Chechnya wound kept under wraps for Putin's big day
By Nick Allen
GROZNY: Two buses with journalists emerge from a military fortress and lumber through the ruins of the Chechen capital, escorted by troops while sappers sweep the road ahead for mines and booby traps.
At dusk, heavy machine-guns fire toward a nearby hill and combat helicopters swoop overhead. But this is not a war, we are emphatically told, less than a month before some 540,000 voters in Chechnya are due to join the rest of Russia and decide if Vladimir Putin should rule the country and their tiny, devastated homeland for another four years.
Despite Moscow's continuing campaign against Muslim separatists -termed a counter-terrorist operation by the Kremlin - the propaganda machine is running at full throttle before the incumbent leader's anticipated landslide victory on March 14.
"I think 100 per cent of people here will back Putin... There is no alternative to him," says the Chechen republic's pro-Russian president, Akhmat Kadyrov. "I don't mean bandits but normal people who want to live in peace."
Hundreds of troops, policemen and civilians still die here each year and Chechen terrorist attacks cause further carnage in outlying regions and Moscow. But Kadyrov dismisses fears that the militants can upset Putin's big day inside his republic.
"They don't have the resources. There is not a single village here that is not in our control," he insisted from behind several lines of defences surrounding his administration headquarters in Grozny.
Putin was first elected on a wave of popular support for the full-blown military assault on Chechnya that began in autumn 1999. As Russia approaches the tenth anniversary of the start of the first war of secession in late 1994, voters seem curiously able to abstract the Kremlin's failure to resolve the Chechnya problem from their unwavering support for Putin.
In a survey of 1,600 Russians in the past month by the Romir polling organization, 62 per cent negatively assessed federal policy in Chechnya in the past decade against 31 per cent who supported it. Yet Putin's rating nationally still holds at more than 70 per cent.
The pre-election mood in the republic is at once fearful and apathetic. There is little evidence that the local population will turn out in droves to back Putin, as his campaign chiefs here claim.
Some residents believe that having tackled the separatists head-on, only he can now improve daily life. But many others say they won't cast ballots for Putin or any of the fringe candidates.
"Putin is adept at answering questions about Chechnya, but it's all just words," says one Grozny native, who like most people requested anonymity, such is the fear of reprisals. "Whether or not I vote is irrelevant. Ninety-nine per cent of people here realize their vote changes nothing," he adds.
"Why should I vote for Putin, so they can drop more bombs on us?" Seethes a woman refugee whose home was destroyed in the fighting. "Putin is a genuine Russian president - but he's not a good one for Chechnya.
It's no secret that many innocent people disappear here at night and are killed," says another Grozny man, who believes the Kremlin chief is ultimately accountable for many atrocities allegedly carried out by federal troops and the Chechen police.
More than 400 people vanished without trace last year, according to official figures. They fell victim to both the security services and the militants, Kadyrov acknowledges, pledging to stop the rot.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin maintains a blackout on independent foreign media coverage inside the conflict zone, citing security fears for unaccompanied visitors. Journalistic accreditation of reporters caught in Chechnya without authorization is revoked.
The rest are shepherded on tours that are supposed to show deep stabilization in the region. Locals agree it became slightly calmer in the last two years, but bombings, shootouts and ambushes still claim plenty of lives.
Visiting journalists are told by their Russian minders to look beyond the huge military presence, attacks and also reports of atrocities, which are offhandedly rejected as "gossip".
Instead we should focus on purported signs of Chechnya's social and economic rejuvenation under Moscow's supervision: the newly renovated house we are shown, which on closer inspection is riddled with fresh bullet holes.
Or the school, which was repaired with foreign rather than Russian aid. Or the furniture factory for more than 1,000 workers, but which appears to have just a couple of carpenters making flimsy snow shovels and tables.
Kadyrov is justified in saying that "what was destroyed over 11 years we cannot replace in one year". But claims of major rebirth seem hollow. On the contrary, as Putin marches towards election day, Chechnya remains Russia's open wound. -dpa
