<html><body>Catastrophe in Chechnya Escaping the Quagmire December 10, 2004 Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording <TABLE width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> 8:45 a.m.</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="82%" colSpan=2> Registration and continental breakfast</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">9:00</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">Welcome:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Radek Sikorski, executive director, NAI</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">Introductory Remarks:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Ruud Lubbers, United Nations high commissioner for refugees; former prime minister of the Netherlands</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> 9:30</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="82%" colSpan=2>The Quagmire</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"> Speakers:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">David Ensor, national security correspondent, CNN</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Khassan Baiev, Chechen surgeon, author of The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%"> John Dunlop, senior fellow, Hoover Institution</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Stephen Solarz, chairman, American Committee for Peace in Chechnya; former U.S. congressman</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"> Moderator:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor, Washington Post</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">10:45</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">Break</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%"> </TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> 11:00</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="82%" colSpan=2>Chechnya and Terror: Facts and Myths</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">  </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"> Speakers:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">David Satter, senior fellow, Hudson Institute; author of Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"></TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"></TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Andrew Meier, author of Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Andrei Babitsky, journalist, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Rajan Menon, Monroe J. Rathbone professor, Lehigh University</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">Moderator:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Radek Sikorski, executive director, NAI</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">12:30 p.m.</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="82%" colSpan=2>Luncheon</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">Keynote Speaker:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Zbigniew Brzezinski, counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; former National Security advisor</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%">2:00</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="82%" colSpan=2>Search for Peace</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">Introductory Remarks:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Jerry Fowler, staff director of the Committee on Conscience, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">Speakers:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Lord Frank Judd, former rapporteur on Chechnya for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Ilyas Akhmadov, foreign minister in the government of Aslan Maskhadov</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Aleksandr Lukashevich, senior counselor, Embassy of Russia</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Leon Aron, resident scholar, AEI</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Andrei A. Pointkovsky, director of the Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="26%">Moderator:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="56%">Danielle Pletka, vice president, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, AEI</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> 3:30</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="82%" colSpan=2> Conference Adjournment</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> 6:30</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="82%" colSpan=2> Reception held at the Freedom House Main Office Building</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"></TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="41%">Speaker:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="41%">Thomas Dine, president, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="18%"> 8:30</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="82%" colSpan=2> Reception Adjournment</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> Proceedings: MR. SIKORSKI: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Radek Sikorski, executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative here at the American Enterprise Institute. Welcome to the New Atlantic Initiative. The New Atlantic Initiative program of the American Enterprise Institute stands for cooperation between the United States and Europe. We stand for the enlargement of NATO, of the European Union. We stand for free trade between America and Europe. We stand for strong security and against terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Last, but not least, we've always stood, since our founding at the Congress of Prague in 1996, for welcoming Russia into Western institutions. Welcoming Russia means encouraging Russia to abide by the standards of our Western institutions, helping Russia to overcome its colonial and totalitarian past, treating Russia like the great nation that it is, and helping it to become a member of our family. We also have sympathy with the underdog, and the Chechen nation has been an underdog, mostly conquered in the 19th century, subjected to genocide by Stalin in the 1940s, and now a war in which a considerable proportion of the Chechen nation has died. We gather here at the American Enterprise Institute on the International Human Rights Day, and your presence here from so many corners of the world, from so many thousands of miles away, show how important this cause is. I would like to thank in advance all of the institutions that have helped to make this event possible: The Jamestown Foundation, the U.S. Committee for Peace in Chechnya, the Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, Amnesty International and the Holocaust Museum. I cannot think of any better person to kick off our deliberations than Mr. Ruud Lubbers, the longest-serving Dutch prime minister, and the U.N. high commissioner for refugees--incidently, also, professor of globalization. Chechnya is many things. It's also a refugee crisis, and we are delighted that Mr. Lubbers has agreed to address us. His schedule is very tight. He will not be able to take questions, but, please, Prime Minister, the floor is yours. [Applause.] PRIME MINISTER LUBBERS: Thank you for inviting me to make a couple of remarks as high commissioner for refugees, but I'll say, first, that it's for me also seeing back a number of good friends related to Chechnya. My first thing with Chechnya was the time that I was not any longer prime minister in the Netherlands, but a visiting professor at the Kennedy School in Harvard, and there was an initiative taken to bring together Chechens, representatives from Moscow and some others. That didn't happen in Cambridge. It happened in the Hague. That seems centuries ago. It was, indeed, last century, with still Maskhadov around and others. I will not mention them all. We went later to Tatarstan to Kazan, at the invitation of President Shaimiyev. We tried again to find a better way forward. Like many others, I did not succeed. So then I became high commissioner for refugees, and I'm punished, as it were, because the problem is still there. As a starting point, allow me to provide a brief statistical overview, so you know what numbers we are talking. We estimate that more than 300,000 persons are still in a situation of displacement within the Russian Federation: outside of Chechnya they are mostly in Ingushetia, 70,000; and other constituent entities of the Federation, up to 48,000, including 8,000 in Dagestan. In Chechnya itself, there are, in the tallies with the governmental sources, more than 190,000 displaced persons. Despite the problems of violence and instability that still prevails in Chechnya, returns are taking place--some 16,000 from Ingushetia since the 1st of January of this year--and we can ascertain that none of these have been forcible, some have been voluntary and others have been conditioned by the withdrawal of other options and characterized by a climate of pressure, and that is true, and that of course has been problematic for UNHCR. Let me use the time to explain the two-pronged approach that UNHCR is promoting for Chechnya and the Chechens. We expect the Russian authorities to respect the voluntary nature of return and the possibility of taking care of and protecting internally, in Chechnya, displaced Chechens who wish to remain in Ingushetia, that they should stay there. You might call this the first prong. It's the whole dimension of voluntariness and respect of the preferences of the people. And that's, of course, in a role of [?], if you like, the first prong. Allow HCR to be with the people who still think time has not come to return, and in particular in Ingushetia. At the same time, and that is the second prong, we declared ourselves available to go back to Chechnya, HCR, making it clear that the voluntary return to Chechnya is a real option, and we can make that even more clear when we are there for the returnees and with the returnees and also assisting in reintegration and rehabilitation. Now, this is a pretty practical scheme, the two prongs. Allow UNHCR to continue protection and assistance outside Chechnya, mainly in Ingushetia, as well as that is provided by the authorities, we are preferred to give a clear signal of possibilities to go back to Chechnya and be there. Although this sounds pretty practical, the basic thing in this is to build confidence, and that is my contribution to the conference here, trying to build confidence. A constructive dialogue concluding with sound and pragmatic recommendation is a goal that I would endorse also for this meeting. My office has threatened to find a balance of constructive dialogue, and I would like to remind those present here that the goal is not only to find durable solutions for the Chechen population, but to remember to be aware that the Russian Federation in itself is a country in transition. We must also address, in any scenario of solutions then, to support a unified and functioning society in the entire Federation. The task is tremendous. Can we achieve the necessary level of partnership with the various authorities and those affected to reach a goal? Let's make it even more actual. Today, I have to report, as the high commissioner for refugees, that gradually, after Afghanistan, after Iraq, the Russian Federation is moving to the top of the list of countries who are refugee-producing. At least people come to Central and Western Europe claiming that they are refugees. So, then, we have to believe they are real refugees, and many of them show up also as Chechens, and then we have to check are these all Chechens or they also others? But they've made it pretty clear that the Chechen dimension is not only a dimension in Chechnya, but it's a relevant phenomenon also from a global perspective. Can we become a sort of catalyst of building trust? That is, for me, the question. And I noticed, because I spoke earlier about this two-pronged approach, that people consider us to be a bit naive maybe, not realistic, but we see no other way forward. We think it's possible to combine the function, which is our international mandate to protect people in trouble, to protect people who need protection and still to do it in such a way that the solution is based on a minimum level of confidence. We had talks, of course, with the Russian authorities. We have discussed that indeed the Chechen tragedy is not limited to domestic considerations. It is, as I said, an international discussion. Therefore, there must be a spirit of international partnership. UNHCR has asked our Russian interlocutors to exhibit an advanced level of cooperation and partnership with the international community. Additionally, HCR has pointed to clear examples that sudden and destabilizing actions toward the displaced do not build trust and, in fact, work not only against the protection needs of the displaced, but against also the authorities' own stated objectives of promoting voluntary returns to Chechnya, stabilization and civil society. So this doesn't start today, but it's an ongoing struggle. We should, we made clear, avoid actions that are sudden, threatening, misunderstood, inconsistent. Thus, there is a call for an open and transparent set of agreements and actions that support trust. So, therefore, this two-pronged approach, I discussed that in Geneva with my bosses, the Executive Committee of UNHCR and got for that the green light. We have this discussion going on in terms of is it for real, and with have many NGOs, is it really protecting the people, and with others who say you have to support stronger specifically the policy of Moscow and of the Chechens in a formal way. Here, we have said our role in all of this is to go for a policy which in a way is balanced and which has the main characteristic that it is in return in safety and dignity, and if people still decide [audio break] that they are well informed, that they can make informed decisions and the decisions are voluntary. In the discussions with the Russian authorities, I might say that indeed they have demonstrated more recently better than sometime before, a will to allow alternative recommendations in Ingushetia. For a while, it was just closing down and finishing the whole thing. That has changed a bit, but the whole situation is still fragile, although the formal situation, and we see it in recent decrees have formalized this point, I estimate. The officially stated policy of the Russian Federation to support returns with grant programs and other incentives appears, therefore, okay and, in a way, impressive, and that is positive, of course. However, UNHCR has found, working around the world in many programs, that refugees that are displaced must have complete information from all aspects of return in order to realize a level of confidence and trust that they can make the well-informed decisions themselves. Return information is--and that's not only there. It's all over the world--usually neither sufficient, nor strategically well structured, and then you get misinformation and misunderstanding, and that's part of new problems. So, therefore, essential part for our two-pronged approach is to develop a communication strategy. This is pretty practical. We just have to write brochure, a pamphlet, if you like, with the information in it, and on that, of course, the label of UNHCR to make it clear that this is exactly what we stand for, to put pressure to implement the nice things in such a procedure. This is then "Conditions of Return." We do hope, of course, that these "Conditions of Return," serve several objectives of such an action. As I said, it is clarity and information. It sets, in fact, also the benchmarks to check on the promises. What is really happening. It's a tool for those who have to make decisions to check on their own future, on the risks, which there are both in staying out and in going back, but also the concrete time lines of certain improvements and, as I said, promises. Next to information, a pamphlet of UNHCR, I would be happy, of course, that the document itself is not only with the name of UNHCR, and the mark of UNHCR, but also of the Federation authorities. Then, it becomes a real commitment, and from a commitment it can function as a tool to build trust. Up to now, I might say it's going most of the time downwards and sometimes upwards in this process. So I use this opportunity again to give it a new impetus. We think it's a modest part maybe what UNHCR can do, but it's the only thing what we do. Now, I'm fully aware that HCR, as I said, is a small part of the whole equation. We should not see these things only in terms of programs and budgets. It's useful that you hear from me that our whole program there is very limited. It's not too limited. It's, in our opinion, good enough. It's more a fundamental point for us, that of the so-called CAP appeal for the Northern Caucasus--and that's the normal language for me as a U.N. person--the CAP for the Northern Country Caucasus is about $62 million, and what are we doing? Only 5 percent of that. So here is a small percent, with a small budget in Ingushetia. Still, we think that the role of UNHCR in this process can be pretty crucial. It's very needed. There is fatigue among the displaced Chechens, as well as in the circles, and I would say, in general, the Russian population. "Fatigue" is a mild word still. You even might say it's despair. It's more serious. And we have to take this very seriously. I said that earlier, and I can only repeat it today. It's a misunderstanding to think that fatigue will end automatically. Normally, it translates itself in more despair, and that's exactly then the reason that I continue stubborn with this two-pronged approach. Of course, I don't think I have to do that here--it will be said by many-- that we have to be aware of the full consequences of a spiraling radicalization. This is not only with Chechens. It's with all populations who have the feeling that it is not right. So you need a program to repair that, if you like. Therefore, we want to use the opportunities. It's, for us, a question of making a judgment. It's not purely a political nor purely a moral question. It also builds on an experience with displaced persons, with refugees, what are the elements that determine their interpretation of the situation. And we know that there is this risk of downward spiraling, and in fact that is what happened. So these were my few remarks I wanted to make here. I thank you very much. I wish you a fruitful day. If I can shorten all of my other commitments, I will drop again in this afternoon, but I am not absolutely sure. Thank you. [Applause.] MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you very much, High Commissioner. Before we can search for solutions to the Chechen problem, it's I think very important to see the lay of the land, to hear from those who have witnessed this terrible conflict and for us to see and feel the reality on the ground in Chechnya. With this in view, we will now show you two video cuts of the first and of the second war, and then we will have some prominent practitioners of journalism out there to tell you what it's like. If I could ask all of our speakers and panelists to please join us at the three head tables to make more room for more participants. We have had to close registration at 250. So we want to make it possible for all of those who can sit, to sit. Are we ready with the film? Let's let it roll. [Videotape played.] MR. SIKORSKI: Ladies and gentlemen, we'll want to show you another short cut--we'll just change the tape--of showing what it's like to cover a war like that from the point of view of the journalists who are there and who you will have the privilege to hear afterwards. [Videotape played.] MR. SIKORSKI: Ladies and gentlemen, distressing pictures, indeed, and I'd like Fred Hiatt, the editorial page director of the Washington Post, to please moderate the panel, which will establish the facts on the ground in Chechnya. Please, Fred, David-- MR. HIATT: Thank you, Radek, and thank you and everybody else who has organized this panel for doing it. I think there's a tendency in this town, as anywhere, to sort of look at Chechnya as hopeless and so start paying attention to something else. And just a conference like this is a valuable addition to the discussion. On the other hand, Radek has given our panel the topic of "Quagmire," which doesn't suggest all that much hopefulness. I think maybe I'll just quickly introduce everybody and then give folks five or ten minutes. Most of you know most of these people from one forum or another. David Ensor, as you just saw, was an NBC correspondent. He and I were in Moscow at the same time during the first Chechen war. He's now a diplomatic and intelligence correspondent for CNN. Dr. Baiev, as many of you know, was a doctor in Chechnya, who treated anybody who was hurt, and for that basically got run out of his country. Stephen Solarz, a former congressman and co-founder of the International Patrol Group, has been involved in monitoring democracy in elections in many parts of the world, as well as a spokesman for Clinton-Gore foreign policy in the '96 campaign. And John Dunlop, whose writings we all know, author of, "The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire," and many other works including about Chechnya. So why don't we start, since we just saw your [audio break], David, and maybe everybody can take five or ten minutes or closer to five maybe to give us your perspective on whether it is a quagmire and whether there's any way out, and then we can move to discussion. MR. ENSOR: It's nice to be here. Chechnya is now a victim of the brutal folly that the Russian army has used, but it is also a victim of some of the banditry that, frankly, has continued to be a problem in Chechnya, in my opinion, and you have to add to that list a certain amount of indifference and ignorance on the part of many foreign governments, including our own. It's not just another battlefield in the war on terrorism, as it is sometimes described in this city, and Russia is not just another ally in that war on terrorism. It is also not just about human rights, as some try to suggest, in my view, although it is certainly that. The human rights abuses that are going on, on both sides, but particularly on the Russian side, are appalling, but I do think we should also note that Russia has a real strategic interest in Chechnya. I know "liberal Democrats," the types who lost the election the other day, Russian friends, who would not ever let Chechnya go because they feel that if Chechnya were to be allowed to go, the Federation would unravel, and they are still in shock that the Soviet Union unraveled so quickly. So it is, for the Russians, I think one has to concede, as an outsider, a legitimate strategic issue. They can't just let Chechnya go. Others might want to follow. There's a lesson for the U.S. from Chechnya, a lesson for us in Iraq. By failing to distinguish between fighters and civilians, the Russians have turned far more of the population against them. There was a recent Carnegie Endowment poll that I thought illustrated that well. Over the period of May to June of this year, Chechens were asked: Why are Chechens killing Russians? And the answer was 6 percent said jihad; 24 percent, struggle for independence; 56 percent, revenge for the brutality of Russian forces. To a very large extent, that is what many of the Chechens are fighting about. It didn't have to be that way. Back in the early '90s, there were so many miscalculations by the Yeltsin government, and now, unfortunately, another president is continuing the process. This is an unusual role for me, giving my opinions. I'm usually paid just to report facts, but I have two more opinions to give you before I pass it on, and that is--they're fairly simple. No. 1, we should tell it like it is to the Russians. Our president, and other American leaders, should be much more honest than they are being about what really is happening in Chechnya. There might be other subjects we should also be more honest about. We're not doing the Russians any favors by avoiding the subject or rewarding them for their help in the war on terrorism by soft-peddling Chechnya. That is not helping the Russians. It is not helping Russia, and we should stop taking this approach. It was a mistake by Mr. Clinton. It is a mistake by Mr. Bush. Secondly, I don't think Chechnya is ever going to be an independent country. I may be wrong about that, but that's my view, and I think that something that the U.S. government should be working very hard on now is looking for ways to professionalize the Russian army. The Pentagon should be reaching out to whoever the right people are at the Ministry of Defense. We should start trying to help them put money in the right places, do what we have to do to turn the Russian army into less of a mess than it is because that is really what Chechnya is about. It's an example of the collapse of what was the Soviet army and the collapse of professionalism, to the extent there was professionalism, in the Soviet army. Thank you. MR. HIATT: Thank you, David. Dr. Baiev? DR. BAIEV: Dear friends, thank you for inviting me to speak to you today about the disaster in Chechnya, the first and second Chechen-Russian wars. I am here to tell you from my own experience that the medical and ecological situation in Chechnya is a catastrophe. Chechnya is the size of Connecticut and had a pre-war population of just over one million. The first war began in 1994 and ended in 1996. The second war began in 1999 and still goes on. In Chechnya, as in all modern wars, the civilians are the main victims. The United Nations estimates that in wars today 90 percent of the victims are civilians. At the beginning of the last century, only 5 percent were victims. In Chechnya, about one-quarter of the population of one million has been killed. Translated into American terms, this would amount to 17 million people. Chechnya, today, is a medical disaster area. When the second war started in 1999, the Russians used overwhelming force. As a doctor, I witnessed what were just ordinary people who want nothing more than to live in [audio break]. --some 500,000, by most assessments. UNICEF estimates that 10,000 people have been killed by mines, mostly women and children. Thousands are killed for [?]