Kavkaz News: Rally For Free Media In Moscow
Transcript from...http://www.chechnya.xnet.is/...the official news website of the Chechen rebels. News from Feb 11th and 12th.
February 12, 2000
Kavkaz-Tsentr reports:
According to "Radio Liberty" more than 1,000 people took part in a mass meeting in Moscow organized by the "Fund for the defence of glasnost" to demonstrate for the freedom of the press on occasion of the events around Andrei Babitsky. Several noted journalists and members of Russian civil rights movements delivered addresses. The leader of the "glasnost"-fund, Sergey Grigoryanz, called the video showing the exchange of Babitsky a falsification. Sergey Yushenko, deputy chairman of the security council of the state duma, called for a boycott of the presidential elections.
The fighting at the entrance to the Argun Gorge
has increased again. After some decrease in the activity of
the Russian aggressors in the area of Duba-Yurt, the tension
in that sector is growing again. The Russians made repeated
attempts to break through the Chechen defence positions.
Assault units of the aggressors, supported by tanks and
airforce, have begun to advance in the direction of
Duba-Yurt. Advanced units of the enemy have reached the
outskirts of the village. Fighting has broken out
there.
Chechen units have stopped the advance of the
aggressors with fire from RPGs and mortars. The fierce
fire-exchange continues.
At the same time, according to
Chechen scouts, assault formations of the Russians are
trying to circumvent the positions of the Mujahideen and to
move in the direction of a number of tactical heights at the
entrance to Argun Valley. The Mujahideen prevented this plan
and directed their fire at him. Mobile units of the Chechen
Mujahideen are moving fiercely against the enemy. According
to the Chechen command, during the last 24 hours, at the
mouth of Argun Valley more than 90 aggressors have been
killed, 5 armoured vehicles were knocked out.
The prime-minister of the Islamic Leadership of Dagestan Sirazhudin Ramazanov has met with Shamil Basayev. The situation in Dagestan has been discussed, some resolutions about the further commitment of the Dagestani volunteers in Chechnya were passed. The majority of these volunteers is fighting in the Islamic Peacekeeping Force under the command of Amir Khattab.
The Command of the Chechen Defence Forces
informs about fighting in the area of Serzhen-Yurt and
Beni-Khutor.
The Russians have thrown 35,000 men and
hundreds of armoured vehicles into an assault on the Chechen
positions. The offensive of the enemy is supported by
airforce and artillery. Chechen Mujahideen units don't
engage in larger battles with the aggressors. In several
sectors the Chechen fighters allowed the enemy to pass and
attacked him from the rear.
Having advanced in the area
of Beni-Khutor, Russian armoured vehicles are digging in in
the bed of Khulkhulo River. The Mujahideen are holding their
defence on the wooded mountain slope.
Also today,
information arrived about the activation of the aggressor
formations in the direction of Vedeno-Eshalkhatoy. Early in
the morning, the Russian airforce began to carry out bombing
raids on the Chechen positions near Eshalkhatoy.
About 300
civilians, aged between 14 and 65, have been taken hostage
by the Russian aggressors in the villages Shaami-Yurt,
Kotar-Yurt, Gekhi-Chu. More than 250 women and 70 minor
children have been executed.
Inhabitants of Shaami-Yurt
village inform that about 300 Chechen males, aged between 14
and 65, from the civilian population, have been arrested by
the Russian aggressors and were taken away in an unknown
direction. Among those taken hostage are invalids and
seriously wounded.
According to some sources, about 100
hostages have been executed on the way.
The Chechen
command informs that the artillery shelling of villages in
south-east Chechnya continues. The villages Roshni-Chu,
Gekhi-Chu, Shaami-Yurt, Zakan-Yurt, Khambi-Irzi and others
were hit by the shelling. According to precise accounts, in
Kotar-Yurt, the Russian aggressors murdered 360 local
citizens, among them more than 250 women.
In the villages
of Kotar-Yurt, Gekhi and Shaami-Yurt, 70 minor children at
the age of around 10 were
executed.
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February 11th, 2000
According to a report from 'Interfax' the Ukrainian nationalist party 'Rukh' has strictly rejected demands by the Russian government to close the Chechen Information Bureau in Odessa hosted by Rukh.
Units of the
Mujahideen continue to attack the aggressors in various
regions of the country. Last night a Russian armoured column
was attacked near Avtury in the Shali District. 2 BMPs and 2
trucks were destroyed.
In the Argun District the enemy's
means of communication were attacked. In the course of this
operation a train with war equipment and armoured vehicles
was destroyed.
Near Aleroy a Russian sentry was
attacked. More than 70 Russians were killed.
According to
commander Aslambek Abdulkhadizhev last evening the Amir of
the United Command of the Islamic Government Forces of the
Madzhlis of the Muslims of Ichkeriya and Dagestan, Commander
of the Eastern Front of the Chechen Army, Shamil Basayev,
presided over a meeting of commanders.
In this meeting
19 commanders of the eastern theatre of war and the chief of
the Special Administration of the State committee of Defence
of the ChRI, Abu Movsayev, took part.
Aslambek
Abdulkhadizhev says that Shamil Basayev is willing to take
active part in the war against the Russians despite his
wounding. "He's not going to sit in the staff!", says
Abdulkhadizhev.
Kavkaz-Tsentr's correspondent saw
Basayev sitting in a chair after the meeting, his foot
bandaged.
The Russians heavily attacked Itum-Kale with
artillery and 'Scud' and SS-21 rockets. The Russian air
force made use of vacuum bombs and napalm.
There are no
Chechen fighter positions inside Itum-Kale they have their
bases on the heights outside the settlement. More than 40
civilian inhabitants of Itum-Kale have died.
The
Mujahideen attacked at several places near Itum-Kale. The
principal combat actions took place along the road to the
Georgian frontier.
The leadership of the ChRI today
published official data on the number of Chechen hostages in
the hands of the Kremlin regime.
According to this list
during the first Chechen war (1994-96) more than 1,500
Chechen civilians were carried off by the Russian forces.
The fate of these people remains unknown. There is evidence
that the majority of these people have been shot at unknown
places.
Since the beginning of this new aggression
against Chechnya about 3,000 civilians have been kidnaped.
There are reports that more than 700 Chechen hostages have
been shot. Thousands of citizens of the ChRI are held
prisoner in concentration camps in the occupied territories
or beyond the Chechen frontiers.
About 250 children age
10 to 15 years are kept prisoner in a children's
concentration camp in Naursky District. More than 100
children of 10 to 15 years were shot as 'members of bandit
formations'.
Despite the Kremlin's denial the Russians continue to put into action long-range bombers against Chechnya. According to Mumadi Saydayev, chief of the Defence Staff of the ChRI, they especially use these planes to attack the mountain villages of Chechnya, making frequent use of vacuum bombs. Since September the villages of Zamay-Yurt, Meskety, Galayty and others have been attacked with vacuum bombs by Russian long-distance bombers.
The
Chechen minister of State Security in president Maskhadov's
cabinet, Turpal-Ali Atgeriyev, once again has categorically
denied reports of Russian media and special services on the
Chechen government's involvement in the so-called exchange
of Babitsky. Atgeriyev says the communiquis of a certain
Sherip Yusupov, calling himself envoy of the Chechen
government in Moscow, are absolutely false. Field commander
Aslambek Ismailov, mentioned by Yusupov, fell in Alkhan-Kala
on February 1st.
According to Atgeriyev's information
Babitsky is being held in Gudermes by Russian special
services or by the gang of the Yamadayev brothers and the
ex-mufti of Chechnya Kadyrov, which is controlled by these
services.
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