February 5, 2002
Media compilation #46: A Sampling of Unreported News
Dear journalist
Trying to keep up with the ever-growing flow of news and information about critical issues has always been a nearly impossible task, especially for people like you responsible for helping the average people to make some sense of it all. By recommending to your attention some material that I deem to be essential knowledge, I hope to be of service to you and to my fellow citizens of the world.
With my very best regards,
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000
CONTENTS
1. The Palestinian Vision of Peace
2. World Economic Forum Takes Left Turn
3. The man who knew too much
4. Smoking Gun in Enrongate - Let the impeachment begin
5. NEAR CAPACITY CROWDS FILL AUDITORIUM IN TORONTO FOR 9-11 LECTURE BY MIKE RUPPERT
6. Police in Chechnya Accuse Russia's Troops of Murder
ALSO RECOMMENDED:
Canadian TV breaks the 9-11 and CIA complicity query story. A 5 minute introductory segment can be viewed here with realplayer at http://clients.loudeye.com/imc/mayday/mediafile.ram
The topic of the "Insight MediaFile" program broadcast last January 28 and 31 was: "What Happened on 9/11 and why aren't the mainstream media asking that question?" The show's host - media critic Barrie Zwicker - dared to suggest in his weekly commentary that the CIA, Pentagon and White House may be complicit in the horrendous events of Sept. 11th, 2001.
For more info: http://www.visiontv.ca/programs/insight/insight.htm
To reach Vision TV's audience relations person: audience@visiontv.ca - or phone Vision TV: (416) 368-3194 or email Barrie Zwicker: <bzwicker@sympatico.ca>
BUSH'S SICKENING SUPER BOWL PROPAGANDA
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12335
1.
NOTE FROM JEAN: ALL I CAN SAY AFTER READING THE FOLLOWING IS THAT MY HEART HAS BEEN DEEPLY TOUCHED BY THE SINCERITY, FORTITUDE AND COURAGEOUS COMMITMENT TO PEACE OF THIS MAN WHO, IN HIS WANING YEARS, IS TURNING INTO A TOWERING FIGURE AND - IN MY VIEW - IS MOST WORTHY OF RESPECT AND ADMIRATION.
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/03/opinion/03ARAF.html
February 3, 2002
The Palestinian Vision of Peace
By YASIR ARAFAT
RAMALLAH - For the past 16 months, Israelis and Palestinians have been locked in a catastrophic cycle of violence, a cycle which only promises more bloodshed and fear. The cycle has led many to conclude that peace is impossible, a myth borne out of ignorance of the Palestinian position. Now is the time for the Palestinians to state clearly, and for the world to hear clearly, the Palestinian vision.
But first, let me be very clear. I condemn the attacks carried out by terrorist groups against Israeli civilians. These groups do not represent the Palestinian people or their legitimate aspirations for freedom. They are terrorist organizations, and I am determined to put an end to their activities.
The Palestinian vision of peace is an independent and viable Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, living as an equal neighbor alongside Israel with peace and security for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. In 1988, the Palestine National Council adopted a historic resolution calling for the implementation of applicable United Nations resolutions, particularly, Resolutions 242 and 338. The Palestinians recognized Israel's right to exist on 78 percent of historical Palestine with the understanding that we would be allowed to live in freedom on the remaining 22 percent, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. Our commitment to that two-state solution remains unchanged, but unfortunately, also remains unreciprocated.
We seek true independence and full sovereignty: the right to control our own airspace, water resources and borders; to develop our own economy, to have normal commercial relations with our neighbors, and to travel freely. In short, we seek only what the free world now enjoys and only what Israel insists on for itself: the right to control our own destiny and to take our place among free nations.
In addition, we seek a fair and just solution to the plight of Palestinian refugees who for 54 years have not been permitted to return to their homes. We understand Israel's demographic concerns and understand that the right of return of Palestinian refugees, a right guaranteed under international law and United Nations Resolution 194, must be implemented in a way that takes into account such concerns. However, just as we Palestinians must be realistic with respect to Israel's demographic desires, Israelis too must be realistic in understanding that there can be no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if the legitimate rights of these innocent civilians continue to be ignored. Left unresolved, the refugee issue has the potential to undermine any permanent peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis. How is a Palestinian refugee to understand that his or her right of return will not be honored but those of Kosovar Albanians, Afghans and East Timorese have been?