. Unlike other countries, Chechnya receives no international aid for removal of mines. During the wars, the Russians used defoliants on trees to uncover Chechen fighters. This poison produced skin sores, intestinal problems, and disorders which doctors are not able to identify. I believe the contaminated environment is responsible for the increased rate of cancer and blood disease such as leukemia in children. Some estimates state that 73 percent of Chechnya territory is contaminated. My medical contact in Chechnya report that women are giving birth in increased numbers. Unfortunately, I cannot supply numbers of the recent birth rate, but it does not surprise me. Our nation is naturally protecting itself against what we see as genocide war. However, I must add that the infant mortality during the first year of life is very high. In Chechnya, it stands at 26 per 1,000 compared to 18 per 1,000 in Russia or 7 per 1,000 in the United States. Chechen pediatricians estimate that 1 child in 3 is born with birth defects. I recall a mother coming to me. Her baby who was born with two extra eyes, two extra ears, and hole instead of a nose. It is not only disease which is plaguing the population. In my opinion, the whole nation is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. People are nervous. They suffer memory loss, insomnia and depression. Suicide and suicide attempts are common. Men in their twenties are having heart attacks. General stress dries up mothers' milk. We do not know how many women have been raped because Chechen families see rape as shameful and try to hide it. I, personally, know of several cases, many victims, including men, were raped in the filtration camps, which were supposed to weed out the active fighters from the innocent, and I could go on. Mr. Hasan Gadayev, head of Maternity of Children's Health Department of the Pro-Russian Chechen Administration, has stated that over 80 percent of children in Chechnya have problems. Forty percent of children suffer from sight and hearing pathologies. The incidence of tuberculosis among children is very high. In March 2003, Doctors of the World took testimony from 40 Chechen doctors. Under the Geneva Conventions, medical and religious personnel are supposed to be protected in war. All doctors interviewed reported being treated as criminals and subjected to threats, blackmail, harassment, arrest and other forms of intimidation. One doctor said, "We live in fear day and night--fear of practicing our profession, of providing care or being arrested or being excused." I describe my own sad experience in my book, "The Oath: Surgeon Under Fire." Dear friends, I fear for the future of my country, especially for our children who are growing up without education and without health care. They are growing up in fear and hatred of their Russian neighbors. Unfortunately, I am not able to return to Chechnya to help my people. Instead, I am heading up a nonprofit organization called The International Committee for the Children of Chechnya. I hope to raise funds and equipment for the children such as artificial limbs or hearing aids for children with hearing loss from the heavy bombardments. As a doctor who experienced the horrors of war, I appeal to political oversight to begin peace negotiations. Thank you. [Applause.] MR. HIATT: Thank you for that very disturbing and moving report. Congressman Solarz, let me apologize for misnaming the International Crisis Group and turn it over to you. MR. SOLARZ: Thank you very much, Fred. I don't have the same degree of personal involvement or professional experience with Chechnya that the other very distinguished members of the panel have. But as someone who firmly believes in the truth of Santayana's observation that those who do not study the past are condemned to repeat it, I recently had the occasion, in an effort to get a better understanding of the situation in Chechnya, to read a short story by Leo Tolstoy called, "Haji Murad." Perhaps only Tolstoy could write a short story of 150 pages, but it is really an extraordinary literary achievement. My impression is that most Tolstoy scholars consider it the best piece of short fiction he ever wrote. Some go even further. Harold Blum, for instance, wrote that "`Haji Murad' is my personal touchstone for the sublime prose of fiction. To me, the best story in the world or at least the best that I have ever read." It's the story of Haji Murad, a Chechen warrior, who in 1851 defected to the Russians, who were then engaged in a campaign, as they are now, to subdue Chechnya. And in the course of reading this short story, what struck me most of all was how, with due allowance for the advances in technology that have taken place over the last century-and-a-half, how little has really changed in terms of the way in which the Russians have sought to achieve their objectives in Chechnya. And as my modest contribution to this panel, what I would like to do is to read one brief selection from Tolstoy's short story, "Haji Murad." "The village which had been destroyed was that in which Haji Murad had spent the night before he went over to the Russians. Sato [ph], with his family, had left the village on the approach of the Russian detachment. And when he returned, he found his house in ruins, the roof fallen in, the door and the post supporting the veranda burned, and the interior filthy. His son, the handsome, bright-eyed boy who had gazed with such ecstacy at Haji Murad, was brought dead to the mosque on a horse covered with a borka [ph]. He had been stabbed in the back with a bayonet. "The dignified woman who had served Haji Murad when he was at the house now stood over her son's body, her smock torn in front, her withered, old breasts exposed, her hair down, and she dug her nails into her face till it bled and wailed incessantly. "Sado, with pickax and spade, had gone with his relatives to dig a grave for his son. The old grandfather sat by the wall of the ruined house cutting a stick and gazing stolidly in front of him. He had only just returned from the apiary, the two stacks of hay there had been burnt. The apricot and cherry trees he had planted and reared were broken and scorched. And worse still, all of the beehives and bees were burnt. "The wailing of the women and of the little children who cried with their mothers mingled with the lowing of the hungry cattle, for whom there was no food. The bigger children did not play, but followed their elders with frightened eyes. "The fountain was polluted, evidently on purpose, so that the water could not be used. The mosque was polluted in the same way, and the mullah and his assistants were cleaning it out. "No one spoke of hatred of the Russians. The feeling experienced by all of the Chechens, from the youngest to the oldest, was stronger than hate. It was not hatred, for they did not regard those Russian dogs as human beings, but it was such repulsion, disgust and perplexity at the senseless cruelty of these creatures that the desire to exterminate them, like the desire to exterminate rats, poisonous spiders or wolves, was as natural an instinct as that of self-preservation. "The inhabitants of the village were confronted by the choice of remaining there and restoring, with frightful effort, what had been produced with such labor and had been so lightly and senselessly destroyed, facing every moment the possibility [audio break]." MR. DUNLOP: Is it working now? Yes. At a conference in Washington that I attended last month, one leading Russian specialist on Chechnya predicted that the current conflict would likely last another 10 years. Another well-known Russian specialist on the Caucasus region has forecast that the war "will end around 2020." My own prediction is a more modest one. The conflict will last, at a minimum, until March of 2008, when Vladimir Putin's second presidential term comes to an end. Since I only have a very brief period of time in which to justify such a prediction, I'll cite but a few of the reasons why I don't expect the present war to end any time soon. One key reason, of course, is that the Putin leadership declines to hold talks with moderate Chechen separatists. Instead, it seeks to kill them, to capture them or to extradite them from abroad. It is highly difficult to end a war when you refuse to negotiate with the enemy. Such a stance means that you're aiming for the enemy's unconditional surrender. In a guerrilla war, such a stance is clearly unrealistic. Instead of negotiating with moderate separatists, the Kremlin has chosen to empower its hand-picked, pro-Moscow Chechen leader, former mufti, Akhmad Kadyrov and his entourage. Kadyrov was declared elected president in a rigged election held on October 5th. The three Chechen candidates who had higher approval rates than did Kadyrov were removed from the ballot. Twenty-one percent of Chechens in one poll termed the election a farce and said that they would not participate. Another 13 percent said they would not participate because their preferred candidate had been removed from the ballot. An unpopular, corrupt politician, Kadyrov has been bolted into power over other candidates enjoying greater trust among the populace. Another reason the war will continue is this: Chechnya is a destroyed republic with a devastated infrastructure and a very high rate of unemployment. Obviously, in order to regain the trust of the citizenry, the Russian government needs to invest major funds in order to restore infrastructure, services and housing for the populace. Unfortunately, Chechnya continues to represent what [audio break]--a black hole? [Laughter.] MR. DUNLOP: --a black hole in which a large part of the funds earmarked for reconstruction and services are, in fact, embezzled at both a federal and a local level. Next year, the federal budget for all programs in Chechnya will amount to about $1 billion. Predictably, a large percentage of that sum will be embezzled. An article appearing in one leading Russian newspaper, "Kommersant," on December 5th, concluded, "It turns out that more and more money is being spent on restoration in Chechnya each year. In 2003, it was 8 billion rubles more than the previous year, while less and less is actually being constructed. In 2002," it was noted, "17,000 new jobs had been constructed." For 2003, the figure was 3,000--17,000 in 2002, and 3,000 in 2003. There is also a program in Chechnya for paying compensation to the most needy Chechens who have lost their houses or apartments. To date, only 74 families, out of the intended 40,000, have received compensation. While the Chechen citizenry is being shortchanged, the apparatus of the pro-Moscow government is expanding by leaps and bounds. Thus, the budget of the 36-year-old acting prime minister, pro-Moscow prime minister, Edi Isaev, has grown by 76 percent. Another reason that the situation in Chechnya will likely worsen is connected with the recent removal of Aleksandr Voloshin as head of the Russian presidential administration. Over the past several years, Voloshin had de facto been in charge of both conceptualizing and implementing Russian's Chechen policy which became known as "Chechenization." An extremely powerful figure in his own right, with ties to the so-called Yeltsin family and to certain oligarchs, Voloshin served as a key counterweight to the so-called Siloviki or "power ministers." With Voloshin gone, the influence of the Siloviki could likely rise in Chechnya, and for the most part, they appear to be skeptical about Chechenization and hostile towards Kadyrov and his entourage. On October 20th, it was reported that the acting chief prosecutor of Chechnya, Vladimir Kravchenko, who is a Slav, had voiced strong objections to the very existence of Kadyrov's 5,000-man, heavily-armed presidential security service, a body which included a number of former separatist fighters. On November 20th, it was reported that Kadyrov had appealed to the Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Ivanov, with a request that he strengthen controls over the Russian forces in Chechnya. The Russian military Daily, "Krasnaya Zvezda", for its part, sharply criticized Kadyrov's police for constantly losing and surrendering to the rebels. Kadyrov's police, the paper said, should not be put in charge of the counterterrorist operation in the republic. As for the Chechen separatist fighters themselves, their morale, according to recent reports, remains high. The actions of the Russian federal forces provide them with a steady stream of new recruits. Recently, kidnapping has become the preferred modus operandi. Over the past year, Aleksandr Cherkasov, a representative of the leading Russian human rights organization, Memorial, has noted cleansing operations are de facto not being conducted by the federal forces, but the disappearances of people and extrajudicial executions are continuing. By night, people are being taken into custody and then carted off by armed individuals wearing camouflage uniforms who arrive in armored transport carriers. In all, during the course of the second war, more than 3,000 persons have disappeared in Chechnya, and that is only according to official figures. In late November, Boris Nemtsov, who was at the time a well-known Duma faction leader, affirmed that during the present second Russo-Chechen war, Russia has lost 6,000 soldiers, as well as "tens of thousands of peaceful inhabitants." While polling data shows that most Chechens are quite moderate in their views and still willing to reach some kind of settlement with Russia, there is accumulating evidence that the younger Chechen fighters, those in their late teens and early twenties, are being radicalized and are turning to a variant of militant Islam. In this sphere, too, Russia may be running out of time. The older fighters, those in their late thirties and forties, still have memories of a shared existence with Russia and Russians. The younger fighters have no such memories. In conclusion, I believe that the present Kremlin policy of Chechenization will likely fail in the long term. The federal forces based in Chechnya will continue to prey aggressively on the Chechen populace. The mutual animosity of the Russian Siloviki and the Kadyrovites is likely to grow and perhaps even mushroom. One can even envisage scenarios under which some degree of Kadyrovites will elect to join or rejoin the ranks of the rebels. Kadyrov is a corrupt leader surrounded by corrupt officials more interested in lining their own pockets than in fostering the well-being of a traumatized population. Chechnya will continue to represent a black hole with federal funds earmarked for Chechen restoration and the needs of the populace being massively embezzled both at the federal and the local level and could turn even more vicious. Thank you. [Applause.] MR. HIATT: Another cheerful assessment. [Laughter.] MR. HIATT: We can take a few questions. Let me start by asking one and then turn it over. Khassan, you said many Chechens see this as a genocidal war. How close to succeeding in that do you think the Russians are and what will be left to the Chechen people if, as John says, the war continues to 2008 or 2010? [Question being interpreted into Russian and interpreter requested question be repeated.] MR. HIATT: The question was how close to--if this is a genocidal war, how close to successful has it been and what will the status of the Chechen people be if the war, in fact, continues until 2008 or 2010? DR. BAIEV: [Responded in Russian. No interpretation available on recording.] MR. HIATT: Yes, please identify yourself when you ask a question. MR. UZZELL: Lawrence Uzzell with Chechnya Weekly. This is also a question to Dr. Baiev, whom I want to thank for his brilliant book, which I think is the most important book about Chechnya to come out in the last two years. If there's one book that people in this room should recommend to their friends who are not specialists on Chechnya, it should be this one. It is a classic of the study of the effects of war on civilians and should be read by people, even those who are not particularly interested in Chechnya. My question: You've talked about the use of defoliants by the Russian army in Chechnya. I'd like to know if you could tell us more about the use of biological and chemical weapons deliberately targeted against Chechens. DR. BAIEV: [Responded in Russian. No interpretation available on recording.] MR. HAJ: I'm Smyrdin Haj [ph] of Defense Week. This question will be directed to Mr. Ensor or maybe Mr. Hiatt. I wondered if they could maybe just address some of the difficulties of covering Chechnya today, how difficult it is to actually go into Chechnya without, say, being chaperoned by the Russian military. And Mr. Ensor quite rightly pointed out that very much of what we see today is just stock footage and if they could talk about some of the obstacles that reporters face today. Thanks. MR. ENSOR: The whole subject is discouraging. Even back in 1995, it was dangerous to go into Chechnya, especially with a television camera, which, from a distance, of course looks like it's something else. You ran the risk of being fired upon, certainly by the Russian side, and it was even unclear you might have some risk from the Chechen side sometimes. What we generally did back in 1995, however, after trying to get the Russian military to let us come with them and being turned down, we went in with the Chechens. I slept on the floor of an abandoned kindergarten in Dagestan with my camera crew, and we would go in, in the morning. We would try to hook up with some Chechen fighters because they usually knew the safest places, and we would try to take some film for television. You must have pictures. You must go, take risks, and then get out safely. In the time that I was traveling in and out of there, which was '94-'95, several Western journalists were killed, but it was basically, our sense was that none of those deaths were deliberate assassinations. They were simply people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since then, there clearly have been some cases where journalists in Chechnya have been targeted. By whom, we're not sure, but there are suspicions among journalists that there are Russian soldiers who simply fire on them because they're journalists. The biggest problem, though, is that there are no longer Russian journalists going to Chechnya, taking the risks and telling the truth about what's happening there. There was a brief and wonderful period of courage on the part of the Russian media in the mid '90s. It's been ended. It's over, as far as I can see. Maybe some in the room have seen some exceptions to that. I hope so. MR. HIATT: I would just add, I mean, there are a couple of courageous exceptions who deserve notice, like Anne Nivat, a French journalist, and Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist. They go back disguised as Chechen civilians, and they take great risks. But the other side of the equation, as David mentioned earlier, that even when there's obvious news from Chechnya which could be covered, television, which are all now controlled by the Kremlin downplay it or don't play it at all, and so what Russians see of this war is very, very minimal. Yes? MS. DIVINSKY: Ina Divinsky [ph], Voice of America. Current suicidal bombers that basically took lives of many Russians in the Yesentuki, in Moscow, many call these attacks sort of like, for Russia, that it shoot itself in the foot, that it caused these attacks. But at the same time, President Putin declares that it has terrorism, Chechen terrorism, on Russian soil. So what would be the position of international community, under the circumstances, how to distinguish between the rightful cause of the Chechen people and these suicidal attacks? Thank you. MR. DUNLOP: Well, I think the most recent episodes you mentioned in Yesentuki and in Moscow yesterday, in my opinion, it's too early really to know what happened. We're getting very conflicting reports, and so I wouldn't want to pronounce on who is responsible for that because I don't think it's been sorted out yet, and I think it will take a long time to sort out that. But obviously these horrible, horrible suicide attacks have to be condemned. There is a question of who's responsible for them. There are some simple explanations and some very complex explanations. I don't have time to get into the complex ones now. I have recently done a piece, which will be appearing shortly, where I try to get into some of that. But I think this is a job for Western journalists, such as our colleagues here, to look into it very carefully, to examine the trustworthiness of the official reports and to try and probe and, indeed, to determine who is behind these despicable terrorist acts. MR. HIATT: Steve, part of the question is Putin would like us to see this as part of the international war on terrorism. What should U.S. response be to that contention, do you think? MR. SOLARZ: I think the United States should clearly and unequivocally condemn these attacks. Whoever is responsible for them, whatever their motivations may be, there can be no moral justification whatsoever for the slaughter of innocent civilians. But as Professor Dunlop said, the origins of these attacks is not absolutely clear, nor is it clear who ultimately is responsible for organizing and orchestrating them. I happened to be in Moscow shortly after the series of bombs went off in the apartment houses there just prior to the election, in which Putin was elected, and I have to say that the contentions on the part of the Soviet authorities that the Chechens were clearly responsible for this were, themselves, not very clear. The evidence was very murky. It's obvious who benefitted from the bombings, although it doesn't necessarily follow that those who were the primary beneficiaries were also the organizers. But the point, it seems to me, is that it is not very clear exactly who is behind this. But regardless of who is behind it, the United States should leave no room for ambiguity in forcefully denouncing these activities. MR. BRZEZINSKI: My name is Constantine Brzezinski. I am a retired lieutenant colonel of the KGB, now staying and living in the United States. I would like to address my question to Mr. Ensor. As a former military, this question concerns your military aspects. I was so happy to hear from you, for the first time, that finally Americans are abandoning or leaving their illusions about the possibility of having Russia as a partner in their war on terrorism. Finally, they understand that Russia is not fighting terror, but producing it. But on the other hand, in my opinion, you are producing one more illusion; that there can be some generals in Russian Ministry of Defense who share the opinion about possibility of the conscript army in Russia after the fact that recently Russia has taken a new doctrine, the doctrine of reconstruction of the Soviet army. Today's Russian generals, whose average weight is about 150 kilograms, with great bellies, they can't live under conscript army. They have been nourished in their military schools to use the soldiers as slaves, nothing more. So, even if there is conscript army, they will have to be exchanged by some other people. Do you really believe that--at present, in Russia, we don't allow difference in opinions among generals. They also [?]