Terror-99 (Russian Reporters/Former FSB Agents Accuse FSB of Russian Apartment Bombings)

September 1999 was the month of terror in Russia. Several bombs went off within days of each other, killing nearly 300 and injuring more than 550.

On August 31st, 1999, a bomb exploded during rush hour at the Manezh shopping mall in the center of Moscow. Forty people were injured, one person died.

On September 4th, a truck exploded in the military housing complex in the city of Buinaksk. Sixty-four people died under the ruins of a five-story building, 23 of them children. 133 were injured.

On the night of September 9th, a powerful blast destroyed an apartment building on Guryanov Street in Moscow. Ninety-four people died, 164 were injured.

On September 13th at 5a.m. - another blast on Kashirskoye Shosse in Moscow killed 119 people in their sleep.

Three days later, on September 16th, an apartment building in Volgodonsk went up into the air. Seventeen people died under the ruins of the building, 72 were injured.

On September 22nd, an imminent explosion was averted in the city of Ryazan. Sacks of white substance and a detonator were found in the basement of an apartment building. Experts determined that the white powder was hexogen, a powerful explosive. The residents were evacuated, and soon congratulated by government officials with having been saved from a deadly explosion, as the bomb was supposed to go off at 5:30am.

The Ryazan local police got on the trail and, within 48 hours, arrested the suspects. Much to the surprise of the arresting officers, the terrorists produced identification from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), a successor of the KGB. Faced with a national scandal, the government changed the story and claimed that the incident in Ryazan was not an averted terrorist act, but FSB's 'readiness exercise'. Nikolai Patrushev, director of the FSB, said that the sacks contained sugar and the detonator was a dummy.

The Ryazan incident led to widespread speculations about the involvement of Russian secret services in all previous explosions. But the FSB classified all Ryazan evidence "top secret" for reasons of "national security". (Full Ryazan story)"

The government blamed the explosions on Chechen separatists, swaying the public opinion in favor of the new war. On September 23, 1999, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered air strikes against Chechnya. The nationalist hysteria set off by the bombings helped Mr. Putin win Presidential elections in 2000.

But the quick, victorious war that the new President promised to the Russian people turned out to be a bloody quagmire. Thousands of Russian soldiers, and tens of thousand of Chechen civilians have been killed, and many more lost their homes, making Chechnya a humanitarian catastrophe. Atrocities penetrated by the Russian army - unsurpassed in Europe since World War II - prompted accusations of genocide.

As for the bombings of September '99, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, "questions about those attacks, like Russia's conduct in Chechnya, continue to follow Mr. Putin like a shadow", and indeed put the very legitimacy of the government in question. According to opinion polls, about half of the Russians believe that the FSB may have been complicit in the bombings.

Over the years, the authorities have been desperately trying to prove a Chechen connection to the bombings.

In the aftermath of the blasts, the police picked up Timur Dakhilgov, a native of Chechnya, who confessed to the bombings under torture, only to be released a few weeks later without charges. By the end of 2001, five Chechen rebels had been accused by the FSB of the Moscow attacks, but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.

In December 2003, two Chechen rebels, Adam Dekkushev and Yusuf Krymshamkhalov, went on trial for complicity in the bombings. Their trial was closed to the press and the public. According to unofficial reports, no evidence linking the defendants to the Moscow blasts was presented. Dekkushev pleaded innocent on all counts. Krymshamkhalov admitted involvement in the preparation of the Volgodonsk bomb. But he said that he later came to suspect the organizers -- who had told him that the bomb was for a Russian military target -- of being FSB plants.

According to the FSB, the main suspect in the Moscow bombings is Achemez Gochiyayev, who is believed to be hiding in Georgia. The FSB says he personally rented the basements in the Moscow apartment houses where the bombs were planted.

In July 2002, Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-FSB agent who has been granted political asylum in England, and has co-authored a book about the bombings, published a letter from Achemez Gochiyayev, the main suspect, sent from his hideout.

