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| Caucasus |
| Acting President Claims Violent, Desolate Chechnya Is Burgeoning Urban Renewal Project |
| 2003-10-04 |
| With preparations for Chechnya's presidential election in their final stages, Acting President Anatoly Popov dismissed as a journalists' myth any suggestion that the region is in the grip of violence. These stories are very far from reality. "Journalists are sensation seekers," he told reporters inside the local government headquarters, rebuilt after a suicide truck bomb devastated the building in Chechnya's capital last December, killing 80 people. Funny I thought that journalists were guys who wrote of filmed stories and then broadcast or published the stories. "Nobody wants to report, for example, that tomorrow we will be commissioning a new school or that altogether we have 14 new schools. But if somebody blows up a bus or even a bomb, immediately there is a lot of interest." Especially, if one of the thrill-seeking journalists is on the bus. Popov himself fell victim to the uncertainties of life in Chechnya -- becoming ill a week before the election in what officials in the region said was an attempt to poison him. Popov, appointed Chechen prime minister earlier this year and not running in the election, was sent to a hospital in Moscow. His deputies later played down the incident. Stomach flu - got some bad shellfish. On the mend. I'm fit as a fiddle. In 1999, when Russian troops poured back into Chechnya, the campaign was a big boost for Vladimir Putin, who made full use of it to secure election as president within six months. Afghanistan was a great political coup as well. With Putin almost certain to seek a second term next year, few Russians see any real prospect for peace despite a Kremlin plan for the region based on Sunday's election. But I thought appointing a government was supposed to be the key to peace in Iraq. With Chechnya still a no-go area for most journalists, state television trumpets reports of reconstruction, showing the start of the school year, the return of refugees from nearby regions or distribution of compensation for lost homes. Wouldn't Chechnya be a must-go area for sensationalist journalists? On the ground, Chechen officials ask visitors to disregard Grozny's flattened buildings and desolation. Nothing to see. Urban renewal of a blighted area. Ran out of orange cones. More in next week. Move along. "Grozny is a very quiet place," Atla Takayev, police chief of Grozny's Oktyabrsky district, told a small group of Western reporters on a rare trip to the region as guards in full combat gear dispersed to take up positions around them. "Follow my umbrella. Walk in a zig-zag. Don't dawdle. No pictures of the decomposing militant." Relaxed and good-humored, the colonel provided reassuring crime statistics inside a walled police station protected by an armored vehicle and positions for sharpshooters. "You can go freely anywhere in the city and look around. It is safer here at night than in New York," Takayev went on. He appeared oblivious to the soldiers' taut faces, their eyes scanning ruined apartment buildings overlooking the compound. "Any uninhabited building here is extremely dangerous," a guard said later. "You need scant minutes to run up the stairs, pick up a gun and fire it. And guns here are everywhere." As the reporters were driven in a guarded convoy through bumpy streets, a rocket-propelled grenade hit a Russian armored vehicle, killing three policemen inside. All appointments were canceled and the group was escorted to an army base, rolling into the compound minutes after ambulances carrying the wounded. "Labor dispute, labor dispute. Not to worry. The contract is near settlement. Move along." |
| Posted by:Superhose |