--do you really believe that under new military doctrine in Russia there can be some generals in Ministry of Defense who would be eager to cooperate with Pentagon military intelligence, not against it, but in constructing the conscript army in Russia? MR. ENSOR: Sir, your question fits very well under the subject of "quagmire" that we're discussing. I think what you've done, in describing what I take to be your doubts about that, has only underlined how difficult the problem is. I was simply saying, in my comment about the military, that it may be a very big problem, it may be, in your view, in the short term, almost insoluble, but it is a problem. That is where the problem is, in my view. If we are to reduce the number of outrages that occur in Chechnya, we have to address the Russian military. When I was there, there was this man, Grachov, and what he was allowing to happen, what the military was allowing to happen there, no civilized, disciplined military force should behave that way, and I just think, for your country, what it needs is a serious, civilized, disciplined army, and it doesn't have one, as Chechnya makes all too clear. As to whether it should be conscript or not, our model is not conscript, and it seems to work better for us. I don't know what the best model for Chechnya is. I'm just saying we Americans haven't got all that many levers by which we can affect what happens in Chechnya. One of them might be to quietly, but determinedly, with some serious money and attention, try to address the Russian military directly, military to military, and try to encourage programs, training, exchanges, whatever that might produce, eventually, a military that wouldn't behave in the manner it's behaving in Chechnya. MR. HIATT: The question of whether the military can become professional and democratic is a subset of the question of what direction Russia is going in, which the last Duma election on Sunday also raises questions about. I promised one more person a question, and then I think we have to wrap up. MS. ALAPUL: Misha Alapul [ph], Russia College. First of all, I wanted to thank Mr. Solarz for reading this very important passage, for reminding us of that from "Haji Murad." And my question was also to Mr. Ensor, how you understand that telling the Russians the truth without speaking about independence, and how you imagine practically aiding the Russian army, kind of workshops, financial support, because it's very contradictory, but in a sense, you already addressed part of that question just now--just how you could mention this process of professionalizing the Russian army. MR. ENSOR: You're getting me into a depth beyond which I'm not sure I can go. Perhaps Mr. Dunlop or Mr. Solarz might have better ideas than I do. I don't really know what the solutions are. I just think, you know, this is a rare chance for me to give my opinions. I'm not normally paid to have opinions. And my opinion is Chechnya is not going to be allowed to go outside Russia. So we need to start thinking about ways in which to change Russia's approach to Chechnya, and it's not going to be easy, it's not going to be quick. But one of the first things we ought to do is start telling the Russians what we actually think about Chechnya and some other subjects. And I don't think that Mr. Putin's help for the war on terrorism would reduce by much that's worth anything if we started telling him what we actually think about Chechnya. I think honesty is the better policy. MR. HIATT: John, do you want-- MR. DUNLOP: I just wanted to make one very simple point. I don't think any military reform of significance is possible in Russia until the war ends. As long as the war goes on, you won't see significant military reform. So, first, you end the war, and then you have a reformed army. MR. HIATT: Thank you. I think we've got to wrap up. I'd like to thank the panel. It was a very interesting discussion and more to come. MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you very much, Fred. [Applause.] MR. SIKORSKI: We reconvene at 11 o'clock sharp, please. [Recess.] MR. SIKORSKI: --features journalists who have covered this conflict, and I'd like us to address the issue of facts and myths about Chechnya, to what extent Chechnya is a terrorist problem and to what extent it's a traditional national liberation struggle. Congressman Solarz has already hinted at the depths of the analytical problem that we face, and I would like us to kick off with David Satter, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, who is the author of, "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State," who has analyzed-- [Technical interruption to fix microphone problems.] MR. SIKORSKI: Whatever happens to the sound, I will try to make myself heard. David Satter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He is the author of "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State." And I'd like him to explore the issue that Congressman Solarz raised; namely, the origin of the second Chechen war, which, if you remember, was the blowing up of the apartment blocks all over Russia, in which over 300 innocent Russian civilians died. It was the event that propelled Mr. Putin from the position of one of a succession of prime ministers, a somewhat obscure figure, to the position of a popular president and a man who has shown toughness in handling this issue and who, by restarting the war, has gained the height of popularity that he now enjoys. I don't think we can solve the issue of who is behind some of the terrorist attacks in Chechnya without going back to those original ghastly attacks on Russian civilians, and I therefore would like David Satter to tell us what his investigations have led him to believe. MR. SATTER: Thank you. Well, as we know, the Russian government has attempted to depict the war in Chechnya as part of a struggle against universal terrorism to connect their conflict with our conflict and with the conflict of all of those who are fighting against fanatical terrorists, and suicide bombers, and genocidal maniacs. Is it accurate? That's the question I'd like to try to take up. But it's important, first of all, to bear in mind that the very formulation of the question is potentially insidious. Because if, indeed, the people we're fighting in Chechnya are genocidal terrorists, then, of course, there can be no compromise with them, and it's ridiculous to think in terms of finding moderate interlocutors or compromising on any issue because compromise with such people is impossible. That's how the Chechens have been depicted. That's how the Russians would like us to view them. But is that really what they are? The basis for the Russian interpretation of the Chechens is really the events of 1999. It's important to bear in mind that by the summer of 1999, Yeltsin, and the corrupt system that he created--that he and his family helped to create in Russia--was universally detested. Opinion polls showed that only 2 percent of the population supported Yeltsin and his prime minister, who was the then-unknown Vladimir Putin. And it's well known that, in fact, in any opinion poll, 6 percent of the respondents don't understand the question, which raises the possibility whether anyone in Russia really supported Yeltsin at that point. There was--I was in Moscow at the time--there was a mood of panic among those people in Yeltsin's entourage who feared for their wealth, their freedom, and I think, in some cases, even for their lives. If a new administration came into power, they were put into real or punitive opposition and had to answer for the pillaging of the country that had taken place in the previous seven years. The first indication that the situation was changing was a mysterious invasion of Dagestan by 6,000 Chechen militants or supposed Islamic militants. What was surprising about this invasion was that the Russian army, which was well equipped to repulse it, made no effort to do so; that the border guards, in the area of the border where the invading forces crossed over, had been removed in advance, and that when the invaders were finally beaten back by the local police, there was no effort to pursue, harass or destroy them by the Russian forces, who were perfectly capable of doing so. There were, in the aftermath of that invasion, which was depicted as aggression by Chechnya against Russia, in the aftermath of the invasion, there were calls for taking action against Chechnya and doing something about Chechnya's 3-year-old quasi independence won as a result of the first Chechen war. The Russian population, however, was exhausted by war and exhausted by the hardships of the so-called reform period and had no desire for another war. Shortly after that, there was a strange explosion in the Manezh shopping plaza next to the Kremlin. Only one person was killed. There were many injuries. The explosion was attributed to a previously unheard of anticonsumer group, which left a note saying that any uneaten hamburger is a revolutionary hamburger. [Technical interruption to fix microphone problems.] MR. SATTER: On the basis of my experience, idiotic claims of responsibility in the aftermath of acts of violence in the Soviet Union are the hallmark of the security services. There was no consumer group, and there was no nonsense about uneaten hamburgers. That explosion killed only one person, but it was a test of the reaction of the population to the planned terrorist attacks to come. There were four explosions that killed 300 people: First, in Budenovsk, in Dageston, two explosions in Moscow and one in Volgodonsk. The effect of the explosions was to galvanize the population. They were attributed to a so-called Chechen "trail." No one ever explained what is this trail, what it consists of, what the evidence for it is, but on the basis of this so-called unverified--this so-called trail, a new war was launched, and the previously unknown Vladimir Putin--virtually unknown--Vladimir Putin, who had never run for office, who had made his career exclusively in the security services, and who was one of a series of prime ministers, picked by an increasingly unpopular president, was catapulted to the lead of presidential candidates and eventually won the election. In fact, it was that war which changed the whole landscape of Russian politics. Because during the Yeltsin years, the oppositional Duma, the oppositional Duma at least represented some sort of a check on presidential power. In the aftermath of the war and the elections which followed it, there was no longer opposition even in the Duma. However, all scenarios or many scenarios are imperfect, and it may reflect the current lack of expertise or lack of great expertise on the part of the FSB that the apartment bombing scenario began to unravel as a result of the events in Ryazan. In Ryazan, a truck with explosives, rather, two cars with bags of explosives were seen by attentive neighbors. They called the police. They insisted that the police go down into the basement that had been used as a toilet by the local drunks. The police went down and saw that a bomb had been placed in the basement. They ran out. The entire, not only the building, but the entire area was evacuated, and the entire city was put under marshal law. The following day, three people were arrested, on the basis of photo portraits, for placing the explosives, which tested positive for hexagen, the same material that was used in the other apartment bombings, and they turned out to be not Chechen terrorists, but agents of the FSB. In fact, they were overhead by a local telephone operator when they called on an interurban phone and said, "The whole city is surrounded by police. There's no way out of here. What do we do?" And the message back was, "Break up. Leave as individuals. Get out any way you can." The local police, including the local FSB, none the wiser as to what was happening, traced the calls, expecting to find Chechen terrorists. In fact, they found the headquarters of the FSB. The FSB, no longer able to deny that they had placed the bombs, claimed that the bombs were a fake, and this was a training exercised, organized in a terror-stricken country, to test the vigilance of the population. Now, this is in a country in which false bomb reports were coming in every hour. There is no plausibility to this explanation, and there is a mass of serious evidence that it was a real bomb: a live detonator which was time-stamped and photographed, a test run by the highly experienced Ryazan bomb squad which determined that the material in the sacks was hexagen. And had the bomb gone off, not only would the 250 people in the building in Ryazan been killed, but because the building was constructed on a slope, it would have hit the neighboring building with the force of an avalanche, taking that building with it, with the result that 500 people would have been killed, and the overall death toll from the explosions would have been not 300, but 800. The next day, the Russian air force began bombing Grozny. Investigation of the events in Ryazan is going on. Unfortunately, bad things have been happening to the people who have attempted to investigate these events. Sergei Yushenkov was murdered. He was the deputy chairman of the independent commission which is trying to investigate within Russia what the real story is behind the Ryazan bombing, which had the exact same handwriting as the successful bombings which justified the Chechen war, changed the political landscape of Russia and are responsible for galvanizing the population behind a war which has cost maybe 100,000 lives, 50,000 lives--we don't know. Yelena Morozov, whose mother was killed in the bombing on Guryanov Street, asked for political asylum in the United States the day after Yushenkov was killed, arguing that she was no longer safe in Russia. Shortly afterward, Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist for "Novaya Gazeta," who has also investigated the apartment bombings, was mysteriously poisoned. All of this suggests to me that there is an important role for the international community, and it is directly related to the origin of the second Chechnya war. If this is a war, as the Russians claim, against terrorists, then of course no compromise is possible. But if the war is the result of a deliberate provocation organized by the Russian government itself, then moderation, compromise, and a speedy end to the conflict becomes obligatory. Those in Russia who are trying to investigate this conflict, in physical danger themselves, and in a country where the media is increasingly controlled by the authorities, do not have the means to make their findings public and influential without the international community. On the other hand, a serious effort by the international community, using the facts which are available and the facts which are not available, which are the testimony of the three FSB agents who were arrested and an analysis of the bomb itself, which is in the hands of the FSB, and which they refused to release, can have decisive influence in affecting the course of the conflict. Therefore, I'd like to close by suggesting that this forum, in which we are considering, among other things, not only the origins and the nature of the conflict, but also possible ways to bring it to a close, that such an international commission be formed, composed of people either in government or out, who can support the efforts of those brave individuals in Russia who are trying to get to the truth about the origins of this war. And getting to the truth about the origins, take those steps that are necessary to moderate the conflict, eventually end it and purify the atmosphere in Russia itself. [Applause.] MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you very much, David. And I would like now to turn to one of the brave individuals, Russian journalist, Andrei Babitsky. By the way, we have all of the bios of our speakers so, for the sake of time, I will be very brief in introducing people. Please, Mr. Babitsky, the floor is yours. MR. BABITSKY: [Remarks made in Russian. No interpretation available on recording.] MR. SIKORSKI: Mr. Meier is a former Moscow correspondent and the author of-- [Applause.] MR. SIKORSKI: --of "Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall." What do you think? A national liberation struggle? A secret service provocation? A terrorist threat? What are the facts and myths about Chechnya. MR. MEIER: Thank you. First of all, I wanted to thank AEI and all of the organizations for holding this conference today. I've been back in Washington for almost two years now, and this is, by far and away, the most important and impressive conference put together on Chechnya. So thank you for doing that, and thank you for inviting me to speak. At the same time, unfortunately, your timing is also superb. Never, in the last two years, has Chechnya been a more important issue, both in U.S.-Russia relations and also in Moscow. What I'd like to do, in the brief time--5-10 minutes--is return a little bit to Chechnya and give you two stories from the region. Mr. Putin, and this is a gross simplification, and I appreciate that most of you in the room know the details very well. And Mr. Satter, and certainly Mr. Babitsky, have already gone over I think both the origins and the current status very nicely. One thing I think that is a fundamental error, certainly in the Western media, is that Putin, and the Siloviki, and the Kremlin, that they have no strategy with regard to Chechnya. This is one thing that I think they do have a strategy, and he's been very frank about it. He's called it Chechenization and normalization. What we see, however, is, in the two stories I'll try to give from Chechnya is not Chechenization, not normalization, but what I fear will be Palestinianization. There are two fundamental forces at play in Chechnya. One is from the Moscow perspective, the search for the good Chechen. At the beginning of the second war, General Troshev [audio break] the search for the good Chechen goes back not only to "Haji Murad," but even before. Mr. Kadyrov, now, has taken over, essentially privatized, what was, and remains, the Chechen OMON, the heavily armed riot police who have conducted the zachistki operations. The Chechen OMON was formed in February of 2000. It originally had about 300, 400 very heavily armed, extremely trained, loyal-to-Moscow forces. They initially did a very good job of understanding these zachistki operations, and even many Chechens I spoke with said, if there have to be zachistki, which are hard in themselves, let it be done by Chechen OMON, not by the federal forces. However, being a Chechen OMON has proven to be one of the most dangerous jobs in all of Chechnya. There is no accurate count, but as of a month or so ago, more than 70 of those 300, 400 Chechen OMON were assassinated, including a young woman named Katya Batayva [ph], who was 18 years old. She was simply the secretary to the commander, and she was killed with 16 bullet wounds. The man who was in charge of the Chechen OMON, who was very close to the Kremlin, a man named Moussa Gadjimuganadov [ph] died in a car crash earlier this year. The man who now runs it is the former head of Mr. Kadyrov's [?], his personal guard. So, essentially, you have a paramilitary organization sanctioned by Russian law, organized by Mr. Kadyrov and ruling at his whim. On the other hand, the central force, one of the main forces at play, is the rise, as Andrei described, of the Wahabi fighters. And I think I agree with him. I would only underscore it, that if the in the first war anyone who went to Chechnya, anyone who reported from there, had no trouble who spoke about independence, freedom fighters, sovereignty, and the great tragedy in the second war, and in the regnum[?] as well, is that more and more Chechens spoke about leaving. There was not only the mass exodus through the mountains to Georgia and to Ingushetia, but also abroad. Russians today don't talk about leaving Russia--Chechens do. And the tragedy that we have such a great panel today and so many of the important players from the first war are in Washington speaks to that. However, what you do have, and without getting into too much detail in the 1999 bombings, and yesterday's bombing in front of the National Hotel, and in the origins thereof, and the corners of speculation, what I can say, as a reporter, is that when I was last in Moscow earlier this fall, I looked into the so-called phenomenon of the "Black Widows." And I had been there earlier in the year reporting on the aftermath of the Nord-Ost hostage taking. And what struck everybody during Nord-Ost was that 18 of the 42 hostage-takers were women. Journalists, of course, were stunned. Chechens were stunned. Russians were stunned. Well, the FSB, to date ,has not given a final breakdown. There have been partial breakdowns, a list of who these people actually were, who these women were. What we do know is that one was a pregnant woman, the youngest was 16 years old, one had left a newborn baby at home in Chechnya, two were sisters, and one girl had lost four brothers. What motivates these women? Who are they? Are they controlled? What is it about? Is it about sovereignty? Is it about freedom? Is it about national recognition? And I'm afraid that what Andrei said is that it's about revenge. Very clearly, these are women, and as they said in the interview with NTV, inside the Dubrovka Theater, "We have come to die. We are on the puti [ph]. We are on the way to Allah. You can stop us, but you cannot stop those who come after us." And I think that we can talk about the origins--and it's important to talk about the 1999 bombings--but let there be no mistake that the Black Widows are for real. I, myself, went back to Moscow this last time in September, thinking that it was an inflated story, leaving an open mind that it was also an orchestration by the Russian authorities. Unfortunately, in my book, many of those people I interviewed and profiled have died since I wrote it. One young man, however, who did not have the best chances for living a long life, did not