10 January 2000
The fate of ordinary people in Chechnya is now in the hands of someone like Isa Madayev. He heads the local administration and, at the same time, is military commandant of Chiri-Yurt, one of the largest settlements in the Shali district, located in the foothills below the famous Argun Gorge. He has limited power, but it is genuine.
Isa's story and that of his native village, Chiri-Yurt, is typical of contemporary Chechnya. He was deputy director of the local cement factory, a construction engineer and a colonel in the reserves. Throughout the first Chechen war he fought on the side of Jokhar Dudayev, but he refused to sign up with Maskhadov's forces. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the present war he revived the self-defence unit, made up chiefly of workers from the factory, that he commanded in the earlier conflict. At the end of November, 52-year-old Isa was elected head of the local administration at a village gathering (the previous head had fled), chiefly so that he could negotiate with the commanders of the advancing federal forces. The election took place after Chiri-Yurt had been heavily bombed for the first time and people were killed. It then became clear that the village could not keep out of the new war, even though there were no Chechen fighters there because the villagers had not let them in.
The negotiations were successful and the village suffered little damage. Officially Chiri-Yurt has been "liberated" for over a month, since 12 December. Yet life here can hardly be called normal. Neither war nor peace, neither food nor pensions, neither electricity nor calm. The old authorities of Maskhadov's time and the new administration of the republic based in Gudermes have shown no signs of activity here. Units from the Ministry of Defence and the Interior Ministry hold the village in a fortified ring and forbid any local inhabitants to leave. Meanwhile several thousand refugees from the mountain areas have gathered in Chiri-Yurt and their numbers increase daily. People need to be fed, clothed and given medical treatment. The hospital has been totally destroyed in the bombing and refugees are living in the school building. Despairing of support from the local authorities – of any political persuasion – Isa Madayev left his home village after the New Year and was able, despite many obstacles and delays, to reach Moscow in search of humanitarian aid. We met, and he agreed to answer my questions.
Q. I don't entirely understand why you came to Moscow and not Gudermes? The permanent mission of the Russian President in Chechnya, headed by Nikolai Koshman, is based in Gudermes.
A. The so-called new government in Gudermes, it seems to me, is afraid to go anywhere outside the town. Three weeks ago I sent a request, through the soldiers based around our village, for any of Koshman's colleagues to come and visit us. "If I am forbidden to go beyond your post," I told the commanding officer, "then bring the new authorities to us here in Chiri-Yurt: let them see for themselves how we are living. Why don't you get Sherip Alikhadjiev, the new prefect of the Shali district, whom you yourselves appointed, to come here?"
Nothing came of these requests. I still don't know what kind of man the new prefect is. Then Musa Djamalkhanov, Koshman's aide, arrived, typically, in an armoured vehicle. With him came various colonels. I asked them: "Do you fellows consider yourselves the new authorities?" They replied, "Yes." Then I said, "In that case, at least do something to help the refugees. You can see how difficult things are for them."
By way of answer Djamalkhanov for some reason thanked me for staying in the village and not going up into the mountains. Then he drove off in his armoured vehicle and since then I have heard not a word from him. What kind of civilian government is it that rides around in armoured vehicles? In our village people now say of Koshman and his government, "When there's money about they turn up very quickly. If you need help they're nowhere to be seen." After Djamalkhanov's visit, incidentally, I sent my people to Koshman several times with the same requests, but there was no reaction. They're still squabbling as to who gets what job and you can't find out who's responsible for anything. But people are hungry and cold and they can't wait for ever.
Q. Has any aid ever been delivered to Chiri-Yurt? Have the new authorities sent flour or sugar or money?
A. Nothing, absolutely nothing. They don't pay our allowances or send rice or bread. We survive as best we can. The only happy news in the month since we were "liberated" is that the commander of the Rapid Response Unit, Yura – he didn't tell us his surname, although he turned out to be a good person – went away somewhere and made them turn the gas back on: the villagers were forbidden to go outside the village to cut firewood to heat their stoves.
Q. What explanation did they give for this ban?
A. None at all. The soldiers simply said: "We have an order not to let anyone out." Everyone who tries to escape is turned back. We're truly held hostage there. After three weeks of that, I realised I'd have to go up to Moscow to ask for help. We won't survive otherwise.
Q. If you had managed to see Koshman, what would you have told him?
A. I'd say: "Your actions have resulted in almost 40,000 refugees becoming concentrated in the three villages of Novye Atagi, Starye Atagi and Chiri-Yurt. For us this represents a major catastrophe." There are about 12,000 people in Chiri-Yurt today. About 7,000 are our own villagers, the rest are refugees. We share all we have with them, but this war is not like the last one, and since then the village has become much poorer.
Q. Chiri-Yurt today is next to the most serious fighting. The refugees fleeing from the mountain villages pass through your settlement. Who is there to meet them? Are officials and employees of the Ministry for Emergency Situations and the Migration Service working in Chiri-Yurt? What are the reception procedures for refugees today, or is there anything of the kind? Who, for instance, explains to the refugees where they should go and where people are waiting to receive them?
