Anzor Maskhadov: “We Want a Public Apology!”
Anzor Maskhadov directly got in touch with our editorial staff about our publication and send us their correlative writings on this issue via Norvegian media.
A necessary step
In Aftenposten 10 April describes Aage Borchgrevink and Sylo Taraku my proposal that the Norwegian government should disclose information about Chechen asylum seekers to Russian security services, as nonsense. An interview in the Dagsavisen 12 April with Anzor Maskhadov, son of the Chechen terrorist leader Aslan Maskhadov, however, show that such measures are probably necessary.
In the interview, said Anzor Maskhadov, who now has political asylum in Norway, that he participated in attacks on Russian military targets in Chechnya. What does Norwegian authorities know about Anzor Maskhadov and other Chechen “separatists” activities in their homeland? Were they attacking only military targets? Was their way to fight on in accordance with the law of the war? Which places are Chechens living in Norway and their contacts with others? Do they send the money out of the country (Anzor – means Norway)? To whom? The answers to these types of questions will the Norwegian government could get by coordinating the information they have about Chechen asylum seekers, with information the Russians may have about these people.
Bjørn Nistad
Teaches Russian culture studies at University in Oslo
Was my father a terrorist?*
Bjørn Nistad comes in Aftenposten 7 and 15 April with a few accusations that I want to comment as they touch me, my father and all Chechens personally, history and memory of our dead relatives. He writes that Aslan Maskhadov, I and the other Chechens are terrorists.
I am proud that my father and I, could participate in the defense of our homeland, along with other Chechens.
Many countries have been occupied by other states, and that was why people have revolted. All nations have the right and duty to defend their country and people. I will draw a parallel to Norway, which was occupied in 1940 by the Nazis. Norwegians fought against them by joining the resistance. They were heroes, but the Nazis called them terrorists!
Led resistance
My father led the resistance against the occupiers. There is no evidence to claim that he was behind any terrorist acts. The attacks he led, was against the Russian military. Russian authorities and the media claim that, to destroy a tank in the war is a terrorist act. Is it perhaps the Bear Nistad mean?
He could contact with “Committee of Soldiers ‘Mothers of Russia (The Russian Association of Soldiers’ Mothers) and ask how many prisoners were given back to Russia. Has anyone heard earlier in the history that parents, during a war, have sought and were asking their enemy to give their sons back to them?
The Russian mother were coming to us and were taking their sons. My father appealed to Russia to bury the bodies of the hundreds of dead in Grozny during the war, but this offer was denied by the Russian generals. Why he asked to bring an end of the war and start peace negotiations? Was my father a terrorist?
Why were all our relatives taken by the Russian security service (FSB), when my father agreed to go to Beslan to help the hostages there? I met the mothers of the slain children. They were not blaming my father, but Putin.
Suffer in the war
It is painful for me to see people suffering in the war, whether Chechens, Russians or others affected.
In January 2005, Maskhadov issued a decree to stop the fighting and offered the Kremlin to negotiate for an end of the bloodshed. But he was killed. Since that time many people have been killed, tortured or have disappeared. We could have save their lives if the Kremlin had decided to end of this war.
Maskhadov took part in the fighting, but he respected the laws of war, international agreements and human life. From that time Russia refuses to give his remains to relatives, so our family is still can’t bury him. In Russia he named as terrorist, a sentence that is neither based on facts or has been tried in the court.
Anzor Maskhadov, Oslo
No one terrorist?
In Aftenposten 27 April takes Anzor Maskhadov distance from my characterization of his dead father, Aslan Maskhadov, as a terrorist. The Dagsavisen 12 April, however, presented a picture where Aslan Maskhadov smiling posing together with the “rebel leader” (from the comment of a photo in Dagsavisen) Shamil Basayev, that is the responsible for the hostage drama in Beslan in 2004 which costed hundreds of school children life. Why did Maskhadov photographed together with Basayev if he is taking a distance from the terror? Are the people who takes photos with the terrorists, not terrorists?
His views on terrorism clarified by Aslan Maskhadov in an interview with AFP in 2002, where he defended his cooperation with extremists like Basayev, that the West did not support him in the fight against Russia, and that he therefore had nothing to lose on such cooperation. During the hostagetaking action in Dubrovka theater that year declared a hostagetaker in a telephone interview with an Azerbaidjanian newspaper that Maskhadov had participated in the planning of this action – though Maskhadov later took away from this action. When Maskhadov ruled Chechnya in the 1990s, he introduced the rest of Sharia law, including public executions. Isn’t it terrorism?
Bjørn Nistad
Teaches Russian culture studies at University in Oslo
We want a public apology
In the meeting with other commanders in 07.2002, before the hostage drama at Dubrovka theater (10.2002) or in Beslan (09.2004), Maskhadov said that they must fight the occupiers. Are Roosvelt and Churchill communists, where they sits and smiles together with Stalin on the photo in a meeting in Teheran-1943?
My father offered an open investigation of war crimes from both sides, but the Kremlin refused it.
Bjørn Nistad depict the “fact” that my father had planned hostage drama on the grounds that someone tells that. Where is the evidence that my father had involved to such actions, from his words or deeds? The victims of these dramas do not blame Maskhadov, but Putin, who gave orders to kill the hostages. Isn’t it terrorism? People sick of the Kremlin propaganda can blame my father on terror. Is Russia the only place where people exist?
Criminals were executed twice in Grozny. Many states execute criminals. In Russia, the prisoners killed in prisons. Can you call these leaders terrorists?
We want a public apology from Bjorn Nistad for the reason of violating our family members.
Anzor Maskhadov, Oslo
*After our publication about the letter “Was My Father a Terrorist?“, Anzor Maskhadov got in touch with our editorial staff and send us a better translation. We apoligize from our readers that there were a few mistakes on the first version of the letters.
