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Disquiet on the Chechen Front

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Disquiet on the Chechen Front www.JusticeForNorthCaucasus.com Disquiet On The Chechen Front Posted Sunday, April 20, 2003; 14.23 BST Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent for the Moscow biweekly Novaya Gazeta, was in Los Angeles last October, picking out her dress for a media awards ceremony, when some staggering news came from Moscow: Chechen terrorists were holding 850 hostages in a theater. The Russian authorities tried to send in negotiators, but the Chechens refused to see most of them. They asked for Politkovskaya. And so Politkovskaya rushed back to cover yet another episode of one of the world's nastiest and longest wars, which this time had shifted to Moscow. The terrorists, she says, "wanted someone who would accurately report things as they were. My work in Chechnya makes people there feel that I don't lie. But there wasn't much I could do for the hostages anyway." She mighty pen: Politkovskaya braves the hell of Chechnya to get the truth carried water and fruit juice to them, and reported their dejection and feelings of doom to the world. Two days later, Russian Special Forces stormed and gassed the theater, killing 41 terrorists and 129 hostages. Politkovskaya, 44, made her name by writing detailed, accurate and vivid reports on the plight of the civilian population in Chechnya, caught in the horrors of war since 1994. She tells stories of people who are taken from their homes at night and never come back; about extrajudicial executions; about the hungry refugees in cold and damp camps. "It was the refugee problem that started it," she now recalls. When the second Chechen war began in 1999, tens of thousands of refugees began flooding the makeshift relief camps. "It was horrible to stand among the refugees in the field in October 1999, and see cruise missiles flying over your head," she recalls. When those missiles hit a market in Grozny, it was only prompt coverage by journalists like Politkovskaya that forced the Russian commanders to let ambulances in and refugees out. "Our work is a lever to help people as much as we can," she believes. But it also causes trouble. In February 2000, the FSB (the former KGB) arrested Politkovskaya in the Vedeno district of Chechnya. They kept her in a pit for three days without food or water. "It was important not to let them kill me on the first day," she says. A year later, a Russian officer whose war crimes Politkovskaya had exposed threatened to kill her. Novaya Gazeta had to hide her in Austria for a while. The officer is now awaiting trial on charges of war crimes committed in Chechnya that Politkovskaya was the first to report. "But I don't feel victorious," she says. "I only feel that we're all involved in a great tragedy." Her editors have had to stand up to pressure from the Kremlin, which is often infuriated by her reporting. Novaya Gazeta balances on the brink of forcible closure. "Well, it goes with the job," she shrugs. Politkovskaya has long since learned to keep her anxieties in check. As she arranges yet another trip to Chechnya, she may now be too famous to be targeted by the FSB. But she really doesn't think about such things. "If you don't have the strength to control your emotions, you're of no help to the people who are in such shock and pain. You only add to their burden," she says. www.JusticeForNorthCaucasus.com www.JusticeForNorthCaucasus.com Anna Politkovskaya Anna Politkovskaya, special correspondent for the Russian twice­weekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta, published in Moscow. She received her Diploma in Journalism from Moscow State University in 1980, and has since worked on a number of newspapers as a correspondent and editor. She has a particular interest in Chechnya, and has written extensively on the subject, including the book A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya (Harvill, 2001). She acted as a mediator in the Nord­Ost theatre siege in Moscow in 2002, and has mighty pen: Politkovskaya braves the hell of Chechnya to get the truth been the recipient of numerous international honors, including: · First Prize of the Lettre Ulysses Award (2003) · Hermann­Kesten Medal, PEN Germany (2003) · Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation (2002) · Most Courageous Defence of Free Expression from Index on Censorship (2002) · Special Award of Amnesty International (2001) www.JusticeForNorthCaucasus.com www.JusticeForNorthCaucasus.com Novaya Gazeta What happened to Anna Politkovskaya? Details about the health status of our reporter and the events of 1 – 2 September in Rostov­on­Don.In the days of this tragedy, hundreds of our colleagues, civil servants, readers were interested in our reporter’s fate. They assumed that her presence in Beslan could be useful. But Politkovskaya didn’t arrive in Beslan. ...First of September, evening. Politkovskaya is sent to “Vnukovo” in the editorial staff car. Before that she