die. In the book, I call him Ilyas, and he is the closest example I could find to a young Wahabi fighter, a self-proclaimed Wahabi fighter. He was in his early twenties when we met in the Year 2000. He was extremely intelligent. He spoke excellent Russian. He had fair skin, lightish-red hair. His proudest possession was a digital Alpine mountaineering watch, which I had never seen before. What he hadn't seen before was what I showed him, was a map of Chechnya. I had bought it on the street a block away from Lubyanka, the headquarters of the FSB. He had never seen it, and yet he could describe to me in great detail each of the turns, where the hills are, where the mountains were, where the path in and out of Grozny were. He called himself an amir. As many of you know, that is the name of a leader. It's a spiritual title which he had given himself, but what he really was, was one of the many leaders of a group of gorilla fighters, small groups--four, five, six, ten. And he told me very openly what I had seen that day, which was the bombing of a train between the Russian base Khankala and Gugernesk [ph]. He described it in great detail as I had seen it that day. As I said [audio break]. Much to my surprise, and I had received word, through intermediaries, of his whereabouts and others whom I had met in Chechnya in the intervening years, much to my surprise this fall, when I was in Moscow, I got word that not only was Ilyas alive, he was in Moscow and that he had, in some fashion, taken part in the Nord-Ost hostage-taking. At the very least, he arranged the purchase of what the Russians call passports or documents for the vehicles that brought--the vehicles used in the hostage-taking. To my great dismay, and I won't say shock, he is also now one of the squadron leaders of the Black Widows. He now has graduated from an amir to a dahovaniatetz [ph], a spiritual father or a spiritual leader of the women, and he has between four and six women under his control. And the word I got in September is that these will continue. They are for real. And now, and I'll end with this, is when I said, okay, I'd like to talk with him. I'd like to meet with him, he no longer wants to meet with Western reporters, which of course I take to be a very good sign that he's telling the truth. Thank you. [Applause.] MR. SIKORSKI: A distressing reality of terrorism. Professor Menon is also the author of numerous books on the region, is the Monroe Rathbone Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, and he will give us his academic perspective. MR. MENON: Thank you, Mr. Sikorski, for inviting me. I am tempted to begin with an offering to the "God of microphones," given that we're having a bad run with the sound here. [Laughter.] MR. MENON: There are some crumbs on the table, and I'd like to address this question of myth and reality. There is a lot of reality, and there is a lot of myth. The difficulty is distinguishing between the two. I might begin with a thread-bare cliche that history is written by the victors. It's applicable, in a sense, to the war in Chechnya--not that there is a victory, because despite what Mr. Putin, and General Troshev, Sergei Ivanov, and countless others tell you, there is no Russian military or political victory remotely in sight. And as for the Chechens, regrettably, they are no closer to achieving their objective than they were when they took up arms under the first of the charismatic warrior Imam Sheikh Mansour in the 1780s. As for history, no definitive account can be written because we don't know how it will end, but I am certain of this much, alas, that there will be much more carnage, much more bloodshed, and what the worst of it will be is what the Russian army, in its current, barbarianized state is doing to the Chechen people, but the other side of the story is what Russia is doing to itself. Many of the disturbing trends I think we see in terms of the erosion of civil liberties, and the reining in of the press, cannot be put at the feet of the war in Chechnya, but certainly begins with the second war, the alarming signs. The story line on Chechnya, to the extent that the average person in the West has it, is a story line that has largely been written by the Kremlin. It has enormous advantages over the Chechen resistance. It is a sovereign state with enormous resources. It is a great power, despite its precipitous fall in prestige and stature, and no one--not the United States, no Western government, no one in Western Europe, no Islamic country, all of the talk about Islamic solidary notwithstanding--is going to wreck the relationship with Russia for the Chechens. Let's be absolutely clear about that. Chechens, once again, find themselves in a familiar place, which is to say that they are friendless. There is, therefore, a fundamental imbalance, an asymmetry in the information flow, and one is reminded of the Melian Dialogue, where Thuydides told us that the strong do what they will, and the weak do what they must. Putin has made the most of the opportunity to spin the story, and he's done it with supreme aplomb and very little resistance from his interlocutors in the West. The Chechens are called criminals, bandits, fanatics, terrorists. He threatens to kill them in their outhouses--that's sort of a loose translation from Russian--somewhat more colorful in Russia. What strikes me is how utterly similar this reflex, this vocabulary, this discourse, if you will, is to the language used by the 19th century generals who conducted the roughly 50-year war against the Chechens. Yermolov could be speaking because he used exactly these kinds of words. The net effect of this is that in the popular mind, because people don't have the chance to spend a lot of time studying Chechnya--most of my students don't know where it is when they start the course--is that Chechnya has become synonymous with-- [Audio break.] MR. MENON: American policy, which has not given a lot of priority to Chechnya anyway, has changed dramatically, and President Bush sees Putin standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States and as a fellow defender against terrorism, and I think this has helped Putin enormously. But even worse than the ability of the Kremlin to tailor the story line has been the absolute indifference. It strikes me, when I read the press, that few people care any more. The war in Chechnya, to the extent that it's reported, has taken on a sort of "pity," and, "Well, this sort of thing happens," or what we hear are spectacular suicide bombings that the Kremlin immediately rushes to identify as being of Chechen prominence. So there isn't much attention. No one is holding the Kremlin's feet to the fire, and frankly I don't think that will happen. Now, I don't mean for a moment to deny that terrorism is being practiced by both sides. The Chechens have certainly or a ring of the Chechen resistance movement used terrorism. It is my belief that somewhere in the spring of 2000 or so, some elements of the resistance took a tactical decision, which was that the war had to be fought at the front, but that it also had to be fought in the rear; that it had to be brought to Russian cities so that Russian people would feel the pain and that the war would become politically unsustainable, as was the case with the first Chechen war. Now, whether they're wrong or right, doesn't make a difference. It also may well be the case that some of these suicide attacks are staged by people who are not Chechen, but there is no question that terror has become an instrument of the war, at least in the hands of some Chechens. So it would be politically indefensible and morally obtuse to say there is no terrorist component to Chechen resistance. The problem really begins with the periodization of terrorism. Where does one begin when one looks at terrorism? Does one focus only on what's happened since 1994 and in recent years? What about the 19th century? The 50-year Russian war killed approximately 70,000 people. At the end of that war, in 1856, about 600,000 people from the Western North Caucasus, primarily Cherkess, were deported to the Ottoman empire. The generals who waged the war openly spoke about terror as an instrument of policy. There were mass graves, killings, abductions, the massacres of women and children. Perhaps the most celebrated incident in certain Chechen memory is the incident that surrounds Dada youth in the year 1819, when an entire Chechen village was massacred, and 300 people were put to death. Now, the Soviets were no more charitable. In fact, given the ability to harness technology to terror, they were much worse. As Stalin's great purges were beginning in 1937, in that year alone, 14,000 Chechens and Ingush, together called the Vaynakh--they're closely related people--were killed. In 1944, there was, as you know, the mass deportation of 500,000 or so Chechen and Ingush, and many other besides. One-quarter of the population died. And in February of 1944, a certain Russian NKVD officer, deciding that some of the people could not be transported to exile--they were put in railroad cars, many of them died of shock and suffocation before even getting to their destination--this particular NKVD officer, Gishyoni [ph]. decided that some of them could not be transported. He put 600 of them in a building and set the building ablaze. So the question really becomes when does one speak about terrorism? My point is not that terrorism is a good thing, that when the Chechens practice it, we should condone it. It's not that at all. I'm in agreement with Steve Solarz. My point is not that today's young, innocent Russian men and women should pay the price for what General Yermolov and his entourage did. My point is that if one takes a long, historical view, the balance sheet of terrorism, defined as the killing of innocents on a mass scale, looks rather different and more complicated. And if you ask the question in sheer, crass body count, who has killed more of the others, Chechens Russians or Russians Chechens, I think the answer is not too far to seek. Now, you may think that all of this is misty past history, and it doesn't matter. But Yermolov, Grabov, Mansour, Shamil, Hamsa Deg [ph], the deportation, all of these are etched in the Chechen memory. I will remind you that in 1989, when the Chechen national movement began, there were very few signs of Wahabis, very few people wearing green bandannas and armbands with inscriptions from the Koran. It was a nationalist movement, and the deportation played a major role. That incident I told you about in 1944, where 600 people were set ablaze in a building. One of the people who lost an aunt and several cousins that day was none other than Jachov Gadayev [ph]. So to the Chechens this is a very real problem, and what they're facing now is part of a long tapestry, it seems to me. So here we are. Now, what to do? Everyone who is in favor of solving this problem talks about negotiations, and I've been to my share of workshops where lots of pointy-headed academics and policy wonks have tried to settle the Chechen problem. It takes either incredible stupidity or supreme arrogance to do that because we're in a very bad place. It's rather like a Greek tragedy, where you don't choose a good solution, but you choose the one that's least terrible. The problem for the Chechen resistance is that it is unlikely to defeat the Russian army, nor in the near term make the war so unpopular that Putin will be forced to cut a deal. I see no empirical evidence of that happening. Their other problem is that in a world of sovereign territorial states, no one really is going to make the claim to Russia that they should let the Chechens go. My own belief is the Chechens have a stronger claim to independence than the Uzbeks and the Kazakhs, who showed actually very little of a mass movement for independence. Whereas, if there's one people that have consistently, since the late 18th century shown that they do not want to be part of Russia, it's the Chechens. They didn't get independence because they were not a union republic, but an autonomous republic under whose Constitution? Joseph Stalin's. That's nothing but legal chicanery. What the Chechens I think have to realize, that it's going to be difficult to achieve a military victory. For the Russians, the problem is, if you want to negotiate, who do you negotiate with? If you reach an agreement with Maskhadov, and under the best of circumstances he would settle for a loose autonomy, a confederation, something that was far beyond Tatarstan in the 1994 formula, in which only foreign affairs and defense would be in the hands of the Kremlin, can Maskhadov make that deal stick, given that there is no Chechen resistance of a unified nature any more, but there is a panoply of groups over whom he, at best, has imperfect control? So I leave you with that difficult problem. I think that the war is going to continue. I think it'll take an enormous toll on Chechen citizenry. About between 100,000 and 200,000 of them have died. Maybe 15- to 20,000 young Russian soldiers have died. But I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. What I see is the further barbarization of the Russian military, the erosion of Russian democracy and a Chechnya that breeds exactly what the Kremlin says it's fighting; i.e., radicalism and terrorism because Thomas Jefferson sure as hell is not going to rise from the ashes of what is now Chechnya. Thank you. [Applause.] MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you, Professor Menon. We will have a panel, "Search for Peace," and it looks as bright as my face at this moment. [Laughter.] MR. SIKORSKI: We are still looking at the facts and myths about Chechnya. We are still trying to analyze the roots of this conflict and the facts on the ground, and it's in that spirit that I welcome questions from the floor. QUESTION: Hi. I'm Jonas [?] with Voice of America. I'd like to direct this to Mr. Babitsky, since you were most recently in the mountains with the rebels. What's your take, overall, on the extremely controversial issue of foreign fighters, Nyum Niki [ph], and that sort of thing, among the rebels? Of course, that's a very big issue here, and in Russia, of course, and there's a lot of debate about it. MR. BABITSKY: [Remarks made in Russian. No interpretation available on recording.] MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you. And if I may add a footnote to what Mr. Babitsky has just said, the flip side of foreigners in Chechnya is Chechens in Afghanistan. They were supposed to be fighting on the side of the Taliban with al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Well, we had a check on that because U.S. forces moved in and arrested many of the suspected Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. And to the best of my knowledge, we have in custody, in Guantanamo, for example, we have Egyptians, we have Pakistanis, we have British citizens, German citizens, but so far as I know, we don't have a single Chechen. QUESTION: I'm Sarah Harder, and I'm president of the National Peace Foundation. We have worked, since 1995, with women of the Don Region in a network that they have established across the North Caucasus called "Women for Life Without War and Violence." Of course, it's an enormously implausible hope, but on the other hand, they continue to work with refugee situations and other peace-building mechanisms. What is clear to them is that there are,in fact, training camps for young women in Chechnya now that are, as Andrew Meier suggested, actively working to recruit particularly young women to be, if not Black Widows, to perform a terrorist role. And one of our objectives, as a matter of fact, is to build upon the contacts that have been made, bringing together young Chechens with others in areas such as Rostov to begin to figure out ways to build on the leadership potential of young women and to avoid the exploitation of women which, frankly, is what the Black Widow movement represents. I'd be interested in anybody's comments about this situation. MR. : Thank you. I haven't been able to do enough firsthand reporting on this, but what I have been able to do, and it's something I'm working on right now, is establish that it's both young women going in on their own, and it has also, at least in one case I know of, in the Nord-Ost hostage-taking siege, a woman who was, I don't know of she was coerced initially, but then she was held for a period of time apparently against her will. [Audio break.] MR. : This seems to be buzzing, so you must be able to hear me. As I said, it doesn't really matter because the end mission is the same. Training seems to be the same. The organization seems to be extremely good. And in some cases [audio break]--off again? How about if I just scream? [Laughter.] MR. : That some of the women have been leading parallel lives; that is, they have a life at home and a life that is running parallel to that which will lead them to this mission. But I think there's no mistake on this. This is right now one of the most fundamental issues at play in Chechnya and in the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, I don't see any end in sight because these, all Chechens, well, the vast majority of Chechens are in pain and, as Dr. Baiev said, the post-war syndrome is something that inflicts Chechens everywhere, whether they're in Chechnya or beyond the bonds of the Chechen Republic. But that young Chechen women leaving, you know, a baby behind, how do you explain that? And it's nothing that anything Mr. Putin can do--we can talk about negotiations till we're blue in the face, they're not going to stop this. MR. : Just a quick word. I actually had serious Russian officials tell me that the so-called Black Widow movement is not a movement at all, but you know these Chechens, they're a fundamentalist, crazy people. They're forcing these women to commit suicide. Now, I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear that because it tells me how far removed the Kremlin is from reality or how gullible it thinks we are. The bottom line, in terms of your question, is this is the latest phenomenon we're dealing with, but it's a product of a dirty war. If you take Grozny, which used to be the largest city in the North Caucasus, and turn it to a pile of rubble, if you go into villages and brutalize young men in what is a very patriarchal society, if you find people showing up in mass graves time and time again, if you rape Chechen women, then you have an endless supply of wives who lost husbands, and sisters who have lost brothers, who are willing to do this, and many young men who are willing to do it besides. So as long as this kind of war continues, this will be the result, and the opening up and the democratization of Russian society and Russia's decision to, as it were, engage globalization, makes it much more vulnerable to this kind of thing. This is not a game that can be won, but I don't think either side is convinced that they are losing it. QUESTION: Miriam Lanskoy, National Endowment for Democracy. I think that the topic of the Black Widows is almost ideal for a discussion of what is fact and what is myth. And my question goes to Andrew Meier. There are some real doubts that the women in Nord-Ost had, in fact, intended to die, and that is revealed by the fact that so many of them had families and were pregnant. There was a couple, there was a man who apparently brought his pregnant wife along on what was supposedly a suicide terrorist mission. The suggestion that they may not have intended to die is revealed in that they sat for two hours, as the theater was filling up with smoke, and didn't detonate [audio break]. But this man that you referred to as Ilyas, it sounds like you didn't actually meet him this time. So somebody told you something about him that ultimately can you verify or not? If, indeed, you think that the man you met had taken part in forging documents on a terrorist mission, if this is really something that you're asserting as fact, doesn't it create a duty upon you to report him? And I'm wondering, as a journalist, when you take up this topic, what is the level of fact that you need to establish on this topic? And I know how difficult it is. MR. MEIER: Thank you. The question of why didn't the women pull their detonators is a very good one. And in part of that reporting comes from interviews with former hostages. And I think that the best answer is--and we don't know the answer--first of all, it wasn't two hours. It was more like half an hour. The best answer is they did not get the order. They didn't get the command to do so, and they had told the hostages, a number of them, we will not blow it up until we get the order. And, yes, they were afraid. There were times when the women apparently did talk about their fear, but they were also--and the videotape exists--where one young woman very clearly says, "We have come here to die." Now, you can dispute that, and I can say she wanted--you know, fair enough. I just say that I think, unlike the 19-- my basic point is that unlike the apartment bombings in Moscow in 1999, and I was there for it, I mean, I lived through that terror, the terror was very real, but rather than engage in corners of speculation and try to dig through the past, I think we ought to deal with the present and the future. And that's why I brought up the example of this young man, Ilyas. He did not claim to forge the documents. The documents were real. And this gets into an immense complexity and talks about the corruption in Moscow, and the various barriers that are so porous that would allow a small truck loaded with small arms to go from Chechnya to Moscow, a Gazel, if anyone knows the Russian--and that for a price of, reportedly, $5,000, that Gazel made it to Moscow. Again, as I said, it's something I'm working on. I did not meet with him because he did not want to meet with me, but of course it's something that I would certainly like to do in the future. It gets to the point raised by the earlier panel, that it is extremely difficult now, above and beyond the total press ban, which has been in existence, as Andrei can testify to perhaps better than anyone on this planet, by the Kremlin. Unless you go on a Kremlin-sponsored press tour, which are few and far between now, and I have never done that, it's very, very difficult to get to Chechnya. The extraordinary fact was that he was in Moscow, and that I do take to be true. That, alone, to me speaks to the porous nature of security between Chechnya and Moscow. As I said, he is very light-skinned. He has sort of a fair hair. He passes as a Russian. Does that help at all? QUESTION: [Inaudible.] MR. MEIER: In terms of his participation in Nord-Ost, yes, I believe that to be true. In terms of the Black Widows and his organization, yes, I do believe that to be true. But have I met with a woman who was being prepared to become a suicide bomber? No, I have not yet. And you're absolutely right--it's a very, very sensitive issue, and the motivations that lay behind that are something that we can dispute. MR. LUKASHEVICH: Thank you very much, Mr. Sikorski. Aleksandr Lukashevich from the Russian Embassy. I thank you twice, looking at another direction of thoughts, finally. I tried to be visible, but not to be an alien, but a real participant in the discussion. I can't proceed my statement later today. I wish to speak Russian, of course, that everybody understands because there is quite a difference between the audience, which we are presiding here, but I don't want to make any remarks now and any questions posed, but simply an appeal to be reasonable and very responsible for the statements you are making, especially Mr. Satter. I would wish to say that, as a human being, as a citizen of the Russian Federation, I have been very much offended by your statements and [audio break.] I have lost two of my relatives in those blasts, and I can't hide