Gochiyayev claimed that he had nothing to do with the bombings, but had been framed by a business associate, whom he later suspected of being an FSB agent. The man, he said, had rented the basements in four residential buildings, ostensibly as storage space for their company. Notably, Gochiyayev said that after the second blast, before going into hiding, he tipped off the police about the two other bombs. The authorities never explained how these bombs were found.

Mikhail Trepashkin, a lawyer representing a victim's family, was arrested in Moscow on a fabricated charge a week before he was to take part in the bombings trial of December 2003. At the trial, he planned to present new evidence linking the FSB to the Moscow blasts.

After Trepashkin's arrest, a Moscow newspaper published his report. He found the landlord of one of the bombed buildings who identified the man who had rented the space. This was not Gochiyayev, but an undercover agent of the FSB who specialized in infiltration of the Chechen groups, and who was killed in a hit-and-run car accident some months after the blasts.

Trepashkin is held for illegal arms possession, but he says that a gun has been planted by the FSB in his car in order to prevent him from appearing in court.

Over the years, three other suspicious incidents came to light, which were never investigated or explained by the authorities:

- On September 14, 1999, Gennady Seleznev, the speaker of the Duma known for his close links with the FSB, announced a terrorist attack on the previous night. But he made a mistake -- instead of referring to the bombings at Kashirskoye Shosse in Moscow, he spoke about a building blown up in Volgodonsk -- three days before it actually happened.

- Shortly after the Moscow bombings, a soldier, Pvt. Pinyaev, has discovered sacks marked "sugar" at a military warehouse he was guarding. He took some to sweeten his tea only to discover that the substance was anything but sweet. An investigation ensued establishing that the sacks contained hexogen, the explosive used in the bombings. The story was leaked to the press and led to the FSB's investigation of the "breach of national security" and the transfer of Pvt. Pinyaev.

- In March 2002, Nikita Chekulin, the Deputy Director of Moscow Explosives Research Institute, requested asylum in the U.K. He disclosed documents demonstrating that large quantities of hexogen have been illegally transferred from military depots to several front companies, which he suspected were set up by the FSB. An investigation of these transactions initiated by the police has been suppressed by the FSB.

The pro-government majority in the State Duma has blocked the initial efforts of a parliamentary investigation into the 9/99 blasts. An independent Public Commission for investigation of the bombings headed by human rights activist Sergei Kovalev has been formed in Moscow, but its activities have been hampered by lack of official cooperation.

A member of Duma, Sergey Yushenkov, who called for parliamentary inquiry and who was the driving force of the Public Commission has been assassinated. His colleague, Yuri Shchekochikhin, was apparently poisoned three months later. Another member of the Commission, Yuli Rybakov, has lost his seat in the Duma in what observers called a rigged election. After the lost of its three most prominent members, the activities of the Public Commission have come to a hault.

Early investigations into the Ryazan incident were conducted by Novaya Gazeta and by the independent TV Channel NTV. The report on NTV was broadcast in March 2000, on the eve of Presidential elections. This broadcast was the reason for the eventual closing of NTV by the Kremlin, and the banishment from Russia of its owner, Vladimir Gusinsky.

Over the years, journalistic investigations of the apartment bombings have produced four books and two film documentaries, all of which strongly argue for the FSB's role in the attacks:

Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within (Liberty Press, New York, 2001) - a book co-authored by Litvinenko and American Russian historian Yuri Felshtinsky detailing the events of 9/99. An attempt to deliver the book to Moscow resulted in a police raid on a highway truck and confiscation of 4,500 copies as "anti-government propaganda". The book is available in English and in Russian from this site.

FSB - the Lubyanka Criminal Grouping (in Russian, Grani Press, New York, 2002) - an autobiography of an ex-FSB officer detailing corruption in the security service, with one chapter dedicated to the Moscow bombings. The book is available in Moscow and can be ordered at this site - Russian only.

Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of Russian Criminal State (Yale University Press, 2003) by David Satter, the former Moscow correspondent of The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Much of this review of Russia's recent political history is devoted to the '99 bombings.

Der Krieg im Schatten ("The War in Shadows"), (in German, Edition Surhkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2003) edited by Florian Hassel, the Moscow correspondent of the Frankfurter Rundschau, the book presents evidence suggesting that Kremlin manipulations, not Chechen terrorism, were behind the start of the Chechen war in 1999. It has contributions from German, Russian, Chechen, British and American authors.

