【2009经济学人杂志双语阅读】A mountain of trouble 是非之地

chijiaoshunv

Russia's north Caucasus

俄罗斯北高加索地区

A mountain of trouble
是非之地

Jul 16th 2009 | MOSCOW
From The Economist print edition

The north Caucasus continues to suffer kidnappings, torture and killings on a horrifying scale
北高加索地区绑架、虐待、谋杀事件数量之巨令人发指


印古什日常生活一瞥

ON JULY 7th, as Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev discussed world security in the Kremlin, people charged with security in Chechnya kidnapped a local man and his son. Twelve hours later the man was dragged from a car in his underwear and executed before a few villagers. And this was but one of many punitive actions taken by Chechen authorities against relatives of alleged rebels.

7月7日，当巴拉克•奥巴马和德米特里•梅德韦杰夫在克里姆林宫讨论世界安全问题之际，车臣的地方安全人员绑架了当地的一名男人及其儿子。12个小时后， 他们把被剥得只剩一条内裤的男人从车里拖出来，在几个村民面前处死了他。这样的惩罚行为已经不是头一遭了，车臣当局正是用这种方式处理了许多被认为是反叛 分子的人。

It was brought to light by Natalia Estemirova, a human-rights activist who has chronicled kidnappings, torture and killings for a decade on behalf of Memorial, Russia’s oldest human-rights group. Ms Estemirova received prizes in Europe, but no thanks from her government. On July 15th, as she left home in Chechnya, she herself was kidnapped. A few hours later she was found dead in neighbouring Ingushetia. Her hands were tied and she had two bullets in her head and chest.

这起事件是由人权活动家娜塔莉亚•爱斯特米洛娃揭发的，她是俄罗斯最早的人权组织“纪念”的成员。10多年来，她一直坚持记录该地区发生的绑架、虐待及谋 杀事件，欧洲方面曾数次给她颁发人权奖，但是俄罗斯政府从未对她的工作表示过一丝感激之情。7月15日，爱斯特米洛娃在离开车臣的家时被绑架。几个小时 后，有人在印古什发现了她的尸体，她双手被绑，身中两枪，一枪在头部，一枪在胸部。

Ms Estemirova’s murder topped the headlines of foreign television networks, but was mentioned only in passing by Russian channels, despite a prompt condemnation from Mr Medvedev. Her colleagues say that her work had outraged Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s president. They blame him for her murder (though Mr Kadyrov pledged to lead the investigation into her murder himself).

爱斯特米洛娃遇害的消息占据了国外各电视台的头条，而在俄罗斯国内，虽然梅德韦杰夫迅速对此事发表了强烈谴责，但这条新闻在俄罗斯电视节目中仅仅是被一笔 带过。爱斯特米洛娃的同事称，她的工作惹恼了车臣总统拉姆赞•卡德罗夫，而后者选择了灭口。但是卡德罗夫却发誓，他将亲自领导对爱斯特米洛娃遇害一案的调 查工作。

Chechnya is no longer considered a “zone of a counter-terrorist operation”. This status was removed a few months ago at the request of Mr Kadyrov. Since then the number of disappearances, house burnings and killings has risen. Even before Ms Estemirova’s murder, Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, a colleague, talked of escalating fear in the region and pressure on human-rights activists. “Natalia [Estemirova], who tried to fight the victims’ cases, was braver than many of the relatives,” she said after the murder. Fear and force have been Mr Kadyrov’s main tools of governance. As a former rebel, he has coerced those who fought alongside him and got rid of those who opposed him. He has turned Chechnya into his fief, more Russia’s ally than its subject.

应卡德罗夫几个月前的请求，车臣已经将扣在头上的“反恐活动地区”帽子摘了下来。但是自从那时开始，车臣地区的失踪、纵火、谋杀案件数量就一直在攀升。爱 斯特米洛娃遇害之前，其同事叶卡捷琳娜•索奇仁斯卡娅就曾谈及车臣地区恐惧的升级和人权活动者的压力。爱斯特米洛娃遇害后，索奇仁斯卡娅这样描述自己的同 事：“娜塔莉亚（即爱斯特米洛娃）希望为那些受害者尽一份力，她比很多人都勇敢。”制造恐惧和暴力镇压一直是卡德罗夫统治车臣的两大法宝，这个前反叛分子 用铁腕牢牢掌控着跟自己打江山的人，并除掉胆敢跟自己作对的人。卡德罗夫已经把车臣变成了自己的领地，现在的车臣看起来更像是俄罗斯的盟国，而不是加盟共 和国。

Across the region, killings and kidnappings have become common. Ingushetia has descended into what amounts to a civil war, says Grigory Shvedov of Caucasian Knot, an independent news service. The killing of policemen has become systematic. In an especially daring attack on June 22nd, rebels used a suicide-bomber to try to kill Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, Ingushetia’s president. His driver and a bodyguard were killed; he is still in hospital. A Chechen group involved in the Beslan school siege in 2004 took responsibility and its leader promised more attacks. Nobody knows how many rebels there are in Ingushetia or neighbouring Dagestan. Many are local and young, born when Russia first went to war in Chechnya in 1994, says Mr Shvedov.

