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821. Chechnya Weekly: Charges Filed Related To Maskhadov's Missing Relatives

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell and Andrew McGregor
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Vladimir Kravchenko, the Chechen Republic's Prosecutor, announced on January 31 that his office had on January 27 opened eight criminal cases related to the kidnapping of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov's relatives, Interfax reported. Kravchenko stressed that the cases were launched by the law-enforcement agencies in connection with the wide “public interest” in – and numerous press reports about – the alleged kidnappings. Preliminary findings suggest that all the abductions took place last December, he said. This, it should be noted, is what Memorial reported earlier this month after conducting its own investigation. The human rights group listed the relatives of Maskhadov – his sister, two brothers, two nephews and three distant relatives – and detailed the circumstances of their abduction. The Memorial report also cited various eye-witnesses, including GRU commandos, who identified the kidnappers as kadyrovtsy – individuals subordinated to Chechnya's first deputy prime minister, Ramzan Kadyrov (see Chechnya Weekly, January 26). Kravchenko, however, said that there is no evidence that “power structures” or “law-enforcement” agencies were involved in the kidnappings. There are “many versions” of what happened, he said, including kidnapping for ransom, which has become a “profitable business” in Chechnya.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

822. Chechnya Weekly: Chechen Rights Activist Abducted

Author:
John B. Dunlop and Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Makhmut Magomadov, a Chechen human rights activist who previously served as a deputy prosecutor during Aslan Maskhadov's presidency, was abducted in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district on January 20. Since 2000, he has worked as a legal expert for the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), the International Protection Center and the Chechnya Committee of National Salvation, helping victims of human rights abuses bring their cases before the European Court on Human Rights. According to the IHF, in 1992, following a long career with the police in Donskoi, Tula Oblast, Magomadov became an investigator for the Chechen Ministry of Interior. From 1994 to 1996 he worked in the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Interim Administration of Chechnya and later as the republic's Assistant Prosecutor General for criminal investigations. He also headed a task force set up to fight kidnappings in Chechnya that was, according to the IHF, “instrumental in freeing hundreds of kidnapped persons.”
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

823. Chechnya Weekly: Security Forces Battle Militants In Dagestan

Author:
Andrei Smirnov and Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Nikolai Gryaznov, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) directorate in Dagestan, said on January 17 that the body of Rasul Makasharipov, a.k.a. “Muslim,” was among the remains of five militants recovered in the ruins of a house in a village located on the outskirts of the republican capital of Makhachkala, where a shoot-out with security forces lasting more than 15 hours took place on January 15-16, Itar-Tass reported.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

824. Chechnya Weekly:Ramzan Frees His Sister

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell and John Reuter
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Tensions between Chechnya and Dagestan escalated this week after police in the Dagestani city of Khasavyurt detained Zulai Kadyorva, sister of Chechnya's first deputy prime minister, Ramzan Kadyrov. Son of assassinated pro-Moscow Chechen president, Akhmed Kadyrov, Ramzan heads the republic's infamous presidential security service. According to the version of events published by the Gazeta newspaper's website, Gzt.ru, on January 11, OMON police officers on January 10 stopped a car carrying Ms. Kadyrova on the federal highway leading into Khasavyurt, after which Ms. Kadyrova identified herself and explained that she was traveling to the city for medical treatment. With her were two members of her brother's security service but only one of them was carrying his security service I.D. The three were taken to Khasavyurt's Interior Ministry office, or GOVD – that is, the Khasavyurt city police headquarters – after which Ms. Kadyrova reportedly became ill and, according to one police officer who was present, fainted.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

825. Chechnya Weekly: Hero Of Russia

Author:
Andrei Smirnov and Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
01-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
On December 29, President Vladimir Putin conferred Russia's highest award, the Hero of the Russian Federation, on Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Moscow Chechen government's first deputy prime minister and son of the late Chechen president. According to the corresponding presidential decree, the younger Kadyrov was awarded “for courage and heroism displayed during the discharge of official duties,” Newsru.com reported on December 29. Ramzan's father, Akhmad Kadyrov, was awarded a “Hero of the Russian Federation” on May 11, two days after he was killed by a bomb detonated beneath the VIP stands in Grozny's Dinamo Stadium. Ramzan said that the award “above all recognizes as heroes the whole long-suffering Chechen people. And we will continue…an uncompromising struggle against terrorism, extremism and banditry, and thereby protect the interests of the whole Russian people.”
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

826. The Defense Monitor: Dear Friends Colleagues

Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Many of you are aware of CDI's 30-year history of research and commentary on U.S. defense topics. You may also have noticed the expanding breadth of our international projects and activities, such as our ground-breaking China Security Bulletin featuring contributions from a retired Chinese general, and a forthcoming report on Russia's defense spending by a Russian scholar who heads our Moscow office. To better reflect our global scope and project diversity, we have created the World Security Institute — which can be thought of as our “holding company.” We felt that this title better describes all of our activities that now encompass a wider definition of “security.”
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Disaster Relief, Government, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, Iran, Middle East, Asia, and Moscow

827. Kim Jong Il's Nuclear Winter

Author:
Nicholas Eberststadt
Publication Date:
02-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
North Korea recently announced that it had “manufactured nukes,” that “these weapons” would be kept “for self-defense under any circumstances,” and that Pyongyang would immediately suspend its participation in further six-party denuclearization talks for an indefinite period. So much for probing North Korea's nuclear intentions. That game is now over. With the illusions of the international community's engagement theorists suddenly and nakedly exposed, the rest of us are obliged to face some unpleasant truths about the unfolding proliferation spectacle in the Korean peninsula.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Asia and North Korea

828. Here There Be Dragons: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Author:
Benjamin Goldsmith
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, the task of wiping out radical Islamist groups and their support networks gained a new urgency for the United States. U.S. attention landed squarely on Afghanistan and Central Asia, the home base of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and several other radical Islamic groups. The war in Afghanistan created the need for large number of U.S. troops in the region and a base from which to operate, while the newly proclaimed “War on Terror” created a strategic interest in maintaining this presence to suppress further Islamic radicalism.
Topic:
Security and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, and Asia

829. The Russian Debate on the Nonproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Delivery Vehicles

Author:
Vladimir Dvorkin
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In the first paragraphs of their declaration at the Evian Summit in early June 2003, the G8 leaders stated, .We recognize that proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their means of delivery poses a growing danger to us all. Together with the spread of international terrorism, it is the pre-eminent threat to international security.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

830. Deterring Conflict in the Taiwan Strait: The Successes and Failures of Taiwan's Defense Reform and Modernization Program

Author:
Micheal D. Swaine
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
THE TAIWAN STRAIT IS ONE OF THE TWO PLACES in the Asian Pacific where a major war could break out; the other place is the Korean Peninsula. For over fifty years, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, or Taiwan) have maintained an uneasy peace across the Strait, punctuated by brief periods of limited conflict or by occasional military displays. The PRC insists that Taiwan is a part of China and asserts that the island must one day be reunited with the mainland. Until the early 1990s, the ROC government also viewed Taiwan as an integral part of China and insisted on eventual reunification, albeit under the Chinese Nationalist flag. But in recent years, with democratization opening the system to native Taiwanese, public support for independence has grown, as has the alarm in Beijing. As tensions have grown and the prospect of the resumption of a cross-Strait understanding regarding Taiwan's status has become more remote, stability has depended primarily on military deterrence. For China, such deterrence aims to prevent the final consolidation of Taiwan's separate status. For Taiwan (and the United States), it aims at preventing China from using force to compel reunification on Beijing's terms.
Topic:
Security and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, China, Taiwan, Beijing, and Asia