had been in contact with a number of Russian politicians and Maskhadov’s representative in London, Ahmed Zakayev. The essence of his proposals: All who can get into contact with the terrorists are obliged to do this immediately. Without calculating the consequences. To save the children. “Let Maskhadov go and negotiate with them”. Zakayev conveys that Maskhadov is ready to do this without any conditions and guarantees. At “Vnukovo”, flights to Vladikavkaz are cancelled. Flights to the nearest cities are cancelled as well. Politkovskaya is checked in three times, and three times she can’t leave. The editorial staff gives the order: to Rostov, and from there by car. The “Karat” airline takes Anna on board. A necessary detail: Politkovskaya hadn’t had the time to eat for the whole day. On the aircraft (she is an experienced person) she refused the food, she had brought her own porridge. She felt very well. She only asked the flight attendant for tea. And ten minutes after drinking it she lost consciousness, but had the time to call the attendant. Later she remembers everything in fragments. The phantastic efforts of the doctors of the aid station at Rostov Airport. They tried to get her out of the coma and succeeded. The brilliant work of the doctors of the Infection Department at Clinic No. 1 in Rostov. Under miserable conditions they resuscitated her with all their improvised materiel ­ they even coated plastic bottles containing hot water. Dropper, needles, in the morning ­ stable consciousness. Grigory Yavlinksy, our colleagues from “Izvestia” (Special Correspondent Vladimir But), General Solodovnikov made all efforts so that the physicians would manage an “almost hopeless” task, according to the doctors. They succeeded. On the evening of 3 September, with the help of our friends (thank you, Messrs. bankers!), Anna was taken on a private airplane to one of the Moscow clinics. The Rostov doctors gathered to send her on the way. The analysis by the Rostov laboratory isn’t ready yet. And the first analyses, which were made already at the airport, were destroyed for unknown reasons. The Moscow doctors directly stated: the toxin is so far unknown, but it entered the organism from outside, in the aircraft. Until the explanation of all circumstances, we don’t want to voice the “conspiracy version”. However, the situation with the journalist from “Svoboda”, Babitsky, taken from the flight to the North Caucasus on suspicion of transporting explosives (!) (of course they didn’t find any), and the case of Politkovskaya force us to assume that the attempt was made to prevent a number of journalists who have a name in Chechnya from shedding light on the tragedy in Beslan. Politkovskaya is now at home under the care of doctors. In their opinion, an unknown toxin has seriously affected her kidney, liver and endocrine system. What will be needed for rehabilitation is impossible to know, unfortunately. Well, why aren’t the service members who are so concerned about Politkovskaya’s activity, interested in her profession, after all? To prevent terrorist acts, for example? Sergey SOKOLOV, Dmitriy MURATOV, our special corr., Rostov­on­Don – Moscow www.JusticeForNorthCaucasus.com Anna Politkovskaya in conversation with Jonathan Steele "This is life, this is the reality in Russia today" Anna Politkovskaya was in conversation with Jonathan Steele, Senior Foreign Editor of the Guardian recently, to discuss her new book Putin’s Russia, the first title to be supported by English PEN’s Writers in Translation programme. The event took place at the Frontline Club (in collaboration with whom the event was arranged), and saw a sell­out crowd eager to listen to the views of one of Russia’s leading journalists. Steele began by asking Politkovskaya what the reception of the book had been in Russia. Politkovskaya explained that the book was not published in Russian, and that the book’s subject matter [a critical appraisal of the Russia that has emerged under Putin's The author leadership] meant that it was unlikely to ever find a publisher in Russia. In fact, the English edition (published by Harvill), is currently signing books the only edition available in the world, although rights have now been sold into eight other languages. Anyone who has read the book will agree that its defining characteristic is the level of pessimism which pervades it. Steele was keen to gage whether Politkovskaya could see any cause at all for hope in Russia. Politkovskaya explained that the tone of her writing was something that she thought about and discussed with other Russian journalists endlessly: to what extent should they try to show some light at the end of the tunnel? The problem was, she explained, that the stories people told her were pessimistic; ordinary people would queue up outside the offices of Novaya Gazeta [the Moscow­based newspaper for which Politkovskaya writes] to talk to her and tell her their stories, and she therefore felt a responsibility to write about them.
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