DATE=2/21/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=GROZNY AID WORKERS
NUMBER=5-45487
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=GROZNY
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The Chechen capital, Grozny -- largely
destroyed by months of Russian air and artillery
strikes -- has been closed to outsiders until at least
April First. In announcing the closure, Russian
officials cited the danger from unexploded land mines,
as well as the threat of an outbreak of disease. V-O-
A's Peter Heinlein traveled to Grozny with emergency
workers who have the job of establishing basic
services for the thousands of residents still living
in the remains of the shattered city.
TEXT:
/// WORKERS SINGING - FADE UNDER ///
Spirits are high among the Emergency Situations
Ministry workers arriving in Grozny, even after a
miserable four-hour ride in the back of a flatbed
truck along Chechnya's dusty and decaying roads. This
group of about 100 workers is from Chelyabinsk, nearly
two-thousand kilometers away in the Ural mountains.
It is the first time most of them have been to
Chechnya, and the expressions on their faces say it
all. They have never seen anything like the total
destruction they are witnessing as the truck slowly
winds its way through the rubble strewn-streets into
the center of Grozny.
The deputy commander of the relief team, Alexander
Krupchenko, says it is hard for him to imagine how the
city can be rebuilt.
/// KRUPCHENKO ACT ONE - IN RUSSIAN - FADE ///
He says that officers who were in Grozny in 1995,
during the last war, say the destruction is much worse
this time. He says many private homes survived last
time, but this time, practically every dwelling is
destroyed.
/// OPT /// Nevertheless, these emergency crew
members say bombing Grozny from the air was the right
thing to do because it avoided the need for a ground
invasion like the one that cost so many Russian lives
in the last war. The others nod in agreement as
Colonel Krupchenko explains that the Chechen rebels
are a threat to the country's very existence, and must
be exterminated at any cost.
/// OPT // KRUPCHENKO ACT TWO - IN RUSSIAN - FADE ///
He says Russia's goal in Chechnya was not military,
but was political, to preserve Russia's territorial
integrity. The real objective, he says, was to
destroy what he calls - a terrorist criminal enclave
that had taken over here in Chechnya during the past
few years. /// END OPT ///
Despite the almost total destruction, people are
moving about on the streets. At Grozny's temporary
city administration building, set up in a bombed-out
former furniture factory, army colonel Evstafy Demesh
says thousands of residents are emerging from their
basements after five-months of hiding.
/// DEMESH ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER ///
Colonel Demesh says that between 30-thousand and 150-
thousand people still live in Grozny and the
surrounding administrative districts. But he says
that in the city center -- the last part of Grozny to
be taken by Russian troops -- only a few thousand
remain.
Colonel Demesh says the government has plans to reopen
at least one and possibly two universities in Grozny
by the end of this year, though it is hard to see how.
For the time being, one of the local administration's
big jobs is clearing the city of unexploded mines and
searching for weapons and ammunition left behind by
the rebels. He says the job is already more than half
done.
But when told there might be an attempt to rebuild at
least parts of the city, most survivors shake their
head in disbelief. Sixty-five-year-old Tamara
Vitayeva says such thoughts are foolish. Grozny, she
says, is beyond hope.
/// VITAYEVA ACT - IN RUSSIAN - FADE UNDER ///
She says that even if Russia tries to rebuild the
city, it will fail. It is impossible - she says
A few hardy souls suggest they will do everything they
can to stay on in the shattered city, if only because
they have spent their whole lives here and have no
place else to go. But the vast majority echo the
sentiments of 60-year-old Grozny native Raisa
Solyanik, who commented - just give me my pensioner's
documents and a ride out of here, and I will never
come back. (Signed)
NEB/PFH/JWH/RAE
21-Feb-2000 12:07 PM EDT (21-Feb-2000 1707 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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