War as I Witnessed It — Prospects for the Future (Event Summary)

The War as I Witnessed It— Prospects for the Future
June 28, 2000

Summary by Emily Van Buskirk

A seminar with Anne Nivat, a Moscow correspondent for the French daily Liberation, who covered the war in Chechnya as a free-lance reporter for several European dailies and for the US News & World Report. She was also a post-doctoral fellow at the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard in 1997-98.

* * * * French journalist Anne Nivat interviewed rebel commander Shamil Basayev and Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, survived a Russian aerial bombardment of a Chechen village, and endured interrogation by the Russian secret services, all in the course of covering the war as a freelancer in Chechnya from September 1999 to February 2000. She recounted her experiences at a seminar sponsored by the Caspian Studies Program at the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (SDI), entitled "The War as I Witnessed It— Prospects for the Future." SDI Project Coordinator Melissa Carr chaired the event.

Unlikely Witness

That Anne Nivat was able to witness the war in Chechnya is itself surprising. As she explained, witnesses are just what the Russian authorities want to avoid. When the authorities do allow journalists into the war zone, they do their best to control them. Nonetheless, Nivat managed to remain in Chechnya throughout the heaviest fighting, filing some 70 reports from the field. She passed through checkpoints with ease and observed the war largely unnoticed-a fact she attributed to her gender and appearance. No one pays attention to a woman, no one checks a woman''s documents, especially if she is dressed in a long skirt and scarf, she said. The Russian secret services (the FSB) and the Russian military, said Nivat, were "pathetic." In fact, she asserted, Chechen fighters can cross Russian-held territory at any time and in any way by bribing Russian guards with, for example, audio tapes, money, or booze.

Bewilderment in Dagestan

Nivat flew to Dagestan in September 1999, not long after bands of Chechen fighters led by Shamil Basayev and Commander Khattab attacked the villages Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi with the declared goal of creating an Islamic state. Observing the wreckage left by the fighting, Nivat sensed evidence of an ambiguous and unavoidable conflict. Bewildered locals described their peaceful coexistence with the Wahabbis in whose name the invasion was carried out. When Basayev attacked the Dagestani villages, Russian authorities sent in planes and helicopter gunships to defend the locals with bombs and missiles. According to Nivat, the Russians were, in typical fashion, going about things the wrong way. Local Dagestanis were left with their villages in ruins, while the Chechen fighters escaped.

When she was in Dagestan, Nivat uncovered the first of several unsettling contradictions in the Russian authorities'' conduct of their "anti-terrorism campaign." She discovered from witnesses that Basayev and Khattab left the battle zone along a "safe corridor" at night, with no attempt at concealment, in cars with their headlights on. Nivat asked: "If the Russians really wanted to do away with terrorists numbers one and two, why did they let them escape?"

Into Grozny

Nivat left Dagestan for Chechnya to be on the scene as the Russian anti-terrorist operations (the Russian official term for what most call the Chechen War) began on October 1st. While getting to Chechnya from Dagestan by bus was impossible, Nivat nevertheless encountered no problems getting into Chechnya by car from Ingushetia. Mysteriously, there were no border guards, and it was an easy ride from Nazran to Grozny (less than 70 kms). She described Grozny in October as unchanged since the last Chechen War (she was present in 1997 to observe the Chechen presidential election). Already in early October, inhabitants were packing in a panic, getting ready to flee for Ingushetia.

Nivat described both the Russian and Chechen propaganda efforts that complicate the jobs of journalists. The Russians organized what she termed "Intourist trips" to the war zone, after the single, state-controlled travel agency for foreigners in Soviet times. Journalists were restricted to Russian-controlled territories or military bases, where it was difficult to assess the conduct of the war or its impact on Chechen civilians. Nivat did not encounter any efforts from the Chechen side to restrict journalists'' access to the fighting. Movladi Udugov, who is chief of the rebel propaganda effort, was not even in Chechnya during the conflict. He called foreign media outlets from his cell phone to spread propaganda and counter the official Russian version of events, commenting on the outcome of battles he never witnessed. Chechen propaganda, Nivat added,is as untrue as the Russians claim.

From the outset, Russian authorities have characterized the hostilities in Chechnya as an "anti-terrorist operation." Nivat countered the official Russian line by calling the conflict a full-scale war involving 90,000 Russian soldiers, and some 3,000 to 8,000 Chechen fighters. Part of the difficulty in counting the rebel forces, she noted, comes from the fact that Chechen men may be temporary fighters, periodically putting down arms to rest and recuperate. While Russian official figures count the current rebel forces at 200-1,000 men, Nivat noted that the real number is likely much higher.

In her coverage of the war Nivat sought answers to the questions, "How do the Chechens cope? How do they survive? How do enemies fight one another?" The conflict''s strange nature, Nivat commented, is that the enemies live together, face to face, on the small territory of the breakaway republic. The Russian soldiers, for their part, do not want to fight, and try to avoid contact with Chechen fighters at all costs. The rebels, on the other hand, strongly desire to kill Russians. Meanwhile, the hostages of the situation are Chechnya''s 400,000 civilians. The Russians bomb civilian villages, and the rebels provide the excuse for the Russian aggression. During her six-month stay, Anne Nivat recalls countless examples of Russian bombardment directed at civilians, some of these occurring on theoretically Russian-held territory.

