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"Voluntary Surrender" of Magomed Khambiev
10.03.2004
Magomed Khambiev, a well-known field commander from Aslan Maskhadov's inner circle and Minister of Defense of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, voluntarily put down his weapons and surrendered. On March 8, 2004 in the village of Tsentora, M. Khambiev was presented in this light by Ramzan Kadyrov, the “head of security” for Akhmad Kadyrov.
A few political commentators hurried to call his speech pre-election PR, like the destruction days earlier of Ruslan Gelaev. However, in reality, this event is significantly more complicated. The speech was not only about the alternative methods but also about new distribution of roles in conflicts with separatists. This issue can be interpreted differently. Either a new legal regime was introduced in Chechnya, and it separated from the Russian Federation, but then where is the “restoration of constitutional order?” Or, did the authorized regime alter the entire Russian territory, and what actually occurred was an overthrow?
For the people unfamiliar with the situation, Magomed Khambiev's surrender to federal Chechen officials came as a complete shock. In contrast to the “radical” enemies of yesterday, who were created through unions due to the war, Khambiev was with Maskhadov from the very beginning, during the previous war, and during the times between wars. Khambiev did not walk away from Maskhadov during the last years, like different earlier well-known field commanders like Ruslan Gelaev did. As a matter of fact, throughout the duration of the last military campaign Magomed Khambiev was the separatist's Minister of Defense. Therefore, his voluntary surrender was perceived as absolutely inconceivable.
However, under close examination, there is nothing strange about this. In this situation created around Khambiev, his family, and tens of hundreds of close and distant relatives, Khambiev had no other escape. Human Rights Center “Memorial” has its own version of the events surrounding Khambiev.
According to Ramzan Kadyrov and publications in the newspaper “Kommersant,” at first nine of Khambiev's militants were arrested in a few villages in the Nozhai-Urtovskii region “without a single shot.” They were given a choice: jail or “surrender with confession.” They chose the latter (also, according to the information of the regional operative staff, 21 people from Khambiev's detachment put their weapons down.) Later, in the village of Benoa Khambiev's home was blocked off, but Magomed was lucky enough to run away. Only his relatives and men who had been living in the home were held. Soon all but two were released, and Ramzan Kadyrov said to those released, “Persuade Khambiev to surrender or bring him to us, and we will let the rest go.” As a result, March 8, 2004, Khambiev was either captured, persuaded by his relatives, or he voluntarily surrendered. Ramzan Kadyrov gave a somewhat different account of the events to the newspaper “Russkii Kur'er.” “We surrounded his home in Benoa and for three days negotiated.” A reporter asked, “So, you gave him an offer he couldn't refuse?” Kadyrov answered, “Yes, he had no other way out.” On the first day of the “siege” 16 people surrendered, on the second day three people, and on the third day, Magomed Khambiev himself.
As we can see from the evidence, even the events from one of these sources don't exactly coincide.
Information received from different sources paints a picture which differs from Ramzan Kadyrov's presentation of the situation. A correspondent of ”Kavkazskii Uzel” Syltan Abubakarov noted from a reference of one of M. Khambiev's relatives that “on March 1, 2004 massive special operations were conducted in Groznyi, Benoa, and in Nozhai-Urta,” during which militants of a governmental faction captured 20 of M. Khambiev's relatives. Then, through his relatives an ultimatum was set forth: If Magomed Khambiev does not surrender, then all of these [all the captured relatives] will be shot to death. After some time “M. Khambiev was captured in the home of one of his relatives…”
Below we present the information which was collected by the Human Rights Center “Memorial” from various sources such as residents of the Nozhai-Urtovskii region and Khambiev's relatives.
