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Nobody is born a terrorist

Ruslan Isayev, North Caucasus – The number of terrorist attacks in Russia is multiplying. The last three, the crashing of two airplanes flying from Moscow to southern Russia, the explosion at the Rizhskaya metro station in Moscow and the seizure of hostages in the North Ossetian town of Beslan, all took place within a single week, an unprecedented occurrence.

Many observers and residents of Chechnya say the cycle of violence has long been established. Widespread repressive measures from the federal authorities in Chechnya are followed by terrorist attacks from the most radical faction of Chechen guerrillas. In both cases it is the civilian population who suffers.

“Colonel” Khachubarov

Galashki is situated in the Ingush hills on the Chechen border, a village spread over several kilometers and home to about seven thousand people. This is the birthplace of Ruslan Khachubarov, aka “The Colonel”, believed to be the leader of the hostage seizure in the school in Beslan.

Ruslan’s father, Tagir, lives on the outskirts of the village where he has a panoramic view of the green mountains. For a long time he refused to talk to me, but in the end, turned out to be a pleasant, elderly man.

A tractor driver for most of his life, Tagir recently sold his tractor, bought an old Zhiguli car and became a taxi driver. He lives alone, in an adobe hut of two rooms. This is his story:

“Ruslan’s mother was a Chechen. We divorced when he was just over two years old, and she took him with her. For a while they lived in the Stavropolsky region, then moved to Orekhovo in the Achkhoi-Martanovsky district in Chechnya.

When he grew up, I think he lived in the town of Orel in Russia. He ran away from there after he killed two Armenians in self defense and he's been on the run ever since. The last time I saw him was in 1999 when he came to see me for a few hours.

When I heard about what had happened in Beslan, I never thought for a moment that Ruslan might have been there. He often visited me when he was a boy. In winter he'd go off with his relatives to pick ramsons (wild garlic), and then they'd sell them. Nobody ever said anything bad about him. He was not a terrorist.

I still don’t believe he was there. My son is not a terrorist. Politics now are just like they were [under Stalin] in 1937. The powers that be can put a label on a person just to slander them.”

Tagir’s second son, Bashir, was killed several years ago, in the first Chechen war, when he fought on the side of Chechen guerrillas. He was in a forest surrounded by the federals and when he ran out of ammunition, he blew himself up with a grenade.

Even before the events in Beslan, members of the special forces have been to the street where the Khachubarovs live. Tagir no longer has any photographs of his sons; they were all taken away for investigation. Sometimes they broke into the house during the night or in the early hours of the morning.

All this began after the guerrillas launched a raid into Ingushetia in June and Ruslan Khachubarov was named for the first time as one of those who took part.

In July, one of Tagir’s neighbors, a combine operator, was shot in his own yard. Five or six vehicles arrived with people in masks, who handcuffed him, lead him out into the yard and shot him. Dozens of bullet wounds were found in his body.

Neighbors and several relatives who were forced to witness the murder, claim that the attackers were from official structures and spoke Russian without any accent. Nobody can think of a reason why the combine operator was killed. Maybe they confused the numbers of the houses: the Khachubarovs live at No 11 and the victim at No 1.

But there is still no justification for what happened. Nobody has the right to shoot a completely subdued person in handcuffs. This is a new tactic, intended to intimidate.

Tagir lives alone with his cat in his house once full of people. “There is no one left,” sighs the elderly man, father of the person accused of seizing the school in Beslan.

Satsita Dzhebirkhanova

On August 24, two airplanes flying from Moscow crashed in southern Russia. Several days were needed to come to the conclusion that the airplanes were blown up by two Chechen women by the names of Dzhebirkhanova and Nagayeva. Their passports were allegedly discovered among the wreckage.

I managed to speak with the brother of Satsita Dzhebirkhanova, Husein Dzhebirkhanov.

“I found out my sister was on the plane when investigators from the prosecutor’s office came to me. The whole thing seems a bit confusing to me. How could they have carried the explosives onto the plane without any help? There’s a lot of inference going on here, like in a detective novel.

My brother and sister have given blood to help establish the identity of the person killed using Satsita's passport. Maybe it was her. I don't know. I also don't know what would have induced her to do such a thing. She'd been working for over a year, selling goods at the local market that she'd bring from [the Dagestani town of]Khasav-Yurt or Azerbaidzhan.

She taught herself to read the Koran when she was still a child, and she strictly followed its instructions. She also wore a large shawl and a long dress with long sleeves.

Whether she made contact with the guerrillas, I didn’t know. But I am sure of one thing, and that is that those who carried out this terrorist attack and who took hostages in Beslan were directed by somebody powerful. You need a whole system in order to do these things. Someone wanted to say, look, this is who you are fighting. This is where you need to look for your answers.

My brother worked in the Shariah court before this war. He was killed several years ago in Dagestan , but now is not the time to avenge his death, we’re not thinking about that now. I cannot say why she did this.

These terrorist attacks are necessary for someone. Solzhenitsyn said that violence is concealed by nothing except lies, and a lie is maintained by violence. It’s the liars who will lose, I’m sure of that.”

Husein is waiting to hear from the Rostov forensic laboratory about the results of the analysis verifying the identity of the dead woman whose passport carried his sister's name. He has little doubt that it could be her.

Ruslan Isayev is Prague Watchdog's North Caucasus correspondent.

(U/T)