A. There is nothing like that. There's no system at all. No one is waiting for the refugees or explaining anything to them – or to me, the head of the village administration where they are forced to gather and collect. The only reason the authorities reacted to the outcry over the ultimatum to Grozny, in my view, and were forced to show that there were tent camps for the civilian population, was because the Duma elections were approaching. Now that 19 December is behind us and Putin is acting President there is no mention in the southern districts of Chechnya of any camps or civilised reception for refugees. People are coming to Chiri-Yurt to escape because the mountains are being napalmed. I gave the order for them to be housed in the school building. I told the villagers to take them food. That's how we're surviving.
Q. Do you think the soldiers in the fortified posts around your village know where to send the stream of refugees from the mountain villages? Do they know how to feed them and find them a place to stay?
A. Of course not. They exist in exactly the same vacuum and are surviving on what there is to hand. The soldiers come to me, asking for the same things as the refugees: "We need bread and water, help us out."
Their supplies of food from outside are very irregular. We are baking bread for the soldiers in our village bakery! We did agree, though, that it was only with the flour they themselves brought us. We couldn't manage otherwise.
Another example. The OMON men didn't have anything to carry water in. I gave them some cisterns. But I asked them to leave them behind when they go. The policemen here from Vladivostok don't have a single car to get around in, and they're fighting on foot. When their commander said, "Isa, give me a car," I gave it to him and also supplied a guide to go with them. I'm always ready to help if they will leave my villagers alone. All I want to do is save this village, that's my goal at the moment, not to make any contribution to the geopolitics of the North Caucasus. Hence my relations with the soldiers, but only with those who are based around our village. We try to reach a good agreement with all of the officers. As a result, in response to our kind deeds, the army behaves itself properly towards the village.
For instance, one night two soldiers ran away from the Interior Ministry battalion. They told us they'd had a fight with the bullies in their post and were afraid to return. To escape they came to the school. The refugees living there gave them tea, somewhere warm to sit and the next morning came to me: "Isa, there are two soldiers staying with us. What should we do?" I ordered them to bring the soldiers to our offices and dozens of people saw this happen. I registered their description of the incident, wrote a report to the Red Cross section so that they, in turn, in accordance with the international conventions, would inform the deserters' families what had happened. Then I called in the commander of the Rapid Response Unit and told him: "There's been some trouble in the battalion. Here are the soldiers, now write me a note that I handed them back to you, alive and in good health, and that you will investigate their complaint." Everything went off peacefully.
At night-times, incidentally, our self-defence group patrols the different areas of the village. We have a duty rota just like you did in Moscow after the explosions.46
Q. But no one is allowed to move around at night. Aren't you afraid that the soldiers will open fire on your patrols?
A. I told the commanders quite frankly that we would be happier if we had our own fortified posts, then we could protect ourselves from the fighters, the military, and possible provocation and acts of treachery. I said: "If your men don't fire on them, our men won't shoot at your positions."
Q. Did it work? Were there no unpleasant incidents?
A. Not once. When the military had only just arrived outside our village, two armed soldiers came for plunder under cover of darkness. I detained them. To be honest, all they'd taken was food, home-baked bread and cheese. They told me, "We're starving." The next morning I went to their commanding officer and requested: "If you need anything please say so during the daytime, so that no one comes into the village bearing arms at night." Our villagers for the most part are patiently waiting for some political solution to the situation, but not everyone in the village is that reasonable. The men in my self-defence detachment, of course, have things under control, but you can never tell whom the soldiers might come across at night. Since they're armed someone might kill them just to get their weapons. An automatic rifle is selling for $300–350 in Chechnya today.
Q. The commanding officer understood what you were saying?
A. Yes. They didn't have to fight to take my village, so why shouldn't they understand? You can always reach agreement at the local level. I consider that only the higher ranks like General Shamanov are eager for blood. The company and battalion commanders are responsible for their men and they don't want to lose them.
Q. What are you doing in Moscow?
A. My aim is to find money from charitable foundations and kind individuals, and use it to buy sugar, flour, rice, oil, and groats in Ingushetia. Then, having first reached agreement with President Aushev, it will be transported to our village in vehicles of the republic's Ministry for Emergency Situations to feed the refugees there. I'm the only one in this country who is taking any interest in them. By the way, the people I'd like to give a bloody nose, like a Chechen, like a proper man, are those representatives of the new administration in Chechnya! That new prefect for the Shali district for instance. It's possible to reach agreement with the military, but quite pointless dealing with those people.
Q. What do people in Chiri-Yurt want? Who do they want to win? What kind of future do they want to see?
A. People are in such despair today that they only want one thing: to be left alive. What did people dream of in the concentration camps?
Q. Of surviving.
A. It's just the same for us. Each village today is a concentration camp. Inside you can move about more or less freely, but you mustn't go beyond a certain point. People may enter the village only between the hours of 12 noon and 4 p.m. Someone issued such an order. Who exactly, no one can say. If the refugees arrive before noon or after four they do their best to keep their heads down. I keep asking the soldiers: "What's the sense in this rule?" They have no answer.
Q. But in the long run what do the people of Chiri-Yurt want? Just for the military posts to be removed and to be able to move freely again?
A. For the time being I'm trying to gain only one thing: a corridor for aid to move freely from Nazran to Chiri-Yurt. I don't want anything else apart from to feed the refugees. There is no single centre of power in Chechnya today and I must help my village to survive and those who, through force of circumstance, also find themselves there. I've got to hang on.