Russia misinforms world about Chechens, ex-KGB officer says

Source: Chechenpress News Agency

12.01.2004
A former Russian security officer, granted political asylum in the United Kingdom, has dismissed Russian media reports about Chechen involvement as another propaganda by the Russian Secret Services aimed "to discredit the Chechen leadership and citizens in the eyes of the world community". Commenting on the Russian media reports about Chechens fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, Aleksandr Litvinenko said that not a single Chechen had yet been found. "The Russian special services have unleashed a fierce information war against Chechnya, and the purpose of this war is to justify genocide against a whole nation and declare all the Chechens terrorists at any price," he added. The following is from the text of Aleksandr Litvinenko's report by Chechenpress news agency web site headlined "On a 'Chechen trace' going from rebellious Africa to safe France"; On Tuesday, 6 January, the leading Russian media outlets disseminated another piece of disinformation generated in the depths of Lubyanka [headquarters of the Russian Secret Services] in Moscow.

Not a single Chechen fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq :
Among the Taleban prisoners at the American base in Guantanamo there are citizens of the USA, Britain and Russia, but again - there is not a single Chechen among them. Now let's get back to safe France which, being afraid to fall behind its "big brothers" in the fight against terrorism, is trying to make up for the lost time and is intensively looking for a "Chechen trace", this time in northern Africa. What is it? General psychosis caused by fear of real terrorist attacks, or inability to differentiate between the Chechens and representatives of the African continent, who have eye-catching differences in their looks. If not, then why is the DST, one of the most serious intelligence services in the world, looking for "the Chechen trace" among the Africans?

Disinformation aimed at discrediting Chechens:
Let's address the text of the report in the Russian media: "According to the investigation, members of this organization were preparing a terrorist attack against the Russian representative office in Paris." And we, unlike the French DST, find the same "trace of the Russian special services" from provocations like "an attempt on President Putin's life" organized by the FSB at the end of last year in London, with which representatives of Russian intelligence have been entertaining us of late. Perhaps, they wanted to do things better, but ended up in a mess again. I have no doubts that this disinformation was put into circulation in the Western and Russian media by the FSB jointly with the SVR [Foreign Intelligence Service] as part of another so-called active enterprise meant to discredit the leadership and citizens of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in the eyes of the world community.

How is Lubyanka doing this? In the same manner as the USSR used to do it when they were fighting [dissidents] Sakharov, Bukovskiy, and when they were trying to justify the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan and the death of civilians in the downed South Korean airliner with the only difference that in the recent past it was much more difficult for the KGB "to use at random" the special services of developed democratic countries and Interpol in its bloody dealings. But there is no need to spend a long time explaining this to us, to those who lived in the Soviet Union, that on the instruction of the country's top leadership the Russian special services have unleashed a fierce information war against the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. The purpose of this war is to justify genocide against a whole nation, to declare all the Chechens terrorists at any price regardless of financial expenses, to "dish the dirt" on every Chechen and to deprive every single one of them of their honest name and national dignity, regardless of their place of residence or profession.

[Signed] Aleksandr Litvinenko, London, specially for Chechenpress.