June 2001
Summary of main news related to the conflict in Chechnya.
June 2
Russian human rights activist, Victor Alekseyevich Popkov, whose car was attacked in Chechnya on April 18 by unknown assailants, died of his wounds in a hospital in Krasnogorsk near Moscow.
OSCE monitoring post was reopened on Georgia-Chechnya border. The Chechen section of the border is monitored by 39 observers whose mandate has been extended till November 15, 2001.
June 3
Chief commander of the federal forces in the Northern Caucasus, general Genadiy Troshev, supported the idea of public executions of Chechen fighters. According to Troshev, an award of up to 1 million USD for apprehension of the top Chechen commanders “could [also] facilitate the peace in the republic.”
June 4
Parliamentary hearings on the situation of the disappeared and forcibly detained in Chechnya were held in the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament. According to the presidential envoy for human rights in Chechnya, Vladimir Kalamanov, a total of 930 people are officially listed as missing in Chechnya.
Chechnya's deputy in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Aslanbek Aslakhanov, said that he would resign if the human rights situation in Chechnya, which "was bad but now has become even worse", does not improve by fall.
June 5
Ten thousand Chechen refugees living in Ingushetia have signed a petition urging the international public to put pressure on Russian authorities to stop the war in Chechnya.
June 6
Local administration head of the village Gekhi-Chu Lema Idrisov was killed in the Urus-Martan district. Seventeen administration officials and six heads of village administrations have been killed in Chechnya since January.
Head of the Grozny district administration Shakhid Djamaldayev announced that following the murder of Lema Idrisov, three village administration officials handed in their resignations because of insufficient measures that would guarantee their personal security.
The pro-Russian Chechen government adopted a temporary provision regulating the stay of international non-governmental organizations (INO) in the republic. In addition to regular documents, INO representatives will have to carry copies confirming the corresponding international agreements and registration in the Russian Justice Ministry, and a permit, granted by the pro-Russian Chechen government, giving the right to take up humanitarian activity on the republic's territory.
June 7
The European Commission said it had earmarked additional 14.5 million euro for the victims of the conflict in Chechnya.
June 8
Dagestan's minister for information, national policy and foreign links Magomedsalikh Gusayev was injured when a plastic explosive device went off outside his house.
June 9
Almost 309,000 Chechens are currently living outside of their homes and have been officially registered as temporarily displaced persons, announced the head of the department for crisis situations of the Russian Ministry of Federation Affairs, Nationalities and Migration Policy, Vladimir Pavlenko.
According to the head of the pro-Russian Chechen administration Akhmad Kadyrov, heads of municipal, district and village authorities as well as religious leaders in Chechnya will receive personal arms which should improve their safety.
June 10
Lukman Madalov, head of the administration of village Valerik in the Achkhoy-Martan district, was shot dead in his house. His wife was seriously wounded during the incident.
June 11
The curfew in Chechnya was reduced by two hours, according to an order of the commander of the North Caucasian military district, Gen. Gennady Troshev. Movement on Chechen roads is thus allowed from 5:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m.
June 13
Russian Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov announced the appointment of Lt-Gen Sergey Shchadrin as new head of the North Caucasian department of the ministry. - Interfax
Secretary of the Belorechye village administration in the Gudermes district, Yakub Nogmirzayev, was shot dead by unknown gunmen.
June 14
Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalyov, on behalf of the Committee for Ending War and Restoring Peace in Chechnya, urged the leaders of the G7 and US President George W. Bush to force the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the war in Chechnya. The Committee sent US president and the other G7 leaders a letter in an appeal to “raise with President Putin the necessity of immediately beginning peace talks between Russia and the Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.”
Two Russian Su-25 jets crashed in the mountainous Southern Chechnya.
About 2,000 Chechen refugees in Ingushetia held a rally in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in the Sunzhensky district calling for an immediate end of the war and the possibility for independent journalists as well as representatives of international human rights organizations to enter the territory of Chechnya.
June 15
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) re-opened its office in the village of Znamenskoye, in the northwestern part of Chechnya, after a thirty-month halt of its activities in the republic.
June 16
European leaders gathered for EU summit in Göteborg, Sweden, expressed serious concern about the situation in Chechnya. “A political solution to the conflict is urgently needed. Reported violations of human rights should be thoroughly investigated in order to bring perpetrators to trial,” says the draft conclusion of the summit.
June 18
Beslan Gantamirov, former mayor of the Chechen capital Grozny, was presented as the newly appointed chief federal inspector in the office of presidential envoy in the Southern Federal District by the head of the office, Viktor Kazantsev. Among other things, Gantamirov should coordinate the work on Chechnya’s new constitution.
June 19
Three car bombs exploded in the second largest Chechen town Gudermes, killing two civilians and one policeman, and injuring some three dozen others.
June 20
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov approved the establishment of federal state commercial company "Board for Building and Reconstruction Work in the Chechen Republic", which should implement federal programmes, and appointed Anatoly Popov its chief executive officer.
The head of the department for crisis situations in the Russian Ministry of Federation Affairs, Nationalities and Migration Policy, Vladimir Pavlenko, conceded that Chechen refugees worry to go back home for security reasons. - Interfax
June 21
Several hundred civilians, mostly women and children, held a rally in the village Koshkeldy in the the Gudermes district, blocking the Rostov – Baku road and calling for the release of their relatives and countrymen detained after the explosions in Gudermes on June 19.
June 22
In the middle of June 2001 the Russian Ministry of Federation Affairs, Nationalities and Migration Policy registered a total of 374,600 Chechen refugees, of whom over 225,700 lived in Chechnya itself, 136,100 in Ingushetia, 5,800 in the Stavropol region, 4,500 in Dagestan, and 2,400 in Northern Osetia, said deputy head of the ministry's department for crisis situations, Valery Movchan. - Interfax.
June 24
Chechen field commander Arbi Barayev, who became ill-famed for kidnapping, was killed during a special operation carried out in recent days in Alkhan-Kala and its surroundings. – FSB
Compiled by Prague Watchdog. |