There are those who claim that I am not a partner in peace. In response, I say Israel's peace partner is, and always has been, the Palestinian people. Peace is not a signed agreement between individuals - it is reconciliation between peoples. Two peoples cannot reconcile when one demands control over the other, when one refuses to treat the other as a partner in peace, when one uses the logic of power rather than the power of logic. Israel has yet to understand that it cannot have peace while denying justice. As long as the occupation of Palestinian lands continues, as long as Palestinians are denied freedom, then the path to the "peace of the brave" that I embarked upon with my late partner Yitzhak Rabin, will be littered with obstacles.
The Palestinian people have been denied their freedom for far too long and are the only people in the world still living under foreign occupation. How is it possible that the entire world can tolerate this oppression, discrimination and humiliation? The 1993 Oslo Accord, signed on the White House lawn, promised the Palestinians freedom by May 1999. Instead, since 1993, the Palestinian people have endured a doubling of Israeli settlers, expansion of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and increased restrictions on freedom of movement. How do I convince my people that Israel is serious about peace while over the past decade Israel intensified the colonization of Palestinian land from which it was ostensibly negotiating a withdrawal?
But no degree of oppression and no level of desperation can ever justify the killing of innocent civilians. I condemn terrorism. I condemn the killing of innocent civilians, whether they are Israeli, American or Palestinian; whether they are killed by Palestinian extremists, Israeli settlers, or by the Israeli government. But condemnations do not stop terrorism. To stop terrorism, we must understand that terrorism is simply the symptom, not the disease.
The personal attacks on me currently in vogue may be highly effective in giving Israelis an excuse to ignore their own role in creating the current situation. But these attacks do little to move the peace process forward and, in fact, are not designed to. Many believe that Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, given his opposition to every peace treaty Israel has ever signed, is fanning the flames of unrest in an effort to delay indefinitely a return to negotiations. Regrettably, he has done little to prove them wrong. Israeli government practices of settlement construction, home demolitions, political assassinations, closures and shameful silence in the face of Israeli settler violence and other daily humiliations are clearly not aimed at calming the situation.
2.
From: http://commondreams.org/headlines02/0204-03.htm
Published on Monday, February 4, 2002 by the Associated Press
World Economic Forum Takes Left Turn
by Jim Krane
NEW YORK (AP) - They came in solidarity with this terror-wounded city.
But since they arrived, speaker after speaker at the World Economic Forum has lambasted America as a smug superpower, too beholden to Israel at the expense of the Muslim world, and inattentive to the needs of poor countries or the advice of allies.
With the forum wrapping up its five-day session Monday, some of the criticism has been simple scolding by non-Western leaders. But a large measure has come in public soul-searching by U.S. politicians and business leaders. U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., cited a global poll that characterized Americans as selfish and bent on arranging the global economy for their own benefit.
``We've not done our fair share to take on some of the global challenges'' like poverty, disease and women's rights, Clinton said Sunday. ``We need to convince the U.S. public that this is a role that we have to play.'' Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates warned that the terms of international trade were too favorable to the rich world, a disparity that feeds resentment.
``People who feel the world is tilted against them will spawn the kind of hatred that is very dangerous for all of us,'' Gates said. ``I think it's a healthy sign that there are demonstrators in the streets. They are raising the question of 'is the rich world giving back enough?'''
CLIP
In a curious convergence, the titans of business and politics at the meeting have seized on many of the same socially liberal issues that they have been accused of ignoring at past gatherings. The forum's agenda may have taken some of the steam out of street protests, which were sparse except for Saturday's turnout of about 7,000 demonstrators, and has even paralleled issues under discussion at the World Social Forum, an anti-globalization conference under way in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
In Brazil, speakers on Saturday condemned the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, with one comparing the practice to apartheid-era South Africa's creation of ``Bantustans,'' which were economically poor areas designated as homelands for blacks.
In New York, guests heard a similar message Sunday. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. national security adviser, warned that Palestinian violence risked evolving into large-scale urban terror, while Israel's response ``will slide into a pattern of behavior that resembles the South Africans.'' However, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Sunday he saw ``a ray of hope'' for Mideast peace. New talks with the Palestinians could lead to a cease-fire, and mutual recognition of a Palestinian state and Israel's right to exist, he said.
Jordan's King Abdullah II called for ``international intervention to help steer the parties from the brink,'' arguing that the ``burning injustice of Palestine'' had ``fed extremism around the world.'' Brzezinski called for Washington to create a parallel social campaign to temper the anger against its military campaign against terrorism, to ``appeal to a better future'' in poor countries. ``It's very easy for the U.S. to slide into a kind of global alliance for the sake of repression,'' Brzezinski said.
