Free Is Journalism Worth Dying For?: Final Dispatches by Anna Politkovskaya, Arch Tait Page A

with the public mood in the North Caucasus than its competitors. The question, “Who bears the guilt for all this horror?,” is one people ask themselves when they wake, when they go to bed, and which they ask each other constantly.
    The rules were that anybody could nominate a candidate, and also vote, the winners to be decided by a simple majority. The results of this popular poll exceeded all expectations in the accuracy of the choice, which testifies to high public awareness of the true nature of events. But of course, who else could the winners be if not Yeltsin and Dudayev? And who could be awarded the second prize, if not Yeltsin’s worthy successor, Putin; that No. 1 ideologist of blood-letting, journalist Mikhail Leontiev; and that lover of personal power and big money, Akhmat-hadji Kadyrov? Also, of course, Basayev who has given all the above invaluable assistance in discrediting the Chechen resistance and reducing it to the status of “forces of international terrorism,” thereby effectively eliminating any chance of its cause being espoused.
    And the prizes? Those in second place, alas, get nothing but their negative rating. The winners of the first prize, however, receive certificates which they can collect from 52 Mutaliev Street, Nazran; a year’s subscription to Chechenskoye obshchestvo (very good analysis, we recommend it); and, most importantly, an all-expenses-paid three-day tour of the war zone in Chechnya. As Djohar Dudayev is no longer with us, Boris Yeltsin is duly awarded a six-day extreme memorial tour with an itinerary in whose construction he was actively involved.
    THE SOLDIERS’ MOTHERS GO OFF TO THINK ABOUT PROPOSALS FROM THE CHECHEN SIDE, BUT WILL IT STOP THE TERRORISM?
    February 28, 2005
    The latest development in Russia’s history is that in the sixth year of the Second Chechen War the first Russo-Chechen declaration of intent to restore peace in the North Caucasus has been signed in London. It is in English, and is not available in Russian. It is called “The Road to Peace and Stability in Chechnya (the London Memorandum).” The signing took place on February 25, 2005 when women representing the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, after several unsuccessful attempts to find somewhere in Europe to discuss a peace settlement with Maskhadov’s representatives, finally came to London, the capital of the new Russian emigration. There they met with those whom Aslan Maskhadov had delegated to meet them on behalf of the Chechen resistance (Amina Saiev, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ichkeria, Akhmed Zakayev, Maskhadov’s Special Envoy in Europe, and Yaragi Abdullayev).
    [The following account of the prehistory is taken from Anna Politkovskaya’s article, “The Struggle for Peace Is Deadly Dangerous,” Novaya gazeta , October 25, 2004.]
    On October 9, a Saturday, when it usually becomes slightly quieter in the cramped Moscow office of the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia and it is possible to think about something other than the immediate concerns of receiving soldiers, conscripts and their parents, Valentina Melnikova, a member of the Union’s Co-ordinating Committee, and Ida Kuklina, a member of the President’s Commission on Human Rights, sat down together. They discussed what is preoccupying nearly all the human rights organizations: the state authorities’ manifest inability to cope with the Chechen crisis, the continuing acts of terrorism, and what the Soldiers’ Mothers movement could do to change the situation. It was time to act.
    Thus did the idea of writing an open letter to the field commanders of the Chechen resistance come into being. A further three days were spent revising and discussing it with members of the Committee, and on October 13 the following brief text was released to the news agencies:
We understand the cost of the armed violence in Chechnya; it involves immense and irreparable losses for the Chechen people.