Читать книгу The Moscow Bombings of September 1999 - Dunlop John Colin - Страница 5

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, a leading Russian essayist and journalist, Anton Orekh, shared with readers his opinion of a factually inaccurate film devoted to those attacks which had just been aired on Russian state television (the “Rossiya” or second channel). The film’s treatment of America’s 9/11 tragedy prompted Orekh to segue into personal reflections concerning the Moscow terror bombings of September 1999. “For us,” Orekh observed,

“September is also a black month. On the September calendar, the bombings of the World Trade Center stand between those of Guryanov Street [September 9th] and Kashirka [September 13th]. But I for some reason don’t recall that, in the years since [1999], the ‘Rossiya’ channel or any other domestic channel has shown such a bold, unsparing and entertaining film about the true reasons for those bombings. About all the strange occurrences and mysteries. About the surprising coincidence in time of the bombings with the war in the Caucasus that followed them and with the ascent of Vladimir Putin.”[1]

Orekh then continued:

“For me personally the bombings of the apartment houses are a key moment in our most recent history. Because if those bombings were not accidental in the sequence of the events which followed; if, to put it bluntly, they were the work of our [Russian] authorities—then everything will once and forever take its proper place. Then there is not and cannot be an iota of illusion about [the nature of] those who rule us. Then those people are not minor or large-scale swindlers and thieves. Then they are among the most terrible of criminals.”

And he concluded: “They did not show a film about our September. And they won’t show one. And they will neither confirm nor dispel our doubts. That page in our history has already been closed for a long time.”

On the same day that Orekh’s reflections were posted on a liberal Russian web-site, a well-known Candadian journalist, Fred Weir, the Moscow correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, filed a report concerning a small gathering which had taken place on a Moscow street: “They are,” he wrote,

“Russia’s forgotten and abandoned victims of terror. A small forlorn-looking knot of people gathered on Moscow’s Kashirskoe Shosse [Kashirskii Highway] this morning as they do every year at this time, to mark and mourn the anniversary of devastating apartment bombings that are widely referred to as ‘Russia’s 9/11.’”[2]

“Though the 1999 bombings,” Weir continued his account, “led to vast upheaval and changed Russia fundamentally, not a single politician was on hand Tuesday to show solidarity with those who survived or lost loved ones in the 5 a.m. September 13 blast on Kashirskoe Shosse, which killed 119 people…No major Russian media covered their brief, tear-filled memorial service.” Weir then interviewed a Moscow businessman, Sergei Kalinchenko, who had lost a daughter in the bombing. “We feel abandoned and forgotten,” Kalinchenko confessed. “We still have no clear answers as to how it happened, and probably never will. It’s as if our sorrow doesn’t concern anyone at all.” Kalinchenko then confided to Weir that he had been astonished to see extensive Russian TV coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 in the US during the previous weekend. “Of course,” he said,

“we feel compassion and grief for what they [the Americans] went through; we went through it ourselves. But it was surprising to see how people are respected in the US, and what a big public ceremony they had to commemorate the tragedy. They named every single victim!”

As is well-known, President George W. Bush on 27 November 2002 established The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, to investigate “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001,” including the issues of preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The bipartisan commission, which was created by Congressional legislation, consisted of five Democrats and five Republicans, and was chaired by former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean with former U.S. Democratic Representative from the 9th district of Indiana Lee Hamilton serving as deputy chair. In carrying out its appointed task, the commission, the co-chairs reported,

“reviewed more than 2.5 million pages of documents and interviewed more than 1,200 individuals in ten countries. This included nearly every senior official from the current [i.e., George W. Bush] and previous [Bill Clinton] administrations who had responsibility for topics covered in our mandate…We held 19 days of hearings and took public testimony from 160 witnesses.”[3]

The 567-page Commission report, which was published in the summer of 2004, provided detailed information concerning precisely who the terrorists were that had launched an attack on the United States on 11 September and how they had managed to carry out their malign intentions. Chapters Five and Seven of the book were entirely devoted to an examination of the biographies and activities of the terrorists. The role of Osama Bin Laden as the individual who authorized the “planes operation” and of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who served as the “principal architect” and manager of the operation, were described in detail. The report also attempted to provide explanations for the failure of U.S. departments and agencies to prevent the attacks.

