By Chantal Lapicola
Freelance journalist and war correspondent Thomas Goltz spoke about his recently published book “Chechnya Diary: A War Correspondent”s Story of Surviving War in Chechnya,” on Wednesday, Nov. 5, in the Herald R. Clark building as part of the David M. Kennedy Forum Lecture Series.
While working for ABC Nightly News, Goltz did a story about a small town in Chechnya that was made an example of anyone trying to resist the Russians, Goltz said.
“The Russians obliterated the town,” Goltz said.
Goltz made a movie about his experience there which aired on PBS.
Goltz was nominated for the Rory Peck award, which is given to the best freelance camera work in journalism.
Goltz did not win the award, but received an assignment from the BBC to cover an aftermath story about the same town in Chechnya.
Goltz said he was surprised that many of the people he met during his first trip had survived the attack.
In the late ”90s, Chechnya became independent and since then has turned into a country full of murder, kidnapping and ransoms, Goltz said.
Boris Yeltsin, former President of Russia, said he was going to have a “small victorious war” against Chechnya to distract the Russian people from his problems in office, Goltz said.
Chechnya has struggled with such conflicts for many years. In February 1944, Communist leader Joseph Stalin thought the people of Chechnya were siding with the Nazis, so he put them on trucks and shipped them into arctic Asia in the middle of winter. And in 1957, the boarders of Chechnya were erased, Goltz said.
Because of all the attacks on Chechnya, the people of Chechnya feel the Russians are always trying to eradicate them because they will not submit to the Russians, Goltz said.
In 1999, when fighting began again in Chechnya, Goltz illegally returned to see if he could learn more for his story.
