Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

To link: When historians look for a succinct illustration of the hypocrisy of western democracies, they could do worse than turn to page 196 of this book. In March 2001, Ilyas Akhmadov, exiled foreign minister in Chechnya's separatist government, had a meeting with a top US state department official. He had high hopes. The meeting was in the capital of the world's most powerful democracy, which had just intervened to save the Kosovo Albanians and the Bosnian Muslims from defeat.

Akhmadov had prepared 16 suggestions that would alleviate his people's suffering. The official listened to none of them. "He kept checking his watch and ended the meeting at precisely 59 minutes, so he could later tell journalists that it lasted less than an hour," Akhmadov writes, with devastating simplicity.

Continued: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=87050911

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Ilyas Akhmadov - Biography

Akhmadov was born on December 19, 1960 in Kazakhstan, where most of the Chechen nation - including his family - was exiled by Stalin's government in 1944. The Akhmadovs returned to Chechnya in 1962.

From 1978 to 1981 Ilyas Akhmadov studied in the Polytechnic University of Volgograd. After graduation, he served for four years as a Sergeant Major in the Red Army's Strategic Missile Forces. He left the army in 1985 as a Third Lieutenant, and in 1991 he graduated with distinction in political science from the Rostov University.

Returning to Chechnya, which had declared independence from Russia in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, he took a job in the political department of the Chechen Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In August 1994 Akhmadov was wounded during the fighting with forces of the warlord Ruslan Labazanov .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruslan_Labazanov .. in Argun.

After the First Chechen War broke in 1994, Akhmadov fought against the Russian federal forces, serving first as a volunteer fighter and then as the public affairs officer to Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen headquarters' chief of staff. In 1996, when the Chechens defeated the poorly organised Russian army, he retired to private life.
Self-exile

On July 29, 1999, a month before the beginning of the Second Chechen War, the President of Ichkeria Aslan Maskhadov appointed Akhmadov as Foreign Minister. Soon, Akhmadov and his colleagues in the separatist government dispersed and went into hiding, with some again taking up arms against the Russians. Akhmadov himself left Chechnya.

In his appeals and meetings with the representatives of UN, OSCE, PACE, European Parliament, UNHCR, U.S. Congress, the U.S. presidential administration and international NGOs, he called for observance of human rights during the conflict. In January 2000, Akhmadov visited the United States, where he met with officials of the State Department. He embarked on a tour of Western capitals, returning twice to the United States in 2000 and again in 2001. This provoked complaints from Russia, which alleged that he was involved in terrorism in Chechnya and elsewhere in Russia.

In 2002 Akhmadov claimed asylum in the United States but his initial bid was turned down after opposition from the United States Department of Homeland Security. However, he gained support from members of the U.S. Congress and peace campaigners, who saw him as a moderate (indeed, Akhmadov has repeatedly criticised suicide bombings and hostage-takings by Chechen extremists and has campaigned for peace talks to end the war). In April 2004 an Immigration Judge in Boston issued an order granting Akhmadov asylum in the United States; that ruling became effective in August 2004 following the U.S. Government's abrupt withdrawal of its notice of appeal of the Immigration Judge's decision.

See also

List [ "incomplete" ] of people granted political asylum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_political_asylum

External links

Articles by Akhmadov

* Russia's Dirty War Against Chechnya, 19 April 2001
http://www.themodernreligion.com/jihad/dirty.html
* Talk peace in Chechnya in The Boston Globe, 29 September 2003
* A Chechnya Plan: Talk in The Washington Post, 10 December 2004 [ article below ]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53778-2004Dec9.html
* Russia's Forgotten War in The Boston Globe, February 24, 2005

Interviews with Akhmadov

* June 1999 interview about the first war
* Chechnya fears 'total destruction' from BBC News, November 9, 1999
* Chechen Foreign Minister of Chechnya Ilyas Akhmadov Visits RFE from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 15 November 1999

Stories on Akhmadov

* U.S. Puts a Low Profile on Meeting With Chechen Foreign Minister, on a Clinton Administration meeting with Akhmadov, from The New York Times, January 14, 2000
* Sacrificing Principle to Putin, on Akhmadov's asylum case, from The Washington Post, December 16, 2003
* Two-Faced Chechnya Policy, on Akhmadov's asylum case, from The Washington Post, June 30, 2004
* Editorial supporting the granting of asylum to Akhmadov in the U.S. from The Washington Post, August 10, 2004
* Story of Akhmadov's asylum in the U.S., and Followup questions from The Washington Post, March 20, 2005

.. with all links .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyas_Akhmadov

====== .. from within that one ..

