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14.01.2000 13:00    Voice of Russia      HEAD OF THE RUSSIAN INFORMATION CENTRE MIKHAIL MARGELOV ON THE SITUATION AROUND CHECHNYA

         

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A recent guest of the Voice of Russia was Mikhail Margelov, head of the Russian Information Centre (RIC). He was interviewed by the chairman of our radio station Armen Oganesian.

OGANESYAN: Good evening! Today we are hosting my colleague Mikhail V. Margelov, Head of the Russian Information Centre. Thank you very much for finding time to come to our radio programme on the Russian Press Day and on New Year's Eve (according to the old Russian calendar). We have known each other for quite a long time - since Mikhail was working in the Public Relations Department at the President's Administration. And I should note that at that time we felt quite at ease there, as if those weren't power structures. We had open and, what is more important, correct and interesting answers to any questions.

Now we shall turn to our listeners' questions. Please, fire away.

LISTENER, SPEAKING ENGLISH: Good evening, Mr. Margelov. My name is Mark Stone and I'm from Canada. As you must know, there is an opinion in the West, as well as in Russia, that the new war in Chechnya has increased Vladimir Putin's rating immensely. Is it really so, and if it is - why? Thank you. 

MARGELOV: In my opinion, it was not the Chechen war, but his decisiveness in establishing order as such that raised Vladimir Putin's rating. Let us be honest - there has been an enormous demand in our society for order - in power, in the country, in everything. So when someone decided all of a sudden that he could create a filibuster republic in the Caucasus not only within Chechnya, but also to extend its rules to the neighbouring territories, Putin's resolution to introduce order there has been approved by the majority of our citizens. It was his swiftness and determination to eliminate the emergency situation that has been supported. In reality there could be a different situation: it could, as they say, have broken out not in the Caucasus, but somewhere else. You should refer to the last 30 years of our history: Chernobyl, God forbid!, an airplane falling on residential districts, the earthquake in Armenia - we remember all these accidents only too well. We always have something that will necessarily burst out somewhere. And when it burst out in Chechnya, Putin reacted swiftly, resolutely and fairly. You should note here: Putin explains what he is doing, he is constantly explaining what he has done and why he has done it to people, i.e. his potential voters. In my opinion, it is the transparency of power, lucidity of what the authorities are doing for people that account for his rating.

OGANESYAN: To my mind, you published an interesting article in Boston Globe on January 3; it is a pity that the Russian mass media haven't got acquainted with it. You say in it that the Russian Information Centre is gathering information not on combat activities alone, but full information - including that on violation of human rights - though how can we speak of any 'rights' when people are murdered, families are kept in cages like animals? Frankly speaking, it made my flesh creep. Before the broadcast you related quite horrible stories. Some of the documentary tapes that you have at the RIC can't be demonstrated simply because they are so terrible for perception that they may deprive people of sleep for a long time. Nevertheless, please, say a few words about this. I think people should know about it.

MARGELOV: The Prosecutor General's Office has dreadful, monstrous video materials that last for about 200 hours. These are materials of several types: cassettes, recorded by terrorists in order to send them to the families of hostages or to the heads of the companies they used to work for. These are terrible shots, containing scenes of tortures, insults and humiliation. There are also cassettes, which were shot and scattered by terrorists in places of dislocation of our military units not only in Chechnya and Daghestan but which they tried to spread on the territory of Russia as well - at the recruiting centres and military registration and enlistment offices. These are shots meant for deterrence showing a still alive Russian soldier being beheaded with a knife - all this in colour and accompanied by sound. And finally there are cassettes of the third type - the ones recorded by terrorists for their own amusement, 'home video' as Americans put it, sort of bravado and insolence, you know. These contain beheadings, shooting off fingers, cutting off genitals. All this is really monstrous!

OGANESYAN: You also mentioned the pineapple (hand grenade).

MARGELOV: Yes, they put a pineapple into a man's mouth, tie his hands and feet, pull out the ferrule and see the grenade blow up.

OGANESYAN: They are apparently enjoying it...

MARGELOV: In my opinion, the things I have seen are beyond the limits of normal human perception. We have demonstrated part of these materials to foreign correspondents during private views at the Russian Information Centre and in Helsinki, where we went during Vladimir Putin's visit there. The Press Minister Mikhail Lesin demonstrated this cassette in the USA, at the International Teleforum in New York.

OGANESYAN: And what was the reaction?

MARGELOV:The reaction was very peculiar in Helsinki. At first the attitude of the foreign journalists to our press conference - mind that its participants were representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office, heads of the Federal Migration Service, the Emergency Ministry and your humble servant - was rather suspicious, an atmosphere of aversion prevailed in the room: "Everything you say is propaganda". I delicately warned of the sort of material we were going to demonstrate. And then I asked everybody who thought it unbearable to leave the room -nobody followed my advice. Two Finish newswomen burst out laughing. After that we demonstrated the tape. I was watching one person - a cameraman of the Swedish television. At first, he was looking at the sighting device of his camera, then his heart failed him and he slipped down the wall. And those two girls who had laughed darted out of the room on the second minute of the view. This was just the reaction of any sane person.

