Russia Says 28 Rebels Lay Down Arms in Chechnya

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Twenty-eight Chechen rebels laid down their arms and surrendered to Russian forces on Wednesday, in a move pro-Kremlin Chechen officials said was proof that Moscow's strategy to end the decade-long conflict is working.

In a mass surrender officials said has not been seen in months, the militants who have fought under Chechnya's fugitive leader Aslan Maskhadov handed in their weapons before Russian commanders at a special ceremony in the capital Grozny.

"The surrender is the result of (our) incessant negotiations with Chechen field commanders who want to end the military campaign," said Shamsail Saraliyev, spokesman for Akhmad Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's Kremlin-installed administration.

Moscow says the turbulent province is now largely under control and the military phase of its "anti-terrorism" operation over. But its 80,000 troops suffer almost daily losses from rebel attacks.

Russian news agencies reported Chechnya's head of the main pro-Kremlin party was shot dead in Grozny on Wednesday and two Russian policemen were killed in a clash with rebels.

European states have urged Moscow to thrash out a political solution to the conflict with Maskhadov and other rebel leaders, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has opted instead to push a solution involving only Chechens who will accept Russian rule.

Saraliyev said Wednesday's surrender could prompt other rebels to give up the fight and help restore stability in the predominantly Muslim province.

"It's not the first time that they have come to us. It's been a long process, that began in 1999 (when Russia launched its second post-Soviet campaign in Chechnya), and I believe over a hundred militants have put down their arms this way," Saraliyev said.

"These people do understand the war is meaningless after all." Moscow officials say there are only around 1,000 guerrillas still active in the province.

The war in Chechnya shot back to the top of Moscow's agenda after Chechen guerrillas seized 800 theater-goers in central Moscow in October. The daring raid renewed pressure on Putin, whose political career was boosted by his tough Chechen policy.

The Kremlin has refused to negotiate with Maskhadov and other leaders, but has offered amnesty to fighters it says have not been involved in atrocities. Saraliyev said the amnestied militants would be given jobs if cleared of acts of terror.

"Our priority is to ensure that those whose hands are not tainted with blood after years of combat finally get a chance to lead normal lives, because life in Chechnya is indeed returning to normal," Saraliyev said.

Putin has accused Maskhadov of involvement in the October hostage-taking in Moscow, in which 129 hostages died.

Instead, he has launched a new phase in his campaign to impose a peace plan on Chechnya, including a referendum on a new constitution and presidential elections slated for next near.

An agreement in 1996 gave the province de facto independence but Moscow launched another "anti-terrorist operation" following a series of explosions across Russia in 1999 which the Kremlin blamed on Chechen separatists. They have always denied any responsibility for the attacks.

That is not what I said. Learn to read English better. I asked which Russia "terrorized and brutalized" and I used the current 13% flat tax as an identifying marker.

All nations change. Americans once bought and sold Africans like cattle and killed aboriginal natives for example. Which America? The one that recognized the Black man as 3/4 th of a person for representation purposes or the America of today?

If you say that is not the America of today I would agree. That is also not the Russia of today and the Chechen rebels did not start them fighting to save themselves from Russian "terror and brutality" but rather for nationalistic reasons. Using your criteria Blacks, Mexican Americans and Indians have a right to use force to break way based on past wrongs and to separate them from the Union based on ethnic or religious identity.

Since the Chechens had autonomy, and the same freedoms that all citizens of Russia had under the democratic era initiated under Yeltsin their can be no honest claim to their dispossession or loss of rights as a basis for their armed revolution.

If you are going to use past "wrongs" done to the Chechens as a basis for supporting their armed struggle then I would expect you to help the Aztlan movement bring back the Southwestern USA back to Mexico since the wrongs done to the Mexicans and Natives by the USA have been far worse then the wrongs done to the Chechens by Russia. If you can point to the mass movements of Chechens to Siberia I can point out Oklahoma and the reservation system.

Understanding the meaning that you meant to convey is not entirely the responsibility of those you address comments to; it requires some care in how you express yourself.

As to whether the KGB taking over and running the Russian government constitutes a regime change; that could be debated. Even if we limit consideration to Russia since Yeltsin far more Chechen civilians have been killed by Russian troops than Russian Civilians have been killed by Chechens.

All legitimate government is based on the consent of the governed and the Chechen people have never voluntarily given their consent to Russian rule. I support the right of the majority of the population in any region to secede if that is their desire. If the Majority of the population living in Chechnya desires autonomy then they should have been allowed to form their own independent government and not some pretend version of "de-facto" independence.

The Russians have succeeded in terrorizing the population and creating chaos in the region so that a secession of hostilities is probably impossible. The Russian military’s continued intentional targeting of Civilians instead of fighting rebels makes them as deserving of the title "terrorist" as does the rebels actions.

Heh.

