Comments on: Anna Politkovskaya’s legacy

By: The journalist, the spy and Vladimir Putin at Antony Loewenstein

The journalist, the spy and Vladimir Putin at Antony Loewenstein — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 08:18:37 +0000

[...] Just before he was hospitalised with radiation poisoning, Litvinenko spoke at London’s Frontline Club about the October assassination of leading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. [...]

By: Dani

Dani — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 18:24:22 +0000

I was told quite a long time ago, that no media are permitted any access when Russians were fighting Chechnyans. Media are kept well away. I assumed that Australians were aware of this, but no write-ups condemning this in the various media, that I am aware about, occurred. I am more surprised at the Austraiian public’s shock at what happened, than surprised at the murder of Anna Politkovskaya herself. But we tend to be a parochial lot don’t we. If we are not involved in some way, it doesn’t really exist.

By: Andrew Worssam

Andrew Worssam — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 20:28:24 +0000

I was very moved reading several examples of Anna P’s writing on Chechnya in John Pilger’s Tell Me No Lies. A picture emerged of a highly motivated journalist, possibly even an obsessive one, unflinching in her portrayal of topics that were unpopular with the government in Russia. Importantly, she wrote revealingly about Russia’s murderous campaign in Chechnya, its heartbreaking impact on ordinary people, the stories that we never really heard here. Whilst the siege of the Moscow theatre and of the school in Beslan were big news here, we didn’t get the background, the Russian atrocities that drove these ordinary Chechnyans to such horrible and desperate acts. Instead it was presented as just another mad, murderous terrorist act without any sort of justification. Maybe they just “don’t know how good we are” to quote Bush? Like Israel in Palestine, Russia seamlessly dovetailed their murder, torture and repression in Chechnya into the broader bogus War on Terror, with the willing connivance of Bush, Blair, and co. This War on Terror thing, it’s whatever you want to be, whatever atrocities you want to commit, as long as you’re on the right side.

In the end there was a horrible inevitability to Anna P’s death, may it not be completely in vain.