在车臣地区，谋杀和绑架是家常便饭。独立新闻机构“高加索之结”的格利高里•什韦多夫称，目前的印古什地区相当于陷入了内战状态。反叛分子有组织有计划地 谋杀警察。而在6月22日，他们还极其肆无忌惮地制造了一次恐怖事件——试图用自杀炸弹袭击谋杀印古什总统尤努斯•贝克•叶夫库罗夫，造成总统司机及保镖 身亡，而总统本人目前还在医院接受治疗。一个与2004年别斯兰中学人质事件有牵连的车臣组织宣称对该事件负责，其领导人还叫嚣要制造更多的袭击。没有人 知道印古什及达吉斯坦境内反叛分子的确切数量。什韦多夫称，很多反叛分子是当地的年轻人，他们大多是在1994年俄罗斯与车臣开战之际出生的。

Russia’s brutal repression and lawlessness have pushed people towards Islamic fundamentalism. The rebels are now driven not by ideas of independence but by revenge or the vision of an Islamist state. Their influence has become especially visible in Ingushetia. “People are afraid to go out in the evening, cafés are closed, there are fire exchanges almost every night,” says Ms Sokiryanskaya.

俄罗斯的血腥镇压及法律的缺失使人们陷入了伊斯兰原教旨主义。反叛分子不是被要求独立的思想所驱使，而是被仇恨和建立伊斯兰州的追求所驱使。他们的恶劣影响在印古什体现得非常明显——索奇仁斯卡娅称：“在晚上，人们害怕出门，咖啡店大门紧闭，因为每晚都有交火事件。”

Mr Yevkurov, a paratrooper, inherited a corrupt and weak government from his predecessor, a KGB general named Murat Zyazikov. His first steps were encouraging: he unearthed corruption, engaged with opposition leaders and began to fight against armed rebels. He also insisted that Russia’s federal forces should not carry out “special operations” in Ingushetia without his knowledge. But this has had little effect, says Ms Sokiryanskaya. “They simply do not know any other way,” she explains.

当过伞兵的叶夫库罗夫从其前任——克格勃将军穆拉特•查基科夫的手中接过了一个腐败和脆弱的政府。上任后，他实施了一系列令人鼓舞的措施：整治腐败；与反 对派领导人合作打击武装叛乱分子；未经自己了解，俄罗斯联邦部队不能在印古什开展“特别行动”。但索奇仁斯卡娅认为，叶夫库罗夫的这些措施均收效甚微，她 表示：“除此之外，他们就没别的法子了。”

The Kremlin likes to blame Western security services for destabilising the region. Some Russian security men also blame Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili. “For as long as people like Saakashvili—the neo-Nazis and neo-Führers—lead neighbouring states, we will not be in peace,” Arkady Yedelev, Russia’s deputy interior minister, said recently.

克里姆林宫喜欢指责西方安全机构破坏了这些地区的稳定。一些俄罗斯安全官员还把矛头指向了格鲁吉亚总统米哈伊尔•萨卡什维利。俄罗斯内务部副部长阿尔卡季•叶德列夫近期称：“如果人们继续支持新纳粹党人、新‘元首’萨卡什维利执政的话，我们就不可能拥有和平。”

Russia’s large-scale “Caucasus 2009” military manoeuvres were held under the banner of fighting terrorism. Mr Medvedev, who inspected the Russian units, explicitly linked the exercises to last year’s war in Georgia. “The main lesson for us from these events is the necessity to hold fully fledged, ongoing and highly effective exercises,” he said this week, a day after visiting South Ossetia, which Russia (almost alone) recognises as independent. This came only a few days after Mr Obama said that America recognises Georgia’s territorial integrity and does not want a renewal of military conflict. To ram that message home, an American warship arrived in Georgia this week to hold the first joint exercise since the end of last August’s war. Joe Biden, America’s vice-president, is expected to visit Tbilisi shortly.

高举着反恐旗帜，俄罗斯进行了名为“高加索2009”的大规模军事演习。检阅了俄罗斯三军的梅德韦杰夫很直白地将本次军演与去年的格俄冲突联系到了一起。 本周，在访问南奥塞梯（几乎只有俄罗斯承认了它的独立）的前一天，梅德韦杰夫发表言论：“我们（从格俄冲突中）学到的是，持续进行成熟高效的军事演习是十 分有必要的。”而在几天前，奥巴马刚表示，美国尊重格鲁吉亚的领土完整，不希望格俄军事冲突重演。作为对这番言论的呼应，一艘美国军舰本周抵达了格鲁吉 亚，参与了自去年八月格俄冲突以来的第一次美格联合军演。美国副总统乔•拜登将于近期出访第比利斯。

The south Caucasus remains so tense that the European Union has delayed its report into the origins of the Georgia war, which was to have been published at the end of July. But even as the world’s attention is fixed on Georgia, Russian citizens keep dying in the north Caucasus. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, once promised to hang Mr Saakashvili “by the balls”. Sadly he seems to have no such feeling for those who killed Ms Estemirova.

南高加索地区的局势如此紧张，以致于欧盟推迟发布本应在7月底见诸于世、调查格俄冲突起因的报告。但是，正当世界的目光都集中在格鲁吉亚的时候，北高加索 地区的俄罗斯民众却在无辜丧生。俄罗斯总理弗拉基米尔•普京曾称，绞死萨卡什维利简直是“易如反掌”。可悲的是，他似乎没想到用同样的手段来对付杀害爱斯 特米洛娃的凶手。