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chided his colleagues in Congress for giving too much foreign aid to Israel, the largest recipient of American help, and said too little aid flows to the neediest. ``I've been critical of the aid we've given to Israel,'' Leahy said in an interview. ``But the same complaint could be made of a number of wealthy Muslim countries. They're not giving aid to the poorest of their own people.''
3.
Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002
From: Robert Cain <rcain2@carolina.rr.com>
Subject: The man who knew too much
The whistleblower named Baxter was a key player who spoke out against ENRON's use of the LJM partnership to conceal hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. According to Baxter's lawyer, Baxter was going to cooperate with investigators. Oddly, the car in which Baxter's body was stopped in a turning lane between two medians in the middle of a major street, a rather atypical location for a suicide committed in a car.
In addition, it is reported that the suicice gun was found in Baxter's hand. This alone rules out a genuine suicide, as the recoil of a fired .38 will remove it from a hand deprived of any nerve control from the brain.
From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/27/wenron27.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/01/27/ixworld.html
The man who knew too much (27/01/2002)
CLIFFORD BAXTER, the former vice-chairman of Enron, knew the secrets of the firm's bankruptcy. But he took them with him to the grave last week in a death that has unleashed scores of conspiracy theories on Capitol Hill.
As he lay dying in the front seat of his Mercedes Benz, a revolver and suicide note by his side, across town in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land his lawyer was on the telephone driving a hard bargain.
Though Baxter, 43, the wealthy former vice-chairman of Enron, the bankrupt energy company, had not yet been summoned to give evidence at the long-awaited Congress hearing into what has become one of America's worst financial scandals, he knew that it was only a matter of time.
In the days before his death, Congressional investigators had tried to contact him. Within days, his lawyer had warned him, he was likely to be subpoenaed.
As, on Friday, the lawyer thrashed out the terms under which Baxter would appear as a witness, police were already smashing the back window of his locked car having been called by a passer-by who had spotted his body slumped over the driving wheel.
At first it seemed a clear case of suicide. While police refused to disclose the contents of the note that Baxter left, close friends have revealed that it spoke of his depression at the prospect of having to testify against his former colleagues.
James Richard, the Fort Bend County Justice of the Peace, decreed that there was "no evidence of foul play", saying there was no need for a post-mortem examination.
Within hours, however, he had overturned that decision, prompted by the news that, in his final days, Baxter had confided that he may "need to get a bodyguard".
The news of Baxter's death has stunned America's financial world to whom he has always been something of an enigma. It is, too, a serious blow to Congressional and criminal inquiries into how Enron fell from being one of the most admired businesses in America to bankruptcy in a few months.
CLIP
Though believed to be one of the "whistle blowers" on Enron's financial mismanagement - last August a senior employee warned executives that Baxter was "telling anyone who would listen" about the "inappropriateness of our transaction" - his reaction to colleagues who congratulated him on his moral stance was, at times, bizarre.
"When I told him, two days ago, that he had done a good thing, he broke down in tears and said something about how he might need a bodyguard," said one friend.
When Baxter resigned, it was, ostensibly, to spend more time with Carol, his wife and their two children, aged 16 and 11. Yet he had always put his family before his career. Though a hard worker, he always left his desk at 6pm to drive home.
CLIP
Among those who believe that he may have been murdered there are whispers that Baxter "knew where the bodies were buried". Certainly there are several senior executives whose reputations - and liberty - could be at risk once investigations reveal the truth of what happened at Enron.
Undeniably, several of the top executives enjoyed a way of life clearly beyond their means and thousands of employees lost their pension investments in company stocks.
"It seemed to us that he was a pretty highly-placed insider at Enron who understood exactly what went wrong there," said James Greenwood, the chairman of the House of Commerce Committee's investigations sub committee, who led the public cross-examination of other witnesses last week.
CLIP
4.
Liberal Slant - liberalslant@entermail.net - wrote:
Smoking Gun in Enrongate - Let the impeachment begin?
By Mike Hersh - 01/24/02
Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Curtis Hebert, Jr. is going public with explosive allegations. Hebert says Enron CEO Ken Lay--the largest contributor to George Walker Bush--made improper demands.
When Lay threatened that his close friend Bush, would fire Hebert unless he obeyed, Hebert refused. Lay ordered Bush to fire Hebert, and Bush complied in August 2001. Hebert has been on record about all of this for months, but he recently made a new, even more explosive charge. Hebert says Bush also let Lay INTERVIEW him and other candidates for FERC Chairman in the first place!
