Blast Kills Chechen President Akhmad Kaydrov And Possibly Col.-Gen. Valery Baranov

Some 30 people died in the blast that killed Akhmad Kadyrov, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. A top Russian military commander, Col.-Gen. Valery Baranov, was also at the stadium and there were conflicting reports on whether he had died or was seriously wounded.

Kadyrov's death was reported by an official of the Chechen Interior Ministry. It was later confirmed by the regional military command, ITAR-Tass said.

The blast, believed to have been a land mine planted under the stadium's VIP section, underlined the security problems even as the Kremlin says normalcy is being restored after nearly five years of fighting against separatist rebels.

Nearly every day Russian soldiers are reported killed in small attacks by rebels and by rebel-set explosions.

Grozny, the war-ruined Chechen capital, has a huge presence of Russian forces, but they have not been able to purge insurgents from the city.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion inevitably fell on the rebels.

"Justice will take the upper hand and retribution is inevitable," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the conclusion of Moscow's Victory Day parade on Red Square, ITAR-Tass said.

The stadium's VIP section collapsed into a jagged hole of torn wooden planks, sending up a plume of brown smoke. Panicked people dressed in their Sunday best clambered over the bleachers and shots split the air amid the chaos.

Footage on Russia's NTV television showed men in uniform dragging a man resembling Kadyrov covered in blood away from the broken seating area.

Another emergency ministry spokesman, Sergei Kozhemyaka, said a second land mine was found near the VIP seats. Russia's Echo of Moscow radio reported that numerous people were detained.

Russia marks the Allied victory over the Nazis every May 9 with military parades and fireworks around the country.

Security was especially tight across Russia. In 2002, a bomb exploded during a Victory Day military parade in the Caspian Sea port of Kaspiisk, killing 43 people, including 12 children.

Russian troops have been fighting Chechen insurgents from much of the last decade. The latest war began in September 1999. Despite superior numbers and firepower, Russian troops have been unable to uproot the rebels from their mountainous hideouts or banish them entirely from Grozny.

Kadyrov was a rebel commander during the separatists' 1994-96 war that ended with Russian forces withdrawing. However, he became disenchanted during the period of Chechnya's de-facto independence, complaining of the growing influence of the Wahhabi sect of Islam in the republic.

He broke with Aslan Maskhadov, who had been elected Chechen president in 1997, and in 2000 the Kremlin appointed him the republic's top civilian administrator. He was elected president last October in a vote widely criticized as fraudulent.

The election was portrayed by the Kremlin as a substantial step forward for restoring order to Chechnya.

Refugees who have returned to Chechnya say that Kadyrov's administration has withheld promised compensation for six months or more and many Chechens complain of seizures of civilians under his administration.

Kadyrov's son Ramzan runs a security force that is widely blamed for civilian disappearances. Putin met Sunday afternoon with the younger Kadyrov, the Kremlin press service said, although there was no further immediate information.

Chechen Prime Minister Sergei Abramov would become the republic's acting president, the Kremlin said.

By MUSA SADULAYEV
Associated Press Writer
http://www.ap.org
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/article.php?id=2759

The last few days were abounding with all sorts of exposures. Publications about inhumane treatment of Iraqi inmates by the Americans and the British revealed quite an unattractive face of «bearers of democracy and freedom». The denouncers of 'atrocities by Islamists', who dealt with the foreigners outside Falluja, have now subsided.

The chronology of the events is showing that abuses of inmates in Iraqi prisons were happening long before the invaders were dealt a blow in Falluja. Iraqis knew about it, and so did those who showed the video footage about the attack on a convoy, when using it in their global anti-Islamic propaganda. Like, see what Muslims are, and how they treat representatives of «our democratic civilized world»?

Similar self-exposure happened in Russia as well, where the court acquitted Russian murderers, who shot peaceful civilians in Sharoi District of Ichkeria. As Chechen analyst Vakha Ibrahimov put it: «'Informational resources of separatists' can get some rest now; the Russian court did a good job for them».

But actually, there is a big difference in how the Western and Russian societies perceive such facts. In the West the crimes committed by the military caused a shock, which shows difference in the ways the public and their politicians view the human morals. In Russia everything is a little bit different. The people and the government are as one, as always. And the values that they have, where such concept as human life is absent, are always the same.

Russian public supports any crimes that their authorities are committing, especially if the crimes are committed against Chechens. By using the judgment and the voice from the people, pronounced through the so-called jurors, the Russian government has shown what it makes no sense to be blaming Russians for.

Chechens and Russians are not only different, but they are foreign to each other. Chechnya cannot be a part of Russia, and a Chechen can never become a Russian, unless there is one exception: if he becomes a traitor who justifies the slaughter of his fellow people. But there are not too many of them in Chechnya, and their lives directly depend on the bodyguards that the invaders provide.

