Archive of 2007 Events
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Archive of 2005 Events

Belgium:

Friday, December 10, 2004:
Demonstration for Peace in Chechnya

11am to 1pm
Grass-square at the start of King Albert II Av.
Brussels

The conflict in Chechnya (Russian Federation) has been going on for ten years. A peaceful and sustainable solution is nowhere to be seen. Therefore Actiegroep Tsjetsjenie, Groupe Tchetchenie and Pax Christi Vlaanderen, in our usual spirit of neutrality and openness, are organising a demonstration on the grass-square at the start of King Albert II avenue in Brussel on Friday, December 10, from 11h till 13h.

For more information you can call Celine Francis
( 0496/865748)

Saturday, December 18, 2004:
Chechen Theatre Performance in Honor of Ahyad Gaytukaev

5pm
Centre Culturel SFX
Verviers

Ahyad Gaytukaev, well-known Chechen actor and Stanivslavsky prize laureate will be celebrating his 60th birthday with colleagues from the Chechen National Theatre in a performamnce of "Drole des Types". For more information, call 0499/239305.

France:

Festival de films-debats avec invites speciaux

Tchetchenie criblee d'images

Du deporte au terroriste, images deformees d'un peuple en resistance

Films-debats:

Jeudi 9 decembre а 20h30 - Cinema Le Melies (rue de Strasbourg)

La Maison des fous - Film d'Andrei Konchalovsky, 2003, franco-russe
Duree: 109mns

Un hopital psychiatrique en Ingouchie, pres de la frontiere avec la Tchetchenie, en 1996, pendant la premiere guerre. Livres а eux-memes, Janna et les autres patients regardent tous les soirs passer un train illumine. Le chaos s'installe le jour ou le train ne passe pas: des combattants
tchetchenes debarquent, puis les Russes contre-attaquent? Janna joue de l'accordeon?

Debat: avec Sultan Islamov celebre acteur tchetchene (interprete de La Maison des fous), Mylene Sauloy, realisatrice de documentaires (membre de
Marcho Doryila) et nos amis tchetchenes refugies а Grenoble.

Vendredi 10 decembre а partir de 19h - Theatre Le Rio (rue Servan)

Zelimkhan - Film de O.Frylikh, d'apres le roman de Khetagourov, 1929 Ossetie.
Duree: 40 mns.

Alors que les tsars etouffent le peuple, l'histoire de Zelimkhan, bandit d'honneur (sorte de robin des bois Tchetchene) presente dans ce film de « propagande » de 1929 comme un bandit.

Komsomolskoe - Documentaire de M.Sauloy а partir de films amateurs tournes par des soldats russes.
Duree: 32 mns.

Enquete sur la destruction de Komsomolskoe, village tchetchene entierement rase en mars 2000. Prise
d'otage de toute la population et arrestation sans combat contre promesse d'amnistie de quelques 200 hommes qui seront pratiquement tous assassines, acheves а coup de pelle pour les uns, morts sous la torture pour les autres. Des images d'une rare violence, des preuves accablantes sur les methodes de l'armee russe en Tchetchenie.

Debat avec nos invites speciaux*:
Umar Khanbiev, chirurgien, Ministre de la
Sante tchetchene en exil, representant du gouvernement Maskhadov en Europe
Moussa Basnoukaev, Directeur du departement economie de l'universite de Grozny
Olivier Dupuis, depute europeen
Aude Merlin, universitaire, specialiste du Caucase
Joseph Dato, Medecins du Monde
Mylene Sauloy, realisatrice
Christine Crifo, Vice-Presidente du Conseil General de
l'Isere
Jean-Jacques Gleizal et Gilles Kuntz, adjoints au Maire de
Grenoble.

Samedi 11 decembre а 14h - Cinema Le Melies

Le Prisonnier du Caucase - Film de Serguei Bodrov, 2002, russo-kazakh.
Duree: 95 mns

Une petite troupe de soldats russes, maintenant l'ordre dans le Caucase, est attaquee par des rebelles locaux. Sacha et Vania, les deux survivants, sont faits prisonniers par Abdoul-Mourat, qui espere les echanger contre son fils, detenu dans une prison russe. Si l'echange ne peut avoir lieu,
ils seront executes.

Soiree de Cloture а partir de 17h - Theatre Le Rio

Un nuage d'or passait dans la nuit - Film de Serguei Mamilov d'apres le roman d'A.Pristavkine, 1989, URSS. Duree: 97 mns.

