All hell seems to have broken loose.. (4 Viewers)

[Latex lizzie]

The bill has not been settled yet. The initial figure on this is doubtless to rise rather than fall I would imagine. Didn't russia threaten the chechens with nukes at one point or it was on the table? I remember someone saying it at the time of the war there..(I know It's unrelated but I have a plot hatching in my brain) anyone confirm or deny this?

 

[spiritualtramp]

Didn't russia threaten the chechens with nukes at one point or it was on the table? I remember someone saying it at the time of the war there..(I know It's unrelated but I have a plot hatching in my brain) anyone confirm or deny this?

I think Putin once said something like he would rather nuke Chechnya than hand it over.

not that there is much left to nuke anyway.

 

[Latex lizzie]

I think Putin once said something like he would rather nuke Chechnya than hand it over.

not that there is much left to nuke anyway.

yeah he said it during his election days. (source my boss and he knowsstuff..

 

[broken arm]

the kremlin hardliners see chechnya as a struggle for the union. they say that if chencnya gains independance it will begin the unravelling of the uneasy union.

did I say that russia is comprised of 100+ national minorities.

 

[Latex lizzie]

why not just let em go..the can't govern it as it is...power money. Bah!

 

[spiritualtramp]

why not just let em go..the can't govern it as it is...power money. Bah!

yeah, they let Georgia go after their war with them.

I have a friend from Georgia. he says its slightly law abiding in Tbilsi but if you head up the mountains it is totally lawless. the landscape and tribal traditions makes it pretty impossible to govern.

 

[broken arm]

yeah, they let Georgia go after their war with them.

I have a friend from Georgia. he says its slightly law abiding in Tbilsi but if you head up the mountains it is totally lawless. the landscape and tribal traditions makes it pretty impossible to govern.

I may be repeating myself here but I had an interesting chat with a guy on the trans-siberian that was about just that. the difficulties of governing such a massive landmass with so many ethnic groups, a crippled economy and a regenerating regime. v.interesting.

 

[broken arm]

I may be repeating myself here but I had an interesting chat with a guy on the trans-siberian that was about just that. the difficulties of governing such a massive landmass with so many ethnic groups, a crippled economy and a regenerating regime. v.interesting.

then there was this guy who taught us mad russian card games and shared his tea.

 

[spiritualtramp]

I'm just quoting a Russian guy I've been talking to on a talkboard.


"acording to the ossetian portal (in Russian) one terrorist said that he did it for the sake of his kids who were killed by the Russians... He said nobody asked his opinion about whether there theys should have been killed on not. and for what"
surprise, surprise.

 

[spiritualtramp]

oh god.


I've just had a look at todays Herald. under the articles about the siege in Beslan some stupid cow wrote an article about how she stared in horror at the news then bought her 14 year old son a mcdonalds meal and a mcflurry as she appreciated the fact that he wasn't dead.
can journalism get any worse than that?

 

[Latex lizzie]

there is always the Star..

anyway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/3624494.stm for reaction worldwide.

And some figures from the Guardian today.

335 Dead.
207 Identified
180 still missing
386 injured in hospital
184 of these are children
30 hostage takers dead
2 missing
3 suspected accomlpices detained.

 

[P. Littbarski]

why not just let em go..the can't govern it as it is...power money. Bah!

I know very little about the situation over there, but I heard one commentator on Newstalk, from that neck of the woods, who was of the opinion that the majority of people in Chechnya dont want to seperate from Russia...that a minority are fighting the russians and this minority does not represent the feelings of most people.

 

[Latex lizzie]

very hard to gauge that kind of thing really. They said the same thing about Ireland after the rising. Half of Dublin was all fucked up after 1916 and the general public was major pissed at the revolutionaries. Our independance would have gone by the by had the brits not taken so long to execute the men involved. Public sympathy rose after and we gained independance....