In a nutshell: Enron gave Bush $millions to sponsor his rise from a losing Candidate for the US House to the "leader of the free world." In return, Bush gave Enron "hireand fire" authority over the FERC, and performed other favors in return for money. This directly and personally ties Bush to the Enrongate scandal in all its illegality.
Bush betrayed his oath to the American people when he let Ken Lay hand pick regulatory watchdogs we entrusted to prevent the massive meltdown that cost Americans $billions. This makes letting the fox guard the hen house look like tender loving fiduciary care.
This is nothing new for Bush, who fired Texas Funeral Service Commission (TFSC) director Eliza May in retaliation for her investigations of Service Corporation International and its CEO Robert Waltrip. Waltrip--like Enron's Lay--is a longtime Bush patron.
Bush lied under oath regarding this political quid-pro-quo, then he and SCI settled a lawsuit to keep May quiet. Texas taxpayers picked up $155,000 of the hush money tab, while SCI paid May the other $55,000, according to a Dallas Morning News story published 11/09/2001. Texans know this scandal as "Funeralgate."
The Rule of Law requires that Bush testify under oath about Funeralgate, his and his Brother John Ellis Bush's Votergate activities during the 2000 election in Florida, and Enrongate. We already know George Walker Bush has an established pattern of helping his friends and backers evade regulation and possibly even criminal charges!
We must demand action now, because Enron and its accountants at Anderson have been destroying evidence by the box-load. We must know what Bush did, and why he did it.
Enrongate is not just a Bush scandal: this is a Republican scandal. Other top GOP officials like VP Dick Cheney, White House advisor Karl Rove, House Leader Dick Armey and Sen. Phil Gramm also helped Enron plunder and evade regulation. They helped Enron rip off consumers, investors and employees.
Ignore Republican and media efforts to spin this as a business scandal or a bipartisan scandal. This is not about the generous, but legal contributions Enron made: 73% to Republicans, 27% to Democrats. This is a GOP political scandal because Republicans helped Enron pay no taxes in four out of five years, while hiding profits in offshore accounts. Despite the hype, no Democrat did anything of the sort.
Even with all these special favors, golden boy Ken Lay ran Enron into the ground. Adding insult to injury, if not perfidy to perjury, the Republican "stimulus porkage" aims to give Enron and Lay even MORE of your tax money.
This Republican scandal exposes GOP corruption at the highest levels, but more profoundly, it reveals the bankruptcy of the GOP "government is the problem" ideology. It blows the lid off Bush's Enronomics, and his plan to Enronitize Social Security, energy and other policies.
I am currently working on another article concerning these fundamental failures in Republican philosophy. For now, back to the immediate scandal. Already, Armey and Gramm are quitting politics to escape Enrongate, but ending their careers to enjoy tax-paid pensions may not be enough to satisfy justice and the Rule of Law.
These top Republicans--all outspoken critics of President Clinton's conduct in office--should welcome full-scale investigations into their own apparent influence pedling. As should House Whip Tom DeLay, VP Cheney, George Walker Bush, and other GOP leaders. As should Ken Lay, Sen. Gramm's wife Wendy--a former regulator turned Enron board member.
If they broke the law, they should pay the penalty. That's been the Republican mantra for nearly a decade. Let them prove they meant it by volunteering to testify before the US Senate--under oath, on national television. If they're innocent, what do they have to fear? They should welcome the opportunity to come clean or set the record straight.
Despite their nonstop pontificating about others' lacking accountability, I'm not confident these Republicans will step up and do the right thing. We must take it upon ourselves to demand justice and uphold the Rule of Law. Call the media and your elected officials NOW to make sure they understand the real issues in Enrongate, Funeralgate, and Votergate.
Let the investigations, perhaps even impeachment begin!
Mike Hersh is a contributing writer for
Liberal Slant: http://fp.enter.net/~haney/
See also:
ENRON-BUSH-WTC-OIL-CONNECTION - Part I of III
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/enron_bush.htm
Bush: No 'Fishing' For Info Allowed in Enron Debacle
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=16585
MURDER + ENRON-BUSH-WTC-OIL-CONNECTION
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17067
The Enron Web - Arthur Andersen Consultant Shot Dead In Dec.
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17075
Harris County medical examiner fined for illegal autopsier
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17068
Complaint against Defendants: ENRON
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17073
DEAR APFN MODERATOR! YOU MADE MY DAY!