Nivat described how she became the first journalist to learn of the rebels'' escape from Grozny in February, where they passed in a column through Russian land mines. Hundreds, including Basayev himself, were badly wounded. Nivat found a group of over a thousand rebels in the Alkhan-Kala hospital. She found Basayev there as his leg was being amputated. While the Russians undoubtedly knew of Basayev''s location, said Nivat, they made no attempt to capture or kill him while he was in the hospital. Instead they waited until the rebels left the next morning and bombed the village during the day,continuing with heavy artillery through the night. Nivat survived the bombardment in one of few houses in the village that withstood the attack.

Close encounter with the FSB

Later in February the FSB found Nivat in Novye Atagi, purely by accident, while searching the home of the Chechen family with whom she was staying. After confiscating her satellite phone and her stack of articles, but ignoring her attempts to show her identification papers to prove that she was a foreign journalist covering the war in Chechnya. A week later the officers returned to bring her to the Russian military headquarters for the North Caucasus region in Mozdok. During this time Nivat was lost to the outside world and declared missing. Coming on the heels of the detention of Radio Liberty reporter Andrei Babitsky, her disappearance caused considerable anxiety among her friends, her colleagues, and French officials, who feared for her safety at the hands of the Russian security service. But after a perfunctory interrogation in which officers seemed unsure of what questions to ask, the FSB soon put her on a plane to Moscow.

Discussion
Q: What was the attitude of the population in Chechnya towards the war?
Nivat: There is much less popular support for this war than for the last one-this is one of the main differences between the two
conflicts. The Chechen people are largely indifferent to the cause of independence. The Russians are correct to accuse President Maskhadov of being unable to control the rebels or influence the situation in Grozny. During my interviews with Maskhadov himself, he admitted to having done "nothing" for the Chechen people since his election in 1997. He was more willing to allow the provocation of a war with Russia than to face the possibility of a Chechen civil war.

Q: Did you see any mercenaries fighting on the rebel side?
Nivat: In addition to Khattab, who is Arab-born, I only saw one fighter from Saudi Arabia and a few Russians who had converted to Islam fighting on the Chechen side.

Q: How did the rebels escape Grozny, without facing greater damages?
Nivat: There still is insufficient information about the rebel exit from Grozny. The Chechen fighters told me that they made a deal with the Russians— paying them in order to be allowed to leave through an agreed-upon corridor. However, if this is true, then the Russians scored a major victory in mining the corridor. But the question of why the Russians did not then finish the Chechens off is unanswerable. The existence of a civilian exit corridor from Grozny was completely false. On top of this, none of the civilians in Grozny ever heard news of the ultimatum that was so widely discussed in the West.

Q: How do you see the future unfold?
Nivat: The Chechen war is a colonial war, and, as the French well know, these are impossible to win. While the Chechen War helped Putin get elected, it will eventually backfire on him. That Putin recently imposed direct presidential rule on Chechnya is evidence that he does not want to negotiate a peace settlement. The Kadyrov appointment is a non-decision, as nothing will change. There seems to be no one in the Russian government who is considering the future of relations between Chechens and Russians. However, it is obvious that Chechnya will remain in the Russian empire, a scenario that Chechens do not oppose. Chechens and Russians have a long shared history, and most Chechens speak Russian, although the youth are a different story because of a lack of schooling during the wars. Westerners who compare the Chechen-Russian conflict to that between Serbs and Kosovar Albanians are mistaken,. There is no comparable hatred between the former groups. And even though those Chechens who want independence are clueless about how to obtain it.

Q: Do the foreign trips of Chechen foreign minister Ilyas Akhmadov amount to anything?
Nivat: Ilyas Akhmadov, while a very bright man, does not represent anyone in Chechnya because President Maskhadov has lost his influence. A solution for Chechen leadership to negotiate an end to the conflict could be found, however, in the members of the Chechen parliament. These are civilians who never took up arms and who are very popular as individuals. These Chechen representatives are the only ones with the legitimacy to speak for the popular will.

Q: Could you speak about the slave trade and kidnapping industry in Chechnya?
Nivat: I myself have never been kidnapped, but I agree that after 1996 Chechnya had become a black hole where not only foreign journalists and aid workers, but also Ingush, Russian, and Dagestani citizens were often kidnapped for ransom. But the point of confusion is who the kidnappers are. In the instance of the kidnapping of French photographer Brice Fleutiaux, it is clear that the FSB knew of the kidnappers and the location of the Frenchman from the beginning, but waited long before releasing him. The situation is chaotic, with lots of business being made between Russians and Chechens.

Q: Are the Russian soldiers every bit as incompetent, hungry, and susceptible to bribery as during the first conflict?
Nivat: While all of these qualities do exist, the Russian military can still kill. One of their main lessons from the first war was that direct contact with the rebels should be avoided at all costs. This explains the bombing and the use of heavy artillery (tactics that assure high civilian casualties). The Chechen tactics, on the other hand, involve trying to force contact between the two sides. It is very telling that the when asked about the current war, Chechen fighters respond "What war? The war [meaning the guerilla war] hasn''t started yet."

Q: Did you witness use of any chemical weapons?
Nivat: No, although there are rumors emanating from both sides that the Chechens possess them. However, both sides are using everything they have-so if the Chechen fighters do not use chemical weapons, it is unlikely that they have them. For the record, every weapon the Chechens had that I saw was of Russian origin.