from this audience the organizers who are they. The materials are very open after the investigation. There is no need for any further additional thoughts on this, but simply to understand the sensitivity of the question and the human nature of those events which we're trying to analyze here. And one final remark. I am a newcomer to Washington. I joined the embassy just four months ago, but I saw the sensitivity for the American public was going on abroad, especially from the point of view of human losses abroad, and that's very sensitive, and we understood, and we stood together with the administration and the American people. I can't appeal to stand by Russian federal authorities in this totally, but to be more objective and more sensible to what's going on, and your statements should be very responsible and reasonable, even from the point of view of history. I will present something very interesting today as a presentation from our party as a participant in this great panel. So it will be a little surprise. Thank you. MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you, Mr. Lukashevich, and we are very glad to have the official Russian view present here, and for your presence. I think, Mr. Satter, you should defend your remarks. Who killed Mr. Lukashevich's relatives? MR. SATTER: I don't know. [Audio break.] Sorry. There are legitimate doubts as to the origin of these bombings. They have been raised in the Russian press themselves. It's in the Russian press itself. And what I would like to say to Mr. Lukashevich is that no one need fear an objective inquiry into the origins of a second Chechen war [audio break]. Hold on a second. Is that better? Yeah. Okay. There's no reason to fear an inquiry into the 1999 Moscow terrorist bombings. On the contrary, it's in the interests of the Russian [audio break] which indicate 40 to 50 percent of the Russian population believed that it was the FSB that was responsible for those bombings. It's a momentous question. There are legitimate reasons to believe that it was not the Chechens who were responsible for those bombings, and the real doubts about them ought to be cleared up. And I would think that the people who would be most interested and most concerned to see those doubts dispelled would be the members of the Russian government itself. MR. SIKORSKI: We'll take a couple more. QUESTION: I'm Nicholas Daniloff, professor at Northeastern University, and this question goes to the topic that we're discussing. These explosions that took place in Ryazan were connected with hexagen, and I would like David Satter to comment on this. Is this not a controlled substance which would not be available to ordinary citizens? MR. SATTER: Well, according to the prosecutor who interviewed one of the people who is being--who rented out one of the basements in which the hexagen was placed, there are four tons of hexagen that are necessary for military needs in Russia that are produced in two plants that are guarded by the FSB. One-and-a-half tons of hexagen was used in the explosions on Guryanov Street and Kashirskoye Shosse. So there is a real question, it is one of the many unanswered questions about the bombings. How was it possible for Chechen terrorist groups to obtain that hexagen, if indeed they did obtain it, given the fact that the factories in which the hexagen is produced are so tightly guarded and tightly guarded by the FSB. MR. SIKORSKI: Last question over there. QUESTION: Hi. Kathy [?], Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. David, I'm quite prepared to believe that some rogue element of the FSB could have, when Steposhyn [ph] was in charge could have done something of this sort, but what I don't hear is the journalistic research on the Moscow bombings. What I'm hearing from this presentation, and other films that we saw, is a lot of material on Ryazan, and there it seems that there could have been a motive where the FSB faked--staged a bombing in order to look valorous in solving it. This is another option to analyze. What I don't hear is information about Moscow. Where are the eyewitnesses? Where are the people who turned up dead if they investigated it? I mean, that's always a clue. There's only reasoning by analogy. So I would like to hear more about what you have on Moscow. MR. SATTER: The evidence on Moscow is all circumstantial because the rubble was cleared away, over the protests of the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, in three days. We know that in the case of the bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that the arrests were made of the people responsible for those bombings as a result of the careful, minute sifting of the rubble. In the case of the bombings in Moscow, the rubble was cleared away in three days, which had the effect of destroying the crime scene. The [audio break]. I'm sorry. The point about the bombing in Ryazan is that the FSB does not seek to be valorous in the case of the Ryazan events. They claimed that this was a training exercise and that it was all done to test the vigilance of the population. So there's no such claim. The reason why the--because so much of the evidence was destroyed in the case of the bombings which were successful, it's particularly important to look at the bombing which didn't take place because it's the modus operandi for the Ryazan bombings, including the explosives used, the placement of the bombs near the principal structural supports of the building, putting them in the basement, timing the bomb to go off in the middle of the night so that there would be a maximum number of casualties, all of those things are identical to the modus operandi for the successful bombings. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to go into all of the circumstantial evi--it's also true that Scotland Yard and the FBI offered their full forensic cooperation to the Russian authorities after the bombings in Moscow. That offer was refused. I think that if we had some time we could go into the massive circumstantial evidence concerning the Moscow bombings as well. But where we have clearly a bomb that was placed by the FSB, and which the FSB admits to having placed--and by the way it was Patrushev, not Steposhyn, who was in charge of the FSB at the time--that is Ryazan. And in that case we see a pattern identical to that which characterized the successful bombings, with the exception that in this case, someone noticed something, and the bomb was discovered before it could go off. MR. SIKORSKI: One last quick one. The lady in the back there, but let's be very brief, and then we'll break up for lunch. QUESTION: Maria [?], Internews. I would like to switch gear a little bit and ask a question to Andrei and David about the current myths and truths on the ground in Chechnya and Ingushetia, particularly the taking down of the IDP camps in Ingushetia and the so-called normalization in Chechnya. I would like if you could comment on those, and I'm sure that would help the local or international NGOs to assess what to do next in Chechnya, whether the Chechenization is really normalizing, as the Russian authorities are claiming, whether the people are voluntarily returning to Chechnya, and what you can project into the near future with [inaudible] with the remaining IDPs who do not wish to return to Chechnya. Thank you. MR. BABITSKY: [Remarks made in Russian. No interpretation available on recording.] MR. SATTER: Just two minutes. In terms of NGOs and organizations working there, there are a number. Unfortunately, it's usually two or three very small working most effectively, basing out of Ingushetia or out of Nalchik. The work does continue. I'm sure many people in this room are involved in it, and in some cases, with the participation of the federal forces or, as Andrei said very diplomatically, from the Ingush. Refugees are an enormously complex problem. They are used politically. They are used economically. They are used by all sides, but of course they exist, and they have been going back to Chechnya. The other problem is, of course, going back home is not always the best prospect for them. In terms of normalization, I tried to say a little bit in the five minutes I had, I think that that is, at best, a complete fraud. And Chechenization means, quite simply, Chechen against Chechen, in other words, civil war. Palestinianization I think is probably more likely, with more bombing. What you've seen, quite objectively, is not a constriction of the territory, not a tightening, a lessening of the territory that is at risk, but a widening. We've had bombings in Mozdok, in North Ingushetia. We've had a near riot in Nalchik. So what you're seeing in the last few months is a widening of the armed conflict out of Chechnya. And dare I need to repeat the bombing yesterday in Moscow? So quite the opposite of a shrinking of the territory at risk, but a widening, and I only see further that continuing. MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you, participants. I think we, unfortunately, have a very comprehensive idea of the mess. I will appeal to our panelists in our audience after lunch, we will look [audio break]. --our keynote speaker, Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Thank you very much. The lunch is served at the back of this room and in the elevator lobby as well outside of the room. KEYNOTE SPEAKER MR. SIKORSKI: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Radek Sikorski, director of the New Atlantic Initiative. It's my great pleasure and honor to introduce our keynote speaker today. Actually, who am I to introduce in Washington such a well-known Washington figure as Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security Adviser. His list of publications and accomplishments is very long, and you're perhaps more familiar with it even than I am. But I'll say that he has at least two particular claims to speak on this subject to us today, in addition to being one of the moving forces behind the U.S. Committee for Peace on Chechnya, namely, that as a member of the Carter administration, Dr. Brzezinski was instrumental in bringing about the Helsinki process, the embedding of the idea of human rights in the international discourse, and we are here today on the International Day of Human Rights. And that was not only moral, it was also effective. In combination with the Reagan policies of the 1980s, it helped to bring about the collapse of Soviet tyranny. And, secondly, Dr. Brzezinski is also no stranger to impossible situations, to bringing peace where no peace seems to be possible. He was of course, a key figure in bringing about peace between Israel and Egypt. Dr Brzezinski, I only have one regret, that I cannot address you today as the President of Poland, for which I wanted you to run. However, thanks to that, we have the privilege of having you speak to us today. Please, the floor is yours. [Applause.] MR. BRZEZINSKI: Thank you very much, Radek. Somehow, rather, I feel more comfortable speaking here as a resident of Washington than as an occasional visitor in state to Washington. So thanks very much for the compliment, but I'm happy to be here on my own credentials, so to speak. First of all, I do want to congratulate the organizers of this conference. I have been somewhat involved in this issue now for almost a decade, and I think this is the most impressive undertaking of this sort here in Washington that I have witnessed. And I think it is to the credit of the organizers of this conference, the various institutions that have collectively undertaken this effort, but perhaps it has also a wider significance, namely, that there is a maturing recognition that this is not some isolated, remote, perhaps tragic but ultimately trivial issue that can be ignored. And that is all to the good. Secondly, by way of preface, I also want to say that I was very impressed by this morning's discussions that covered a number of important facets of this issue. They touched on a number of centrally important developments. They explored the potential meaning of some mysteries that are yet to be fully unraveled, but which testify to the byzantine complexity of this issue. In that sense, these discussions were informative, enlightening, provocative. And I asked myself yesterday, in thinking as to what I might contribute to this discussion, what is it that I should focus on, what is it that I can really add, given the presence of so many experts, people with a direct sense of involvement, some people with direct involvement, what can I really add. And, ultimately, I decided that perhaps the most I can do is to share with you some reflections regarding two issues: The first is maybe somewhat subjective. Why should one care? Why do I care? And then, secondly, what next? Why do I care? Because I do care. I have been involved in this issue now for a decade. And I care because I'm very much a child of the second half of the 20th century, and I'm very much aware of the fact that the 20th century was, in fact, the most lethal century in the history of mankind. It was a century in which more people died by deliberate design of others, in the name of a variety of passions, than in the entirety of human history before it. Literally, if you actually total up the numbers, more people were deliberately killed in that century than in all of the centuries preceding it. That is a staggering statistic. And it was a century of unprecedented cruelty to the most defenseless. Anyone who lived through that has to be sensitive to the moral imperative that this implies. And who were the principal victims? I think we can say, with a painful statistical accuracy, that the principal victims, if we were to rank them, were the Jews, all of whom were destined to be killed if even not all were killed, but they were destined to be killed. Secondly, the Gypsies, all of whom were destined to be killed, even if not all of them were killed. And thirdly, the Chechens, actually the Chechens. Because if one considers the fact that in 1944, after 100 years of repression, they were chosen to be eliminated as a nation, which means uprooted from their soil and deported in the midst of a cold winter to an alien territory, in the process of which almost half of them died--men, women, and children--it closely approximates what happened to the Jews and the Gypsies, even in terms of statistical proportions. Roughly one-half of the population perished. And since the 1990s, how many more have died? We hear different estimates. But, by and large, I think there is consensus that probably somewhere in the range of a quarter of the total died--not by accident, not by earthquakes, not by climatically induced starvation, but at the hands of others, deliberately. And how did they die? They died like the Gypsies, like the Jews: amidst global silence, in solitude, with occasionally some people murmuring, "Never again," but not really attaching much significance to that. So I think there is something very significant about what we were discussing here today, and that is one of the reasons why I think we all probably agree that we should care. That is the first reason. But there is a second reason why I care about this issue, and that is because of what it, in my view, tells us about what is happening in America, and that is of enormous importance to me as an American. Notice who's absent here today. We invited a number of official Russian speakers, and none of them came, although we will have a guest from the Russian Embassy, and we are grateful for that. We also invited a series of senior U.S. officials, whose names I will not list, but who didn't come and most of whom did not even respond. We are fortunate to have one official with us, but I cannot say that the U.S. Government is massively represented here today. And I wonder whether that doesn't tell us something about the moral issue at stake. If I have to look at American policy towards the issue of Chechnya, from the onset of the Chechen dilemmas almost a decade ago to today, I would say that, by and large, we have seen an evolution from initial ignorance to self-preoccupied indifference. Initial ignorance reflected in the remarkable statement by the President of the United States that the conflict in Chechnya is like the American Civil War, which I think most charitably can be described as an ignorant statement. But now we have self-preoccupied indifference because we know that the subsequent President actually knows better. He actually knows better. So we're not dealing with indifference. We're not dealing with ignorance. We're dealing with a tactical expediency. After 9/11, it is better to sweep this issue under the rug, even though we know better. There is an interview conducted by Jim Lehrer with our highest spokesman and political as well as, I assume, moral leader, and he is asked by Jim Lehrer, "What should we do about the Chechnya issue?" I quote from an interview in October of the year 2000, that is to say, an electoral year. Lehrer says, "Should we hold up International Monetary Fund aid? Anything else we should do?" The answer: "Export-import loans." Lehrer: "And just cut them off?" Answer: "Yes, sir, I think we should." Lehrer: "Until they do what?" Answer: "Until they understand the need to resolve the dispute peacefully and stop bombing women and children and causing large numbers of refugees to flee Chechnya." Lehrer: "And you think that would work?" Answer: "Well, it certainly worked better than what the Clinton administration has tried." So we cannot plead ignorance at the highest level. We know what is at stake. We know what perhaps should have been done. But we don't do it. And, in fact, I think there's no doubt that this whole issue has been exploited in the wake of 9/11 by a Russian leadership that has known how to use a particular turnkey phrase, a particular turnkey word: "terrorism." "Terrorism"--it's almost like producing a Pavlovian reaction. And that has been tactically employed a great deal in a setting of what I'm afraid is a case of bureaucratic cowardice. I once discussed this issue at a very high level with a very senior official. The question of terrorism came up, and I said, "Yes, terrorism is abhorrent and clearly has to be denounced. But what about the carpet bombing and shelling of Grozny in order to kill thousands of civilians in order to intimidate the opponent? Isn't that terror?" And then after a brief, hesitant pause, I was told, "Well, that's not terror. That's using force." [Laughter.] MR. BRZEZINSKI: A distinction which somewhat escaped me. There is even a bureaucratic example of what I am afraid is a case of bureaucratic cowardice, exemplified by the striking contrast in the manner that the Danes and the British have recently handled the case of Zakayev, the spokesman for the Chechens in Western Europe, active on behalf of a peaceful solution, and the way the U.S. Government has handled the very similar case of Ilyas Akhmadov, the Foreign Minister of the Chechens, who has been similarly seeking a peaceful outcome internationally and here in the United States. And some of you here know his proposal called the Akhmadov Plan. It is quite clear that the Russian Government, and notably Putin, would like to silence both because if they are silent, it is easier to reduce the problem into Manichean black and white categories: good guys against terrorists. And Chechens who promote peace and compromise are inconvenient. The Russians tried to extradite Zakayev from the Danes. The Danes in short order rebuffed the extradition demand, dismissing it as ludicrous. Then the Russians tried with the British. The British, in the course of a few months' court procedure, ultimately did the same, exposing the evidence the Russians have offered as fraudulent, denounced the Russians for the use of torture, even in so-called judicial procedures, and then entirely on their own followed up by unilaterally granting asylum to Zakayev. But in the United States, when Akhmadov asked for asylum, the USG bucked the process to the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, instead of taking a stand on its own, for which discretionary authority exists. It has lingered for months in the INS, literally lingered for months. And then finally, after a hearing at the initial level, where apparently there was a positive inclination to make a favorable ruling, a higher level made a negative decision. Not only that, but when the issue was then moved into the courts, which under our system is an option, the U.S. Government has repeatedly caused the entire process to be delayed month after month, pleading that it is not ready to make its negative case, but insisting on its negative stand. In the meantime, I may add, his family has been stuck abroad for months and months in the Southern Caucasus, and a newly born but handicapped child was denied effective medical treatment as a consequence, and the family was not permitted to come to the United States. All of that in the face of appeals, written and signed by people like Lubbers, whom you heard this morning, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees; Senator McCain to Tom Ridge, who is now in charge, ultimately, of INS; Senator Kennedy; myself and some others; most, in fact, unanswered. Now, I repeat, in this particular case, it isn't the Russians who are doing this, as was the case with the Danes and the Brits. It is the USG that is doing it and relying, I may add, on Russian-supplied evidence that is strikingly reminiscent of some of the evidence that was submitted to the Danes and to the Brits. I think there is a lesson, or a source of concern, in this. That is to say, can we expect people who are denied hope to act in moderation? Are we perhaps not ourselves contributing to driving the Chechens into extremism? Aren't we doing essentially what Putin wants us to do? And don't we know from 20th century history that silence is sometimes de facto complicity? I think that's something that one needs to ask at a time when we are being challenged internationally, that we need to respond, but if we are to have credibility and moral authority, we have to stand for principle. [Applause.] MR. BRZEZINSKI: There is a third reason why I care and why I think people should care, and that is because of what Chechnya is doing to Russia. Now, someone might say this is hypocrisy, this is pretense, and I'm not going to put it in sentimental terms. I'm going to put it in starkly geopolitical terms. I think the Chechen issue is delaying the post-imperial transformation of Russia. It is not only delaying it, it is helping to reverse it. And this is why one should care. The Chechnya issue has some analogies--I emphasize the word "some" because analogies don't mean identity. It has some analogies, some similarities--some--to the Algeria issue that once stood in the way of the modernization, democratization, and Europeanization of France. And just ask yourselves, Where would France be today if the Algeria issue had not been resolved, if it were still being repressed, if the French were still claiming that Algeria is France and that ultimately Algerians are Frenchmen? It took a great man to resolve that issue, to cut the Gordian knot, to break with the past and to draw the conclusions that permitted France to be what it is. De Gaulle was a great man, figuratively and literally. Putin is not. He's a small man who's appealing to the worst instincts-- [Applause.] MR. BRZEZINSKI: He's a small man who's appealing to the worst instincts in his country, not to the best instincts in his country. And there are good instincts in Russia. There are courageous Russians who have stood for principle in a manner that few of us probably would have the daring to emulate, and we owe them a great debt. They represent the future of Russia. And you know their names-- [Applause.] MR. BRZEZINSKI: --and they deserve our applause. But right now we are witnessing a retrogressive process in which Russia is being