administration supports plenty of projects in other regions.
What do you think has brought about the Ingush case? Did you contact the FSB or the prosecutors?
- I am afraid we will never be able to shed light on that story. Of course, we attach the most serious importance to it, and are conducting a probe together with the Russian authorities. I would like to point out that during the investigation Russian officials were highly responsive and cooperative.
Have there been any results?
- As far as I know, the data on the doctors? alleged links to terrorists saw no confirmation. I know the project very well; I even visited Ingushetia and saw how the organization operates. The doctors are doing a great job in very hard conditions. The question is who will bear responsibility for the mistake?
About IMC:
International Medical Corps (IMC) is a global humanitarian nonprofit organization established in 1984. IMC?s doctors and nurses work in more than 40 countries across the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine. IMC?s mission is to improve the quality of life through health interventions and related activities that build local capacity in areas worldwide where few organizations dare to serve. By offering training and health care to local populations and medical assistance to people at highest risk, and with the flexibility to respond rapidly to emergency situations, IMC rehabilitates devastated health care systems and helps bring them back to self-reliance.
Picture at: http://www.mosnews.com/files/2061/picture.jpg