OGANESYAN: Mikhail, the things you are saying are quite typical. A really unprecedented anti-Russian campaign, just based on the events in Chechnya, has been unleashed in the past few years. We needed a photo of the three slaughtered Brittons, for one of the publications.

MARGELOV: To my mind there were five of them.

OGANESYAN: As far as I remember, there were four heads in the picture - it is a terrifying shot. We applied to lots of foreign news agencies and they didn't provide us with this photo. It is not in their archives. There has been a kind of artificial protection of public consciousness in the West from the fact that we are entering the new millennium taking this sort of barbarity along. But Russia is standing in the way of this barbarity! One should, as they say, bow down to Russia and thank it. After all, terrorism doesn't recognise any borders. We know about the involvement of international terrorists in the Chechen events. In my opinion, the fact that the RIC is actually accumulating these documentary tapes is very important. One day they will stir world public opinion, without looking back at its reaction, as what we are having now is narrow-minded protection of the mentality of an average western viewer or listener, who has no idea that we are dealing with prehistoric barbarity! Bearing in mind that the Russian Information Centre is closely working with journalists, I would like to know: do you have access to the mass audience - western, television or other, to deliver all this information to people's minds? See for yourself and make up your mind! Are you planning to do it?

MARGELOV: The RIC was created by the government decree on October 1. And as early as in the twenties of October the first group of some 30 foreign journalists went to the hostilities zone. Now we are having foreign journalists flying there each week for three days. We have very close and respectful cooperation with the Defence Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the Emergency Situations Ministry - we simply wouldn't be able to arrange these trips without their help. During these 3-odd months I have been regularly watching western TV programmes, and I can see that presentation of information has changed. If earlier 100% of the pictures were provided by Chechen stringers from the opposite side, now some sort of balance is being outlined in this respect. Western TV companies, of course, obtain the picture from their stringers, these tapes go through censorship at the Ministry of Shariah Security, and western journalists are aware that they are demonstrating the material that has been cut and censored.

It is so. Although there are correspondents of CNN, BBC and an exceptionally courageous man Michael Gordon, correspondent of the New York Times, who are working on a permanent basis there. Now we are holding talks aimed at enabling correspondents of other western news agencies to work there continuously. The main problem lies with ensuring their personal security. In that hostile environment they should be provided with a personnel armoured carrier and submachine gunners: the situation is very tense there.

OGANESYAN: I will ask you a more concrete question. There were a lot of people in the room when the Russian Information Centre was demonstrating these tapes. It is no big deal for a professional to transfer visual material into the verbal one. Has anybody applied to you asking for this tape?

MARGELOV: Yes, we allowed it. We noted beforehand that whether the tape should be released or not in the countries represented by these journalists should be a question of their ethics. We are merely unable to demonstrate the overwhelming majority of the shots that we have at our disposal or at the disposal of the Prosecutor General's Office as they are beyond the limits of human perception.

OGANESYAN: A question, please.

LISTENER: My name is Irina Kadochnikova and I am from Moscow. How do you estimate the policy of Putin's cabinet? And what, in your opinion, are prospects of Russia's development if Vladimir Putin is elected President? Thank you.

MARGELOV: I estimate the policy carried out by the cabinet of Putin as the right one. To my mind, the prospects of Russia's development after Putin is elected President of the country are as follows. With Putin's assuming office of the Russian President we have a real chance to get over the transition period, during which we were parting with our past, and get down to normal, ordinary, everyday work. It is time to stop reconstruction and start constructing something. You should remember the time when these two strange terms: 'perestroika' (reconstruction) and 'uskoreniye' (acceleration) appeared at the end of the eighties. There is nothing more awful than to get reconstructed with acceleration or accelerate while getting reconstructed. The period of transformation, transition from one form of state to another, from one economic model to another was long and grievous. This transition period is coming to an end.

LISTENER: Good evening! It is Viktor from Moscow calling. I've got the following question: don't you think it is time for our government to change somehow the economic pattern of our society, to make sure the money from our consumer market do not go on financing the militants, who could easily spend it on buying weapons from the outside?

MARGELOV: I would divide these two questions. As far as changes in the economic policy go, I believe that the new Duma will finally be able to pass the tax code, the land law and the whole package of economic laws.

As for financing terrorists, our secret services have such information on some banking structures and financial companies, unfortunately, these cases have not been taken to court yet - they are being investigated.

OGANESYAN: Do they succeed in cutting these channels?

MARGELOV: Yes, they certainly do. It is more difficult to cut other channels - those from abroad, the channels of financing terrorists from Georgia, for example. This is really a very serious problem.

LISTENER: Good evening, my name is Andrei. Please, answer the question: why can't we set Christian 'black wolves' at Islamic 'grey wolves'? I mean professionals, trained for counter-terrorist operations. Thank you.