Le destin tragique de feиres jumeaux russes orphelins, transferes en 1944 dans un orphelinat situe en Tchetchйnie, d'ou toute la population a ete deportee.

Debat avec Andrei Babitski, journaliste russe (Radio Liberty) exile а Prague
Lipkhan Bazaeva, representante de l'association russe «Memorial»
Aude Merlin et tous nos invites presents.

Repas concocte par nos amis tchetchenes.
Concert, Chants et musiques de Tchetchenie avec «LETCHI et les siens»

Expositions/Animations:

10 et 11 decembre au Theatre Le Rio - ouverture des portes а 15h

Expositions: « Sur (exposes) » - photos de Maryvonne Arnaud (mai 2004)

«Une guerre oubliйe»? photos de Guy Causse (Medecins du Monde)

ET aussi ... lectures par des comediens, Salon d'ecoute, librairie, tables de presse, documentation а consulter. Buvette et petite restauration sur place.

Rencontres au College H.Wallon, Lycee Neruda (St Martin d'Heres), aux Adrets avec Scenes Obliques?

Information-reservation: 04 76 25 77 50 ou 06 12 64 15 82, ou aude.merlin@wanadoo.fr
Participation/soiree : de 5 ¤ а 10 ¤

* Sous reserve d'obtention des visas

Organise par le Comite Tchetchenie Grenoble et l'association Marcho Doryila

Avec le soutien de la Ville de Grenoble, du Conseil General de l'Isere, l'Equipe de Creation Theatrale, Le Melies-cinema d'Art et essai, Theatre Le Rio, MC2 Maison de la Culture de Grenoble, Amnesty International, CIIP, Association G10 solidaires et le soutien de multiples partenaires
associatifs, acteurs culturels de l'agglomeration. Et tous ceux qui participent benevolement au Comite Tchetchenie Grenoble et а l'organisation de ces rencontres.

“Why Secession Fails: The Rise and Fall of Ethnic Minority Nationalism in Russia” with Elise Giuliano, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Miami

Sponsored by the Laboratory in Comparative Ethnic Processes (LiCEP), together with the Harriman Institute, ISERP and the Earth Institute

12:30 to 2:00 pm
Faculty House, Randolph Room, 1st Floor
Columbia University
New York

Professor Giuliani holds a B.A. from University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. and Ph.D. from University of Chicago. Her research interests include ethnic minorities and nationalism in the former Soviet Union, identity politics and market development. She was a visiting fellow at University of Notre Dame and a Post-Doctoral fellow at Columbia University.

Anne Nivat speaks about Chechnya

Center on Terrorism at John Jay College Friday Seminar

3:15pm
Room 630 T
John Jay College
899 Tenth Avenue
New York

Anne Nivat, an award-winning Moscow-based reporter, has extensively covered the war in Chechnya and the aftermath of the military phase in Iraq and in Afghanistan. She was the Moscow correspondent for Liberation, one of the three main French daily newspapers and has written for many different media publications including several op-eds in The Washington post, The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune and has had many interviews on radio and television. She is the author of five books, all published primarily in France and translated into many languages, including English. Among them, two books are about the war in Chechnya (Chienne de Guerre was published by Public Affairs in 2001), one about Russians today (A View From the Vysotka was published by St Martin's Press in 2004) and her latest book that just came out in France and already won the Price for the Humanist of 2004 is called "Lendemains de Guerree en Afghanistan et en Iraq" is about to get published in this country for the fall 2005.
She has been living in Moscow for seven years and holds a PhD in political Science from the Paris-based Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.

After five years of continuous coverage of the war of Chechnya, Anne Nivat will try to expose the details of a nasty war for independence-turned-something different: is it that easy to connect the Chechen rebels with Al-Qaeda fighters? Why are the Russians having that many difficulties to end this war? Why have some rebels decided to turn to more radical ways of fighting, using female suicide-bombers more and more frequently?

"Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, and Terrorism in the North Caucasus: The Military Dimension of the Russian-Chechen Conflict", with Mark Kramer, Director, Harvard Project on Cold War Studies, Davis Center

Davis Center Occasional Seminar

12:30 - 2:00 pm
Davis Center/Harvard University
625 Mass Avenue, Seminar Room 2
Cambridge, MA

Mark Kramer is the Director of the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies and a Senior Associate at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, and Brown Universities and was formerly an Academy Scholar in Harvard's Academy of International and Area Studies and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He has worked extensively in newly opened archives in Russia, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and several Western countries.

Please contact the Davis Center if you have any questions at:
Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Harvard University
625 Mass Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: 617-495-4037
Fax: 617-495-8319
www.daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu

The Central Eurasia Project/Open Society Institute invites you to attend:

The North Caucasus After Beslan
with Tom de Waal, Caucasus Editor and Program Manager, The Institute for War and Peace Reporting

12:30 – 2:00 pm
Open Society Institute
400 West 59th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues)
Third Floor, Room 3A
New York, NY 10019

Tom de Waal has been the London-based Caucasus Editor and Program Manager at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting since 2002. He has spent the past fifteen years writing about the former Soviet Union. He completed a degree in Russian and Modern Greek at Oxford before working for the BBC, the Moscow Times and the Times in London and Moscow. He is co-author with Carlotta Gall of Chechnya: A Small Victorious War, the first full-length book about Chechnya in English and is author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, the first thorough book in English about the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.

To RSVP please email to Anu Kangaspunta-Garfield at akangaspunta@sorosny.org.

Lunch will be served.

A Loya Jirga for Chechnya ?
by Tom de Waal (Institute for War & Peace Reporting)

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Harriman Institute Chechnya Speaker Series

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
12pm

After more than a decade of protracted violent conflict, chaos and cataclysmic change, few good strategies for restoring peace and normalcy in Chechnya remain. In light of the failure of "Chechenization", negotiations and "anti-terrorist operations" etc., Tom de Waal is proposing a return to Chechnya's traditional parliamentary model as a way to reconcile Chechen society and to find arrangements with Russia and promote peace.

Tom de Waal has been the London-based Caucasus Editor and Program Manager at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting since 2002. He has spent the past fifteen years writing about the former Soviet Union. He completed a degree in Russian and Modern Greek at Oxford before working for the BBC, the Moscow Times and the Times in London and Moscow. He is co-author with Carlotta Gall of Chechnya: A Small Victorious War, the first full-length book about Chechnya in English and is author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, the first thorough book in English about the Nagorny Karabakh conflict.

Peace Promotion and Human Rights in the Face of Terrorism - The Tragic Case of Beslan

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

6:00 – 8:00pm
Harvard Law School
Pound 102
Boston

Please join us for an informally moderated conversation with:
Katya Sokirianskaia
- Human Rights Center “Memorial” (Nazran) and Professor of Political Science, Grozny State University
Almut Rochowanski
- Chechnya Advocacy Network
Andrew Hess
- Professor of Diplomacy and Caucasus expert;
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Adil Najam (moderator)
- Professor of International Negotiation and Diplomacy Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

Sponsored by HRP and Harvard Law Student Advocates For Human Rights
For further information, please call Stephan Sonnenberg at (617) 437 1338

Russia, Chechnya and US policy post-Beslan Crisis
Stimson Center "Security in the 21st Century" series

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

11:00 a.m. - noon
2105 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.

Please join us for a discussion with Katya Sokirianskaya of the Russian human rights organization Memorial and Sarah Mendelson, a Russia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Ms. Sokirianskaya will address the fundamental aspects of Russia's terrorist crisis/threat, from the perspective of an eyewitness to the hostage crisis last month in Beslan. She is a long-time observer of the North Caucasus and a has been a resident of the region (Chechnya and Ingushetia), where she works with Memorial and teaches at Grozny State University. Ms. Mendelson will address the need for US concern about the shaky state of Russian democracy, the importance of Russian domestic politics to US national security and the long term value in upholding democratic and rule of law principles-especially when "fighting terrorism" is used as an excuse for undemocratic behavior (as in Chechnya). How might US policy help bolster democratic institutions in Russia? What might be the first steps toward a political framework for conflict resolution in Chechnya?

"Security for a New Century" is a bipartisan study group for Congress. We meet regularly with U.S. and international policy professionals to discuss the post Cold War and post 9/11 security environment. All discussions are off-the-record. It is not an advocacy venue. Call Lorelei Kelly at 225-5161 for more information on the Chechnya event.  

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty invites you to a briefing by Ekaterina Sokirianskaia,
Nazran representative, Human Rights Center "Memorial" and Assistant Professor, Chechen State University (Grozny, Chechnya)

9:00AM-10:30AM
Conference Room A (4th Floor)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
1201 Connecticut Ave NW
[entrance on Rhode Island Ave NW, next to St. Matthew's Cathedral]
download and print invitation

The social conditions for the current wave of terrorism in Russia were created by the unresolved conflict in Chechnya. Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, the Nazran representative of the Moscow-based Human Rights Center "Memorial" and an eyewitness to the Beslan school tragedy, will discuss how the lack of an authentic political process, massive abuse of human rights and the brutality of war has created conditions in which hundreds of young men decide to join either the Chechen combatants or terrorist networks. As a result, the violence continues to escalate in Chechnya; the Chechen conflict has spilled over into neighboring regions such as Daghestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia; chauvinism and anti-Caucasian extremism continues to grow throughout Russia; and democracy and the free press have come under attack.

Ekaterina Sokirianskaia reports for and represents the Moscow-based Human Rights Center "Memorial" in Nazran, Ingushetia. She is an Assistant Professor at Chechen State University in Grozny, in the Department of Political Science and Geopolitics of that institution's Faculty of History. Sokirianskaia has worked as a researcher on the Northern Caucasus since 2001, and moved to Nazran, Ingushetia, in January 2003.

Please RSVP by Monday, October 11 by email to dc-response@rferl.org, by telephone to Melody Jones at (202) 457-6949, or by fax to (202) 457-6992.

After Beslan
Russia's War on Terror: Chechnya and Beyond

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Barnard College Human Rights and Terrorism Panel Series

517 Hamilton Hall/ Columbia University
116th street/Broadway
New York
7:00 PM

Russia's War on Terror and Its Implications
Presentation by Dmitri Trenin (Carnegie Endowment, Moscow)

Harriman Institute Chechnya speaker series

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
12:10pm

Dmitri Trenin is the Deputy Director and a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center. A former officer in the Soviet and Russian army with a Ph.D. from the Russian Academy of Sciences, he has held a series of prestigious research positions in Russia and abroad. He has written and co-authored a large number of books and articles on Russian foreign policy, security issues, including two recent books on Chechnya together with Aleksei Malashenko.

Terrorist Crisis In Russia: Roots And Consequences — Eyewitness Beslan
Presentation by Ekaterina Sokirianskaia (Memorial Nazran, Chechen State University)

Harriman Institute Chechnya speaker series

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
12:10pm

Ekaterina Sokirianskaia, an eyewitness to the events in Beslan, is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Geopolitics at the Chechen State University in Grozny and works for the distinguished Russian human rights organization Memorial in Nazran, Ingushetia. She received her BA from the Department of English-Japanese Linguistics at St. Petersburg Pedagogical University in 1998 and an MA in Political Science from the Central European University in Budapest in 2001. In 2002, she defended her dissertation at St.Petersburg University on ethnic conflict in Chechnya from 1991 to 1994. She is currently a PhD candidate at Central European University. Ms. Sokirianskaia has worked on the Northern Caucasus since 2001, and moved to Nazran, Ingushetia, in 2003.

Situation of Chechen Asylum Seekers in Azerbaijan
Presentation by Thomas Faustini, UNHCR Baku

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Harriman Institute/ Columbia University
420 West 118th street, room 1219
2pm

Thomas Faustini has worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Baku for four years and has in that time focused on the Chechen refugees there. He will return to Baku as a US State Department- sponsored Junior Professional Officer next month.

The situation of Chechen refugees in Azerbaijan is of particular interest, because the Azerbaijani government has refused to give them any kind of recognition. As CIS citizens, they are considered "tourists" rather than refugees, have no access to propiska and other papers, legal employment or any government services, although some of them have been there for years. As a result, the community, which is some 8,000 strong, is desperately poor, without perspective for the future and in constant limbo. Their plight is drowned out by the larger issue of Azeri IDPs from Nagorno-Karabakh and Chechen IDPs in Ingushetia, who are more numerous and have received all the attention of international donors. The UNHCR is trying to provide basic support, but their efforts are hampered by lack of resources (worldwide, the UNHCR has only about $50 annually for every refugee). The Baku Chechens are just one aspect of what is a massive crisis of displacement affecting the Chechens.

