"Chechnya is quickly becoming a nation of invalids and fresh graves," Chris Kline, the last Western journalist to leave the war-torn state, told an audience at the Rockefeller Center yesterday as he recounted his clandestine journey to the front lines of the conflict.
The freelance war correspondent risked death, torture and imprisonment to enter the region just months after Grozny fell to the Russian military. During a four-week expedition through Russian territory, Chechen guides smuggled Kline and a team of three reporters across more than 40 Russian checkpoints along a secret route to the front lines in the Caucasus mountains.
The footage of the guerilla soldiers -- which the Russian military claims to have defeated -- featured several leaders on Russia's most-wanted list. It also boasts the only face-to-face interview with Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov that the West has seen since the conflict began.
Kline emphasized that the footage provided the West with a rare opportunity to see the real story of a war in which Russia has exercised a "stranglehold on information."
The former CNN bureau chief hopes that his rare footage will correct the imbalance of media coverage that the war has received and show that resistance to the Russian military is alive and well. The footage aired as a documentary on ABC's "Nightline," was nominated for six national journalism awards and won a Scripps Howard Prize.
Kline said that at its roots, the Chechen conflict is a separatist struggle. He described the shattered nation as devoid of infrastructure and isolated from the West by the Russian government.
Kline characterized the graphic human-rights tragedy that he witnessed during his journey behind the lines as "genocide." While Kline said that the Chechens have gotten out of hand at times, he attributed "the bulk of the butchers bill to the Russians."
The audience listened intently to Kline's horrific accounts of a region that has been abandoned by the International Red Cross, Red Crescent and other human rights organizations after a hostile reception from the Russian government.
Kline described cleansing operations where villages were lit on fire, boys as young as seven were shot in the woods and women were raped in front of their families. He even suggested the possibility that Russians may be illegally trafficking human organs.
Kline characterized the Russian military as being plagued by alcoholism and drug abuse. He offered an anecdote of a Russian soldier who bombed his own position after being paid by Chechen soldiers as evidence of the brutality of the war and Russian weakness.
Kline cautioned against the problem of unbalanced media coverage. He emphasized the imperative to get beyond Russian propaganda and highlighted his role as a journalist to expose the struggle of the Chechen fighters. Speaking as a liberal and secular American-Muslim, he also warned of the dangers of cultural intolerance.
Since Kline left the region on June 2, 2001, no journalist has been back. He is currently working out a deal with the BBC to return to Chechnya.
Before turning to freelance conflict coverage, Kline was the CNN bureau chief in Mexico and an international affairs print reporter in Washington, D.C. He was trained as a radio correspondent by the BBC in London.
The International Students Association, PoliTALK, WAC, McSpadden Public Issues Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, Dickey Center, The Tucker Foundation and the International Office sponsored Kline's talk.