MARGELOV: I wouldn't cause clashes between Moslems and Christians, as well as Buddhists, Jews and representatives of other religions. What is taking place in the Caucasus now is not a religious conflict. There are Moslems, Catholics, members of the Orthodox Church as well as Uniates fighting on the side of the terrorists. There is conclusive evidence, which has been repeatedly introduced to both the international community and the Russian press. We will continue to produce evidence that there are mercenaries from all over the world fighting on the side of the militants. As to trained professionals, I would like to reassure you: personnel of the airborne troops, the Marines, the forces of the Interior Ministry, and the land forces are trained quite well. And you should trust me, our country has taken into account the mistakes of the previous conflict in the Caucasus.

OGANESYAN: Please mind that these are the words of an offspring of a military man. So we are coming to your biography. Our guest's surname Margelov is quite famous. His grandfather commanded the USSR Airborne Troops. He was put forward for the highest decoration by the Presidential decree. Which landing school is named after Margelov?

MARGELOV: The Ryazan Higher Command School was named after my grandfather Vassily F. Margelov, who commanded the USSR airborne troops from 1954 to 1978. There are a street and a square named after him in the city of Omsk, where an airborne troops training centre is situated. There is also a town called Margelov in the Tula region.

OGANESYAN: Have you ever been there?

MARGELOV: Unfortunately, I haven't been there yet, I simply haven't had enough time to get there, but my uncles have already visited it. One of the military units from Eastern Europe was dislocated there and they decided to name this town after my grandfather.

I should add that I met the Airborne Troops Commander Georgy I. Shpak the day before yesterday last time and I know for certain that our guys in Chechnya are acting professionally, so I can reassure our listener.

OGANESYAN: I believe there can be another answer to this question: the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin once said that terrorists had no notion of motherland, nationality or religion. Indeed, they are beyond the limits of the conceptual level.

MARGELOV: One of the first things the RIC did was publication of a kind of glossary containing terminology, which, from our point of view, is tactless to use in describing the events taking place in the Caucasus. The first word on the list was 'Wahhabis' - it has been frequently used. I, being a specialist in the Arabic language by education, can state that you can't use the word 'Wahhabis' in relation to the monsters, operating there: it is insulting for Wahhabis in particular and for Islam in general. After all it is insulting for Saudi Arabia, inhabited by a lot of Wahhabis.

OGANESYAN: It is very good that the Russian Information Centre has taken on this task. Here you have found the word Wahhabi that irritates many people. But very few realise what it implies.

MARGELOV: The same thing happened to the word 'opportunist,' as you should remember. Once Ilyich (Lenin) used this word and they started to stick it to everybody, without knowing its true meaning.

LISTENER, SPEAKING ENGLISH: Good evening, Mr. Margelov! My name is Heiden McDowel and I'm from Great Britain. I have the following question for you: how high are casualties among civilians in Chechnya? Is it really a question of genocide, as the British press put it? And one more question: Who is really in control of Chechnya now? Thank you.

MARGELOV: First, about genocide. Since 1991, when Dzhokhar Dudayev came to power in Chechnya, hundreds of thousands of Russians, Armenians, Jews, Ukrainians as well as representatives of other nationalities that originally inhabited the area, have been ousted from Chechnya. There were real ethnic purges, real genocide of the inhabitants of Chechnya of non-Chechen nationalities. Yes, we may say that there was genocide at that time. It has been acknowledged and proved. As to the 'side losses' as you put it in the NATO countries - I used this term specially for our British listener as it was this term that Jamie Shea used when speaking of Kosovo - nobody insists that there are no casualties among the population that is not fighting. Of course, there are casualties and we acknowledge it. In the cases, when it is possible, the corresponding investigations are launched by the relevant authorities. As far as casualties among peaceful citizens go - this is a complicated matter. We invited foreign journalists to be present at the exhumations, carried out by our Prosecutor General's Office - there were buried Chechens who were murdered by terrorists for the refusal to join their armed formations.

OGANESYAN: Mikhail, we are very short of time. Give us the total number of casualties among peaceful citizens.

MARGELOV: We can't quote this figure now as the whole territory of Chechnya is far from having been liberated from the terrorists.

OGANESYAN: What figures has the RIC got by now?

MARGELOV: It would be incorrect to make public first preliminary figures. I have mentioned the cases of exhumations not without purpose - burial places of the Chechens who refused to enlist in the terrorists' bands are discovered literally every day. This is, by the way, another proof that terrorists have no nationality - Chechens were killing Chechens.

LISTENER: Good evening! My name is Yevgeniya and I am from Moscow. I would like to ask the guest at the studio: which of the mass media - radio, press or television - is the most
impartial in our country?

MARGELOV: I won't repeat mistakes made by Vladimir I. Lenin, who once neglected all the rest forms of art, stating that of all arts, the cinema was the most important to us. As to the mass media, all of them are certainly important and progressive. You haven't mentioned another one, which may be the most important and popular - the Internet. All the mass media, named by you - newspapers, radio and television - have their sites in the Internet. The RIC, by the way, also has its site in the Internet.

OGANESYAN: Yes, and it is very well organised.