April 21, 1996: Dzhokhar Dudayev became a Shaheed
Late at night on April 21, 1996 the first president of the Independent Chechen State,
General Dzhokhar Dudayev, became Shaheed as a result of a terrorist
act. The missile strike on Dudayev was conducted right at the moment
when the Chechen President was talking on his satellite phone in a
solitary place near the village of Gekhi-Chu in Western Ichkeria.
Russian
leadership was hoping that after killing Dudayev the resistance of the
Chechens would stop and the war would soon end in favor of the troops
of the invaders. The further events however showed that the Kremlin’s
hopes were doomed to failure. The Chechens did not only fail to waver,
but on the contrary, they concentrated all of their forces and dealt a
shattering blow to the aggressors when they liberated the capital of
their Homeland and took the situation in the country under their total
control.
After the death of D. Dudayev the Chechen Government
set up a special investigation group on finding the organizers and
executors of that terrorist act. Before the Russian troops were kicked
out of Chechnya
the investigation group was operating undercover. When the sovereignty
of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was reestablished, from August 1996 to
September 1999 Chechen investigators were working legally, gathering
all information necessary about that terrorist act.
Since the moment the new Russian invasion started in Chechnya, the investigation group started operating secretly again and switched to undercover working conditions.
For
today, a large volume of information and documents has been collected,
which partly sheds light to the assassination by a terrorist act
committed against the first Chechen President. Even though the
investigation is continuing, today you can already say that the secret
services of the US and Russia
as well as higher military and political leadership of these two
countries were involved in the terrorist act against D. Dudayev.
According
to one of the versions, which the Chechen investigation group is still
working on, the coordinates of Dudayev’s whereabouts were given to the
Russian side on the direct order from the Clinton Administration by
National Security Agency (NSA), which was tracing the satellite
communications of the Chechen President, who was using the INMARSAT
(International Maritime Satellite) system.
Moreover, it has been
established that the order to organize the terrorist act was issued
directly by Yeltsin. The organizers and the executors of the terrorist
act were awarded by Yeltsin personally with the stars of heroes of Russia.
So
far this particular article or the interests of the investigation do
not allow disclosing many details of that crime. However, the Chechen
side can state with all confidence and certainty that the investigation
will be continued and will not stop under any circumstances. The
organizers and the executors of that terrorist act will be found (some
of them have already been tracked down) and severely punished without
statute of limitations.
M. Eskiyev, Investigator of the Special Investigation Group.
For Kavkaz-Center