VEDENO (Russia): The former Chechen rebel bastion of Vedeno has surrendered after years of bitter conflict, and the stamp of authority of Moscow’s strongman Ramzan Kadyrov is now everywhere in this mountain town.

Portraits of Kadyrov hang near the Russian military base, and residents speak of him with respect for overseeing reconstruction of schools, a hospital and the local administration building.

“Ramzan has brought gas, electricity, water,” said Ruzban Tontagomed, the head of the local district, 100 kilometres southeast of Grozny, deep in the Caucasus mountains.

The 30-year-old strongman also got a nod last week from President Vladimir Putin, winning the Russian leader’s official endorsement to become the next Chechen president.

Vedeno was the home of late Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, the long-time leader of the republic’s separatist movement, and the town held out the longest as the conflict between separatists and Russian forces gradually brought Chechnya back into Moscow’s hands.

Moscow has fought two full-blown wars in Chechnya: a 1994-96 conflict in which Russian forces suffered a humiliating defeat and a second assault that began in 1999 and continues today in the form of low-level skirmishes.

On Wednesday, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, accepted an invitation from Kadyrov to visit Vedeno — a trip that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

A fleet of cars carrying Hammarberg and a large group of fighters from the powerful militia force under Kadyrov’s control made its way past the roadblocks to Vedeno.

Along the way, new brick villas and freshly built mosques dotted the countryside, alongside destroyed facades of buildings hit by rockets. On the side of a hill, armed men patrolled the road.

Officials say that around 100 separatist rebels are still hiding in the mountains in these parts and that the others have been “eliminated”. They show off a camp used by Khattab, a Saudi Islamist fighter killed by Russian forces.

While major combat operations may have stopped, conditions are still extremely hard for local people who live in poverty and fear of unexploded mines and kidnappings.

“We don’t have work, nothing to live on. Gas in the houses? No one has that,” said Patima, who has two children.

“But we like Ramzan, he helps us out,” said another woman.

A group of women gathered around the European commissioner. Suddenly, two of them made their way past the armed guards.

“My son Islam Surkhayev was kidnapped in the night between November 11 and 12, 2002,” one of them shouted.

“He was studying in Grozny and he was 20 years old. Some masked men entered the apartment block where he was living and took him away. Why? Where is he?

“He didn’t do anything, never took up arms.” Many here believe that Kadyrov’s men are behind the kidnappings, and the non-governmental organisation Memorial has collected hundreds of testimonies pointing to official involvement in the disappearances.

Another woman, Kometa Saidulkhanova, said: “My son disappeared on the night of January 30, 2004, in Vedeno. He was taken from the street, on his way to work.

Since then, we haven’t had any news.

But there was no time for Hammarberg to hear out the despair of local mothers. He was hurried into his car by his Chechen hosts and driven back to Grozny.—AFP