A Chechnya Plan: Talk

By Ilyas Akhmadov
Friday, December 10, 2004; Page A37

Ten years ago tomorrow, the Russian Federation launched its first war with Chechnya, under the rubric of "restoring constitutional order" to the Chechen Republic. After a three-year interlude, from 1996 to 1999, Russia invaded again. We are now in the fifth year of what is commonly called the Second Chechen War. Many thousands of civilians have been killed, Chechnya's infrastructure has been destroyed and terrorism has become a permanent feature of the conflict.

In this second attempt to bring Chechnya under Moscow's control -- unlike the first -- there have been no efforts to hold negotiations. Though initiated by Moscow as a war against terrorism, this campaign has only encouraged the evolution and spread of massive violence. Both sides now speak to each other almost exclusively through terrorism -- Russia on a state level by killing a quarter of the population of 1 million over the past decade, the Chechen side (working at the level of separate units) by attacking subway stations and trains and by taking hostages.

The Kremlin claims that the Chechen resistance is integrated into a global terrorist network, and it places responsibility for every act of terrorism on al Qaeda. This prevents an informed analysis of the situation and buries any initiative that might lead to a political resolution.

Two things demonstrate that terrorism from the radical wing of the Chechen resistance has local roots and is totally detached from al Qaeda. First, the demand that has accompanied every major Chechen act of terrorism is the same: withdrawal of Russian troops and the start of a negotiation process. There are no other, more general demands, such as the destruction of Russia as a state, or war against Christian civilization (and particularly the United States and Europe), which are the goals of those generally considered part of al Qaeda's global terrorist network.

Second, neither al Qaeda nor any other organization that is part of the global jihad has ever conducted any attacks abroad against Russian officials, official buildings or ordinary Russian citizens, even though these would seem to be soft targets, particularly in the Middle East. In Iraq, rather than targeting Russians, al Qaeda has shown particular consideration to Russian hostages.

The Kremlin employs overwhelming military force and total terror against the Chechen population. It has no political proposal for resolving this conflict, and it refuses to negotiate with President Aslan Maskhadov, despite his many offers. Marginalized in this fashion, Maskhadov simply cannot achieve a political resolution. The result of Moscow's policy of demonizing the Chechen moderate leadership and denying it opportunities to demonstrate political achievements leaves the radicals with limitless space to show their strength. Hence, each new act of terrorism is more cruel and deadly than the last.

This conflict has also metastasized geographically, bringing into its orbit more and more new elements from among the nations of the North Caucasus region. Over the past two years numerous violent conflicts throughout the North Caucasus have left no doubt that the region stands at the precipice of chaos. This is the result of poorly conceived policies in the North Caucasus as a whole, and especially with respect to Chechnya.

Russia's abrogation of political models for the regulation of this conflict, and its choice of allies in Chechnya -- criminal elements that do not have the trust of the population -- does nothing to prevent terrorism. On the contrary, it contributes to the establishment of an industry of terrorism.

This phenomenon is local. The only way for the Kremlin to begin to address it is to enter into constructive dialogue with Maskhadov and his government. Moscow claims that Maskhadov has no control over the disparate units that make up the Chechen resistance. But in the past five years of war the Kremlin has not agreed to even an hour-long cease-fire that would test this assertion and permit Maskhadov to exercise political influence. Instead, the Russian government has put a price on his head; he is being hunted by the military and security forces.

Russia and Chechnya must begin a confidence-building process, a necessary precondition for negotiation, by putting each other to tests as they did during the first Chechen war. Such measures should include cease-fires, safe havens, exchange of prisoners and humanitarian corridors. At this stage, effective and constructive cooperation in resolving questions at the technical level would create the basis of mutual trust upon which talks could be built to resolve political issues that, at present, seem intractable. This includes a genuine, mutual cooperation in the fight against terrorism and its causes. The first and most crucial step must be ceasing military activity by both sides. This would truly test Maskhadov's control over the fighters in the field.

This conflict has produced more violence and cruelty than any in Europe since World War II. The scale of civilian casualties far exceeds the Serbian war against Kosovo and is comparable to the level of killing in Bosnia, yet it is largely ignored by the international community. In the absence of political will to reach a settlement, the Chechen conflict could well rage for another decade, or until the Chechen population is eradicated.

The writer was appointed foreign minister of Chechnya in 1999. He is currently a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53778-2004Dec9.html