http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/08/15/news/chech.php Death toll during the last decade is 160,000 according to Chechen officials, and 50,000 according to a russian human rights organization. The Russian government says it's about 30,000. ************************************ The ways and means: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/26/news/russia.php http://www.hrvc.net/htmls/graves.htm http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/chechen/samashki/engl/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/30/russia.tomparfitt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grozny http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6414603.stm Russian forces bombarded the neighborhood with artillery and airstrikes. Witnesses said that Russian contract troops killed women and elderly men and set fire to houses before carting off residents' belongings in trucks and armored personnel carriers. Russian soldiers kidnapped, tortured and murdered hundreds of civilians. The court said, "and notwithstanding the domestic and international public outcry caused by the cold-blooded execution of more than 50 civilians ... Mass Graves Targetted killings of civillians (whole families) by covert Russian commandos [C]arpet bombing carried out by the Russian Air Force destroyed much of the city (10 years after the war's end Putin, the old spy, the ice cold and calculating Romulan, toured the city in a helicopter and was shocked by what he saw) Russian forces launched five SS-21 ballistic missiles at the crowded central bazaar and a maternity ward, killing more than 140 people and injuring hundreds. During the massive shelling of the city that followed, most of the Russian artillery were directed toward the upper floors of the buildings... The enormous scale of the devastation prompted numerous comparisons with Hiroshima and other cities leveled during World War II. Many buildings and even whole areas of the city were systematically dynamited. In 2003 the United Nations called Grozny the most destroyed city on earth. The list goes on and on. ************************************ Access for journalists: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2000/02/01/russia3050.htm http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/2048.cfm Several Russian journalists have been killed by government agents A virtual ban on access to Chechnya which Russian authorities have placed on international and local journalists reporting on the conflict (contrast this with THAT and THAT Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) “It became impossible to work,” said Maria Eismont, who covered both wars for the now-defunct Segodnya, a newspaper in Vladimir Gusinsky’s former media empire. “The first thing the authorities did was to stop even snippets of information from coming out of there. In addition to that, we were not allowed to get into Chechnya.” ************************************ So, what were the repercussions? Was there an outcry by the entire world? Was there massive and systematic hyperbole? Were there cultural boycots and international arrest warrants for Russian officials? A rise all over the globe of racist attacks against Russians living abroad? Any mass student movements in other countries harassing Russian embassies? What about the oil ticks' oil boycotts and bombardment of Russia in the press and mosques? Discuss...
*crickets chirping* Whadayaknow... The [non] response here looks like a microcosm of the real world Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Russia is big and powerful, nobody dares to joke with Russia, and Checens aren't particulary good in PR, taking hostages, being criminals for living and all that, besides they're Muslim, and they're not particulary popular right now.
What? Between 30K and 160K dead in 10 years and no one has anything to say about that? That's like between 5 and 25 intifadas! Look at all the fuss people have been making about just 1, and they can't bring themselves to criticize 25 intifadas worth of victims? If only Israel had deliberately killed 160000 Palestinians in cold blood (instead of 5,500, most unintentionally) and then stone-walled journalists, maybe it too would be ignored, just as you intellectually lazy and dishonest people are doing right now (except Avatar, of course, who is my favourite poster today).
Really? According to our most reliable and most knowing source, draqon, the conflict is over and the Chechens are happy to be Russians now.
Well, as I understand, all their leaders and most of the fighters are shot dead, so there's no-one else brave or foolish enough left to organize attacks now. All in all maybe they're better off with Russians there, in their freedom years the country's economy was run by crime.
well you got to understand...there isn't just Chechnya there. If there was just Chechnya there, boy it would be easy to settle down. But we got three bothersome cultures there (all muslim Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!), Dagestan, North Ossetia with their Georgia constant supply of militants, Ingushetia...and all these muslim tribes feel like they are right at everything, they fight everyday with each other and federals of Russia are between their bullets. Fortunately now the federals have got it all under control.
After they rigged an elementary school in a poor country to murder hundreds of innocent school children they lost all sympathy for their cause. People looked at that and began to buy into the Russian side of the story - that these people are all terrorists. It's not true, most are just people trying to live a normal life but that incident was so heinous that people just don't care. Also, the typical dead-silence and typical Muslim excuse-making didn't help. Call it a PR blunder. I personally almost puked when I saw a couple half-dead little girls being carried clothed in blood out of their elementary school.
Call it a PR blunder yourself Michael, one your nation will experience what Chechnya has done to Russia you will do the same we have done to them.
And what you have done to yourselves? I mean, what total morons if not your security services decided to use a deadly gas in a hostage saving situation at that theatre? I'd laugh if it weren't so tragic.
Well, I'm not an expert, but the standart procedure in these situations is to try saving the hostages, instead of gasing them together with the terrorists to death.
It's a difficult situation to be in - obviously the security wants to get everyone out alive, including the criminals. But when people rig a whole building to blow up - f*ck. Also, even anesthesiologists lose patients right in front of themselves, don't expect a gas bomb in a building to go off without a bunch of people dieing.
well the building was all "mined" there was no "saving the hostages" because they would have pushed that button and than every child would be dead...at least some survived.
Meh, nobody really cares about them. Just like the Palestinians. Guess what they have in common? Ok, 1 in 6 Palestinian is Christian but you get the idea.
