Exposing truth in Chechnya

Western news agencies have failed miserably to report on the 2-year-old war between Russian soldiers and Chechen rebels, mainly because Western journalists are not permitted to witness the struggle for themselves unless on a tour put together by the Russian military. Foreign journalists who do evade authorities through numerous checkpoints in and around Chechnya must still avoid being taken hostage by cash-strapped Chechen guerrillas. \nBesides the lack of accurate information flowing from Chechnya, a province of the Russian Federation dominated by the Caucasus Mountains, few Westerners seem to care about a war between the Russian military and Islamic separatists, whom Russian authorities have called "terrorists" since fighting began. \nBut French journalist Anne Nivat, the Moscow correspondent for the French daily Liberation, wanted to witness the conflict firsthand, bringing accurate reports to her French newspaper and now to readers of her new book, "Chienne de Guerre: A Woman Reporter Behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya" (Public Affairs, 2001, $25). \nRecent fighting in Chechnya began after bomb attacks in Dagestan, another Russian province north and east of Chechnya, in August 1999. Russian authorities, led by then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was at the time a presidential candidate to succeed Boris Yeltsin, declared Chechen "terrorists" responsible for the Dagestan attacks and launched a second war. Chechens hadn't even begun rebuilding from the first war, which ended in 1996.\nNivat's account of the conflict's impact on people's lives is gripping. She takes readers into the war-torn region and into the lives of Chechen civilians and soldiers. \nRefugees are omnipresent in war. Nivat writes of "refugees moving from village to village." \nThe neighboring province of Ingushetia is full of refugees, some living 15-20 per room.\nNivat writes, "'They go from house to house. People sometimes take them in if they have children with them,' a woman tells me. \n"'They also sleep and cook in abandoned cars,' another woman adds."\nGrozny, Chechnya's capital city, lay in ruins, Nivat writes. "Windowless, gutted buildings are everywhere.There are hardly any stores, electricity is rare, there is no hot water and telephone communication was cut off five years ago." \nNivat's most cherished ally throughout her time in Chechnya was her satellite telephone, which she strapped to her chest under her clothes and then used to dictate reports to her newspaper's office. \nThe war in Chechnya continues to this day. Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, elected in 1997 and whom some rebels believe is Russia's biggest ally in the region, last week proposed opening talks with the Russians. Terms of an agreement would include disarming the rebels and ending Russia's military campaign. But Putin's chief aid on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said, "Those who are hiding in mountains and forests are not in power in Chechnya," according to the Interfax news agency. \nBoth sides seem entrenched and unwilling to yield. Putin's presidency was won, some say, on attacking the Chechen "terrorists" during his presidential campaign. The Islamic rebels want nothing to do with Maskhadov's negotiations; there is no acceptable peace other than independence to them.\nOne Chechen rebel leader told Nivat that, "Our only goal is to be allowed to live according to our own laws, the laws of the charia. As long as this is denied us, we'll continue to fight. Politics play no part in this. We're waging a war of religion."\nNivat's book is well-written and hard to put down once one has started it. I was halfway through when the coffee shop where I started reading it closed, forcing me to suspend long enough to change venue. Nivat's journalism is what journalism should be about. Working hard to get the story…and to get it right.\nThe French version of "Chienne de Guerre" was awarded the Albert Londres prize. It was translated into English by Susan Darnton. Nivat's reporting has led to anti-war demonstrations in Paris.