[The reporter interviews Chechen warlord-- and now President of Chechnya-- Ramzan Kadyrov]
Ramzan is rarely seen outside his village of Tsentoroy, one of the unsightliest of Chechen villages, unfriendly, ugly and swarming with murderous-looking armed men....Two or three years ago, those villagers whom Kadyrov did not trust were simply expelled....Kadyrov's men take part in combat operations...they arrest and interrogate people....; and they hold people prisoner in their cellars in Tsentoroy... Tsentoroy is above the law...Tsenteroy is where the decisions are taken....
After dark, Ramzan appears, surrounded by armed men. They are everywhere: in the courtyard, on the balcony, in the rooms. Some of them subsequently involve themselves in our conversation, commenting loudly and aggressively. Ramzan sprawls in an armchair crossing his legs, his foot, in a sock, almost level with my face...."We want to restore order not only in Chechnya, but throughout the north Caucasus," Ramzan begins. "We will fight anywhere in Russia. I have a directive to operate throughout the north Caucasus. Against the bandits."
Who does he call bandits? "Maskhadov, Basaev and the like...that is the main thing, to destroy them."
...Doesn't he think perhaps there's been enough fighting? "Of course there has....They carry on fighting. That is why we have to exterminate them."
...Perhaps it is time to... sit down to negotiate? "Who with?...Maskhadov is a pathetic old man...I respect Basaev as a warrior. He is not a coward. I pray to Allah that Basaev and I may meet in open combat."...
What if Basaev won? "No way. I will. In battle I always win."
What does Ramzan consider to be the strongest aspect of his personality? "What do you mean? I don't understand the question." What are his strengths? And his weaknesses? "I consider that I have no weaknesses. I am strong. Alu Alkhanov was made president because I consider that he is strong and I trust him 100%. Do you think the Kremlin decides that? The people choose. It's the first time anyone has told me the Kremlin has a say in anything." No more than an hour later, Ramzan was saying that absolutely everything was decided by the Kremlin, that the people were just cattle, and that he had been offered the presidency of Chechnya in the Kremlin immediately after his father's assassination, but had turned it down because he wanted to fight.
"If you left us in peace, we Chechens would have reunited long ago." Who does he mean by "you"? "Journalists, people like you. Russian politicians. You don't let us sort things out. You divide us. You come between Chechens. You personally are the enemy. You are worse than Basaev."
Who else are his enemies? "I don't have enemies. Only bandits to fight."
...What does he most enjoy doing? "Fighting. I am a warrior." Has he ever killed anyone himself? "No. I've always been in command."
But he is too young always to have been in command. Somebody must have given him orders. "Only my father. Nobody else ever gave me orders, or ever will."
Has he given orders to kill? "Yes...It is not I, but Allah. The Prophet said the Wahhabis [in the Chechen context, radical Islamic groups] must be destroyed."...When there are no more Wahhabis left, who will Kadyrov fight? "I will take up bee farming. Already I have bees, and bullocks, and fighting dogs."
Doesn't he feel sorry when dogs kill each other? "Not at all. I like it. I respect my dog Tarzan as much as a human being. He's a Caucasian sheepdog. Those are the most fair-minded dogs there are."
What other hobbies does he have? "I very much like women."
Doesn't his wife mind? "I don't tell her."
What education has he had? "Higher education, law. I'm just finishing it. I am taking my exams."
What exams? "What do you mean, 'What exams?' The exams, that's all."
What's the institute called where he is studying? "It's a branch of the Moscow Institute of Business. In Gudermes. It's a law college."
What is he specialising in? "Law." But what kind of law? Criminal? Civil? "I can't remember. Someone wrote the topic down for me on a piece of paper, but I've forgotten. There's a lot going on at the moment."....
[After a terrifying interview which ends with RK shouting that he considers her "an enemy of the Chechen people," that she "should have to answer for this," Politkovskaya gets in the car to go back to Grozny.] "Kadyrov gives orders for me to be taken back to Grozny. Musa, a former fighter from Zakan-Yurt, sits at the wheel and there are two bodyguards. I get into the vehicle and think that somewhere along the route, in the dark, with checkpoints everywhere, I am obviously going to be killed. But the ex-fighter from Zakan-Yurt is just waiting for Ramzan to leave...when he starts telling me the story of his life...I know he is not going to kill me. He wants the world to hear his story. Even so, I sit there crying from fear and loathing-- tears of despair that history should have raised up, of all people, Ramzan Kadyrov. He really does have power, and rules according to his own ideas and abilities. "Don't cry," the fighter from Zakan-Yurt finally said to me. "You are strong."
It is an old story, repeated many times in our history: the Kremlin fosters a baby dragon, which it then has to keep feeding to stop him from setting everything on fire. There has been a total failure of the Russian intelligence services in Chechnya, something they try to represent as a victory and a "restoration of civilian life." But what about the people of Chechnya? They have to live with the baby dragon.
--Anna Politkovskaya (1958-2006), assassinated Russian journalist. From A Russian Diary, pub Apr 2007. Interview conducted in August 2004, extracts published in the U.K. Guardian, 20 March 2007
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