As a matter of fact, the combat operations and trials of Budanov, Ulman or Muzhikhoyeva is nothing but acknowledgement of independence of Chechnya from the Russian empire. Even the fact that the invaders are afraid to introduce jury trials in Chechnya, or apply the same laws on selling weapons in Chechnya, which are in force on the Russian territories, speaks a lot.

Chechens to Russians are like Russians to Chechens: citizens of a hostile foreign state, however much Russians would resist in admitting this fact. Chechens are successfully resisting the empire military-wise, and they will be beyond comparison when defending their interests, if Russia all of a sudden decides to grant them equality with other citizens of Russia.

Russian authorities and the society know about it; they are waging war of extermination of the Chechen ethnos, and they seethe with anger, which breaks out from time to time in such trials.

All of these are their attempts to solve the problem that they cannot solve so far. The only acceptable solution of the 'Chechen problem' for the Russian public and Russian government is Chechnya without Chechens. But this dream is already 400 years old, but even though Russia defeated Napoleon and Hitler, it still could never get any closer to making this dream come true.

The reality of the Russian-Chechen relations is that reasonable Russian people must demand that Chechnya is excluded from the Russian Federation. Today it is hard to determine how much blood has to be shed and how much material resources have to be used up to understand the simple truths. But so far a standing rule is that «you cannot comprehend Russia with your mind».

After cutting off millions of Russians living in CIS states (former Soviet republics) from their historical homeland and after declaring them as foreigners, after losing a million of their population each year, Russian government is still stubbornly trying to foist Russian passports on Chechens.

Sirajin Sattayev,
for Kavkaz-Center
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/article.php?id=2758

A joke was around a few years ago. A Russian general is giving an interview in the smoking ruins of the Kremlin and says, «This is agony of Chechen militants».

According to the Russian military, the 'agony' of Chechens coincides with increasing war operations during the spring/summer period of each year, which has been happening for the past ten years. Not too long ago Russian colonel Shabalkin (spokesman for the war in Chechnya) happened to be under a bombing and he still has not recuperated from fear. And this is why he temporarily stopped making the Russian citizens happy with his fairytales from Khankala (Russian base in Chechnya). Somebody named Yershov, Shabalkin’s colleague, started pontificating about demoralization within the ranks of the Chechen Resistance instead.

Just in case you don’t know, the previous stories were about hostilities and shootings between Commander Basayev and President Maskhadov, then about Maskhadov removing Basayev from his post and demoting him, and then vice versa. The stories about squabbles concerning misuse of funds earmarked for terrorism and total destabilization were what stuck to our memory the most.

This year Russian propagandists apparently started repeating themselves. And Yershov was the one who breathed a new life into this monotony. Yershov claims that now Basayev is not letting Maskhadov surrender, and the 'ringleaders' are actually experiencing difficulties with retaining the old 'militants' and recruiting the new ones.

Certainly, Yershov’s 'news' is not for the Chechen audiences, it is for Russians exclusively. Therefore here are some explanations for them as well. Explanation: there is no chattel slavery system or conscription in Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, like there is in Russia. There is no need for the Chechen Commanders to be drafting people to defend their Land and their Faith. They never do that, so participation in the Chechen Resistance is solely voluntary. Especially, in Chechnya there is no Russian tradition of 'covering squads' (that would follow regular troops and shoot retreating soldiers, -- today their functions are performed by 'backup helicopters'), because Armed Forces of Ichkeria consist of free people, and not of slaves who get drafted into the army under penalty of going to prison if they refuse.

The only call announced by the Chechen Government is the reminder to the Muslims that Jihad against the aggressors is an obligation of every Muslim and his religious duty. As you know, there is no compulsion in religion, a person is not limited in making a choice and everyone chooses his/her own way to follow.

It is no wonder that people raised in the conditions of the Russian army, with one convolution in the brain, keep persistently repeating the bologna about Mujahideen, who are forced to stay with the Chechen units, or about coercing somebody to conduct combat operations.

But Yershov had a creative approach to this issue. He told about the morale and psychological environment in the 'gangs' as well by saying that the «ringleaders are extremely hot-tempered towards ordinary militants».

After Russian colonel Shabalkin’s concern about non-payments of monetary allowance to the Mujahideen by Maskhadov, Yershov’s picture is showing a caring communist political worker (a soviet communist military 'chaplain'). But Russian propagandists must be given the benefit of the doubt: they are telling these stories while considering the imbecility of their audience. A Russian person with his dumb worldview is convinced that 'militants' in Chechnya are making money or are running away from the law in their countries. They cannot comprehend the fact that Chechens are buying weapons using their own money and organizing their own independent units to resist the invaders.

If Russians believe the same old story that Russian army is pursuing and apprehending the last remnants of small and demoralized «Chechen gang formations», that’s their problem. Today the result of escalation of tension in the first days of May is over 80 caskets shipped to Russia. But actually, you don’t «count you chickens before they are hatched».

Salman Daudov,
for Kavkaz-Center
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/article.php?id=2756