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| Caucasus |
| Gunmen fill the streets of Grozny |
| 2004-05-11 |
| The shattered streets of Grozny emptied yesterday as local people feared an imminent crackdown. On the road from the west, groups of gunmen gathered at intersections, some crouched in the firing position. At the stadium where President Akhmad Kadyrov was killed investigators were milling around a huge hole in the grandstand. Above the entrance the words "Celebration of Victory Day" were still written. Kadyrov had been watching a parade to mark VE Day, one of Russia's most important holidays. As elsewhere in the city, there was tension and foreboding. At Hospital No 9, where victims of Sunday's bombing had been taken, a group of gunmen were lounging outside. On the third floor lay Tamara Dadasheva, Chechnya's leading female singer, who had been singing the moment the bomb exploded. Her right leg was bandaged and her left arm in splints. "I can't tell you anything about the ceremony at all," she said, clearly terrified. In the small market opposite there was genuine dismay at the assassination of the president. "It's a tragedy," said Tamara, 62, who was selling medical supplies. "Things were getting better, they were beginning to pay pensions." Aishat, 48, who was selling food and drinks, said: "Now things are almost certain to get worse." But the men that gathered to listen were less sure. One man said: "Everybody is scared to talk freely. You can just get picked up and dragged away." Four years after the Chechen war officially ended, the city had barely begun to live, even before yesterday's attack. Even when there is no shooting, most people live like rats in the ruins. Tuberculosis is rife and medicine in short supply. For most the only wage to be had is in working for the pro-Moscow administration, a move regarded as treachery by the rebels. In almost every street men lounge with Kalashnikovs - some Russian soldiers, some Chechen policemen, others freelancers who have thrown in their lot with the pro-Moscow regime. Some say that despite the parlous state of affairs things had improved a little in the last year. The number of both kidnappings and murders has fallen slightly. The infamous Russian zachistki or security sweeps when whole villages were shelled, herded together and beaten or killed have been replaced by more targeted torture and killings. Some Chechens saw Kadyrov as the best of a bad lot - certainly more popular than the Islamic rebel group led by Shamil Basayev who has been blamed with his assassination and whom most Chechens hate for his hard-line Wahhabi stance. Ruslan, 54, who works for the state oil company in Grozny, said: "I have a family to feed and at least I get a wage now which is better than before when I had to work for free. Things are bad but they are better than during independence." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |