Extraordinary
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Anne Nivat is an extraordinary woman. Often at great personal danger, this young French woman journalist and Russian speaker, went behind the lines in Chechnya to discover what life was like for the people who lived there under Russian bombardment. Her account is painful and shocking, all the more so because of the factual and calm way in which her story is reported, without sensationalism. She captures the futility of the situation, the corruption, the suffering, the hopelessness of the ordinary citizens who want nothing but peace and to be able to live their lives in what remains of their country. As someone who new shockingly little about the Chechen conflict other than what is reported on the news and sanctioned by Russia, it was eye-opening to understand things from the other perspective. Anne Nivat has done a great service to the innocent, suffering people of Chechnya, bringing their turmoil to the world. It is up to the rest of us to challenge what goes on in the world, to question the official line, and to bring about peaceful conclusions to the many unnecessary and damaging conflicts causing untold suffering in Chechnya and many other places in the world. Nothing is ever as black and white as it seems and we owe it to the innocent people whose lives are devasted to understand and try to change things. I don't have the courage of Anne Nivat to smuggle myself and a satellite phone behind 'enemy' lines, I imagine few of us do, but that doesn't mean we can do nothing. At the very least, reading this excellent book will aid understanding of a complex issue.
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Chechnya: The Overlooked War
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I've never been so compelled to keep reading a book that made me cry so hard. Anne Nivat describes in horrifyingly matter-of-fact detail the innumerable ways in which this "Russian internal conflict" has devastated ordinary Chechen people and their land. The Western (especially the American) press too often picks up on the Russian military's frequently espoused view that all Chechens are potentially violent rebels, and that one can't be too careful in dealing with them, because each one of them is a potential combatant. Through her descriptions of the numerous people she meets in her journeys through Chechen villages and cities, Dr. Nivat manages to bring home the idea that the Chechens, no matter how Russian government propaganda or Russian public opinion may portray them, are human beings like all of us. Even if you believe that the Russian government has the right or the need to gain military or political control over Chechnya, it's hard to believe after reading this book that this goal should be accomplished at the expense of the lives of thousands of ordinary human beings and the destruction of their homeland.
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UNE GUERRE TERRIBLE!!!
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Before there was "Operation Iraqi Freedom", there was the war in Chechnya. A war that the Russians try to disguise as an insurrection. A war that could easily have been avoided if Moscow had simply given Chechnya the sovereignty it sought in the early 1990s. Here in this book, Anne Nivat shows both the horrors and absurdities of the Chechnyan War. I commend Mlle. Nivat for her courage in going out on her own into Chechnya to get at the heart of the story. Her story is all the more remarkable and sobering given the efforts of Moscow to censure the news reportage from Chechnya. Being a fluent speaker of Russian also allowed Nivat to form personal bonds with many of the people she met. Thus, the reader gets a more intimate insight into the daily perils people face in Chechnya.
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