War Languages Anna Politkovskaya

1. War LanguagesAnna Politkovskaya Vesa Matteo Piludu University of Helsinki Department of Art Research

2. Anna Politkovskaya (1957 – 2006) • Journalist of Novaya Gazeta in 1999-2006 • Shot in Moscow, 7 October 2006, case unsolved • Books based on articles: • A Dirty War (2001) • A Small Corner of Hell (2003) – Un piccolo angolo d’inferno (2008) • Putin’s Russia (2004) • A Russian Diary (2007, posthumus) • Swiss director Eric Bergkraut documentary’s Letter to Anna (2008)

3. Politkovskaya (1957 – 2006) • Leading investigative journalist • Belonged to the generation of the democratic intellighentsia who in 1989 led the popular surge of questioning the communist bureaucratic authority • The journalism in the perestroika era, after 1986 was strongly focused on political scandals of past and present. Some journalists became public heroes.

4. A small corner of hell - 2003 • The world situation is not reducible to a clear-cut conflict of backward fanatical terrorist assaulting the realm of civilized urbanity • Every month in Chechnya • Description of: • the conditions of civilians and women caught in the vicious fighting • The role of venality in the Russian troops brutal aggressions against civilians • Weakness of Russia’s central government, which tolerated war atrocities

5. Why? • People call the newspaper and send letters with one and the same question: ”Why are you writing about this? Why are you scaring us? Why do we need to know this?” • I’m sure this has to be done, for one simple reason: as contemporaries of this war, we will be held responsible for it. The classic Soviet excuse of not being there and not taking part in anything personally won’t work. • So, I want you to know the truth. Then you’ll be free of cynism. And of the sticky swamp of racism that our society has been sliding into. • (pages 26-27)

6. Bombings in 1999:The ”magic” folder of Vecha • Vecha was an old Chechen beliving that a folder protect him from the shoots: • ”Every time the helicopters come, I take my folder, get out my paper, and pretend to write. I think it helps” • ”The pilots see that I’m working, I’m not a terrorist” • ”Putin will wonder, why are all the Chechens running around with folders during the war? They should be carrying automatic weapons” • Vecha died stepping on a mine. • (pages 32-38)

7. The Chiry-Yurt Settlement’s area, 2000The fate of Elsa and Khazimat Gambieva • The village was in important industrial centre • Yury Budanov, two Orders of Bravery medals • In Tangi-Chu he kidnapped, raped and strangled an eighteen year-old Chechen girl named Elsa Kungayeva in order to revenge the kill of some officer • For the Russian system of justice, Budanov’s act was “socially motivated” • Khazimat Gambieva, an old refugee with swollen joints and inflated stomach was extremely sick. • The disease that has turned her into a living woodcut is called dystrophy; or chronic hunger: • “We’re dying little by little. My oldest son can barely move – there’s nothing to eat.” • No help from the neighbors. The sense of humanity was lost. • (pages 37-41)

8. The desctruction of Dura-Yurt, 1999-2000 • The village was completely destroyed and bobed in 31 December 1999. On 6th of January 2000, all the houses were burn down. • Pogrom program • Lieutenant Colonel S. Larichev issued a report: • “The military convoys that pass thought the village systematically rob and burn the house of the civilians” • After that: no trial, no compensation for civilians • (page 46)

9. The story of Rozita: a commercial concentration camp in Khatuni • Rozita had to pass through a filtration point (a place for illegal detainment of people, often used for tortures) • The soldiers, Federal Security Servicemen, threw her into a pit, where she stayed for 12 days, in wintertime • She wasn’t charged with anything • Tortured with electric bare wires • The officials asked the familiars money and explained that they needed to hurry: she might not survive in the pit • At first the ransom was too high, later the officers set the sum at one tenth of the original amount

10. Case of the village of Tovzeni • The Russian army moved away when the troops of the terrorist Basayev sayed in the village • Later, when Basayev was away, the Russian soldiers arrested and tortured the village residents, who had nothing to do with the militants • Information collected by Vakha • (page 50)

11. Chottuni: Chechen men raped in the concentration camp • The lower ranking officers who conducted joint interrogations told the Chechen male prisoners that had nice asses and raped them. The soldier explained that the reason was that: ”your bitches don’t want to do it with us” • The survivors told that revenge is the only purpose of their life • (page 51)

12. Anna’s firsthand experience • Anna was also detained. A lieutenant accused her to be a militant with false document. • Anna omitted the most “indecent” details of her detainment and the tortures • A lieutenant ordered her: “Here’s the banya (sauna). Take off your clothes.” Seeing that his word had no effect, he got very angry: “A real lieutenant colonel is courting you, and you say no, you militant bitch” • The regiment, 119th Airborne Parachute Regiment, was honored with the title of Heroes of Russia • (pages 51-53)

13. Imran • Anna was saved by a Chechen driver who told about her detention, driving outside Chechnya • The driver, called Imran, had been killed • He was betrayed by Chechen spies of his own village • Chechen has been paid to betray their own neighbors • Most of the informants of Anna, the ones who told her about tortures has also been killed