transformed into a petro-autocracy in a decaying social structure. It is, in terms of crime statistics, now one of the most violent countries in the world. There are comparative crime statistics on this which are staggering. It is a country locked into a territorial myth that obscures realistic judgments about reality, a territorial myth which is based on the notion that if you control a lot of territory, you're a great country. It is a very deceptive myth because it obscures appreciation of what in the modern age represents national greatness and national influence and national power. There was a very interesting book on this which has lately appeared to which I would like to draw your attention, by Fiona Hill at Brookings, on the consequences of so much of the Russian population having been forcibly pushed in the Soviet era into economically misallocated cities located climatically in areas which are counterproductive to social development. But this notion of territorial myth and territorial integrity is deeply embedded in the Russian political psyche, and it prevents Russia from moving towards the modern age. I believe this will change because it is also my conviction that the Putin regime is the last gasp of the Soviet era. It is the last gasp of the Soviet era. [Applause.] MR. BRZEZINSKI: It is a regime based on the last graduating class of the KGB, of people privileged, intelligent, having the opportunity to travel and to read, accustomed to the holding of power, with a very nostalgic view of what power is, what prestige is. But if you meet the Russians of the next political generation, Russians in their 30s and 40s, you see a totally different outlook. And I predict with confidence that within a decade we're going to have a leader in Russia who probably will have gone to some business school in the United States, a cabinet in Russia in which there will be graduates of Western universities, and a political elite in Russia which will be as good as any. And that brings me to my concluding point. It has been said earlier that Russia cannot part from Chechnya and that independence is, therefore, out. I don't know how one can sustain that judgment indefinitely. It is an accurate description of today. But if Russia is to become a full member of the European community, of the international community, if it is to be part of the West, if our strategic objective of drawing Russia in is to be accomplished, it will be a different Russia. It will be a different Russia in which its own greatness is defined in different terms, in which there is a greater understanding also that certain myths have outlived their day. A different Russia will have a different definition of what Russia is and what greatness is, and I think in that setting, if there is a people that doesn't wish to be part of Russia, the better part of wisdom will be to have a different relationship with those people. And I think our objective should be to make that happen--to make that happen--and it seems to me that means that, first of all, we have to keep this issue as part of the international agenda. It is not an issue to be swept under the rug. It is part of the long-term strategic agenda involving our own role in the world, our own sense of what we stand for in terms of principles, but it is also an important issue in terms of our relationship with Russia and the shaping of a new world system. And to keep that issue as part of the international agenda, two things specifically need to be pursued. The first is to keep emphasizing the international responsibility for preserving the fabric and the existence of the Chechen nation, because it is faced with the possibility of genocidal extinction. And that means maximizing the international efforts at relief, offering that relief even if it is not accepted by the Russian Government, making sure that the international community responds generously to the need to salvage the Chechen people as a people, to preserve their inner fabric of identity, so that what Stalin started in 1944 doesn't become reality as a consequence of what is happening today. [Applause.] MR. BRZEZINSKI: And, secondly, we have to keep on stressing the very simple proposition that if Russia wishes to be part of the West, it cannot come into the West with its imperial baggage, with the legacies of the past. There is no room in the Western community, in the Atlantic community, there is no room in the European Union for a country that is pursuing a colonialist policy in a genocidal fashion, whether intentionally or de facto. And we can argue whether that is an intentional policy, but we know that it is the case de facto. There is simply no room in the Western community for such a country. There is simply no room in the concept of democracy for such a reality to be accepted. And provided that is kept up in the forefront, it doesn't mean that other issues and other relationships have to be sacrificed, but it means being forthright, it means being honest, it means being clear. That, after all, is the essential quality of leadership in the world. And if we're serious about our own role in the world, if we're serious about what it is that we want Russia to become, and if we care about what it is that defines us as people, I think we will know what to do. Thank you. [Applause.] MR. SIKORSKI: We have about ten minutes for questions. Dr. Brzezinski has kindly agreed to take them. Please. MS. : My name is Alvina, and I am a student from Berkeley. I was wondering if you see any parallels between U.S.-Iraq war and Russia-Chechnya war? Can you comment on that, please? MR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, there might be some parallels, but as I said earlier, parallels or similarities or analogies also implies some significant differences. I think the differences are more important than the parallels. The parallels may be disturbing, at least in terms of their potential. That is to say, if we dig ourselves into a situation in which we are unable to extract ourselves and in the meantime anti-American animus becomes dominant and the bloodshed becomes more widespread, then the parallels may increase in number. But certainly the differences are much more important. We did not go in to overrun Iraq and incorporate it into the United States. We didn't bomb Baghdad into smithereens. We didn't drive one-half to one-third of the Iraqi population out of the country, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So the differences are more important. MR. : Frank Corbin (ph) from the law firm of DeKiefer and Horgan. If the relationship between the Russian Federation and Chechnya were to change, what forms do you see that as possibly taking and what process would you see being required to achieve those forms? MR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, first of all, I think it is important for the Russians to recognize that if they want to resolve the issue peacefully, they have to deal with those Chechens who have committed themselves to independence, because it is the resistance of these Chechens that is a critical dimension of this whole issue. And I think we should be clear in our own stand that dealing with Mashkadov is a necessary precondition for resolving this process, because obviously the Russians want to marginalize any Chechen resistance and then to divide the Chechens as much as possible so that they can then say there is no party to the peace process, we have nobody to negotiate with, except people whom we create ourselves, like Kadyrov. So I think recognition that there is a partner to the dispute is the point of departure. Having said that, one can also envisage a variety of transitional arrangements that might meet the more immediate current needs of both sides without fully satisfying either and which would require major concessions also on the part of the Chechens, provided there was also some sense of some eventual direction pointing to some outcome that might involve either some special status or some associate status or some connection with the Russian Federation. In brief, what we do need is a combination of a road map and a virtual accord, a little bit in parallel to another problem that we are confronting elsewhere but which is of a very different nature. There has to be some sense of direction and some broad definition of outcome, but perhaps with the realization that intermediate stages will be necessary and may, in fact, be prolonged. But we're not there yet, and not until the international community, and particularly the United States, takes a clearer posture on this issue so that the issue is part of the international discourse will there be any adjustment in the Russian position. Right now Putin probably feels that neither domestically nor internationally does he confront any need to make any adjustments. He has to be convinced that ultimately there is, and that can only happen if it is helped from the outside and also if in the long run there is change within Russia itself, particularly if the younger generation of Russians begins to realize that certain aspects of the imperial past are simply not compatible with the current age. MR. : Steve Biegun with the Senate Majority Leader's office. Dr. Brzezinski, thank you for your remarks. I thought it was an excellent representation on the issue. My question to you is: You have suggested a couple of things that might be done by the United States Government. One is to introduce more candor into the relationship. You read the excerpts of discussions about using lending as leverage. Could you enumerate three or four things that you think the United States Government should do now in order to raise this pressure? You know the ideas out there related to Russian participation in institutions and so on. Could you enumerate a few things specifically that we could do? MR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, thank you. First of all, let me also say that you personally and your Senator have also shown significant interest in the issue that I discussed specifically, and that's both highly appreciated and is also symptomatic of the problem, that the problem still persists. With regard to what else could be done, I'll just cite one example. There are many others, but one I think is particularly pertinent at this stage, and that's the so-called G-7 or G-8. We have turned the G-8 into a ludicrous--ludicrous--undertaking because the whole concept behind the G-7 was that advanced democracies--rich, advanced democracies--get together on the basis of shared values to discuss problems in common and to find solutions in common to shared problems. And we now have in it a government which is violating human rights, not only vis-a-vis Chechens but increasingly vis-a-vis its own people, by restricting freedom of the media, by manipulating elections, by pushing the clock back. Does it really belong in the G-8? It wouldn't cost us or anybody else much to make a change, to disinvite someone from that meeting. Let's not kid ourselves. They love to go to that meeting. They like to play up that role. Therefore, it's a value. It's a value which can be denied at very little cost to ourselves, but with a very significant learning effect. So that's another example, and perhaps the Senator can do something about that. MR. SIKORSKI: One or two more. MR. DANILOFF: Nick Daniloff of Northeastern University. We've heard here today that the Chechen resistance is fractured, that there is a part of it which is moderate, there is another part which is increasingly radicalized. We know that there are conflicts between Field Commander Basayev and President Maskhadov. If there are to be negotiations on a peaceful solution between Moscow and Chechnya, who is Moscow to negotiate with? MR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, clearly, the moderates, clearly Maskhadov, and the sooner the better, because the longer the conflict lasts, the more likely the dynamics of the conflict will push in the direction of the extremists. That's the logic of this situation. Now, perhaps the unwillingness to negotiate with Maskhadov is derived from the deliberate desire to push the Chechens into a more and more extreme posture in order to discredit them and then to justify the absence of the negotiations. I think that's a very legitimate suspicion. MS. : Anna Broadscale, (?) University. You have mentioned the myth of territorial integrity that is sustaining the war in Chechnya. It's an excellent point, I think, and probably it sustains the popular opinion. Don't you think that it's possible that the war in Chechnya has a very rational reasoning for that, and that is ultimately the Chechen oil? I am a little bit surprised that the issue of oil has not yet been mentioned at this conference. But ultimately it's the Chechen oil that probably is supporting the Russian Army at this point, and the Russian Army has a real stake in staying in Chechnya and using it for its natural resources. My question is: How do you see the resolution of this problem? MR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, I'm not quite sure that I entirely agree with your emphasis on the Chechen oil. There are some oil wells in Chechnya, and Chechnya has been an important point of transit, and it's, I think, undoubtedly true that the Russian military commanders, by siphoning off some of the local oil, are making profits for themselves. But in the larger scheme of things, in terms of the overall volume of production of oil in Russia, the production in Chechnya is very, very negligible. It is simply not a major factor in terms of the overall potential of the Russian economy. MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you very much. [Applause.] MR. SIKORSKI: Ladies and gentlemen, let's have some coffee, and we'll reconvene for the last session at 2 o'clock. AFTERNOON SESSION MR. SIKORSKI: And before we start our afternoon session, "Search for Peace"--and I know how unlikely it seems after what we've heard this morning--I'd like to introduce Jerry Fowler, the Staff Director of the Committee on Conscience, from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Please, Mr. Fowler. MR. FOWLER: Thank you, Radek, and thank you very much for organizing this conference and for inviting me. And I have to admit I've been asked to make introductory remarks to the panel on Search for Peace and it was one thing to see on the schedule that I was going to have to follow Dr. Brzezinski, and then to have to actually do it is quite intimidating. And my colleague, Bridget Connoly [ph], was very helpful. She comes up afterwards and she goes, wow, he really raised the bar for you. [Laughter.] MR. FOWLER: So sometimes those things work out a lot more difficulty than you think. But I would like to pick up somewhat on the theme that Dr. Brzezinski raised in terms of emphasizing the moral context, the moral stakes that are involved in the catastrophe in Chechnya. And to do that, I'd like to have you cast your memory back ten years to April of 1993, which was the month that we opened the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum across the way, adjacent to the National Mall. And the opening occurred on a very cold day, a blustery day, a wet day actually somewhat like this, even though it was in April. And the ceremony to dedicate the new memorial was attended by thousands, including Holocaust survivors, veterans of the liberating armed forces, 61 heads of state, most of the members of the United States Congress, and the newly inaugurated President of the United States, Bill Clinton. And on that bitter April day, Elie Wiezel, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless witness to the enormity of the Holocaust, delivered the keynote address and he told of a young Jewish woman in the Carpathian Mountains of Hungary who 50 years before that ceremony had read a brief account of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. And why, this woman said--why are our Jewish brothers doing that? Couldn't they wait quietly--the word was "quietly"--until the end of the war? She didn't know, Wiezel said, of names like Treblinka or Belzic or Birkenau. Yet, a year later, the young woman and her family were deported to Aushwitz. But the names that the young Jewish woman did not know, others did. "Mr. President and Distinguished Guests," Wiezel said, these names were known to officials in Washington and London"-- [TECHNICAL INTERRUPTION]--"had already vanished." He went on, "The Pentagon knew, the State Department knew, the White House knew, most governments knew." And Wiezel proceeded to recite an anguished litany of questions: Why were the Hungarian Jews not warned? Why were the railways to Birkenau not bombed? Why was there no public outcry? And he said, for me--for him, a man who grew up in a religion, the Jewish religion, a man who is entire life thought that God is everywhere--how is it that man's silence was matched by God's? And Elie Wiezel offered no answers to those questions. Indeed, he said there are no answers. Nor did he consider the new Holocaust Memorial Museum to be an answer. Rather, he said the museum is a question. If there is a response, it is a response in responsibility. By the time that Wiezel neared the end of his address, his prepared text had been rendered useless by the rain. His face pinched from the cold, Wiezel stopped his story about the Holocaust and turned to address President Clinton directly and raised an issue that, in April 1993, was very current. "Mr. President," he said, I cannot not tell you something. I have been in the former Yugoslavia last fall. I cannot sleep since for what I have seen. As a Jew, I am saying that we must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country. People fight each other and children die. Why? Something, anything, must be done." To conclude, to bind this plea to the President tightly with all that he said before, he offered, quote, "Just one more remark. The woman in the Carpathian Mountains of whom I spoke to you--that woman disappeared. She was my mother." The juxtaposition of Bosnia, in the next year Rwanda, with the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, threw into sharp relief an issue that had been highlighted by Elie Wiezel and the President's Commission on the Holocaust in 1979, when they first recommended what ultimately became the Holocaust Memorial Museum. They observed that of all the issues they addressed, quoting them, "None was as perplexing or as urgent as the need to ensure that such a totally inhuman assault as the Holocaust, or any partial version thereof, never recurs. The Commission believes very strongly not only that remembrance of the past could influence the course of the future, but," they told President Carter, "a memorial unresponsive to the future would violate the memory of the past." It would violate the very memory that they sought to preserve. Thus, the Commission recommended that a living memorial to Holocaust victims include a Committee on Conscience to speak out on threats of contemporary genocide. And the museum's board of directors followed through on that recommendation shortly after the museum opened by creating a Committee on Conscience, and I'm privileged to be the committee's Staff Director. The committee's mission is to use the museum as a platform to address issues of contemporary mass violence. In particular, the committee's mandate is to alert the national conscience and influence policymakers to confront and work to halt acts of genocide and related crimes against humanity. The committee has concluded that to be effective in fulfilling this alerting function, it must monitor situations where it is concerned that there is a potential for genocide. And for that reason, the committee placed Chechnya on its watch list, its genocide watch list. The particular bases for the committee's concern are well known to this audience, and many of them have been talked about in the panels earlier today, and in particular, first, the history of persecution of Chechens as a people, including, of course, the deportation of the entire population in 1944 which resulted in such tremendous loss of life; secondly, the tendency in Russian society to demonize Chechens as a group; and, thirdly, the amount of violence directed against civilians in military operations beginning at the end of 1999 and continuing through means of the dirty war to the present, involving apparent violations of international humanitarian law with no meaningful attempts at accountability; in addition, the continuing disappearances of Chechen civilians. A large portion, as you know, of the population remains displaced, many, although it appears fewer each day, in neighboring Ingushetia who are afraid to return to their homes. Forcing them to return, as has been happening, does not remove the source of their fear, nor does extending the dirty war to Ingushetia. All of these factors together raised enough concern about the potential for genocide for the Committee on Conscience to put Chechnya on its watch list. The dangerous nature of the situation is summed up for me by a scene in a film that we recently screened at the museum called "Greetings from Grozny," which originally was aired on PBS' "Wide Angle" series. A Russian major was speaking on camera to the film makers and he said very matter of factly, "We're different than the Germans because we don't kill the children, but the consequence is that we are creating another generation to fight us." You can see easily see the genocidal logic embedded in that observation. In addition to violence against civilian by Russian security forces, there have also been attacks against civilians by Chechen rebel forces, as we've heard today, such as the hostage-taking at the Nordosk [ph] theater, and the combing in December 2002 of the main government building in Grozny, killing at least 72 civilians and wounding over 200; more recently, of course, suicide bombings, including apparently yesterday in Moscow. And attacks such as these are cited by the Russian government as evidence that its actions are part of an international war on terror. I think we can conclude without any doubt from this morning's conversation and discussions that the situation in Chechnya is extremely complex. And understanding it is made even more difficult by obstacles that the Russian government has raised to impede outside scrutiny by journalists and international monitors and by recent harassment and intimidation of international non-governmental organizations, including, I think I should add, if it hasn't been touched on earlier today, the continued inaction on the case of Aryan Urkel [ph], the MSF worker, who has been kidnapped now and held in captivity for 15 months. But the complexity does not relieve us of the obligation to try to learn more, when the ultimate reality is that there is a civilian population at risk, a unique society that is in danger of disintegrating from the constant grinding pressure from competing forces. Nor does it relieve us of the obligation to search for peace, which brings us to today's final panel. Thank you very much. [Applause.] MS. PLETKA: Thank you very much, Mr. Fowler. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Danielle Pletka. I'm the Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. I'm very pleased to be moderating this, our last panel, in what has been, I think, an enormously interesting and successful conference. What I'm going to do is briefly introduce everybody and not take up too much time speaking myself. As this is our last panel and it is entitled rather hopefully, "The Search for Peace," I only hope that our panelists, and afterwards the people to whom we can give an opportunity to ask questions, can dwell less on the record and more on positive solutions and possibilities. And with that, I'm going to just give a very brief biographical--not biological; some further time--very brief biographical introduction to each of our panelists, some of whom have come a great distance to be with us. And you should have, as before, a more full biography in your folders. First of all--and please forgive my pronunciation; I should apologize more to my colleagues and to the audience--Ilyas Akhmadov was appointed the Foreign Minister in the government of Aslan Maskhadov and he is currently a promoter of a peace plan proposal that calls for a United Nations resolution for Russian troops to withdraw from Chechnya and to be replaced by a UN peace-keeping contingent. Leon Aron is a resident scholar and Director of Russian Studies at AEI. I shouldn't have to read this, Leon. He's the author of the first full-scale biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life, and he is the regular author of "Russian Outlook," with which I'm sure everybody here is familiar. Lord Judd, Frank Judd. Of course, he is a member of the British House of Lords, served consecutively as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State of Defense, Minister for Overseas Development, and Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. He has been the rapporteur for Chechnya to the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and co-chaired the joint Pace-Duma Working Group on Chechnya. Aleksandr Lukashevich is the senior political counselor of the Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United States. Since 1995, he has visited Chechnya on several occasions, and particularly follows OSC activities and involvement in the region. And last, but alphabetically only, Andrei Pointkovsky is the director of the Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow and an independent analyst and observer of Russian politics. He writes frequently on Chechnya. With that, I don't know that we've agreed on what order we're going in, Radek. Shall we just start at the end and move on down? Why don't we do that? Why don't we start with you, sir, if we may? MR. POINTKOVSKY: Well, today, it was one of the most difficult days in my life. Hours after hours, I listening to barrage of demonstration of Russian policy in Chechnya. I haven't heard much new. Many points I did myself in Russia. Well, if you read my article, you know that I am maybe one of the most consistent critics of Putin's Chechnya policy. But I don't going to criticize Mr. Putin at this panel on two reasons, one of them personal. While I did not work for Mr. Putin, but he is the president of my country and I prefer to criticize him in Moscow and not in Washington. And the second reason is more serious. Well, I notice that the name of our session is "Search for Peace," and moderator of previous session called on us to stop blame distributing and to think about constructive solution. And the constructive solution may be only one, to try to help Mr. Putin, who we are criticizing so strongly, to find this peaceful solution, because the only person, at least in the coming four years, who may find the way out of this situation is the president of the Russian Federation. And my main point of this presentation will be more disagreements with most pessimistic assessment that it's impossible to happen, to expect to happen during forthcoming four years. In no way I use the word "optimistic." I think that the word "optimistic" is almost an indecent word in the analysis of Chechnya situation. It is a tragedy, enormous tragedy, of Chechen and Russian people. But let's try to find at least any glimpses of hope to try to construct some conceptual framework who could help, first of all, Russian authorities to get out of this situation. I try to use the analogy raised by Dr. Brzezinski about DeGaulle and the French-Algerian War. But I want to expand it a bit. I want to remind you the analogy may be even deeper than Dr. Brzezinski presented. If you remember, DeGaulle came to power in France for the second time in 1958 under the slogan ? Francaise, on the wave of French nationalism, on the wave and desire of French ? to crush Algerian rebellion. And this ? Francaise, it was the French equivalent for the famous Putin formula in December 1999 to oust ? . And DeGaulle began talks with Algerian rebels after his election for the second term, and this gives us opportunity to expand this analogy. What is the problem with the Russian-Chechen conflict? It's not the problem of end stage. It's not the problem of ? . Palestinian analogy was raised today, also. I also want to use it. The main problem in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is just end state. They can't agree, and I fear never agree about refugee return, about Jerusalem, and so on. But they're talking each to other for ten years already. Chairman Arafat embraced several Israeli prime ministers at White House lawn. The problem with Russian-Chechen conflict is just opposite. There is no problem of end state. There are a lot of plans on table, Mr. Akhmadov plan of conditional independence, Mr. Brzezinski plan presented two years ago. Mr. Brzezinski made a very uncompromising speech today, but when I read his plan two years ago, I was struck that this plan is very pro-Russian. He addressed, by the way ? us tomorrow on our internal meeting to address to Russian legitimate interest, the presence of military governor zone in Chechnya, Russian protection of Chechen ? body, and so on. I talk to many people in administration and I think that basically this plan is acceptable for Russian public opinions. The only problem with Brzezinski plan is that it's Brzezinski plan, because it will be perceived by Russian public as a pressure from outside on Russia. But I think that now the dimension of our common tragedy with Chechens is such that traditional political terms like independence or territorial integrity are losing its meaning before the suffering of Chechen people and sacrifices of Russian soldiers and population. So the problem is not the end state. The problem is this talking about--the problem is how to begin to talk. If Moscow will begin to talk with those who we are really fighting with, I think that it will be possible to find solution just on the common basis of all these plans. Certainly, there will be a lot of work to elaborate the road map to this solution. Why I think that Putin may be more disposed to do it now during his second term? You remember how he came to power, on the circumstances as DeGaulle in 1958. The Chechnya war, the necessity crush terrorists, to crush those who invaded Dagestan, was almost exclusive agenda of his election campaign. And it was politically and psychologically almost impossible to him to change his uncompromising position and no talks with rebels, because a change in his position. He implicitly--he would implicitly recognize that he was wrong at the beginning with his uncompromising position and this was politically and psychologically the main legitimization of his power. Chechnya and his tough position on Chechnya was the main legitimization of his coming to power. Now, he's getting absolutely different mandate of power. Well, as you know, the main subject of this election cycle was parliamentary and presidential election, his fight against oligarch. Well, it's another issue to discuss how efficient, how effective this fight, but this is popular slogan supported enthusiastically by a majority of people. And there is no doubt, especially after very poor performance of all potential contendents [sic] in parliamentary elections, he will win a second election with a crushing majority. He will be more free to address this problem. And many events even during his first term let us see that he and his administration were close to contemplating the problem in this conceptional framework. Well, certainly ? position now that we have Kadyrov being trusted--Kadyrov is governing Chechnya and this is a political solution. But unfortunately it's not the case because Kadyrov first, he didn't deliver two thing. He didn't stop violence in Chechnya, he did not stop terrorist activity outside Chechnya territory, and certainly he failed to consolidate Chechen society. It's interesting to compare results of referendum in Chechnya and Kadyrov election. People massively voted yes for referendum because they were ready to accept, well, this variant of Ilyas concept of conditional sovereignty. This was to some extent, someone said, embedded in this project of constitution. But the Kadyrov election was absolutely different thing, according to all independent observers. This option doesn't work; it simply doesn't work. MS. PLETKA: Okay, you have one last sentence on what option does work. MR. POINTKOVSKY: I think you get what will be my last section. Well, my last sentence will be my message to America, to United States. Well, I don't call you to silence. It's your right and your obligation, your duty to express your moral position on what is going in Chechnya. But I think it would be a political mistake now to try to exert tough pressure of Mr. Putin on Chechnya issue. My ? peace chance ? Putin chance, at least for some months after his second election. I have a very strong guess--I guess very strongly according to my talks with people in administration, but there is a real chance of changing policy because we need only one crucial thing to begin talks, not necessarily Putin with Maskhadov. It's impossible now, but there is technology of negotiation. It's well known the talks may begin as informal talks of representatives of representatives, and so on. The first step is really important, and the contrary to Israeli-Palestinian case. This first step may be decisive because there is no problem of this ? and state and ? court. The crucial point is beginning real talk between Russian administration and those whom we are really fighting with. I think my judgment and political analysis is that there is a chance for such development in the first half of next year, and let's make this chance happen. MS. PLETKA: Thank you, and forgive me for being ruthless. It's not because what you're saying isn't interesting. It's because we have five speakers and an audience full of people who I think would probably like to take the opportunity to ask you questions. In the interests of avoiding a stiff neck, I'm going to turn to this side and perhaps Mr. Lukashevich would be kind enough to speak next. MR. LUKASHEVICH: Thank you very much. Am I heard? MR. : Yes. MR. LUKASHEVICH: Great. It's a very difficult task to say something in 5, 10 minutes after what I have heard here, and it will take really some hours to rebuff all these statements. Please invite us some next times under this panel discussion. Let me first congratulate our audience on this International Human Rights Day and wish you well under the endeavors of peace and stability across the whole regions. And I wish tranquility and peace for the American public and American society. Secondly, my thanks go to Mr. Radek Sikorski and the leadership of the American Enterprise Institute and the new Atlantic Initiative for inviting the embassy. And most importantly they extended an invitation to really courageous people in the Chechen Republic in the first-ever legitimate administration, which unfortunately we couldn't implement fully due to some organizational constraints and very tough visa procedures in Moscow and elsewhere in the Russian Federation to get to the United States. Well, I was lucky. We used to talk about recipes for this drama and I'm very much thankful for Mr. Brzezinski, or Dr. Brzezinski, His Excellency, whatever, because I knew his lectures some 20 years ago when he first appeared from the United States in the Institute for Foreign Relations in Moscow and delivered a brilliant lecture of institutional memory in international relations, which can survive under every circumstances, even complicated one, which I myself feel in. Everybody asks why do we care. I can't explain for this distinguished audience, but as a person representing the Russian Federation and the person who was personally involved in all this drama since 1995, I care and a majority of the Russian population care, first, because the acknowledgement of the reality is so that we need to help Chechen people revive--not survive, but revive, with all this dignity and respect for human rights. There were huge mistakes. Nobody denies that, and I saw it by my own eyes. That's why we implemented a lot of mechanisms, including the OEC, which unfortunately was nearly buried yesterday at one of the fora, asking whether this organization is still alive or not. In 1995 and in 1997, if we recall facts, there were huge amounts of initiatives and brokered agreements ? independence. If we try to recall memory, even the treaty between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic at that time dividing responsibilities and making this population under the leadership of Maskhadov revived the life. But what we had, in fact, was quite a different picture, an enclave of crime, robbery, slave, and instability, and even distortion of Islam, presenting the sharia courts shooting people in the squares and elsewhere, and with the government entering mosques praying for the Almighty and then trying to shoot its own population, in respect for elders with its responsibilities of life, and so forth. I do not mean to offend the Chechen people. I am very much proud of the history of our relations and I will deliver the present which I announced so loudly, but it will ? , some new sentences, possibly few ones. I expected that a responsible people, a fresh air could be brought here from the Chechen Republic, what's going on on the ground which cannot be found in the mountains. But the realities which are occurring on the ground--rehabilitation of the economy and social life--one can judge on these endeavors by the Russian authorities to make those referendums, elections. But as a person who has the knowledge of international norms and who can respect human rights, I can say that through the electoral processes the truth comes. I will quote one song which appears to be if you tolerate this, the children generation will be next. And I don't want the next generations of the Russian people and the Chechen people live under the conditions of instability, unfriendly relations and wars. That's why the plan, the concrete one we proposed, our president proposed--and by the way, I'm not shocked on this criticism, but I was wondering whether these unfriendly atmospheres are quite common for the fora which I entered quite recently joining the embassy staff. I don't want to rebuff those statements. It's the right of people to speak, one of the basic rights of the Declaration of Human Rights we are commemorating just today, but it should be otherwise a responsibility for those statements. I wish we could see, instead of this film which was partially screened in 1995-1997--I met this great and brave woman in Warsaw once when chatted a little bit on this screening, but I was very much impressed by another short from HBO leadership on drama at Dubrovka ? center, and it was really a horrible face of terrorism we're trying to rebuff. I wish you could see once this film. It is worth seeing. And, finally, the only recipe I could adjust is the belief that we know better what should be done in the Chechen Republic, but we are transparent. We quarterly invited observers from all over the world, including international fora, for referendum, for elections, just to see for their own eyes, not just to judge by the press and the different and various foundations. But nobody came, I mean, from European institutions, from the United States, despite the fact that, for example, from the Organization for Islamic Conference there were huge delegations contesting that--yes, laughing, yes. I was among those observers. I saw it by my own eyes, and I saw people dancing. That was I saw--and I didn't see it since 1995. I think we should try to understand the realities and new realities of the Chechen Republic, and try to be helpful objectively. And the final remark for the audience and for the whole organizational strata here: When the catastrophe on the 11th of September occurred, we extended the hold and the hand of friendship and solidarity. We can hold the same and the similar hand on our behalf, but we don't hold any suggestions to negotiate with the terrorists, with the bandits who are trying to oppose reconciliation for the Chechen society. Thank you very much. MS. PLETKA: Thank you. Lord Judd, if we can turn to you next. LORD JUDD: Could everybody hear? There's a great deal of talk about the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. All I can say is that I always think that's a very complex relationship and I take tremendous heart from this splendid occasion today. It's been a great privilege to be here and listen to what has been being said and the way it has been being said. And I felt that in this complicated relationship, it was good to find there were people in the States struggling with this issue, as some of us are trying to struggle with it in Europe. But it was also good to feel that we find that we have this same common frustration that we struggle with it, but we wish our leaders would struggle with it to the same degree. And that's something which probably binds us together in this room. But just three points I'd like to make very quickly, first of all, on the discussion that I've been listening to. The first thing is that I do think that in anything we say to Russia, we've got to have a sense of humility. It is tremendously important that we are not ever appearing to be people who say do as we do, as distinct from to do as we say. People are saying do as we say, as distinct from do as we do, and it's therefore crucially important that the way in which we conduct our fight against global terrorism, and indeed our campaigns and activities in Iraq--we are a muddle of what we believe should be, so that we speak with the authority of example when we're speaking to the Russians about what we see as wrong. The second thing is that Mr. Brzezinski mentioned Mr. Zakayev [ph] and the case in Britain. I listened to the legal theme immediately after the case was over and the leader of the legal team was saying that it had been such a convincing result that it was really a pity that the British government had not had the guts simply to give asylum straight away and not have all the process of a legal case. On the other hand, the legal team said thank God we did have the legal case because it has enabled us to put in an independent judicial system the evidence that was produced under scrutiny. And it's really important to read the record of that case because it's very revealing. And what it has brought home to me is something that troubled me more and more while I've tried to deal with this situation, and that is that while we are concerned about the situation in Chechnya itself, really the solution so much which concerns us is to be found in Russia. The problems that we're dealing with are Russian problems and Russian challenges. And to some extent what complicates Chechnya is that it has a symptomatic significance in terms of things that are more fundamentally wrong in Russia as a whole, and I think we have to face up to that. The other point that I wanted to make was that I did listen to this discussion about suicide bombers, and here I must say that I found, to be candid myself, there was an element of unreality. It seems to me that in our kind of open-thinking society when we're confronted with a suicide bombing, which is a terrible event--innocent people die, are maimed; there are people bereaved. It's a terrible wrong thing, a suicide bombing. But surely in our kind of intellectual society, apart from anything else, the first question to ask is why are young people prepared to do this? Now, I'm sure they're manipulated. I have no doubt about that at all, but why are they open to manipulation? And it's when there's no hope, when there's a situation of despair, a situation of repression that people in their desperation become vulnerable to manipulation of that kind, or even to spontaneous action of that kind. And therefore it seems to me that we all have a responsibility because part of the absence of hope in Chechnya is the way in which the world has failed effectively to focus on the Chechen issue as it should have focused. If there was a feeling that the world was focusing, was taking the situation seriously, there would be more hope for the younger generations within Chechnya. Now, three points about the situation. First of all, my last, eighth visit was the early part of this year and the humanitarian--my eighth visit to Chechnya--the humanitarian situation is awful: people trying to survive in Grozny, to make a living in Grozny, to make a living in Grozny, of course; the position of the displaced, of course; the people desperate for help in rebuilding their homes in Grozny; the realization that an awful lot of the houses and flats that haven't actually fallen down will have to be demolished before there's any chance of building anything sensible for the future; the schools, the hospitals. There's a huge humanitarian challenge. The human rights situation remains deeply disturbing. The very small number of cases about which there have been complaints of misconduct by security forces--there have been a very small number of cases that have been brought to any kind of conclusion, or even brought into the formal legal system at all. The disappearances, to listen every time I was in Grozny, and indeed in Ingushetia, listening to mothers in desperation, or even brothers and sisters, talking about how members of their family had just disappeared. We would be upset in our society if one or two people disappeared in that way, but we're talking about hundreds of people, and the human rights situation is very disturbing. But I have to tell you that what has upset most in the work that I've tried to do is the counter-productivity of Russian policy. As I put it in the House of Lords in a debate last week, my conclusion--I'm sorry to put it as bluntly as this, but because I have many friends and in many ways I love Russia, I believe it is important to be blunt and honest. If you set out for a policy which was designed to force young people into the arms of the extremists, to recruit for the extremists, the policy couldn't be much better than it is. The indiscriminate nature of the policy, the lack of human rights commitment in the policy, the humanitarian--it's driving the young, in desperation, into the arms of the extremists. Of course, there's an issue of counter-productivity on the other side as well because when the other side is tempted into terrorist acts, that doesn't help to build up concerned public opinion outside, as well. Terrorism itself is not a way in which you win friends. I'm one of those--and I've spoken in British Parliament about it very often--that believes it's absolutely essential to have Russia as a partner in the management of world affairs. And I think history may be quite tough with us about our failure over the past decade to do all we could have done and should have done to bring Russia on board in that respect. But if we're going to have a working relationship with Russia, it must be an honest relationship. And if we believe that things that Russians are doing are actually aggravating the major issues which preoccupy us, like global terrorism, then it's shear madness not to say to them, look, stop doing the things that actually recruit for global terrorism. It's as simple, basic, crude argument as that. If we want to confront global terrorism, we must say to our Russian friends, stop doing things that recruit for the terrorists. I come now to just a word very quickly on the way forward. Clearly, there is no surgical or military solution. That's absolutely obvious to us all. There has to be a political process and what has been wrong with the attempted political process so far by the Russians, in my