Assassination or Russia (a film by Jean-Charles Deneau, Transparencies Productions, Paris, 2002) - a documentary co-produced by exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, which explores the Ryazan incident. The film has been banned in Russia, and activists of Berezovsky's Liberal Russia Party who tried to organize private screenings have been beaten up.

Disbelief (a film by Andrei Nekrasov, Dreamscanner Productions, 2004) - a feature length documentary about the sisters Tatyana and Alyona Morozov who lost their mother in the Guryanov street bombing in Moscow. Selection of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

Most experts agree that the acceptance or rejection by the Russians of the "FSB" theory of the bombings will depend on the economic situation and the historical perspective rather than on hard evidence.

Western opinion has been cautious about the controversy of the 9/99 explosions. While the evidence for the FSB complicity is inconclusive, the stakes are high. After September 11, the "Chechen" theory has been cited by the Putin administration to justify to the hesitant public Russia's participation in the US-led campaign against international terrorism.

Your opinion is important to us. Please add your thoughts to our forum, or write back with ideas and suggestions. End.

Terror-99 websites (both English and Russian language versions) are supported by Grani.ru, a Moscow-based online daily.

The mission of Terror-99 sites is to present infomation about the events in Russia in 1999 and to support the ongoing discussion of these events.

Grani.ru, a major Russian-language online media project, has been an important source of information and comment on Russian and world politics since December 2000.

This is what has me paying attention, there are many of these reports in the news.

http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/1010/o_13766.htm

The St. Petersburg
Times

#1010, Friday, October 8,
2004

OPINION

Forget About the Constitution

By Vladimir Ryzhkov

On Sept. 27,
President Vladimir
Putin began to
implement the
political reforms he
had announced two
weeks before. He
introduced a bill in
the State Duma that
would cancel direct gubernatorial elections
and introduce instead de facto appointment
of regional leaders by the president.

On Sept. 29, the Duma Council promptly
forwarded the bill to the regions, as required
by law. The regions have one month to
deliver their assessment of the president's
plan. Regardless of their reaction, however, a
first reading of the bill in the Duma will take
place Oct. 29.

The bill's fate in the Duma is not in doubt.
United Russia, which enjoys a constitutional
majority in the lower house, came out in
favor of the bill before it was even drafted.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats will
back the bill as well; the party has been
calling for the appointment of governors for a
decade. Most of Dmitry Rogozin's supporters
are also big fans of the "power vertical,"
Putin's executive chain of command.

The only dissent will come from the
Communists and independent deputies, about
60 votes in all. Some 370 to 390 deputies will
vote for the bill, and the Duma may decide to
hold all three readings of the bill in a single
session. Approval of the bill by the Federation
Council will inevitably follow. By the time the
87th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution
rolls around, the Russian people may well
have been stripped of one of their most
important democratic rights-the right to elect
their regional leaders.

Deputies will have no chance to amend the
legislation. Conceptually, the law is so
simple, even primitive, that the slightest
change would alter its substance. The
substance of the bill is this: The president
can install anyone he likes as a regional
leader. He can also remove those leaders at
will. Regional legislatures must confirm the
president's nominees, but in practice this will
amount to nothing more than a rubber
stamp.

The process works like this: The president
nominates a Russian citizen at least 35 years
of age for approval by a regional legislature.
A majority vote is required for confirmation.
If a majority is not obtained, the president
has one week to nominate a new candidate
or to send the same name back to the
legislature. If deputies again refuse to play
ball, the president appoints an acting
governor and has the option to dissolve the
legislature. He can also leave well enough
alone; the acting governor, you see, can
serve for up to five years. In any case, the
president's man runs the region, not
someone elected by the people or the
legislature.

The procedure for firing governors is equally
simple. If the president loses faith in his
appointee, or feels that he isn't up to par, he
simply pulls the plug. Regional legislators
have no say in the matter. The president
merely informs them of his decision and
submits a new candidate for their approval.
Regional lawmakers cannot fire the governor.
They can hold a vote of no confidence, but
the president is entirely within his rights to
ignore the result.

