13 May 2009

Prikol -- The Victory Day celebration and the military parade in downtown Grozny looked rather modest compared to the amazing scope of the events that marked the Day of Mourning on the fifth anniversary of the death of President Akhmat-Khadzhi (Akhmad) Kadyrov. In building the cult of his father, Ramzan Kadyrov does not skimp on either money or rhetoric. The head of Chechnya is not in the habit of limiting himself in the choice of enthusiastic epithets when it comes to people with whom he feels a special emotional bond. In a recent interview for the leading Russian newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta he called Vladimir Putin a "saint". To describe his father, he found is no less powerful an image of the same sort. In an official Address to his compatriots, Kadyrov presented Akhmat-Hadzhi as a “righteous man” [pravednyi].

The cult would not be a cult were it not to contain, in addition to a righteous man who was able to lead his people out of the quagmire, a place for the rabble and the enemies of the human race. At the joint meeting of the Parliament and the Government during which Kadyrov described the heroic efforts his father had made to protect the integrity of the Russian Federation, he referred to the hirelings of international terrorism. Speaking from the stage of a concert hall in the presence of numerous exalted guests, the Chechen leader once again explained why he finds the representatives of the armed insurgency so disagreeable. Apparently the whole problem lies in their inferior pedigree. Udugov’s mother was a prostitute, and Basayev had no family at all. Such revelations from the mouth of the Chechen leader are not infrequent. Kadyrov shares the notions of the man in the street about the purity of Chechen blood and the character of the true Aryan.

Nevertheless, where a subject as painful as the murder of one’s father is concerned, a certain degree of naiveté may be excusable. With each passing year this story, now five years old, becomes more and more complicated as it acquires fresh versions and details.

Responsibility for the blast at Grozny Stadium which resulted in the death of Akhmad-Khadzhi Kadyrov was almost immediately claimed by Shamil Basayev. He said that those who actually performed the deed were given 50,000 dollars for a successful assassination attempt. In 2007, the Chechen interior ministry announced the death of the Chechen field commander Khairulla, who had been declared Kadyrov Senior’s assassin. In 2008 Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed in an interview for the radio station Ekho Moskvy that the main culprits in the case had been eliminated. He explained to the journalist in very candid terms the lengths to which he was willing to go in order to obtain revenge. He said that those who were subject to elimination included not only the people directly connected with the killing, but also those who knew anything about it, or said that they did.

However, the matter is slightly more complicated. After the recent assassination of Sulim Yamadayev two new theories about the killing immediately appeared. Responding to accusations made by the Dubai police against his cousin and former associate, Adam Delimkhanov, to the effect that he had organized the attack on Yamadayev, Ramzan Kadyrov suddenly announced that the Yamadayev brothers had been involved in the death of his father. These accusations provoked astonishment among people who were familiar with the situation. In the altercations that ensued, Sulim’s younger brother Isa revealed one of Kadyrov Junior’s secrets. It transpires that within his narrow personal circle the head of Chechnya routinely blames his father’s murder on the Russian special services. While it has long been known that this hypothesis enjoys great popularity in Chechnya, Ramzan himself has never taken the liberty of calling into question the official version.

The fact that Isa’s claim may not be without foundation is confirmed, in part, by the opinion of the garrulous conspiracy theorist Ruslan Saidov, who lives in Dubai and is considered by Kadyrov to be a person he trusts. As someone who likes to present himself as an expert on the subtleties of all the secret movements of Chechen politics, and as a man who is indeed well-informed, Saidov writes the following passage on his Livejournal blog: "With regard to the FSB, the person of interest is not Mairbek himself, but his close cousin Khairulla. He interesting in the context of the blast at the stadium on May 9, for which the perpetrators of the blast – Anisimov and Tikhonov – forced Khairulla to take public responsibility. Khairulla was a secret agent, as were about half of the Wahhabi leaders..
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“In January 2004, Akhmat-Khadzhi flew to Saudi Arabia, where with Prince Turki al-Faisal and Sheikh Muhammad Sadiq Muhammad Yusuf he signed an agreement for the withdrawal of the Arab contingents from Chechnya. Between February and April approximately 75% of the Arab fighters left Chechnya for Iraq, and Abu al-Walid was eliminated by Sulim Yamadayev’s Vostok battalion. During that period Magomed Khambiev, Boris Aidamir and Shaa Turlayev also left the resistance. In May 2004, after Putin's inauguration, Aslan Maskhadov was to have issued an order for the resistance to cease and powers to be resigned and transferred to Akhmat-Khadzhi, and for himself to be legalized under an amnesty. Putin agreed to this. Shamil Basayev and Dokka Umarov also agreed to quietly leave for Jeddah. On the eve of Maskhadov’s visit, FSB officers killed Akhmat-Khadzhi, and the whole plan fell apart. "

Whatever one thinks of Saidov’s conspiracy theories, the belief that the insurgents and the Russian special services operate in harmony together is very widespread in Chechnya. And, as his view of Udugov’s mother indicates, it is likely that Ramzan Kadyrov shares such perspectives. But if he really believes that the FSB were involved in the murder of his father, this means that his filial loyalty is constantly being subjected to a severe test. It is not easy to live while constantly meeting and working with the representatives of the sinister agency that is responsible for the death of the person who is dearest to you. Moreover, Vladimir Putin -- another of Ramzan Kadyrov’s idols, to whom he never tires declaring his love – recently had a close connection with that same agency, and almost certainly knows right down to the last detail whether his former colleagues were involved in the murder of Akhmat-Khadzhi or not.

One last thing. As it is becoming clear, Akhmat-Khadzhi’s death also represents an important source of political capital for his son. Kadyrov knows better than anyone else that the Yamadayevs had no interest in the death of their closest ally. In raising the charge of murder against them, the head of Chechnya has apparently decided that his father’s death can be used to the family’s benefit, by making it handsome and compelling grounds for Adam Delimkhanov’s acquittal.