CHECHNYA’S WOMEN, RAPED AND MARTYRS

December 4, 2003 – (Peacereporter – Grozny) Russian soldiers break in their houses, kidnap, rape and kill. Almost never are the culprits punished, the government prefers to cover everything up. And the girls choose to become terrorists for the shame. This was the case for two of the suicide bombers who on October 23, 2002 occupied Moscow’s Nord-Ost theatre.

The Kugayev family lived on the outskirts of the village of Tangi-Chu. On that night, as they usually did, Visa and Rosa had just put their five children to bed with their clothes on, ready to flee quickly in case of danger. And that night the danger came at around one o’ clock, when the silence in the sleeping village was broken by the roar of three Russian military trucks, and by the volleys shot by the AK-47s. So would the Russian soldiers usually announce their arrival.

Mr and Mrs Kugayev woke up with a start. Visa went to wake up her elder daughter, 18-year-old Elsa, telling her to wake up all her little brothers and sisters and to escape with them. But they didn’t have the time to do it. Four soldiers of the 160th armoured division smashed in the door and broke in. Everybody expected their usual behaviour, the usual searching for escaped rebels or weapons, together with screams, insults, threats, beatings and destructions of the house’s poor furnishings. However, this wasn’t the case.

That night the soldiers came in quietly, went straight to the children’s room and took Khaya, the 13-year-old middle sister. But they let her go as soon as they noticed the presence of Elsa. They took her away, while she kept screaming asking their parents to help her, but they could do nothing under the threat of the AK-47s. Once the soldiers had gone out Adlan, the smallest brother, ran out towards his sister, but a soldier hit him on his head with the gun butt, making him faint.

Elsa was brought to a barracks, repeatedly raped and then strangled to death. The Kugayevs fled to Ingushetia, from where they have fought asking for justice. And three years later they won. Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Budanov, who on that night was leading the operation from a truck, was acquitted but then sentenced in appeal to ten years of prison for abduction, murder and rape. Unfortunately, Budanov is one of the few Russian officers who paid for his actions: the Russian justice tends to cover up every case that arrives before a court.

The cases of sexual violence on Chechen girls by Russian soldiers are everyday occurrences. And they are not only a tragedy and an injustice that tarnish the Kremlin’s reputation heavily, but also the main cause of a sad and disturbing phenomenon. Rapes are the main cause of women’s conversion to the armed struggle, which means to suicide-bombing terrorism. The victims of violence, who in the Chechen society are blamed and emarginated, clam up and often choose death by becoming “shaheed”, martyrs.

This was, for example, the Ganiyevv sisters’ case, two of the Chechen suicide bombers who on October 23, 2002 took part in the famous intervention at Moscow’s Nord-Ost theatre. The stalemate was solved by a Russian special forces’ blitz. Using lethal gas, they killed 118 people between hostages and terrorists. Aminat and Khadizhat, like Elsa, had been kidnapped by Russian soldiers and then raped in 2001. After their release, they had gone back to their village, but wouldn’t talk to anybody. In their silence of shame and grudge they reached the decision of sacrificing their lives for Chechen independence cause.

Unfortunately, Moscow responded to this new phenomenon in the worst way. After the theatre tragedy, the Kremlin launched a military operation in Chechnya aimed at hitting the Chechen women suspected of participating in the separatist armed struggle. Operation “Fatima”, this is its code name, has obvioulsy been a pretext for new violences against women. And this will produce new martyrs and new martyrdoms.

From: http://www.peacereporter.net/en/canali/storie/04%20dicCecenia/