Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Chechnya.

Read this from Slate:

""Our neighbors came out to see what was happening. They cocked their heavy machine gun and said: 'Stop or we'll shoot!' " Soltukhanova recalls. The men then checked the family's passports and documents. They then bundled Davletukaev into one of the jeeps; that was the last time his family saw him alive.

Davletukaev's murder fits a definite pattern. As in many cases, the armed men had no insignia on their uniforms; the unit markings on their vehicles were obscured.

According to Shakhman Akbulatov, a representative of the Russian human rights organization Memorial in Nazran, it's difficult to know who is doing the abducting in Chechnya. In many cases, he tells me, federal units are involved; more recently, though, the disappearances are attributed to "Kadyrovtsy"—militias loyal to Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed president of Chechnya."