I am not that tech-savvy to get this video out of rutube and put subtitles to it...
...therefore I decided to write a small summary of the film enhanced with some information I discovered online. Let's star with citing RFE/RL's attempt at rebuttal:
At the center of the hour-long documentary is a shadowy figure called Berkan Yashar, a Turkish-born Chechen whose true name is allegedly Abubakar.
According to the film, Yashar in the 1960s 'signed a contract with the U.S. State Department' and briefly worked as an announcer at Radio Free Europe's Munich headquarters, broadcasting so-called 'propaganda in the Chechen language.' Neither of those claims could be independently confirmed.
Let me translate to you what the above is supposed to mean:
We really want to say that the Russians took these facts out of their butts, turn Berkan Yashar into a fictional non-person, and dissociate ourselves from the matter completely. Unfortunately we cannot.
RFE/RL cannot verify the authenticity of its former employee? Do they not have archives in their institution? The fact is that Berkan Yashar is genuine and he was a an employee of the RFE/RL in the sixties. Another, this time current RFE/RL employee that deals with Caucasian issues, Andrey Babitskiy confirms that Berkan Yashar indeed worked at RFE/RL although he adds that he worked in the place only briefly. This information contradicts the statements published in the RFE/RL's article. After his work for RFE/RL Berkan becomes a politician in Turkey, and in the nineties he becomes a first deputy Foreign Minister, Chechen Ambassador in Turkey and Chechen Government Speaker. Babitskiy is mostly concerned with how the film's is constructed to say that US had an active interest in North Caucasian separatism. He attempts to dismiss the film as a conspiracy theory:
'As far as how close this is to reality, of course some details of the film are true,' Babitsky said. 'But they are used as a whole to try to prove a myth that some intelligence services from various countries are working to dismember Russia. Such conspiracy theories are typical of the Putin epoch.'
Babitskiy does not explain how much in the film is true or not, but he seems to accept that some things in the film are based in reality. As I explain bellow it is not some but a large part of the crucial bits that are true. The myth which Babitskiy tries to condemn is hard not to construct when you have people like Paul Goble, who managed to work for the CIA and RFE/RL, and who advocates nothing else but dismemberment of Russia. There is a myriad of organisations in the West, FSU and in the Islamic Word which support all types of nationalisms and radical, separatist Islam in order to destabilise Russia. It does not take much time researching to gather enough credible materiel that confirms the claim I just made.
I found an interview with Berkan Yashar where he discusses the problems he has with the film and the veracity of claims made therein. The film is said to be based on a letter Berkan Yashar wrote, a letter which according to Berkan Yashar never was. He said that the film-crew made him write few sentences on a laptop and that was it. He also says that many of the claims the film ascribed to him are not true.
For example, a large part of the film deals with diamond smuggling operation, it is said that Berkan Yashar personally profited from this business, Berkan Yashar denies this. The business is said to have been, and perhaps still is, directed by Uvays Akhmadov, who has close contacts with Akhmed Zakayev and Boris Berezovsky. Zakayev and Berezovsky are said to be still making money on this business. According to the film, Akhmadov also has close links to the Georgian government. In the film Akhmadov appears between Salman Raduyev and Berezovsky at one point.
Interestingly, the above-linked interview has a passage on Berezovsky's interests in the Caucasus, which are also mentioned in the film but not discussed in such detail therein. Berezovsky, it is said in the film, did not want to share with Maskhadov who demanded 50% in the diamond smuggling business. In reaction to this Berezovsky starts working more closely with Salman Raduyev. Allow me to translate the bit from the interview:
-Referring to letter, which as you say never was, the journalist from 'Channel One' said in the film, that in the late nineties was controlled by Berezovsky. Is that so?
-I did not say that.
-But you know Berezovsky personally, don't you?
-Yes I do, but I never had any business with him. In 1998, Salman Raduyev whom I hosted at the time, rang Berezovsky all the time, and was making some arrangements with him. Once Salman suggest I meet him [Berezovsky] in Baku, and we went.
-What matters did you discuss during the meeting?
-At this meeting, the Deputy Prime-Minister of Azerbaijan Abbas Abbasov was also present. We had discussed the project of the 'Caucasus house' institution through which Berezovsky was, in my opinion, planning to control all business in the Caucasus. The main office of the organisation was opened in Istanbul and representations in Baku and Tbilisi. But I soon got disenchanted with Berezovsky.
-Why?
-I became convinced that Berezovsky's actions harm the Chechen nation. He would seek out Chechens who were ready to profit in any way possible, give them money, and they would then commit crimes, they would take hostages (my note: the last detail also appears in the film). Then Berezovsky would liberate them and score political points this way.
This is some raw stuff. Let us see what Berkan Yashar has to say about his work for RFE/RL:
-In the film it says that you lived for a year in the US.
-Yes I was invited for an internship in the main desk of radio 'Liberty.' There I prepared [radio] programmes which were broadcasted to Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and other national republics of the Soviet Union.
-Were you recruited into the CIA?