The problem is that Putin's plan violates the
Constitution-specifically articles 1, 3, 5, 10,
11, 32, 71, 72, 73 and 77-and weakens the
state. It also runs counter to a number of
Constitutional Court rulings, most specifically
the Jan. 18, 1996, ruling in which the court
held that only the direct election of regional
leaders can be considered to satisfy the
requirements of the Constitution.

The new political system created by Putin's
plan will have no legal foundation in the
Constitution, and this will have disastrous
consequences for the country. Nor will
Kremlin-appointed governors enjoy
legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Poll
after poll has shown that a majority of
Russians either don't understand Putin's
proposals or don't approve of them. Most
voters want to carry on electing their leaders
because they understand that elected officials
care more for the interests of their
constituents than appointed ones do. The
Beslan tragedy made clear that the
Kremlin-appointed leaders in Chechnya and
Ingushetia have no connection with the
people, and are therefore utterly impotent.

The examples of Chechnya and Ingushetia
offer little hope for the future. Soon Russia's
vast expanses will be controlled by 89
Kremlin emissaries, each guided by the
sentiments of a senior official under Emperor
Nicholas I: "I know only the tsar, and I have
no use for Russia!" Some will be
functionaries, outsiders in their regions.
Others will be aging bosses whose political
lives have been extended by the Kremlin. But
Putin will not be able to extend the people's
faith in them. Neither functionaries loyal only
to Moscow, nor regional "khans" who have
long worn out their welcome, will lend the
new political system the authority and
legitimacy necessary for Russia to become a
stronger, more cohesive state.

Putin's call for an active civil society will die
on his lips. For how can society lift itself up
when the president has denied it any role in
running the country?

The new governors will be granted additional
control over the regional offices of the
so-called federal power ministries. But this
will lead only to greater excesses and greater
corruption.

What's next? In November, a number of
regional leaders such as Tatar President
Mintimer Shaimiyev and Kemerovo Governor
Aman Tuleyev, who are confident in their
power and sure of the Kremlin's backing, will
resign before their current terms are out. The
Kremlin will appoint them in short order, and
the grateful emissaries will announce their
intention to strengthen the presidential chain
of command. Other regional leaders will have
little choice but to follow suit, enabling the
Kremlin to purge unsuitable candidates. The
Kremlin will not wait until 2009.

Next on the agenda: including local
government in the chain of command. The
Constitution will be forgotten, and the
Constitutional Court will once more remain
silent. The bureaucracy will gain complete
control of the country, while the people are
removed from the loop. Things will be just as
they were before 1917, and before 1991.

I'm afraid the end result will be exactly the
same.

Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent State
Duma deputy, contributed this comment to
The St. Petersburg Times.
More opinion stories:
Shift to a Better Life Starts In People's Heads | Rolling Back
Democracy |

Well, the KGB used to be an organ of the government controlled by the Communists. I imagine there is some resentment, now that the tables are turned and the KGB actually rules.

From an article in the Wall Street Journal, page 1, Wednesday, February 23, 2005:

"Mr. Putin him self served more than 15 years in the KGB and later headed its successor, the FSB [actually, the KGB split onto 2 organizations, the FSB (international, like the CIA) and the SVR (national, like the FBI).] Since taking over the Kremlin in 2000, he has presided over an unprecedented influx of ex-KGB men into the upper echelons of power---men whose formative years were spent learning how to undermine the West's interests.

Prominent among the ex-KGB officials who now pace the Kremlin's corridors are Defense minister Sergei Ivanov, Interior Minister Rahid Nurgaliev, and FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev, as well as the heads of Russia's arms-export, defense-procurement, and drug-enforcement agencies. A close Putin aide and former KGB man, Victor Ivano, serves on the board of flagship airline OAO Aeroflot. A favorite parlor game in Russia is to divine which other senior officials and businessmen have suspicious gaps in their resume that suggest a past with the intelligence services."

In this regard, I wonder what has happened to the old nemissis and competition of the KGB, the GRU? I suspect they have not fared well.

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