|
English Language Page On September 19 the State Duma adopted a resolution “On Sending to the Chechen Republic a Group of the State Duma Deputies to Observe Voting on October 5, 2003 at the Elections of the First President of the Chechen Republic.” The delegation included representatives of all nine deputies’ associations of the Duma. The commission was headed by the deputy leader of the faction “Unity — United Russia” in the Duma, Frants Klintsevich. Strana.Ru On September 21 Ibragim Akhmatov, Ichkeria Parliament Deputy, stated that not a single Ichkeria deputy residing on the territory of Chechnya and Ingushetia signed an impeachment for President A. Maskhadov. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 22 in the village of Gekhi of the Urus-Martan district school principals took school bags from the students. This was done to make them bring their parents to school. However, the meeting with the parents had nothing to do with teaching. Principals stated that “ the children of those who will not vote for Kadyrov will be expelled from schools.” But Bislan Gantamirov, who had been from the office of Minister of the Press and Information of the Chechen Republic by the Acting President of Chechnya stated that the villagers would not vote for Kadyrov. According to the information received from teachers of the Gekhi schools, principals of the schools had been instructed to launch such an odd propaganda campaign at the district department of education during one of the scheduled meetings there. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 23 in the village of Sernovodsk of the Sunzha district of the Chechen Republic, in the building of the agricultural college prepared to house forced migrants returning from Ingushetia, the election headquarters to support Akhmat Kadyrov were set up. At first they occupied one room on the first floor, then two more on the same floor and three on the second. This was done with the consent of the administration head of the Sunzha district Khizir Vitaev and agreed upon with the building superintendent Zarema Guchigova. During the night of September 19 the building of the agricultural college was fired at from assault rifles by unidentified gunmen. Luckily no one was hurt. At present forced migrants feel so much concerned and worried because of the headquarters and propaganda posters on the building facade. Posters are glued on the buildings by teenagers who get paid in cash for each poster. Headquarters staff are paid $100 per month. “Memorial” Human Rights Center September 23. Prior to the presidential campaign in Chechnya the Chechen Ministry of the Press had carried out lot drawing for candidates to get free newspaper space in republican outlets. Two weeks before the elections the mass media reported that the granted newspaper space was nor made full use of by the candidates. According to Hassan Gafuraev, deputy chief editor of the Vesti Respubliki newspaper, less active in terms of paper propaganda are Nikolai Paizullaev and Avkhat Khachukaev. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 23, the head of the Chechen Republic Ministry of Internal Affairs press service, Ruslan Atsaev, reported that in Chechnya republican police personnel started a 24-hour guard duty at all the 20 territorial election commissions. According to him, the order to this effect was signed by the Minister of the Interior, Alu Alkhannov. “These measures are taken to prevent provocation and possible terrorist attacks on the eve of the presidential elections in Chechnya, scheduled to take place on October 5,” stressed R. Atsaev. The territorial election commission will be guarded by a regiment of police patrol, departments of site protection and territorial police posts. Atsaev said that in the near future the police of the republic will start a 24-hour guard duty at all precinct election commissions. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 23, official representative of the regional operational headquarters on controlling the counter-terrorist operation in the Northern Caucasus Ilya Shabalkin reported that the law enforcement agencies had received information that the international terrorist organization “Muslim Brothers” had allocated 3 billion US dollars to the leaders of the armed detachments. The money was supposed to be used to disrupt the presidential elections in Chechnya. The money went directly to this organization official Abu Al-Valid who turned it to Maskhadov, Basaev, Gelaev and leaders of armed formations. On September 22 in a Grozny store which was used as a meeting place, a money trafficker was detained. 360,000 forged dollars were found in his car. The messenger admitted that on September 5, 2003, he had received 280,000 real US dollars and upon the instruction of Maskhadov himself, during two weeks he purchased 1,127,000 forged dollars from criminals. “Thus, Arab mercenaries, as well as Maskhadov, Basaev and others were going to pay to their rank-and file fighters in forged dollars,” stressed Shabalkin. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 23, Alexander Veshnyakov, Chairman of the RF Central Election Commission said in an interview that CIS representatives will take part in the deliberations of a group of international observers who will monitor the presidential election in the Chechen Republic on October 5. According to him, the CIS observer group which will include up to ten members, will be headed by CIS Executive Secretary Yuri Yarov. “A number of public and human rights organizations support their initiative. These organizations cooperate with the human rights commission with the President of the Russian Federation,” noted RF Central Election Commission Chairman. Veshnyakov also added that the State Duma had made a decision to send to the republic a group of Duma observers. Veshnyakov said that official invitations to send observers to Chechnya had been forwarded to a number of international organizations. “So far we haven’t receive replies from the Council of Europe, the League of Arab States and the Organization of the Islamic Conference,” he informed. At the same time the OSCE ODIHR replied that “they are not in a position to send their representatives to the republic.” kavkaz.memo.ru On September 24, there was an explosion in the basement of the school #10 building in the Kavkaz settlement, located within the limits of the town of Shali of the Chechen Republic. The basement houses election precinct #284. The explosion partially destroyed the basement walls, smashed window panes and frames in some rooms. Nobody was hurt. Russian-Chechen Friendship Society On September 24 Akhmat Kadyrov arrived in New York as part of the Russian delegation headed by V. Putin. On September 27 they both came to Washington. E. Khorishko, representative of the Russian Embassy in the USA commented that it is not clear to the Russians why the United States had considered it possible to meet Chechen insurgents and terrorists and did not ask for a meeting with Akhmat Kadyrov. The Russian- American summit was accompanied with massive criticism in the US mass media and numerous protests on the part of human rights activists against Kadyrov’s official visit to the US. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 24, the Prefecture of the Central administrative district of Moscow refused to accept the notification about holding a picket on October 3 in Teatralnaya Square [center of Moscow] with the slogan “Chechnya: Provisional Administration of the UN Rather than Election Imitation.” Supposedly, the motivation behind the refusal was that during that day all police forces of the city of Moscow would be deployed to ensure public order on the 10th anniversary of the October coup attempt in 1993. Therefore, the joint manifestation of the Transnational Radical Party and the Club “Association for Liberal Reforms” will be held in Teatralnaya Square near the monument to Carl Marx on Sunday, October 5 (same day as the so called “presidential elections” in Chechnya at 1.00 p.m. kavkaz.memo.ru September 24. Observers from Georgia will take part in the presidential elections monitoring in Chechnya on October 5. As was reported by the State Office of Georgia, the idea of election monitoring in Chechnya by Georgian observers had been generated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He came out with such a proposal at his meeting with Eduard Shevardnadze at the Yalta summit of CIS heads of state (18–19 September). Georgian President accepted the proposal, however it is still unknown how many observers from Georgia will go to Chechnya. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 24, the RF Central Election Commission Chairman Alexander Veshnyakov said at the news conference in Moscow that OSCE “due to organizational reasons” had refused to send its observers to presidential elections in Chechnya, scheduled for October 5. Other international organizations — namely the Council of Europe, Organization of the Islamic Conference and the League of the Arab States hadn’t replied to the invitation of the Russian Central Election Commission. According to Veshnyakov, the presidential elections in Chechnya will be observed by representatives of about ten CIS countries. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 24, the print shop in Nalchik printed ballots for the forthcoming presidential elections in the Chechen Republic. Ballots were printed under the order from the Chechen Republic Election Commission. According to the print shop employees, all 580, 00 ballots were ready the previous week. They contain names of 7 candidates for presidency of the Chechen Republic: Akhmat Kadyrov, head of the current administration of Chechnya, former vice-premier of the republic’s government during Maskhadov’s times Khussein Biybulatov, ex-head of Achkhoi-Martan district Shamil Buraev, Nikolai Paizullaev, employee of the press service of the current administration of the republic, unemployed Abdulla Bugaev, Avkhat Khanchukaev, professor of the Chechen State University, and Deputy General Manager of the open joint stock company “Grozneftegaz” Kudus Saduev. kavkaz.memo.ru September 24. On the basis of information received from the local population the law enforcement personnel discovered and confiscated a flame-thrower RPO-A “Shmel” from Isa Ramzaev, born in 1978, resident of Nozhai-Yurt district. According to the report of the regional operational headquarters to control the counter-terrorist operation in the Northern Caucasus, it was found out that by the order of one of the leaders of insurgents Ramzaev was supposed to set fire to a polling station in Nozhai-Yurt. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 24 Ludmilla Alexeeva, Chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said at the news conference that Russian human rights activists would not observe the presidential elections in Chechnya. The decision was made due to the fact hat three “real candidates” — Malik Saidullaev, Aslambek Aslakhanov and Khussein Dzhabrailov had been withdrawn from the race. They were the candidates who could compete with the acting head of the republic. MHG also decided against inviting to Chechnya foreign observers since their presence could attribute legal status to the elections. kavkaz.memo.ru September 24. Ilyas Akhmadov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Maskhadov government called upon the United States to promote imposition of provisional international rule on Chechnya in order to resolve the conflict which had assumed the magnitude of genocide. In his address circulated on September 24, Ilyas Akhmadov maintains that for the past 10 years at least one quarter of all Chechens had been killed as a result of hostilities, hundreds of thousands had left the republic, those who stayed face the threat of torture, illegal arrests, kidnappings and looting. Ilyas Akhmadov urged the United States President to turn to Vladimir Putin with a proposal to withdraw federal forced from Chechnya, allow the involvement of international forces and commence a genuine political dialogue with the legally elected president Aslan Maskhadov. kavkaz.memo.ru September 24. The building of the Chechen State TV and Radio Company (branch of VGTRK) and the Grozny Broadcasting Company (a structural division of the Chechen Ministry on National Policy, Information and Foreign Relations) started to be heavily guarded by Ministry of the Interior forces for the presidential election period. This was reported by Akhmed Dovletukaev, director of the State Radio of Chechnya. kavkaz.memo.ru As of September 25, 425 polling stations have been set up and started functioning. They will be guarded 24 hours a day. At some of the stations (in a number of villages in the mountains in Chechnya) “the communications issue is still unresolved, but it will be resolved one of these days,” one of the employees of the Chechen Republic Election Commission told the “Caucasus Times” correspondent. The ballots printed last week at a print shop in Kabardino-Balkaria are known to have been delivered to the republic. Meanwhile election commissions employees express concern about possible terrorist attacks during the elections. kavkaz.memo.ru As of September 25, the Chechen Republic Election Commission hasn’t received any official documents related to the ruling of the Supreme Court of Russia confirming the legitimacy of registration cancellation of Malik Saidullaev who is running for president of Chechnya. Nevertheless, the election headquarters of M. Saidullaev in Grozny was closed down, the personnel disbanded. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 25 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation confirmed the legitimacy of canceling Malik Saidullaev’s registration as a candidate for presidency in Chechnya. By so doing the Supreme Court turned down the appeal of his representative Hasa Djantaev against the ruling of the Chechen Supreme Court which had cancelled M. Saidullaev’s registration. Over 13,580 signature lists had been submitted in support of M. Saidullaev to the Chechen Election Commission. After 2,179 of them were checked only 2% or so were deemed invalid and thus M. Saidullaev was registered on August 27, 2003 as a candidate running for president of Chechnya. After that another candidate, Nikolai Paizullaev turned to the Supreme Court of Chechnya with his claim to cancel the Election Commission decision of August 27 arguing that the signatures submitted for Saidullaev were invalid. To consider this claim the Supreme Court of Chechnya requested 2,179 signature lists from the Election Commission and deemed 89.9% of them invalid (1,960 signatures). The grounds were that there had been many serious violations in the process of signature collection (such as absence of the name of the subject of the Federation, voter age, address of signature collectors). On these grounds the Supreme Court of Chechnya complied with Paizullaev’s request and cancelled the Election Commission resolution on Saidullaev’s registration. The election deposit in the amount of 4.5 billion roubles submitted by Saidullaev on August 18, 2003, was not taken into account because the registration had been done on the basis of signature lists. kavkaz.memo.ru On September 25, businessman Malik Saidullaev stated that since the very beginning of the election race he had been receiving proposals to withdraw from the race following the examples of Aslambek Aslakhanov and Khussein Dzhabrailov. “They could have removed me in a different way, through opening a criminal case, but they decided to go to court,” said Saidullaev. According to him he made up his mind to nominate himself not to become rich or win some lucrative position. “I decided to run because I wanted to rid Chechnya of criminal characters like Kadyrov and his retinue,” said Saidullaev. He noted that if we are to have order we must have fair elections in the republic. But today anyone can see that “instead of elections we are having a farce.” kavkaz.memo.ru Back |
Íàøà êíîïêà  |
|