DATE=1/8/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=GROZNY OFFENSIVE SUSPENDED
NUMBER=5-45201
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=ON THE CHENYAN BORDER
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Word that Russia is suspending part of its
military offensive against the Chechen capital,
Grozny, must come as welcome news to people living in
the embattled city. Russian warplanes and artillery
have pounded the capital for months. More recently,
ground troops have been advancing toward the city
center, encountering fierce resistance. Newly arrived
refugees tell of streets littered with dead bodies.
V-O-A's Peter Heinlein spent the past few days along
the Chechen border speaking to people fleeing the
city. He pieced together this picture of life in the
center of the war zone.
TEXT: /// SFX of sloshing boots, then fade to ///
The Chechnya-Ingushetia border is a sea of mud these
days. It has been raining and snowing off and on for
weeks.
People forced from their homes by the war a few
kilometers away face an uncertain future living in
tents or abandoned buildings. It is a constant
struggle - not just to fend off hunger and cold, but
to keep from being enveloped in slimy brown liquid.
Forty-year old Wakha Mumayev stands in a bare tent at
the Severny refugee camp, his nine-month old son
crying softly in the background. He went to Grozny
this week and spent several days trying to bring his
parents out. But the journey was too hazardous. In
the end, he returned alone, traveling a roundabout
route through fields of snow and mud.
He describes conditions in the city as intolerable.
/// Mumayev Act in Russian, then fade to
///
He says, "People are so nervous. There is no choice
left. Either we die or live under unbearable stress.
It's impossible".
At the nearby Kavkaz-One checkpoint, 47-year old Zupa
Danbayeva trudges across the border clutching her
woolen shawl close against the biting frost. She has
spent the past month in a basement as artillery shells
rained down around her home in the Grozny suburb of
Yermolovka. But she says she can't take it any more.
/// Danbayeva Act in Russian, then fade to
///
She says, "Everything is so scary. Especially when
you sit with your kids in the basements and there are
Grad-missiles and bombs and who knows what crashing
around." She says her family has been bombed twice,
and adds, "If it happens again, I'm afraid they won't
be able to stand it."
Associated Press photojournalist Miguel Gil Moreno
spent nearly three weeks in Grozny in late December
and early January, hiding in a basement much of the
time. He fled the city after enduring a harrowing
experience New Year's Eve during an eight-hour Russian
air and artillery barrage.
/// Moreno Act ///
It started as a faraway sound of drums, and then
when it hit, it didn't stop for the first 20
minutes, and immediately after, when the
shelling stopped, then fighter planes came in
and dropped bombs. So you can hear them coming
from far away, and you are hiding in the
basement, and you are convinced the plane is
coming for you. And when they finish, artillery
starts again. That lasted from seven till two,
two-thirty a-m, and everyone was pretty much
convinced they were trying to put the city down
to earth, to stones, and finish off all the
buildings in the city center.
/// End Act ///
Mr. Moreno says there is no way to guess the number
of civilians still hiding in Grozny. But he says his
conversations with people on the streets convinced him
that months of bombing have driven many of them mad.
/// Moreno Act ///
My impression is civilians have gone - all of
them - crazy. They've lost the sense of
reality. I came across this one woman with two
kids. One was three-four years old, the other a
teenaged girl. The girl was skateboarding
during the shelling, and the mother thought that
was completely normal thing to do because that's
what teenagers do. And the baby - three years
old - was playing in the playground during
shelling in the neighborhood. It wasn't in
their building, so they thought it was safe.
And I asked the woman "how's your life?" and she
was saying "it's fine, O-K, look what a nice
house we've got here". She's gone. She's mad.
/// End Act ///
From the border 50 kilometers away, it is impossible
to gauge the effect of Russia's suspension of military
operations, or how long it will last. Federal
commanders have consistently opposed any letup in the
assault on Grozny, saying it would only allow rebels
time to regroup.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin indicated the suspension
would be brief, saying it was introduced partly to
allow observances of Russian Orthodox Christmas and
the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It may
also be because at this time of year, thick fog
obscures potential targets for Russian warplanes and
long-range guns, while fields of mud slow the advance
of federal troops.
Whatever the reason, the people hunkered down in
Grozny know they can expect more bombs soon, because
as one military official put it, the break gives
Russian troops time to regroup, too. (Signed)
NEB/PFH/DW/JP
08-Jan-2000 12:59 PM EDT (08-Jan-2000 1759 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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