Latest North Caucasus Weekly Articles

Msf And Dutch Government Trade Accusations Over Erkel

The escalating dispute between the government of the Netherlands and the international medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), or MSF, constitutes another victory for the Russian secret police and a defeat for civilians in the North Caucasus and other hot spots dependent on... MORE

Returning Refugees Resettled Amid Ruins

Now that the Russian and Ingush authorities have succeeded in closing Ingushetia's last tent camps for Chechen refugees, what conditions await the camps' former residents? According to a report released on June 18 by the Nazran (Ingushetia) office of Memorial, the Moscow-based human-rights organization, the... MORE

Briefs

--TWELVE RUSSIAN SERVICEMEN KILLED OVER 24-HOUR PERIOD Lending further credence to claims by separatist president Maskhadov that the rebel guerrillas have stepped up their activity in recent weeks, an official of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration anonymously told the Associate Press on June 20 that twelve... MORE

Ingushetia: Last Camp Closes, But Many Refugees Remain

On June 10 the last remaining tents of the last remaining Chechen refugee camp in Ingushetia were dismantled in a modest ceremony. According to a June 11 article by Ivan Sukhov for Vremya Novostei, the authorities decided not to make a grand spectacle of the... MORE

Norway Ignores Russian Request To Extradite Zakaev

The Russian Foreign Ministry suffered another diplomatic defeat last week in its continuing campaign to pressure western countries to classify separatist Chechen diplomat Akhmed Zakaev as an "international terrorist." Zakaev spent four days in Norway, during which Moscow sent an indignant message to the Norwegian... MORE

Ramzan Kadyrov Embraces Collective Punishment

Ramzan Kadyrov is now threatening publicly to apply to all separatist guerrillas what previously he has denied doing: retaliating against their relatives. Once again showing his lack of political finesse, he said last week that he would even appeal to the State Duma to authorize... MORE

Interior Minister Becomes Presidential Front-runner

Last week the 47-year-old Alu Alkhanov emerged as the man to beat in the upcoming special election for the presidency of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration. (For details of Alkhanov's biography, see the June 9 issue of Chechnya Weekly). The pro-Moscow administration's Interior Minister received the Kadyrov... MORE

“death Squads” Active Following Kadyrov’s Assassination

Last week the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting published an on-the-spot report by a Chechen journalist who prudently chose to remain anonymous, establishing more clearly than ever that the federal authorities have been on a bloody "witch hunt" since the May 9 assassination... MORE

Chechens Await Compensation For Stalin’s Deportation

One point on which both unionist and secessionist Chechens are agreed is that the federal government should pay financial compensation to their countrymen who were victims of persecution under Stalin. The pro-Moscow administration's State Council has issued a statement complaining that among all the ethnic... MORE

Briefs

--WEEKLY RESUMES ITS CRITICISM OF KREMLIN'S CHECHNYA POLICY Though Russia's electronic broadcast media are increasingly timid about Chechnya, the reformist weekly Novoye Vremya is back in action after an ownership dispute forced it to suspend publication—and is once again publishing severely critical articles about the... MORE