When one compares this monumental effort to get at the complex truth behind what occurred on 9/11 with the Russian state’s virtually non-existent effort to explain four major terror attacks which took place in September 1999—two in Moscow, and one each in Buinaksk, Dagestan and in Volgodonsk, southern Russia—one is struck by a vast chasm in scope. As journalist Yuliya Kalinina has noted: “The Americans several months after 11 September 2001 already knew everything—who the terrorists were and where they come from… We in general know nothing…”[4]

More than twelve years after the September 1999 bombings, little reliable information has been made public concerning precisely who the terrorists were who blew up four apartment buildings killing 300 people. The authorities appear to have intentionally misidentified the lead Moscow bomber, the individual who played a role similar to that of Mohammed Atta, the commander of the hijackers in the 9/11 hijackings. The trials that were held of accused 9/99 bombers during 2001 and 2003-2004 remain mired in chaos or shrouded in deep secrecy. The 2001 trial of the Buinaksk bombers revealed an almost unimaginable level of judicial illiteracy as well as the thuggish brutality of the police and the procuracy. Dagestani law enforcement, to put it in a nutshell, often behaved like terrorists themselves. The trials of those individuals charged with participating in the Moscow and Volgodonsk bombings represented closed secret events with the press being barred from observing the proceedings. There is no reason to credit any of the information generated by these tainted and suspect trials which were held in camera.

For these reasons, it seems self-evident that the formation of a Russian 9/99 Commission, on the model of the 9/11 National Commission, which would be chaired by Russian citizens of integrity, on the model of Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, who would be charged with ferreting out the truth concerning what occurred during September of 1999, remains a pressing necessity. Unfortunately, this seems unlikely to occur any time in the foreseeable future. Vladimir Putin has now been reelected to a third term as Russian president (until 2018), and he has stated that he may seek a fourth term (until 2024). As long as Putin remains ensconced as Russian head of state, the formation of a Russian 9/99 commission will remain an unrealizable fantasy.

The aim behind the essays in this volume is to attempt to anticipate, in extremely modest and limited fashion, what such a Russian 9/99 commission might eventually be able to discover. I have tried to perform a very small amount of the onerous spade work that will need to be done by such a commission. My published research on major Russian terrorist events in 2002 and 2004 served as preparation for this effort.[5] I gratefully acknowledge the courageous pioneering work on the September 1999 bombings which a small number of remarkable Russians, such as former FSB lieutenant colonel (and political prisoner) Mikhail Trepashkin, have put in. The work of the informal Kovalev commission to investigate the September bombings, chaired by Duma deputy and Brezhnev-era political prisoner Sergei Kovalev, is also deserving of unqualified praise.

As one member of the Kovalev commission, Valerii Borshchev, observed in September 2011, the commission’s investigations into the terror bombings were repeatedly obstructed and eventually cut off by the authorities. “The government,” he stated, “should have assisted a full unmasking of this crime, but we received no assistance from anyone.”[6] The truth behind the September 1999 bombings, I am convinced, will eventually see the light of day, but that may take a decade or more to occur. The same holds true for the facts concerning the misunderstood and complex armed incursion of rebels into Dagestan during August of 1999, an event which is covered in Chapter One of this volume. The August incursion may have been intended to help prepare the ground for the September terror bombings.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Dr. Andreas Umland, general editor of the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society,” most warmly for his strong encouragement of this project. I am most grateful to him for his firm and unwavering support. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance that I have received from two excellent research assistants, Joyce Cerwin and Julia Shmeleva.