-I met and worked with CIA affiliates as well. But I would not say I was recruited. I worked in radio 'Liberty' after all. The secret service was of course interested in radio's employees.
-And did the CIA affiliates tell you what they want from you, and about their plans for Caucasus?
-I already knew about the plans of US and other Western countries to take Caucasus under their control.
Berkan Yashar does not deny the central thesis of the film, that which sites like RFE/RL and in reference also Jamestown are trying to deny. And that is that foreign interests were active in Caucasian separatism.
One of the less important details the 'detractors' are trying to deny, is the linking of Turkish construction companies, first to the diamond business and second to financial and material support which included purchases of weapons (radio controlled mines and anti-aircraft weapons; I always wondered where the Stingers come from) for the Chechen guerrillas. This is based on the words of Sultan Kekhursayev, who is living in Turkey. According to the interview I link above, Kekhursayev got into a bit of trouble after appearing in the film. He was shot and ended up in hospital. ENKA, one of the companies named said that the allegations against Turkey are baseless, why was then Kekhursayev shot at remains a mystery? Kekhursayev on the other hand says that without Turkish help they would have a hard time.
Berkan Yashar says in the above-linked interview that these companies channeled money for humanitarian purposes. Kekhursayev says in the film that 'Berkan knows about' the other dealings. Allow me to make a little divergence. Support from outside is often said to be humanitarian. I had recently read an essay which claimed that the Crimean Tatars supported Chechens morally and through humanitarian aid in the nineties. This of course does not make any sense because Crimean Tatar returnees (which returned to Crimea from Central Asia where they were deported by Stalin) were themselves in dire need of humanitarian aid. I am more inclined to believe that many Tatars accepted the offer to fight in Chechnya and either return home with money or die and enter paradise.
As for the allegations made against Turkey, they are many and do not just stop at the business of Turkish companies. None of the other allegations are addressed in either the RFE/RL or Jamestown articles in substantial detail. For instance Jamestown includes this paragraph:
Yashar states in the film that at the start of the 1990s he prepared a political platform for separating Chechnya from Russia and that there were several sources financing this project. He claims, among other things, that passports for the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria were printed in France while 'many tons' of Ichkerian banknotes, which resembled U.S. currency, were printed in Germany.Yashar says that Western special services did not really care about the independence of the peoples of Caucasus but were acting only in the interest of their 'personal profit.' He also claims that Western special services tried to convince Muslim muftis in Russianot only in Chechnya, but also in Tatarstan and Bashkortostanto break away from Russia because of religious differences. He also refers to the self-exiled Russian tycoon and his former partner, the late Badri Patarkastishvili, stating that they were involved in questionable deals in the Caucasus.
This is a typically misleading, ridiculous and mendacious paragraph which is nothing unusual for Jamestown, I still wonder how they manage to produce them. The paragraph lumps several images and interprets them wrongly. I will return to the issue of Chechen money and passports, and I will also return to debunk the line about Badri Patarkatsishvili (not Patarkastishvili) and his 'self-exiled' former partner Berezovsky later. But for now, let us focus on the 'Muslim muftis' (are there any Muftis who are not Muslims?)
There indeed is a segment on the spread of radical, separatist Islam on the territory of Russia in the nineties but this segment is not quite based on the testimony of Berkan Yashar but on Islamic clerics which are interviewed in the film and who are completely absent in RFE/RL and Jamestown articles. This spread of Wahhabism and Turkic (and other Muslim) separatist feelings is said to had been conducted by Turkish and Saudi agencies. For instance, there appeared an institution called the Özal College, named after the former Turkish president Turgut Özal and many other such institutions. These institutions stressed learning of the English language as their primary objective. Frankly, I am not surprised, in the nineties there appeared a number of educational, English language facilities throughout Eastern Europe and Eurasia, established by foreign ideologues and religious organisations. But these projects were not just established to teach English or teach in English, they had the agenda of winning hearts and minds to whatever the particular cause, ideology or religion stands behind them.
Shafig Pshikhachev, Mufti of Kabardino-Balkaria, tells how he was invited to a conference in Turkey, where he saw a map of Turkic Republics which included all Turkic Republics together with the non-Turkic North Caucasus, Tajikistan and even the non-Muslim Georgia and Armenia. He also tell how he was present at another meeting, this time with a Saudi citizen who stirred the conversation about Islamic revival to Jihad, that is armed conflict. The Saudi citizen told Pshikhachev that in case of an armed conflict, he can count on Saudi help. Pshikhachev also tells how he met Dr. Abdullah bin Abdul Mohsen al-Turki, then Saudi Minister of Islamic Affairs, together with Muftis of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, in Moscow, there he was told by al-Turki that the Saudis were actively preparing grounds for an opposition to the traditional religious authorities. Allakh Shukyur Pasha Zade, an Azerbaijani cleric, repeats the same. He adds that an ideological war is being waged against Russia.