view, has been that it has made the old mistake. They have picked, cherry-picked the Chechens with whom they've been prepared to work on finding a political road forward. That was what was wrong with the referendum. The constitution itself, well, was something that was worthy of the proposed constitution, worthy of consideration. But it didn't come out of a sense of widespread ownership. There wasn't a sense of stakeholding amongst the Chechen people in what was being proposed, and that was counter-productive. There wasn't the atmosphere--it wasn't just what happened on the day of the referendum. There wasn't the atmosphere in which the referendum could be--in which the proposals could be evaluated, in which there could be discussion, in which there was access to the media. All that was lacking. There was this impatience to get on with it and manage a solution without having won the widespread involvement that was absolutely essential. The other thing that I think is a flaw is that, as we've seen in Ireland, we only make progress when we throw the net as wide as possible. We have to be prepared to talk to the political representatives of the IRA if the political representatives of the IRA are prepared seriously to commit themselves to a discussion about a political solution. You can't say that because the IRA were doing terrible things, you won't talk to them. You're talking about the future and it's what they are prepared to commit themselves to in the future in the future. So that's absolutely crucial. You must be prepared to talk to the people who may not be very easy to talk to, people who have shown a good deal of muscle in the situation. By definition, if they've shown muscle, they must be people who are involved in the process; they must be. If you get a solution, so-called, on any other basis, try and take shortcuts, it's destined to failure. It will start to fall to pieces before the ink is dry, and we've seen the terrorist action in Moscow even yesterday. And the last point that I would make on this is that I-- MS. PLETKA: This is your-- LORD JUDD: It was my last point, is that on one thing I think President Putin is absolutely right. President Putin says that Russia is in the front line of the struggle with militant Islam. Well, if Russia is in the front line of the struggle with militant Islam, it's crucial to demonstrate that political processes and political solutions are possible because that strengthens moderate Islamic leadership across the world. If there's a refusal to embrace a political solution in a meaningful way, to engage as widespread a cross-section of moderate leadership, even if it has been fighting moderate leadership of the Chechen people in the process, the message goes out to the Islamic world as a whole that the moderate Islamic leaders are Uncle Toms; they have no real significance; they can be sidelined. The only people who are going to put our issues on the table, on the agenda, are the tough guys, the militants, the people who are prepared to use the fist. And for that reason, I believe Chechnya has a significance way beyond Chechnya itself. It has a significance for the whole issue of global security as it faces us in the coming decades. MS. PLETKA: Thank you very much. [Applause.] MS. PLETKA: Leon? MR. ARON: Thank you, Danielle. There are two things that I would like to reiterate and neither of them is a revelation. In fact, for this audience they may be not worth repeating, but I thought of both of them when I was looking in the spirit of this panel, when I was looking through past and not so past and even present similar conflicts for solutions or at least for factors that either impede solutions or spur them on. The first one is that at the heart of this conflict is the Chechens' legitimate desire for self-rule and the repeated and savage historical injustice dealt the Chechen people by Russia and the Soviet Union. No solution is likely until this injustice is acknowledged and corrected. Secondly, history is littered with examples of people's legitimate aspirations for ethnic equality, national dignity, or social justice, hijacked, cynically exploited, misdirected, and in the end subverted by ruthless fanatics in pursuit of their own ideological or power agendas. What are the conflicts that brought these two observations on? Well, the first one is geographically most proximate and in many respects most similar, and that is, of course, the conflict between the Turks and the Kurds. Just to give you statistics, between 25 and 35 Kurds died in that conflict, and at least 5,000 Turkish soldiers died as well. An estimated 3,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed and between 2 and 3.5 million Kurds were displaced. This conflict ended with the capture of Abdullah Ashalan [ph], the leader of the Kurds, who, faced with death, appealed to his followers to scale down the demands and settle for autonomy within Turkey rather than an independent state. Secondly, there was a negotiated autonomy--shakily negotiated, I should say--in Sri Lanka where the Liberation Tamil Tigers, who incidentally invented suicide bombing, were fighting the Sinhalese majority of the island. Listen to these statistics: 65,000 people died and 1.6 million were displaced in a country with a population of 18 million. France and Algeria have already been mentioned here. We could call it a walk-away solution, but the statistics are equally horrifying. Incidentally, the French invented what is known as the Russian infimazachiski [ph]. They called them ratisage [ph], and that is when--they proceeded exactly like the Russian troops proceeded in Chechnya. And during those, 3,000 Algerians died in police custody, or disappeared. All in all, 300,000 Algerians died, and 24 French soldiers did as well. This conflict, as I said, ended by walking away. Now, I would like to, as I don't have time--I don't think I do--to go through all the decisive factors that these comparisons yield, but let me mention this walking away, which instinctively is the most appealing. But the problem is that there are two problems with it. First, Russia did walk away from Chechnya. It walked away from Chechnya on January 1, 1997, following the agreements that Yeltsin signed with Yondarbiev [ph] in May, and then General Lebet [ph] signed with the Chechen leadership in September of '96. On January 1, 1997, there wasn't a single Russian soldier in Chechnya. Now, I could not unfortunately attend the previous sessions, but I'm sure the facts were brought up as to what happened and what precipitated the end of de facto independent Chechen state in the fall of '99. It is not so much--as far as I'm concerned, it's not so much that Russian cannot walk away. It appears that the majority of the Chechen people do not want to, based on what they've seen in the year-and-a-half of the Chechen independent state, which fell apart--it became the Somalia of the Caucasus, with the warlords essentially undermining the Maskhadov government with increasing religious fanaticism in a population that has always been extremely secular, with slavery, with kidnappings, with all of that, with the televised public executions. We now know from the polls that were conducted by independent and trusted people in Russia--I particularly like the polls conducted by Validata [ph] and Sergei Heiken [ph]. Of course, the numbers that the Russian government put out concerning the referendum were a sham, but he discovered, for example, that 62 percent did turn out for the referendum, of which 91 percent voted for Chechnya to remain within Russia. There was one--for those who need the details, I'll be happy to provide them. The interesting thing is that, of course, while 78 percent of the Chechens believe that Chechnya should be part of Russia in the very interesting ways in which they want to be associated with Russia, 60 percent said that they need more autonomy than any other area of the Russian Federation. And that seems to be a perfectly legitimate demand. So what--in the end, what are the key factors, I think, that either help settlement based on the previous conflicts or retard it? The first factor, I think, is something that does not apply to Chechnya, unfortunately, and that is that the conflicts are settled the easiest where there is no religious clash. Turks and Kurds are both Muslims, but both are secular. The PKAK was a leftist workers party, they called themselves, and Turkey prides itself on being a secular state. In Algeria, in Kashmir, and in Palestine, the three conflicts that were either settled by walking away or cannot at this point be settled, we have the clash of three great religions and it is very difficult to settle. One final factor appears to be the absence or the presence of international involvement. In the case of Turkey and the Kurds, there was very little international involvement. Both sides were Muslim. Kurds received periodic help, diplomatic assistance, from various great powers who wanted to use them as a chip in their various games. But by and large, there was no passionate commitment to one country or another, one side of the conflict or another. The interesting case of Sri Lanka--the negotiations only started in earnest when first India stopped supporting the Tamil Tigers after they assassinated Rajif Ghandi in 1991, and then the immensely powerful and wealthy Tamil community in Canada, the United States and Britain followed suit after the government of those nations declared the Tamil Tigers terrorists. So the end of the international involvement appears to be a very important thing, which brings me to Chechnya and on that I will end. Clearly, there is--the inflammazation [?] of the conflict has proceeded too far. We cannot now return it to its original secular war for independence. It is too late. But it is not too late, I think, to do two things. For the Russian government--and here I find Mr. Pointkovsky's comments resonant. Putin is caught in a vise. He came to power through Chechnya, but it takes a very strong leader to lose a war. If there is a leader in Russia, past history or present or future, for that matter, Putin is in a unique position to end this war if he would want to. His popularity is enormous. The country is doing well domestically. People will follow him if he decides to begin constructive, honest negotiations with the Chechens. On the Chechen side, it seems to me that deinternationalization is a key. And here, or course, the West could help, the neighbors could help. It seems to me that the weakening of the flow of extremist support, supplies, and just the sheer passion from outside, which goes not to the Chechen people, not to the moderates in Chechnya, but to the warlords such as Shamil Basaev, that may indeed help to bring more moderate forces in Chechnya to the fore and prepare them to negotiate with the Russians, but Russia must make the first move. Thank you. [Applause.] MS. PLETKA: Mr. Akhmadov, you're the last speaker. I know you're going to be tempted to rebut everything that you disagreed with here, and so I'm asking you don't, if we can keep it to 5 to 10 minutes and then go to questions. MR. AKHMADOV: [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN; NO TRANSCRIPTION]. [Applause.] MS. PLETKA: We'll turn to questions right now, if everybody would be kind enough to wait for the microphone and to identify yourselves and to please just ask a question, no statements and no ranting. I believe we have a guest who has joined us from ? , if you'd be kind enough-- MR. : My name is Monsoor Machi Yachim Shukra [ph]. I'm the chairman of the International Research Institute of the People of the Caucasus in Tblisi and in Moscow. I also have been for the last seven years an advisor and assistant to the former prime minister of Chechnya, Jorjak Nugiev [ph], who have developed the traditionalist peace plan. I will not take much of your time. This traditional peace plan has been made available by the organizers to you in written form. It is on the table in the foyer. Thank you for making it possible for me to speak. The plan envisages dividing Chechnya into lowland and northern Chechnya, which should be part of Russian Federation where those Chechens who would like to be citizens of Russia should have an opportunity to live a civilized life, and the southern Chechnya in the mountainous part where those Chechens, probably a minority, who would prefer to live an independent life within the framework of the tribal society--and the Chechens are the tribal people, consisting of nine tribes living on the basis of the customs and laws, at that--could do it in peace without any necessity for a state or statehood in order to be independent. So one would call it an enclave and others would call it a reservation, and others would call it a sort of free tribal territory. But it is a way forward now, before waiting until Russia becomes an ideal democracy and before Chechens become ideal citizens. It is a solution for now. Thank you. MS. PLETKA: Thank you. Do any of our panelists want to comment on this? No, okay. Next question. Yes, sir, right in the front. MR. : Nick Danaloff [ph], of Northeastern University. I want to say that this has been an extremely interesting discussion here. Many very important ideas have been put forward, but there's one aspect of this conference which disappoints me and that is that a number of high political Russian figures were invited to this conference and they did not appear. And I would wonder if Danielle Pletka or Mr. Lukashevich could give us an explanation why the high political Russian figures were not interested in this discussion. MS. PLETKA: I certainly can't answer your question for you. Perhaps Mr. Lukashevich would like-- MR. LUKASHEVICH: I think I partially responded to your question, sir. MS. PLETKA: Actually, would you forgive me? I'm sorry. I don't want you to be interrupted. One of the reasons why you're hearing feedback is because people who aren't using their translating devices have them on and have the volume up. So if you would just do us the favor, we've got too much electronics. That way, some of the background noise will go away and we can hear our speaker. Thank you. MR. LUKASHEVICH: Thank you. Sir, I tried to respond directly. There were, of course, some organizational constraints in organizing a delegation from Chechnya, Ingushetia, and their presidential offices. And there were huge problems of obtaining American visas. And you understand that this period of convening this conference coincided with our parliamentary elections, which were held also in Chechnya and in Ingushetia. And I presume that some amount of problems occurred under these circumstances, but I regret personally myself because all these criticisms and attacks can be more vivid and lively responded by responsible persons from the Chechen Republic. And I think they have a lot and much to speak about loudly. I hope that we can be provided another opportunity to speak with those people. MR. : It seems to me-- MS. PLETKA: No. Excuse me, excuse me, I'm sorry. Really, everybody needs a chance to speak. I apologize. This one. Thanks. MR. : My name is Daniel Policy [ph]. I'm with the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya. My question is also to Mr. Lukashevich. You had said that you do not want us to negotiate with terrorists. You do not want to negotiate with bandits. This is fair enough. This is also a widely-held policy of many governments. Do you consider Mr. Akmadov, Foreign Minister Akmadov, a bandit? And if not, Mr. Akmadov appears at least prepared to negotiate. Would you be willing to negotiate with him? [Applause.] MR. LUKASHEVICH: Actually, personally I negotiated with a lot of Chechen leaders since 1994. But as I responded, the political process is underway. The point that I made very much clear that we had opportunity to negotiate; even a treaty left the Chechen Republic de facto independent within the Russian Federation in 1997. What we had at the time I explicitly responded, sir, and if you have my personal impression, I don't see any basis for negotiating with those associated with the bandits and terrorists. MS. PLETKA: Thank you. No, sorry. MR. : [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN; NO TRANSCRIPTION.] MS. PLETKA: Sir, is there a question here, a question that isn't a statement in the form of a question? MR. : [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN; NO TRANSCRIPTION.] MR. LUKASHEVICH: I wish to respond in Russian, but maybe the public won't recognize this debate in Russian language in the United States. Just to be polite for the public, I would respond very distinctly and explicitly. Yes, we have invited, and there is a mixture of--of course, Lukashevich, Lukashenko, it's very near in nature of this surname, but it's quite a different even on the relative roots. Yes, we have invited, and more of that. I can confess that the OEC assistance group was quite active during the whole period of conflict and it was not our fault that this group were created automatically in 1998 from Grozny and being brought back in 2001 successfully. And I think the problem is that on the political will to see by their own eyes what's going on and to judge by facts, not by passion. And by the way, the great manifestation of what we're doing within the plan of settlement was a joining the former parliament of the Chechen Republic of Ichikeria [ph], with the consent to participate in the referendum and voting. And that was a very courageous step. I congratulate those deputies who tried to be constructive in political process. And by the way, I'm sorry very much for the audience not to end up with my statement, but this is my very small gift and presentation for Mr. Sikorski and the institute on Chechnya, the white paper, with even historic ? ground. And it will be very interesting in reading and understanding the realities. MR. : Thank you very much. MS. PLETKA: Thank you. [Applause.] Mr. Redaway [ph], thank you. Maybe if you have a question directed at another panelist, too, don't hesitate to pop up. MR. REDAWAY: Peter Redaway, George Washington University. A few weeks ago, the Jamestown Foundation held an extremely interesting conference about the situation in Chechnya and those who attended were lucky enough to be able to hear Ms. Anna Politkovskaya and Mademoiselle Amniva [ph], two remarkable speakers who gave very detailed and up-to-date testimony from the ground in Chechnya, and moved the audience almost to tears. They both said that President Maskhadov's location is well known to the Russian authorities and the Russian military leaders in Chechnya, and that they do not capture or kill him because they want to leave him available for future negotiations at some time. I would be interested in the views of the members of the panel on that question. Do they agree with that and do they think that that is a serious possibility? Before I sit down, I'd like to make a final point about Ms. Politkovskaya. A private report has reached me that the reason that she could not attend this conference, to which she was invited, is that she was given to understand by the Russian authorities that if she came to this conference, she would not be allowed back into Russia afterwards. If this report is true, then it is horrendously reminiscent of what happened in the Soviet period when Soviet dissident like General Gregorenko, Valeri Chilidze [ph], Joseph Brodsky and others were allowed to leave the Soviet Union, but were then deprived of their citizenship and not allowed to return. And so if any of the panel has a comment on that, too, I'd be very grateful. MS. PLETKA: Why don't we start with your first question? Would you like, Mr. Akhmadov, to address that? MR. AKHMADOV: [SPEAKING IN RUSSIAN; NO TRANSCRIPTION.] MS. PLETKA: Do you want to address the other question about Ms. Politkovskaya? MR. : No. We should ask her. MS. PLETKA: Okay. Anybody? No. Do you want to? Can you please quick? LORD JUDD: I just simply want to say that the refusal to countenance talking with both President Maskhadov or his representatives is exactly what I was talking about earlier because this is what drives the young in desperation to more extremist loyalties. It's counter-productive. And I'm not saying that President Maskhadov or others are the only people with whom one should talk, because my view is you have to throw the net as wide as you possibly can. But that would be a beginning and I just hope that your view is right, but I have no reason to say that. Can I just add one word on this that I do think that if we're going to get into the road to wider--let's not talk about negotiations to start with; let's talk about talks. If we're going to get into a wider realm of dialogue, it does seem to me that reconciliation is a word of which we should not be frightened. It's going to involve reconciliation, and reconciliation means that both sides have got to examine the position of the other side. And I think the Chechens, if I may use that expression, could get a lot of credibility internationally if they were to establish a political agenda by demonstrating that they understand some of the legitimate anxieties of the Russian Federation; for example, security along the southern border of the Russian Federation. And if they could show that they understood that and wanted to find mutually acceptable solutions, I think this would transform the amount of support that might be available internationally for encouragement for the process. MS. PLETKA: We are very--if it's very quick, please. MR. POINTKOVSKY: Well, I am not inside of Russian general staff, but I think that there is much--there might be ? possibility. But what I know for certain that in spite of official statement, no talks with bandits, no talks with terrorists, the idea of talking with Maskhadov representative never was excluded completely. I may remind you that there were--in his statement after September 11 Putin himself made a dividing line between terrorists and separatists. And in continuation of ? I see talk of Zakayev and Putin representing General Kazansiv [ph]. That's why it was impossible to prove either in Danish or British court the case for extradition of Zakayev because one month before this demand of extradition, he comfortably talked with Putin personal representative in Siramatseva [ph] Airport in Moscow. That's what gives me hope that during second term this line will be continued. MS. PLETKA: Thank you. I just--before we close up, I want to recognize His Excellency, Ruud Lubbers, who is here, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. I don't know whether you want to say a word or not toward the end. We're not going to force you. Very good. It's nice to see you here. With that, perhaps, Radek, you'd like to close out. I, for my part, would like to thank everybody for their forbearance and the audience. [Applause.] MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you, Danielle. Thank you, all the speakers, and the previous ones, and the previous moderators--Fred Hiatt. I'd like to thank everybody who made this conference possible. I'd like to thank them--Badio Ridski [ph], ? Garibaldi [ph]. I'd like to thank our interpreters--thank you--and apologize again for the technical difficulties. I'd like to thank the AEI kitchen staff. Above all, I'd like to thank our partners, the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, Amnesty International, Freedom House, Jamestown Foundation, and Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty. Thank you for attending. Let me remind you that everybody is invited to the reception at Freedom House, at six-thirty tonight in the Freedom House main office building on the second floor, 1319 18th Street, here in Washington. I have certainly learned a great deal. I hope our conference has contributed to the search of peace. And with that, I'd like to declare it closed. Thank you. [Applause.] [Conference concluded.]</body></html>