"Terrorism in Russia"
Expert Panel at UC Berkeley

223 Moses Hall
4 pm

Johanna Nichols, UC Berkeley Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Edward Walker, UC Berkeley Program in Soviet
and Post-Soviet Studies

Gregory Freidin, Stanford University Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures

George Breslauer, UC Berkeley Dean of Social Science and Department of Political Science

"Children and Terror"

Part of the Harriman Institute's “Children After Communism” Series

Columbia University, International Affairs Building
420 West 118th street, Room 1219
4:30pm

Panelists:
Catharine Nepomnyashchy (Harriman Institute, Columbia University)
Nina Khrushcheva (New School University)
Zeinap Badieva (Rutgers University)
Bill Blakemore (ABC News)

Chechnya: Ten Years of Despair
Online Discussion with Nabi Abdullaev at Transitions Online (TOL)

August 18, 16pm CET/10am EST
www.tol.cz/q-a/

The year 2004 marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the First Chechnya War. In observance of this and in the runup to the 29 August presidential elections, TOL is publishing a series of articles as well as holding an online discussion on Chechnya with Nabi Abdullaev, who has for many years written about Chechnya for TOL and its print predecessor Transitions. Nabi Abdullaev is a Dagestani journalist and researcher working with The Moscow Times daily. He holds a degree in public administration from Harvard University, where he studied terrorism and international security. Presently, he is a researcher at the Washington-based Transnational Crime and Corruption Center.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty invites you to a briefing by Zalpa Bersanova, a Chechen ethnographer and journalist

Conference Room A (4th Floor)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
1201 Connecticut Ave NW
(entrance on Rhode Island Ave NW, next to St. Matthew's Cathedral)
9:00AM-10:30AM
download and print invitation

How have the two Russo-Chechen wars of the last decade affected the way values have changed over time in Chechen society? According to ethnographer Zalpa Bersanova, certain values have changed, while others, unexpectedly, have remained the same or intensified. Bersanova, in the U.S. to conduct research on the Chechen diaspora, will discuss the results of her research into the role of Islam and traditional Chechen values in contemporary Chechnya.

Zalpa Bersanova began her work as a Chechen ethnographer in 1991, while working at the Sociological Laboratory of the Chechen-Ingush Humanitarian Research Institute. She continued to carry out her research at Moscow State University from 1993-1996, while working on her doctorate. In 2002, she received a grant from the Macarthur Foundation to extend her research on contemporary Chechen values to the diaspora. She has conducted research on the diaspora in France, and in addition to the United States, will interview the Chechen diaspora in Turkey. Bersanova continues to conduct field work in Chechnya, in spite of the dangers involved.

Bersanova's dissertation, defended in 1999, focused on the role played by indigenous Islam and ethics in consolidating Chechen identity. Her current field work examines the extent to which violent conflict has destroyed the fabric of Chechen society. Her research intersects with a variety of disciplines, from ethnography to sociology and political science.

Please RSVP by Thursday, July 29 by email to dc-response@rferl.org, by telephone to Melody Jones at (202) 457-6949, or by fax to (202) 457-6992.

Open Wound: Human Rights and Photojournalism in Chechnya and Russia, 1994 to 2003

Human Rights Watch
Empire State Building
350 5th Ave.,(at 34th street)
Floor Conference Room
7:00-8:30PM

Every photograph taken by Stanley Greene during his frequent trips to Chechnya painfully illustrates the continued suffering of the Chechen people. For almost a decade, Mr. Greene traveled to Chechnya to document numerous human rights violations-including murders, rapes, "disappearances," and secret detentions-being committed with impunity. His hope was that the international community would intervene on behalf of the Chechen people.

But the world's commitment to the "war on terrorism" after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has placed the abuses occurring in Chechnya on the back burner of both foreign governments and media outlets.

Mr. Greene will screen the short films "Chalk Lines" and "Open Wound," which document his work in Chechnya and the Russian Federation over the last decade. He will then lead an open discussion on his photojournalistic and human rights work in both Chechnya and other parts of the world.

For information, contact Human Rights Watch at www.hrw.org

Chechnya After a Decade of Destruction

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Committee on Conscience

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
7 p.m

Since 1994, Chechnya has faced two wars and the destruction of its cities, infrastructure, economy, health system, and security, with little sustained effort to rebuild. A panel of experts examines how a society can survive a decade of destruction.

Stanley Greene, photojournalist and author, Open Wound: Chechnya, 1994 – 2003
Dr. Khassan Baiev, author, The Oath: A Chechen Surgeon Under Fire
Rachel Denber, Human Rights Watch.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience has issued a Genocide Watch for Chechnya.

Admission is free. For reservations, call 202.488.0407.

