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851. Chechnya Weekly: Officials Statements On Beslan: A Study In Obfuscation

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
One of the most striking features of the Beslan atrocity and its aftermath has been the unwillingness of Russia's top leadership to state clearly and candidly what it knows, or even what it thinks it knows. Though officials have repeatedly made with an air of great certitude statements that later turned out to be untrue—or could be seen to be manifestly untrue even while those officials were making them—most often these statements have come from mid-echelon officials, not from the very top. Vladimir Putin's public stance has shown a combination of fanaticism and evasiveness. Hence the importance of the detailed oral report to Putin by Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, broadcast in full by the state-controlled electronic media on September 8.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

852. Chechnya Weekly: Officials Statements On Beslan: A Study In Obfuscation

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
One of the most striking features of the Beslan atrocity and its aftermath has been the unwillingness of Russia's top leadership to state clearly and candidly what it knows, or even what it thinks it knows. Though officials have repeatedly made with an air of great certitude statements that later turned out to be untrue—or could be seen to be manifestly untrue even while those officials were making them—most often these statements have come from mid-echelon officials, not from the very top. Vladimir Putin's public stance has shown a combination of fanaticism and evasiveness. Hence the importance of the detailed oral report to Putin by Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, broadcast in full by the state-controlled electronic media on September 8.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

853. Chechnya Weekly: Some Passports Are More Equal Than Others

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
As readers will recall from the July 28 issue of Chechnya Weekly, the strongest rival to the Kremlin's preferred candidate in this coming weekend's special election for the presidency of Chechnya's pro- Moscow administration was forced out of the race last month. The election authorities claimed that the details in Malik Saidullaev's passport were not fully accurate. In an August 5 article for Novaya gazeta entitled “Passportgate,” Orkhan Dzhemal has found some piquant details about the passport of Kremlin favorite Alu Alkhanov.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

854. Chechnya Weekly: Saidullaev Removed From Chechnya's Presidential Race

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
On July 22, the election officials of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration formally rejected the registration of Malik Saidullaev as a candidate in the republic's special presidential election scheduled for the end of August. The pro-Moscow authorities thus removed from contention the one serious competitor to Kremlin-anointed candidate Alu Alkhanov, who is now being given saturation, Putinstyle coverage by the state-controlled broadcast media.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

855. Chechnya Weekly: Abramov Narrowly Escapes Assassination…

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
A mine exploded in Grozny on July 13 just as a large, highly guarded convoy was passing which included the car of Sergei Abramov, who has of course been acting president of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration since the assassination of Akhmad Kadyrov more than two months ago. Abramov, who was riding an armored Volga limousine, was not harmed—but one of his bodyguards in an accompanying car was killed and another wounded. Abramov's adviser Andrei Aleksintsev was also seriously wounded. An official of the republic's Interior Ministry told journalists that the mine was probably detonated by a remote control.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

856. Chechnya Weekly: Holocaust Museum Hosts Panel On Chechnya

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
This evening (Wednesday, July 14), the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., is to host a panel of experts on the topic “Chechnya after a Decade of Destruction.” Featured speakers are Chechen medical doctor Khassan Baiev, author of The Oath: A Chechen Surgeon Under Fire; Rachel Denber of Human Rights Watch; and photojournalist Stanley Greene, author of Open Wound: Chechnya, 1994-2003. The panel is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

857. Chechnya Weekly: Federal forces failed to block escaping ingushetia raiders.

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Just how passive was the federal military during last month's rebel raid on Ingushetia? Issa Kostoev, who represents Ingushetia in the upper house of the federal parliament, provided further revelations in an interview with Sanobar Shermatova published by the weekly Moskovskie novosti on July 1. According to Kostoev, federal forces were summoned from neighboring Chechnya and Northern Ossetia, but halted at the Ingushetian border, just a few kilometers from the guerrilla attacks. “It's obvious even to someone with no military expertise,” he said, “that the guerrillas were going to have to leave [Ingushetia] in the direction of the Assa Gorge [in southern Ingushetia]; all other routes were closed to them. And that is just what they did. One group escaped to the gorge through the village of Nesterovskaya [near Ingushetia's eastern border with Chechnya], another through Surkhakhi and Ekazhevo [just southeast of Nazran]. It would seem that those were the places where they should have been blocked—but that was not done.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

858. Chechnya Weekly: Ingushetia Raids Leave Officials Blaming One Another.

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
On June 27, a conflict surfaced between Ingushetia's president Murat Zyazikov and his former employer, the Federal Security Service (FSB). According to a report published that same day by the Newsru.com website, the Ingushetian branch of the FSB claimed it learned in advance that a guerrilla raid was being prepared and warned Zyazikov's Interior Ministry. Zyazikov denied the claim, telling the Interfax news agency that “we did not receive any advance information about preparations for an attack by the guerrillas.” The FSB, however, stuck to its position: According to report posted on the Grani.ru website later on June 27, Sergei Koryakov, head of the FSB's branch in Ingushetia, backed his deputy Andrei Konin's earlier claim that the agency received information about the impending attack half an hour before it started. Directly contradicting Zyazikov, Koryakov continued to insist that the FSB had shared this information with Ingushetia's Interior Ministry. Zyazikov, his turn, was quoted by Izvestia on June 28 as holding fast to his own version. He hinted that those who failed to share advance information—“you know who they are”—were guilty either of “treason, or carelessness, or disorderly behavior, or irresponsibility; I think that all of the above were present in equal measure.”
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

859. Chechnya Weekly:Guerrillas Strike Ingushetia's Capital.

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
In what appeared to be a bold escalation in tactics and targeting by Chechnya's separatist guerrillas, the headquarters of Ingushetia's interior ministry in the republic's capital of Nazran was seized on the evening of June 21 by gunmen shouting an Islamic slogan popular among those guerrillas. Such a direct infantry assault on such a key central headquarters of the pro-Moscow authorities, as distinct from a suicide truck-bombing or the clandestine planting of a mine, had not taken place for a long time either in Ingushetia or in Chechnya.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Moscow

860. Chechnya Weekly: Ingushetia: last camp closes, but many refugees remain.

Author:
Lawrence Uzzell
Publication Date:
06-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
On June 10 the last remaining tents of the last remaining Chechen refugee camp in Ingushetia were dismantled in a modest ceremony. According to a June 11 article by Ivan Sukhov for Vremya Novostei, the authorities decided not to make a grand spectacle of the occasion. Some 576 former residents of the “Satsita” camp returned to Chechnya, while another 90 decided to seek other living quarters within Ingushetia.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia