#5
Subject: the offending article (Politkovskaya)
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 01
From: Miriam Lanskoy <mlanskoy@bu.edu>
In my NIS Observed for 9/26/01 I translated excerpts from Politkovskaya's article concerning the downing of the helicopter carrying 10 General Staff officers.
(What a shame that neither FBIS or BBC carries translations of Novaya gazeta!) (my translation is at http://www.bu.edu/iscip/digest/vol6/ed0615.html#transcauc) __________________ CHECHNYA Friendly fire over Grozny?
The 20 September issue of Novaya gazeta carried, "Grozny Under Blockade," a report by Anna Politkovskaya which suggests that the helicopter carrying two generals and eight colonels that was shot down over Grozny on 17 September was destroyed by elements from among the Russian forces. The following are excerpts from Politkovskaya's article.
"On the morning of September 17 Grozny turned feverish. The city was shut tight by checkpoints along the perimeter. No one could drive in or out of the city."
"In the government building the Premier Stanislav Il'yasov scampered furiously about his office occasionally grabbing at the telephone nervously The angry premier appealed more and more to the young lieutenant general [Anatoly] Pozdnyakov. "
"By 11:30 insanity took hold in Grozny, most checkpoints stopped even foot traffic. One could not shake the feeling that an important operation was in the making "
"The young general said good-bye to Ilyasov. He explained that he was rushing off to Moscow to prepare a report for the president on the situation in Chechnya. It turned out that this was the goal of his mission here: To collect information, make conclusions, and report to the head of state."
"The helicopter took off from the space in front of the government building, and for a little while those trapped in the center of the city could see it."
"And that's pretty much it. A few minutes later Anatoly Pozdnyakov, the young lieutenant-general who was in such a rush to report to the president, another general, eight colonels from the General Staff and the pilots were dead. "
"In the official statements everything turned out to be simple : a fighter with an anti-aircraft gun of foreign manufacture jumped out into Minutka Square "
"Today Minutka is under the complete control of several checkpoints. Add to this the special operation to blockade Grozny that started in the morning, and a question emerges: Who could have carried an anti-aircraft gun into a space where no one was being allowed to go?" (NovayaGazeta.ru)
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