 

[taubstumm]

Half of Dublin was all fucked up after 1916 and the general public was major pissed at the revolutionaries. Our independance would have gone by the by had the brits not taken so long to execute the men involved. Public sympathy rose after and we gained independance....

i remember posting about this before...

this version of events has always seemed really unlikely to me.

i'd like to know more about what exactly made the irish public suddenly become pro-independence (as opposed to pro-home rule) pretty much overnight, because i suspect that the story of everyone suddenly changing their minds is a convenient myth.

anyhoo, back to chechnya.

 

[Latex lizzie]

Unlikely but true..Any history book I've ever read has deatiled the events that way.. seems logical.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1038669.stm

from those helpful chaps at the BBC dont you know. O' Connell would be turning in his grave..

 

[broken arm]

I know very little about the situation over there, but I heard one commentator on Newstalk, from that neck of the woods, who was of the opinion that the majority of people in Chechnya dont want to seperate from Russia...that a minority are fighting the russians and this minority does not represent the feelings of most people.

well, I cannot say for sure of course, not being an expert and dependant on second hand information. I draw parallels from our own experience. The majority wanted peace and denouced the violent actions of the minoity while, in simple terms, wanting the 'same' thing.

Election observers boycotted the poll, saying conditions were not right for staging a viable election in the republic.

The lack of any real opposition to Alkhanov led human rights group and many Chechens to assume the election result was a foregone conclusion -- as was last year's election of Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated by separatists in a bomb attack last May.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/08/30/chechnya.election/

Brought to their knees after years of war, Chechens have temporarily accepted Russian rule. Corrupt elections and referendum created impression of acceptance of Moscow and surrender of further demands for independence, yet nobody – including the press secretary of the pro-Moscow Chechen President – believes that is the true will of the Chechen people.

http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/2004/chechen_ind.htm

[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Local people and humanitarian agencies say a census in the republic last October was inflated. It put the population at just over 1 million, little changed since the conflict began in the early 1990s, even though hundreds of thousands of Chechens are believed to have either died or fled. Tens of thousands of Russian troops stationed in the region were given a vote. Thus few outside the Kremlin regard the referendum as fair. [/font] [font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]From the Economist, March 25
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[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]or
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[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif] What did international observers make of the referendum? Experts from the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, a vocal critic of the Kremlin's policy in Chechnya, refused Moscow's invitation to observe the vote... Other observers - those from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the League of Arab States, the Organisation of the Peoples of Asia and Africa and the executive committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States, recognised the referendum as legitimate
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[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]From Gazeta, Russia, March 25
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/chechnya/Story/0,2763,926037,00.html



I do often think what my childhood would have been like if Britain acted like russia or the US in dealing with terrorism...,

 

[Latex lizzie]

they're doing it now(Iraq)...I suppose it was after their empire days had finished and they wanted to concentrate on england. we were to close to bother with I suppose..that and the american connection.

 

[P. Littbarski]

well, I cannot say for sure of course, not being an expert and dependant on second hand information. I draw parallels from our own experience. The majority wanted peace and denouced the violent actions of the minoity while, in simple terms, wanting the 'same' thing.

which is the same situation in the Basque country also I guess...ETA are not excactly popular, and the majority of Basques do not condone what ETA do, but what ETA want is pretty much what most Basques want (except for the socialism bit).

 

[spiritualtramp]

I know very little about the situation over there, but I heard one commentator on Newstalk, from that neck of the woods, who was of the opinion that the majority of people in Chechnya dont want to seperate from Russia...that a minority are fighting the russians and this minority does not represent the feelings of most people.

this may be the fact that a lot of Russians moved to Chechnya when the entire ethnic population of the country was shipped to Kazakhstan and Siberia by Stalin in 1944.

when the Chechens were allowed return home in 1957 they were treated like second class citizens by the new population.

I imagine the "majority of the population" who want to stay with Russia is the Russian settlers talking. I'd be pretty sceptical about the accuracy of a poll held in Chechnya.

 

[spiritualtramp]

180 still missing

how are there so many people still missing? is it shoddy record taking? I can't see how 180 bodies can just vanish.