Moscow's itchy finger on trigger as Chechens suffer

Following the suspension of Russia's bombardment of Grozny until later tonight, Mark Webster reflects on a horrifying journey he made into the war zone last week Hugging the contours of the Chechen countryside, the Mi-8 helicopter gunship stayed out of sight of the militant fighters holding the city of Grozny. It touched down in a field just a few miles outside and I transferred to an armoured personnel carrier for the journey to the ruins of the city.

After weeks of shelling by artillery and aircraft, there is little left standing. The gaunt apartment buildings already badly damaged in the last Chechen war, three years ago, now have yawning gaps in the sides where Russian missiles have torn through. In the windowless shell of a cafe and garage, young Russian conscripts lounge around eating their rations.

Out on the highway - the main path to freedom for escaping refugees - one miserable band of five trek slowly past the Russian military. Holding a mud-spattered white flag they cut a pathetic figure as they trudge along, each of them holding what they own in a single bag.

The Russian army had brought me here in a bid to show that it is not indifferent to the fate of the estimated 20,000 civilians still trapped inside the city. After a week in which President Yeltsin has traded insults with world leaders over its campaign in Chechnya, the Russian government clearly felt it needed some positive PR.

But the reality I found was even worse than has so far been exposed. In cramped and airless basements and makeshift shelters the Chechen civilians have lived under weeks of missile and shell bombardments. They have no electricity or gas and they are running out of food. And yet they still remain.

Hassan was one of the few refugees I actually saw leaving. He said he was only doing so because his wife was sick and he feared she would die. Though he had heard of the Russian ultimatum to destroy everyone left in the city after yesterday, he said many of those left behind didn't trust the Russians to let them go.

"We have nothing left. Absolutely nothing. We live worse than animals but we don't know what else to do. We are all poor people and many of those in the city are old and cannot walk." He shrugged hopelessly and walked off into the muddy landscape.

The Russians now argue that they never intended their ultimatum to apply to civilians. No one in Grozny believes them. Instead, the residents point to the awesome fire power which the army now has ranged against the city. During my stay I watched a column of twenty tanks and armoured personnel carriers heading off to the south of the city. Everywhere, men were sheltering in heavy vehicles or in foxholes and trenches dug in a ring right around the doomed city, Yet there is now an eerie silence in the area. For the past five days the Russian heavy guns have largely been silent. Only the occasional crump of a mortar or a rapid fusillade from a heavy machine gun shatters the quiet.

Colonel Sergei Skiba, one of the commanders of the perimeter around Grozny, said that the cannonade had halted to give the civilians a chance to leave the city. His troops were ready to storm the rebel strongholds anytime, he said, but Moscow had not yet given the word.

"The army is the gun but the government is the trigger. When they tell us it is time to go in, we will do our duty. We have already made substantial gains against the terrorists."

What's more he said, the Russians had set up the first vetting post to provide a safe corridor for genuine refugees to leave. To prove the point, we were taken by helicopter again high into the hills that dominate Grozny.

There, a hapless group of around 50 Chechens pressed up against the newly erected barrier. A dozen Russian soldiers laboriously check the documents of those who want to come through to ensure, they say, that none of the fighters use this as a means of escape.

In the biting cold of a winter's day, the refugees huddle together with what little baggage they have been able to salvage from the city. In one van, three people injured by shrapnel lie immobile and pale waiting for their opportunity to cross.

In a battered old Soviet-era car, a woman tends her husband who has also been hurt. "We have nothing left except what you can see here," she said lifelessly. "We have been hiding in the cellar for weeks now but we were going to starve. Now maybe we will starve anyway but at least we will be safe."

It's the same story for all those queuing at the post in the hope of getting through. Some had lost their papers or had them damaged during the raids. For them, in the mercilessly strict bureaucracy of Russia, there is no hope. They will have to return to Grozny. Others do eventually make it through and begin a weary walk up the side of the hill and into peaceful Chechnya beyond. A young Russian officer in charge of the post says others will be opened soon around the city so that other civilians will be encouraged to get out.

But he wouldn't be drawn on the biggest question facing the Chechen people. When will an all out bombardment of Grozny begin? Up on the hillsides some of the vast array of heavy guns lets loose a salvo onto the city.

Surely, we asked, the guns weren't supposed to be firing at all. The young officer explained quickly that these were just ranging shots and that for now the people in the city really were safe from shellfire.

For the freezing crowd herded against the barrier, desperate to reach safety, that must have had a hollow ring. Since the Russian military knows only too well from the last war the huge human cost of a ground assault, it still seems inevitable that once a sufficiently large number of civilians has fled, they will proceed to level the city completely. The misery of the Chechen people is far from over yet.

Copyright 1999
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