Word: chechnya
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...Moscow insists that it is winning the war, that the Chechens are rallying to its side, and that the situation in Grozny is almost normal. Many Western critics of Russia's operations in Chechnya, Putin said during an Internet conference earlier this month, just do not understand what is happening. "We feel that the actions of the Russian army are aimed at liberating the Chechen people from the terrorists who seized power and who compromise Islam and the Chechen people," Putin said reassuringly. He may well believe that. Yet as a visit to Grozny makes evident, the Russians...
...Kerimov describes other cases of military abuse, including the way he, an invalid, was forced to stand spread-eagled against a wall for four hours during one raid. Then he suddenly stops. "This is no anti-terrorist operation," he says, using the official name for the Russian operation in Chechnya. "What's happening here is the extermination of our people...
...Kerimov is, like Putin, a graduate of Leningrad University. He and his colleagues are hardly wild-eyed secessionists. "I hated Maskhadov, Basayev, Khattab," he said, referring to Aslan Maskhadov, the President of independent Chechnya, and his most controversial commanders. "Now I am ready to pray to them." Other lecturers just want to leave. In 1944 the Soviets deported all Chechens to Central Asia. Thousands died, and the survivors were allowed home only in 1957. This time, said Kerimov's colleague Said Yushaev, the Russians want to force Chechens to go, "like the [Jewish] diaspora...
...Albanians altogether," says Baton Haxhiu, editor of Kosovo's leading daily Koha Ditore. "Our reputation is being ruined. Our Western friends are turning into enemies." Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Stockholm to meet with leaders of the 15 E.U. countries, said - with an eye to his own problems in Chechnya - "these aren't rebels, but terrorists...
...willingness to, as she puts it, "criticize those who are your masters - the member states" has rankled some members of the world body. Israel, for example, bristled when she said it used excessive force in the Palestinian territories. Russia responded angrily to her criticism of its role in Chechnya. On a visit to Beijing last month she drew the ire of Chinese officials by rebuking them for their country's use of forced prison labor. "You have to be prepared to stand up to bullies," she says. Full Story...