This program is made possible in part by funds from the Helena Rubinstein Foundation.

www.ushmm.org/conscience/

Metro: Smithsonian

Book signing by Dr. Khassan Baiev, author of "The Oath. A Surgeon Under Fire" (Walker, 2003)

Akba Hall
137 Crooks Avenue
Paterson, NJ
2pm to 5pm

Dr. Khassan Baiev, a successful plastic surgeon with a booming business in Moscow during the early 1990s, returned to his native Chechnya when the first war broke out in 1994 to perform emergency medicine on civilians and combatants. Under unimagineable circumstances he and his colleagues worked to save the lives of thousands, including combatants from both sides of the conflict. This strict observance of the Hippocratic oath repeatedly exposed Dr.Baiev to threats and even kidnappings. In 2000, after the Russian army ordered his arrest, he fled to the United States. He and his family were granted asylum and live in Massachusetts. "The Oath" is a captivating first-person account of the war in Chechnya and how it has affected the lives of ordinary people, as well as a unique insight into Chechen society and values. Dr. Baiev has become a much sought-after speaker at events about Chechnya; he is also the spokesman for the International Committee for the Children of Chechnya (www.chechenchildren.org), a charitable organization that supports health projects for children suffering from war-related injuries.

Chechnya: The Human Face of an On-Going War
Panel Discussion

38 Cameron Avenue
Cambridge, MA
7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m

Panelists:
Joshua Rubenstein, Regional Director of Amnesty International
Victoria Poupko, Boston Committee against Ethnic Cleansing
Maret Imakaeva, Chechen survivor recently immigrated

On the occasion of the launch of Amnesty International's latest report on Chechnya, "Normalization in whose eyes?", Amnesty International and the Boston Committee Against Ethnic Cleansing present a panel discussion on the human dimension of the ongoing war and violence in Chechnya.

Admission is $10, part of which will go to an assistance foundation for Chechen refugee children in Azerbaijan.

For more information, please go to www.amnestyusa.org/events

Fateful Choices: Violence and Nonviolence in the Independence Struggles of Small Nations

with Yo'av Karny
Senior Fellow, U.S. Institute of Peace

United States Institute of Peace
2nd floor conference room
U.S. Institute of Peace
1200 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC
12:30-2:00 pm

Yo'av Karny is an independent journalist and author, born in Israel, who has covered civil wars and ethnic conflicts around the world. He is the author of Highlanders: A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory (2000), based on his extensive fieldwork and reportage in Chechnya, Daghestan, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the 1990's. He has also written extensively in the Israeli press about the Middle East conflict.
Having witnessed the tragic decline of Chechnya's independence movement, he became interested in the way small subject nations conduct their struggles in the post-Cold War era. He has studied three cases - those of the Chechens, the Palestinians and the East Timorese - and suggests that the latter may provide a useful lesson: a timely switch from a prolonged armed struggle to nonviolent resistance might be the most effective way for an independence movement to advance its goals. He has recently traveled to East Timor and to the Palestinian territories, where he conducted extensive interviews and tested his hypothesis. The bag, he says, is mixed but not empty.

To reserve a seat, contact Eleonora Asoyan at easoyan@usip.org or 202.429.3865.
You are welcome to bring your lunch. The nearest Metro stop is Farragut North on the Red Line.
The building is located at the NW corner of the intersection between17th and M Streets.

Exhibition of photographs from Chechnya
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival,
New York

"Every single photograph Stanley Greene took in Chechnya testifies to the suffering of an entire people. No one and nothing is exempt. Families are wiped off the face of the earth and the earth itself is ruined by the overwhelming force used against the people who live there. Human rights violations - killings, rapes, "disappearances", secret detentions - are committed with impunity in this "dirty war."
Ever since the September 11 attacks, international concern for human rights abuses in Chechnya appears to have waned, although Russian forces in Chechnya have continued to engage in a brutal campaign against civilians. Since September 11 alone, at least one person per week has "disappeared" after being taken into custody by Russian forces. The muting of Western concern has not been lost on the Kremlin, which has used the "war on terrorism" to justify its actions in Chechnya.
From 1994 to 2003, Stanley Greene made some 20 trips to Chechnya as a photographer and he has come back as a witness to the death and destruction that took place, is taking place, and will go on unless the international community refuses to be deceived any longer.
With Open Wound: Chechnya 1994 to 2003, an exhibition of images taken from his recently published book of the same title (Trolley), Stanley Greene does not ask us to pity the people of Chechnya. What he demands is our outrage."

For more information go to: www.hrw.org/iff/2004/ny/film.html#related