At the end of February in Gudermes there was a “parade,” a general parade of those who are under Akhmad Kadyrov's power such as security services and the department of the police for special operations (OMOH) as well as those not under his control such as special “East” battalion under the command of Sulim Yamadaev, those in the Chechen battalion for special operations of the Main Distributive Administration (ÃÐÓ), and the general staff of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Said-Magomed Kakiev. Having arrived to the parade, Kadyrov and mufti Samaei announced to those who had gathered that they declare a Jihad against the Chechen opposition and that this Jihad is justified (in contrast with others, including the Jihad Kadyrov declared in the first war).
These declarations reached the mountainous Nozhai-Urtovskii region. A procession of vehicles numbered more than one hundred cars, such as '99 “Khyguli,” UAZ-469, UAZ-452 motorcycles; for their help the federal authorities had given them an armored car and helicopter. On February 29, 2004, mass arrests, or rather seizures, began in the village of Mesketa, Benoa, and Turty-Khutor. The main target was relatives of Umar and Magomed Khambiev, who both occupied high positions in Aslan Maskhadov's government. In the village Turty-Khutor about half the residents were captured in much the same way with no regard to sex or age.
The detainment of Khambiev's relatives was not limited to the Nozhai-Urtovskii region. In Groznyi on March 1, 2004, 19-year old freshman medical student Aslambek Khambiev was abducted directly after class. They also arrested Shyta Khambiev, a sixth-year student. A mass protest began; students gathered in front of government buildings and demanded the liberation of their classmates. At first the authorities tried to threaten the students but then entered negotiations, promising to find and liberate the hostages. As a result, Aslambek Khambiev was released. On March 4, 2004, he was thrown out of a car in the village of Benoa and found in a semiconscious, beaten condition. On March 9th, 2004 he was located in a regional hospital in critical condition. The fate of Shyta Khambiev is still unknown.
Finally, an earlier unprecedented practice occurred. Around different populated points in Chechnya, supporters of Kadyrov arrested and abducted Khambiev's female relatives who had already married and left their native villages. During the detainment of Aslambek Khambiev's sister, who was living with her husband and children in Gudermes, her juvenile son was critically injured. They took her together with her husband, who was subsequently set free. She alone was kept at Ramzan Kadyrov's base.
According to the information from workers in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Chechnya, sixteen people, including five women, were arrested and delivered to official holding places. Of those captured, apparently there were from 40 (low estimation given by relatives) to 200 (according to residents). People were held in various places such as in the Isolation for Temporary Confinement (IVS) of the Nozhai-Urtovskii Regional Department of Internal Affairs, in buried cisterns used for gas on the outskirts of Benoa, and in Gudermes at Ramzan Kadyrov's base for “security services” and in Sulim Yamadaev's special battalion, the latter two being illegal places of confinement.
Soon thereafter began the “special operation” against Magomed Khambiev. Through intermediaries the demands were delivered to Magomed Khambiev: give yourself up, or the fate of your relatives, including elders and women, will be grave. It was clear that these were not empty threats.
After this ultimatum, Magomed Khambiev “voluntarily” surrendered. What's more, the residents of Chechnya did not understand nor did they accept his choice. To pay for his own freedom with the freedom and lives of his relatives would mean a violation of understood, unofficial, cultural laws and traditions. In this way this “operation” was not limited to one siege on one house during the course of three days. For a week and a half not only in the Nozhai-Urtovskii region, but also throughout all of Chechnya, including Gudermes and Groznyi people not even involved with Magomed Khambiev or guilty of being his relatives were arrested. They basically forced him to surrender. They accomplished their goal. It is true that their means of attaining this goal, the holding of hostages, threats, and blackmail are troubling. It seems that by using these methods, they are branding themselves as terrorists.
Shamil Basaev in Budennovske, Salman Raduev and Turpal Atgireev in Kizlyara and in Pervomaiskii, Movsar captured hostages in Moscow at the Dubrovka Theater and then presented his demands to the government. These people are justly called terrorists. The same or almost the same means were used against these very separatists. Of course it is possible to say that they themselves are former separatists, Kadyrov and Yamadaev. Incidentally, during there own time they also did not object to abducting people.
