Three eyes and ink on my fingers

Today’s attacks on the Moscow subway aren’t the first staged by women in Russia. One can easily remember the images of the aftermath of the Dubrovka’s theatre siege back in 2002, where women lied dead, dressed head-to-toe in black and wearing the so-called “Martyr’s belt” filled with explosives.

Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for today’s blasts but a lot of voices point to the Chechen “black widows”. The only one who has ever survived explained in 2004 how, after years struggling to survive the devastation brought by a decade of war by stealing and borrowing money, there was just one way she could pay her debts.

This is an article with some interesting information on the “zombiefication” and brainwashing these women face. The author sets the majority of them far from any religious fundamentalism and places them “somewhere between election and coercion”.

Chechenia’s deadly “black widows” by Viv Groskop

Photocomposition by Carme Riera, featuring original footage from the Nord-Ost siege and a painting by John Keane

Russian Prime Minister, Valdimir Putin, still rules Russia. Current president, Dimitri Medvedev, isn’t much more than the wild card that Putin used two years ago in the end of its game as the russian president in order to ensure that he could still command from some hidden room inside the Kremlin until he can be reelected in 2012 presidential elections.  All efforts to hide the threads that connect Medvedev to Putin’s hands are roughly cloaked. The president has its mouth full of promises to modernize the country on a democratic basis, he lets the opposition media interview him and even dares to meet NGO workers to ensure them a less dangerous environment to do their job. Meanwhile, Putin watches his puppet and nods at its words, knowing that those aren’t more than void terms. The international community benefits from pretending to believe this supposed change of orientation by the russian giant because it erases all the guilty conscience the reality causes to them: Russia is an authoritarian state and its power is huge, it grows inside the pipelines that it stretches out like tentacles to the countries that need the energy that this veins provide to them to survive. This power wire keeps the whole world silent to the crimes that Russia is committing against the few that raise their voice and this situation won’t change until the way to stop depending on russian gas and oil is found.

EL PODER INDISSIMULAT DE PUTIN (catalan version)

El primer ministre rus, Vladimir Putin, continua governant Rússia i decidint en tots i cadascun dels aspectes del país. L’actual president, Dimitri Medvedev, no és més que el comodí que Putin va jugar fa dos anys al final de la seva partida com a president rus per assegurar-se la possibilitat de continuar dirigint des d’alguna sala amagada del Kremlin fins que pugui ser reelegit a les eleccions presidencials de l’any 2012. Els intents d’amagar els fils que lliguen Medvedev a les mans de Putin són insultantment mal disfressats. L’actual president s’omple la boca de promeses de modernitzar el país sobre una base democràtica, cedeix entrevistes a mitjans contraris al Kremlin i s’atreveix a rebre representants d’oenagés per assegurar-los facilitats en la seva feina. Mentrestant, Putin observa el seu ninot i assenteix a les seves paraules sabent que no són més que això: mots buits de capintenció. A la comunitat internacional li va molt bé fer veure que creu en aquest pretès canvi d’orientació del gegant rus perquè així elimina tot el sentiment de culpa que li genera la realitat: Rússia és un Estat autoritari i el seu poder és immens, neix i s’alimenta dels gasoductes i oleoductes que fa arribar com tentacles als països que necessiten l’energia que els proporcionen aquests vasos sanguinis per subsistir. Aquesta xarxa de poder manté en silenci al món sencer davant els crims que l’Estat comet contra els pocs que aixequen la veu i la situació no canviarà fins que es trobi la manera de deixar de dependre de l’energia russa.

Some weeks ago the Freedom House Organization published a report on the freedom or lack of it in some countries and territories. Chechnya was classified as a territory without any kind of freedom. Asmik Zakaryan collaborates with a NGO specialized in the Caucasus conflicts. She didn’t want her name to appear because she feels frightened of having problems with the Kremlin so we’re using her nickname.

What’s the situation in Chechnya now?
It’s a peaceful country but just in terms of war because there isn’t one but I don’t think it’s really stable. The republics like Ingushetia or North Ossetia have a lot of problems with people being tortured or kidnapped. Chechnya as well but there it’s like a huge wave of this disaster.

The current president, Ramzan Kadyrov, appears to have a good image on some citizens.
He is the result of a friendship between Chechnya and the Kremlin, he does anything he wants with the country if he makes sure the citizens don’t bother the Kremlin. It’s true that he is constructing new buildings but there’s a lot of corruption. Some foundations give money for the reconstruction but a lot of people take advantage of it and don’t spend it on the good purpose. There are cases in which flats are given to people who paid some money to the public agency that is distributing them.

How do people react to this situation?
There are a lot of people who feels comfortable with this system because they just have to pay to get anything they want, they aren’t interested in living in a democratic country.

What about people who don’t have enough money?

We’re talking about people who get fifteen Euros a month. These people have so many problems that they aren’t really interested in wasting time asking for freedom.

A chechen woman stands outside her home in Chechnya / Eddy van Wessel

I suppose fear plays a big role in their decision as it’s known that critical voices tend to disappear.

If you don’t act in line with the government you can’t live there and if you have some relationship with a liberal view person you’ll have a lot of problems. You can’t go to the police because nobody will help you, it’s a lawless country.

How did people in Russia react to the murder of the lawyer and the journalism student?

There were some protests in Moscow and Chechnya but it’s not like here. There won’t be thousands of people protesting in the street. They think it’s not worth it.

What’s the situation of the media there?

There are a lot of journalists who leave their country because they can’t understand the way things are going on. Furthermore, they might get killed. There’re a lot of TV programs that used to criticize the government that have been closed and the rest can only be seen at 2 o’clock in the night.

We don’t get a lot of information coming from there. It seems like our media aren’t really interested in this issue.

I think that they aren’t interested in spreading out this kind of information about Russia because there’re so many economic and political interests. Chechnya was interesting some years ago with its’ two wars but what about now? You know, there’s “just” corruption, people disappearing and suffering… and that’s not interesting anymore.

Is it difficult for a foreign journalist to get to Chechnya?

You have to explain exactly why you want to go there, you need various permissions from the Russian government. There’re cases of journalists who had to pay around 6.000 Euros because they didn’t have the correct papers.

Do they feel presured when they’re in?

They’re controlled for sure but Russian journalists are under double pressure because they could be killed, while they can’t do so to the foreign ones if they have all the permits. They know that newspapers will have its’ own filters.

But, assuming that those filters won’t let critic visions about the Kremlin make it through, what about freelancers?
They probably won’t be allowed in and, if they’re, they’ll find it really difficult to work on proper conditions. Once the government invited international journalists to visit the country and what it did was to give away a great vision of the “reconstruction” of Chechnya and the way it was growing.