14. Prisoners in Makhkety and Grozny • The inhabitants of this village has organize a militia against the terrorist Basaev • Even so, they were tortured • the issuance of ID’s has been suspended pending some kind of special orders • The inhabitants couldn’t leave the region • The same happened in Grozny, where even the Russian were prisoners in the “blockaded zone”

15. Grozny, 17 September 2001 • Lieutenant Anatolij Pozniakov was making his report on war crimes • His helicopter crashed down. Pozniakov and 6 other soldiers died • All the material of the presidential commission on war crimes was lost • Accused a single bandit, but how he managed to enter in Grozny, when there was a total blockade of Grozny

16. After 17 September 2001 • Grozny completely closed • Nocturnal operations against the civilians • Soldiers asked money also for the dead corpse of killed familiars • Sometimes corpses were even more expensive • Hospital without water

17. A war couple – Grandma Savnapi • Sasha and Vika Jura: invalid couple blocked in Gronzy, in an apartment of 9 meter squares • Vika Jura wrote poetry • Grandma Savnapi, in the middle of the war, she continues to take care of his small floral garden in Nagornaja road

18. Punitive expedition • Punitive expedition for the most futile reason: a Chechen family didn’t have beer to offer • Aishat Sulemainova was shot 5 times • The bullets were 5-45 caliber, weighted at the edge, forbidden by all international commissions • After entering a body, they tear apart all the internal organs along the way

19. Angela and Petr, Russians from nowhere • Angela loose his memory, borbably after a shock • No one knows who she is • Angela was adopted by a Chechen family in North Ossetia • Petr Baturincev, Russian veteran, 86 years old, was completely forgotten by all the relatives. He probably died in Grozny.

20. Cocin-Jurt • Soldier defecated in a mosque and put grenades in children's hands and screamed that they will blow up children if the parents didn’t give them money

21. Mohammed Idigov • 16 years old student • Tortured naked, with electricity • Use of dogs • Same systems used by Americans in Iraq

22. War pro-terror? • As in Palestine and Iraq • The pogroms and the tortures against civilians are completely ineffective against terrorism • This methods creates only new terrorist • The survivors and the relatives joins terrorist groups willing to revenge the dead ones, or simply because the mountains are more sure than villages • It seems that the soldiers have done work to enlarge the war field and continue to sack as many villages and city as possible

23. Racism in Russia • Racist pogroms against Chechen theatre students

24. Heroes? • Colonel Mohammed Jandiev saved 89 old patients in an hospise in Grozny in 1999 • He didn’t got any medal • The Heroes of Russia are only the ones who have killed militians • Who’s saving lives is not honored at all • The funeral with military honors are reserved only to high officials • The common soldier Aleksej Klenin, was “forgotten” in the mountains, no one of his comrades remembered him • The soldier gave the grandfather another corpse

25. The Russian Calley? • Colonel Budanov, two medals • Accused for raping and killing a young Chechen girl • Af firts another soldier ”confessed” to have commited the crime, after he ”confessed” that Budanov was responsible • The trial was followed by Stanislav Markelov • Budanov was arrested in 2000 • Tamara Pavlova Pecherinkova, psychiatrist known for “political diagnoses” in Soviet times… declared that Bodanov was “mentally unsound” during the crime and so not responsible • But Bodanov was declared “fully competent” before and after the rape and kill, so he has the right to return to military service • The case Budanov have created a scandal, and Russia was pressioned by France and Germany to reopen the trial

26. International indifference • Putin use the propaganda of the Bush war against the terror to justify the horrors of Chechnya • The international community and the ONU were quite indifferent, considering Chechnya an internal problem • Russia is in the ONU’s Security Council

27. War business • Pogroms, robberies, ransoms • Organs responsible for the reconstruction interested in the complete destruction of the country to have more commissions later • Oil sold in the black markets: business for soldiers, rebels, federals and local criminal groups • “oil shops” in every corner of Chechnya • Oil sold also in the near states • No state, no taxes, no tribunals, no duties • Weak “owners” burned oil pits to avoid the enrichment of competitors able to invade their territories • Every day tons of petrol was burn

28. The rebels • Weren’t unite in a common front, as today the talibans in Afghanistan • Personal armies, at least 6 relevant Commanders (Basaev, Khattab, Udugov – Machadov, Arsanov, Gelaev) • Internal contrasts: Basaev against Machadov • Independent groups born to revenge their relatives • All the relevant leader were killed, one by one

29. Today • After the violent “pacification” of Chechnya • The president Kadyrov acting as the real ruler of the whole Russian Caucasian region (Dagestan, Ingushetia) • High tensions in Ingushetia and Dagestan with kidnapping and new terrorist groups • Security problems, weapons, criminal groups, kidnapping • Basic human rights are continuously violated • Human right activist, independent journalist killed