Berkan Yashar is reported to have stated in his presumed letter that Turkey planned to establish a Turkic-Caucasian Confederation, two Turkish Presidents Turgut Özal and after him Süleyman Demirel were working on the matter. Berkan Yashar is said to have informed Dudayev that once North Caucasus will be independent, the next step should be the establishment of the aforementioned Confederation. Like I said, Chechnya would not be a viable state on its own if it ever got independent.
Shamseddin Yusef, Dudayev's Foreign Minister, said in the film that the leading Wahhabis were all American citizens. He said that bin Laden visited him and Dudayev and that he arrived from the US. In the early nineties he had no quarrels with the Americans. According to Shamseddin Yusef, bin Laden was an American citizen. Shamseddin Yusef says several things that are little bit off the hooks, such as that after the Desert Storm the Americans would move north-wards and take Caucasus. Novodvorskaya said that NATO troops should move to Chechnya as peacekeepers; but otherwise I cannot think of anyone, and certainly not anyone sane, who harbours such thoughts. The film moves over to the neocons. One of them is Richard Perle who is a member of the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus which formerly stood for peace in Chechnya, and who says that they supported the Chechens morally and materially. Perle expressed his dismay at the inaction of the Americans at at the most crucial time, he says that back then they could change the situation. On a map of Russia perhaps. Another American interviewed in the film is Charles Waterman who says that on his visit to Grozny he informed Dudayev that war is an unwise step. The film however adds that in the nineties, Waterman was awarded several CIA honours. It is therefore weird that he would receive awards for his unsuccessful attempts to persuade Dudayev not to start the war.
We do not find, neither Perle nor Waterman in RFE/RL or Jamestown detractions, even though Perle admits that they did support the Chechens materially. Let's see how some of the material support was used? According to Shamseddin Yusef, former Prime-Minister of Turkey Tansu Çiller gave him $1,000,000 and a satellite-phone. Citing the presumed letter of Berkan Yashar, the film states that at the meeting where the money was transferred, the current President of Turkey Abdullah Gül, was also present. With the help of this money, Shamil Basayev was able to organise the Budyonnovsk hostage taking. Other of the Turkish companies GAMA is said to have channeled money which were used by Salman Raduyev to attack the Pervomayskoe village. Following the siege of this village, Raduyev was able to escape injured and was hosted by Berkan Yashar in Turkey, where he received medical treatment in a Turkish Intelligence Service Hospital. Berkan Yashar's wife tells how she dyed Raduyev's hair black and turned him into a Turkish businessman Murat Yashar. With this new identity, Raduyev was able to visit Chechnya several times. These claims look pretty genuine, just like the photos shown in the film. Another operation the film talks about is production and flooding of Russia with high-quality fake dollars, these dollars are said to had been made in Turkey with the full knowledge of the US secret services.
Turkey is however not the only source of finances mentioned in the film. There is a footage of Dudayev meeting with Margaret Thatcher in London. The film states that most of the other sources were well hidden, Turkey was the only place where the support was not given discretely. I would say the authors attempted to link Maggie with Dudayev by showing the footage but I am still left to wonder what common language would Dudayev and Maggie find?
As for Chechen money and Chechen passports, Berkan Yashar shows samples of Chechen nakhars, which indeed resemble US dollars, and a specimen of a Chechen passport. He confirms publishing them in the interview as well. And Badri Patarkatsishvili? His persona appears in the film once when a footage of a phone call between an anonymous Georgian official and Uvays Akhamadov is shown, in it they debate 'removal' of Badri. There is a part where Berezovsky and Georgia feature. After the destruction of the Grozny airport, the diamonds had to be transported by land through Georgia. Nothing is said about Badri's business activities with Berezovsky throughout the film. I do not know where that part of Jamestown's article came from. Also interesting is that Jamestown did not mention Berezovsky by name.
The film also features one of Maskhadov's video recordings where he, mourning his fallen foreign Mujahedeen comrades, states that when 'brothers' in their countries are in need, they will come to their help. This eventually scares off foreign sponsors who obviously would not want the type of people in their countries.
***
To sum up the above discussion, I must say that I do not believe there was any Berkan Yashar's letter. I think that was a narrative technique employed by the film-makers and the contents of the hypothetical letter originate from the interviews with Berkan Yashar and perhaps some other background sources. Why do I think that? Because in the film it states that the letter will be reprinted in Russian media, I found no such letter unfortunately. What is interesting is that RFE/RL and Jamestown were not able to come up with this information and use it to mock the film. I do not know how hard is it, like the author of the above-cited interview, to fly to Istanbul and make an interview with Berkan Yashar? No, RFE/RL had to call Berkan Yashar 'shadowy figure' and say that it can't verify whether he ever was an employee of the station.
Otherwise I find the film to be very good. I have noticed Stas Mishin thinks likewise. I have not covered everything mentioned in the film, some details might have slipped through, indeed somebody needs to make a translation of it. If you already speak Russian, watch it bellow, if you find a translation, please send it to me!
http://www.austereinsomniac.info/blog/2010/9/17/plan-caucasus.html#comment9797455