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17070
`In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.'
http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html
Cheney Says Won't Turn Over List of Energy Meetings
http://www.truthout.com/01.28A.Cheney.No.htm
Why Did an Exec Who'd Sounded the Alarm Kill Himself?
http://www.truthout.com/01.28B.Climbing.Walls.htm
William Rivers Pitt | Friends in High Places
http://www.truthout.com/01.28C.WP.High.Places.htm
Despite His Qualms, Scandal Engulfed Executive
http://www.truthout.com/01.28D.Baxter.Qualms.htm
Sierra Club Files Suit Against Cheney's Energy Task Force
http://www.truthout.com/01.28F.Sierra.Cheney.htm
GAO Vows to Sue For Cheney Files | Hill Probes Enron Influence on Task Force
http://www.truthout.com/01.27C.GAO.Vows.htm
The Woman Who Saw Red | Enron Whistle-Blower Sherron Watkins Warned of the Trouble to Come
http://www.truthout.com/01.27F.Saw.Red.htm
5.
NEAR CAPACITY CROWDS TURN OUT TO HEAR MIKE RUPPERT LECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO - Q&A LASTS FOR 3 HOURS
MIKE RUPPERT GIVEN A STANDING OVATION
TORONTO - [FTW, January 20, 2002 - Posted to the Web, January 25, 2002]
Near capacity crowds turned out in the 500 seat auditorium of the University of Toronto's medical school for two lectures by FTW publisher Michael Ruppert as he continues to use government documents, insider books and reports, congressional records, and mainstream press reports to expose US government complicity in and foreknowledge of the attacks of last September 11th.
"We didn't know how Canadians would react," said the co-organizer of the event Susan Bulger-Bullen of Sumari seminars. "But their interest was high and Mike's detailed and documented evidence was so compelling that I think he's changed Toronto forever, maybe Canada too." The attendance the first day was only around 250-300 because of confusion about the advertised location. However, the second lecture was filled to near capacity in the double-decked auditorium.
"Once the lecture began, the Canadian audience sucked up every bit of evidence Ruppert presented as though they had just discovered water, Bulger-Bullen added. "Nobody moved for five hours."
Using the same basic format as his November 28th lecture at Portland State University, Ruppert presented newer material, including charts from a two-part FTW series by geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer (December/January) on the coming end of the age of oil and the massive dislocations it is destined to produce. "It is imperative," Ruppert said, "that people know that world oil production will peak within the next five years, never to be exceeded again," said Ruppert. "This, at a time when world population is rapidly increasing and demand, especially in China, the Far East and the developing world, is soaring. This is the reason for the wars that will not end in our lifetimes."
In his two plus hour lecture Ruppert detailed the meshing necessities for the CIA, acting as an agent of globalization, to control both the drug cash and the oil of Central Asia. "People got it when I pointed out that even if we started on a crash program to convert to other energy sources, the civilization could not change away from oil quickly enough to avert the crisis. And when I described the economic dislocations involved, the millions of people who work in the plastics, power, auto and oil industries who would be thrown out of work in such an effort, people understood that this crisis is not going away with wishful thinking. That doesn't even begin to consider all of the money that would be taken out of the economy if those people lost their jobs."
"Mike did an absolutely amazing job and was superbly eloquent," said Dr. Terry Burrows, a Toronto psychiatrist who attended both lectures. "No one in their right mind can see the evidence that he has gathered and not understand that this is a war against all peoples of the world and that the official position is so absurd as to be laughable."
Canada has seen a flurry of legislation stripping the civil rights of its citizens since September 11th. Bills C-36 and C-42 have stripped away many of the rights held sacred in Canada and Canadians are becoming increasingly alarmed since their combat troops have been sent to fight in Afghanistan. Canada is widely known as a quiet nation, more peacekeeper than war maker.
"What helped tremendously here was getting Mike on local talk radio before the event. Canadians tend to be skeptical, but Mike's performance was amazing and the buzz is still continuing. One guy who is writing his doctoral thesis called and said that he would be using Mike's material for research," said co-organizer Loretta Stirbys. "If we had him back here today we could bring out a thousand people with no effort. I mean they gave him a standing ovation and kept him going for almost three hours with questions after the lecture. There were as many people there at the end as when he began. Emails are still flying all over Canada."
Mike lectures next at Schreiner University in Kerrville west Texas on January 30th. Additional lectures are pending or confirmed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Detroit, New York City, Great Britain and Australia. Information will be posted on the FTW web site.