But this would be an obvious simplification. In the first Chechen war, hostages and “human shields” were widely used by the authorities. Additionally, between the years 1994 through 1996 these people implemented a hostage paradigm in Chechnya which showed an enormous wave of abductions in 1997. Near the end of this war in August 1996 “exploits of Shamil Basaev” occurred again in Groznyi when he captured nine city hospitals.
Usually the use of hostages is carefully kept quiet, but in the case of Khambiev, the situation was almost advertised except during the last days when they tried clumsily to cover it up.
If now they are destroying “opponents” of the federal government by using Chechen fighters and groups then why wasn't this same method used five years ago? Then through Turpal Atgireev a consultation with Moscow was conducted to help liquidate the offensive leaders of the extremists and of the abductors by the officials of Ichkeria. That this was possible in the first place is indicative of the events during the 1999 in the village of Bamut, where under the leadership of the head of the administration came forward against the well-known “Vakhabist” and Ruslan Khaikhoroev's abductors. However, Atgireev was arrested in Moscow, and negotiations were spoiled. Then, five years later, all of Chechnya was destroyed, tens of thousands of people were killed or died, hundreds of thousands became refugees, and the Federal Center, as a matter of fact, “blessed” Chechen groups' use of harsher methods. These groups acknowledge that these past five years have been lost in vain and has uselessly crippled people's fate.
Just as the use of hostages in conflicts with partisan and rebel movements are not new to the Russian Federation, nor were they new to the Soviet Union.
In 1921 rebel and partisan forces acted precisely in this manner during the suppression of Antonov's uprising around Tambov. They captured and shot many residents of the village, declared them hostages, and shot someone to demonstrate that they were serious. After this episode the remaining people in the village began collaborating with the USSSR to catch the “criminals.” Others started acting against the rebels with no less powerful means as chemical weapons.
At the end of the 1940's a hostage situation was used in the Baltic regions and in West Ukraine. In these places entire families of partisans called “lesnye braty” and supporters of Bander were arrested and sent to Siberia, and by the power of security sector of the government national partisan movements were suppressed.
However, much has drastically changed. An international legislation has developed. Now the use of hostages by the government, by force, or those acting in this nature, will be, from the point of view of international rights, war criminals and even more terrible than terrorists. The country has changed; a somewhat democratic Russian Federation has turned its back from its totalitarian past. Russia joined a pact on human rights, under which the use of hostage situations should have been terminated. Finally, the wars in Chechnya began precisely under the slogans like “Restoration of Constitutional Order,” “Struggles with Terrorism,” and one of the main focuses was the capture of hostages.
Will it be specified within the bounds of which authorized regime do these aggressive “Kadyrov” groups act? The seizure of hostages is absolutely prohibited not only in a peaceful life, but even in regimes in a state of emergency or those acting during the course of armed conflict of standard international human rights is the seizure of hostages not permissmisible.
Then of what kind of “restoration of constitutional order” could the speech be about? More likely, it is a return to separatism (in the sphere of rights it is a return, and in other spheres will soon be), so to say, to a new dialectal turn.
It is horrible when criminals and terrorists take hostages; however, it is even worse when this is done in the name of the government because the distinctions between power and criminals and between legal and illegal is obliterated. The open use of hostages in the Chechen Republic could mean a return to the past for all of Russia. The return, on one hand, can be seen in Chechnya five years ago at the end of the 1990's, and on the other hand this practice can be seen a half century ago in Stalinist Russia, a practice that was looked fondly upon.
The majority of people who were arrested by “Kadyrovs” during the “special operations” for the capture of Magomed Khambiev were freed. The situation probably would have been worse if Khambiev's entire family had not been deported (as well as all the people they were connected with). It would have been worse if “federal authorities” had driven away those arrested, and then had their remains been found. It should not be said that this outcome is better because there is no better choice in conflicts between these horrible and monstrous people.
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