Photos of the Toronto event are available with this story at http://www.copvcia.com.
6.
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/25/international/europe/25CHEC.html
Police in Chechnya Accuse Russia's Troops of Murder
By PATRICK E. TYLER
ROZNY, Russia, Jan. 22 — Nearly two years after major hostilities ended here in Chechnya, the devastated republic in the Caucasus, Russian troops are killing civilians in a campaign of executions and looting that takes place alongside military operations aimed at destroying rebel forces, according to Chechen police officials.
Chechen police authorities working under the republic's pro-Russian government said in interviews over the past week that Russian Interior Ministry units, known by their acronym, Obron, have been scouting neighborhoods during mine-sweeping operations for residents who appear to have money or property worth stealing.
At night, the soldiers return in armored personnel carriers, some with identifying markings, and burst into the houses, stealing household goods and killing witnesses, Chechen police investigators say.
In the central Leninsky district of Grozny, skeletal shards of buildings teeter above a landscape of debris that evokes scenes from European cities destroyed in World War II. The rubble now lies sealed under a winter blanket of snow as thousands of Chechen families eke out an isolated existence in bomb-damaged homes.
In Leninsky, the largest of Grozny's four districts, Chechen investigators have documented 17 cases in the last 12 months implicating Interior Ministry troops in killing civilians during looting. One of the most notorious of the units is known as Obron-22, the Chechens say.
But in each case, military and civilian prosecutors have refused to bring criminal cases, the police said. Instead, the prosecutors set aside files as inactive or return them with demands to provide the names of soldiers involved.
"These units burst into people's houses on the pretext of `mopping up' operations and commit murders," said Alvi Magomed-Mirzoyev, a police lieutenant colonel who returned to Grozny from Moscow a year ago to lead a criminal investigation department in Leninsky.
In Moscow, the Interior Ministry, the Defense Ministry and prosecutors were asked to comment on these allegations, but declined.
Chechen police authorities are drawing up a republic-wide list of unsolved killings of civilians in which federal forces have been implicated by witnesses, but which prosecutors have refused to pursue. One senior member of the Chechen administration in Grozny, taking a significant risk, provided documents on 163 such cases compiled under the heading, "Some cases of detention by representatives of the federal forces of civilians who subsequently disappeared or were found dead."
"These are the conditions we are living under," he said as he handed over the document and disappeared into a police headquarters building where Chechen recruits are certified and inducted into the new force.
A typical case in the file is that of Magomed H. Vakhidov, 57, once mayor of Urus-Martan, just south of Grozny. He fled Chechnya when the second war with Russia broke out in September 1999; a year later he sought and received an amnesty to return home.
But at 3 a.m. on July 20, 2001, a squad of Russian soldiers fired smoke grenades into his home and then burst in and arrested him, according to the documents. Russian military authorities denied taking him into custody. On July 31, his body was found in the gardens of a state farm, badly mutilated from torture, electric shock, knife wounds and burns from a blow torch.
Russian officials routinely attribute such killings to "rebels." But, as one Chechen police official noted, "the rebels do not travel in armored personnel carriers."
A number of unsolved cases relate to Chechen rebels who took advantage of amnesties issued by Moscow and by Russian military commanders.
In March 2000, after Russian forces had driven rebel forces from Grozny, Roman S. Bersanukayev, 19, turned himself in to the commander of Russia's 245th Motorized Rifle Regiment near Martan-Chu, near Urus-Martan.
When his relatives asked the local office of the Federal Security Service about his status, they were given a document showing that no criminal proceedings would be lodged against him. They also received an amnesty certificate signed by the Russian military commandant for the district, Y. A. Naumov. But Mr. Bersanukayev then disappeared from federal custody and is feared dead.
"I am an officer and I took an oath to Russia to uphold the law," said Colonel Magomed-Mirzoyev, the policeman, "but I am sick and tired of being afraid and I hate the lawlessness that is going on here, and I want to do everything I can to bring it to an end."
On a visit to Paris this month, President Vladimir V. Putin asserted that Russian troops committing acts of violence against Chechen civilians were being held accountable and that judicial and law enforcement organs were functioning normally. "About 20 servicemen have already been brought to justice," he said.
By lending strong support to President Bush's war against terrorism, Mr. Putin has successfully blunted Western criticism of Russian conduct in Chechnya. Several governments have suggested that Russia had more justification for its actions than had been acknowledged.
But the situation on the ground has continued to fester.
CLIP