Personally, I think that the Chechen leadership is responsible for a lot of the civilian dead, just as the Hamas leaders who decide to camp out in the residential areas of Gaza City bear the responsibility for putting innocent Palestinian civilians at risk. Understand, the Chechen al-Qaeda use civilians as shields, relying upon them to create a barrier from with which they can attack the Russians at ease.

"Even if we limit consideration to Russia since Yeltsin far more Chechen civilians have been killed by Russian troops than Russian Civilians have been killed by Chechens."

The primary reason for this distinction lies in the fact that the Chechen leadership lacks the means, not the will. They tried to invade Dagestan, just as they recently tried to attack Moscow. More Taliban civilians died in Operation Enduring Freedom than died on 9/11, does this make Operation Enduring Freedom unjust? God, I hope not.

"All legitimate government is based on the consent of the governed and the Chechen people have never voluntarily given their consent to Russian rule. I support the right of the majority of the population in any region to secede if that is their desire. If the Majority of the population living in Chechnya desires autonomy then they should have been allowed to form their own independent government and not some pretend version of 'de-facto' independence."

The fact of the matter is that from 1996 onwards, Maskhadov and Basayev had free reign in their little fiefdom with a promise of consideration on future independence. The response? They turned their land into a drug haven, kidnapped and murdered foreign aid workers, and basically opened the country up to bin Laden and his stormtroopers. If there's any difference between what the Chechens did and what Mullah Omar did in terms of harboring terrorists, I find myself rather hard-pressed to find it.

They could have had their independence in 2000 or 2001 if they had just waited long enough. Instead, they decided that Russia's cease-fire made it weak and decided to level a good chunk of downtown Moscow after invading Dagestan. And with a sizeable portion of US intellectuals cheering them on, even to the point of indulging in absurd conspiracy theories that the Russians blew up their own apartment buildings to justify the war in Chechnya even though Khattab had invaded Dagestan months before that and the war was already on.

"The Russians have succeeded in terrorizing the population and creating chaos in the region so that a secession of hostilities is probably impossible. The Russian military’s continued intentional targeting of Civilians instead of fighting rebels makes them as deserving of the title 'terrorist' as does the rebels actions."

Russia IS fighting the rebels and Russian troops are dying in Chechnya every day to protect their country and the rest of the Caucasus from these barbarian fascists. Are civilians never killed in the course of the fighting? No, because, just as in Israel, innocents get caught in the crossfire. This is extremely unfortunate, but it is a necessary part of fighting the War on Terror.

Additionally, any kind of moral equivalence flies right off the playing field when you consider the fact that Russia is actually restoring some semblance of law and order to Chechnya, much to the relief of the non-Wahhabis in the country. The Russians are actually provided new infrastructure to the Chechens, even if the Chechen people will use it to try to gain their independence. Basayev and his cohorts only seek the annihilation of Russia and eventually the West, with Chechen independence as being the first step to achieving this goal.

Any talk of moral equivalence between Russia and the Chechens is absurd. Every casualty of the war since 1999 can be laid at the Chechens feet, as if they hadn't of started the war, the casualties would never have occurred. That, I assure you, is not the case on the Russian side.

Do you write copy for the Russian media? Your version of events could be taken right off the official Russian Government Party line.

The old Soviet Union was not above slaughtering their own citizens if it advanced the goals of the Communist Party and it’s leaders. The KGB would have been quite capable of bombing Russian civilian apartment buildings. The people who were taught by and then joined the Communist Party and occupied its positions of power are the same people still running Russia. Do you believe that such ideas would no longer cross their mind? If the Government was not directly involved then many corrupt government officials took a payoff to allow the acquisition and transport of explosives into Moscow.

The Russian military tends to be poorly trained under equipped and staffed by recruits who don’t want to be there. The field officers like to file positive reports. What tends to happen is that a military unit moves into a village and indiscriminately slaughters those present because they are easier to find and put up less resistance than the rebels. Then a report is filed claiming all Chechens killed were rebels. Unless you have been reading and believing Arab propaganda you can’t make any serious comparison with how Israel operates. Even if the Russians are on the same side in a fight against Radical Islam that does not excuse their indiscriminate slaughter and often-counterproductive efforts to exert control over Central Asia.

LOL, I just get tired of people who are angry about why the US should differentiate between al-Qaeda and the Palestinian terrorists and then turning around doing the exact same thing with the Chechens. In a way, ignoring the Chechen threat is even worse, because unlike say ... Hamas, they have very real and very direct links to al-Qaeda. If memory serves, the court indictment for Zacarias Moussaoui describes him as a recruiter for "the al-Qaeda rebels in Chechnya" or something of that basic gist. Khattab, Basayev, Udugov, and the rest of the lot are all lieutenants of bin Laden and I think that the US should thank the Russians for helping us to rid the world these barbarians.

Of course, we should've been doing all of that pre-9/11 too, but that's all past now. And I think that Bush backing Putin in Chechnya is the right thing to do, if for no other reason than because he recognizes that if the Russians fail, al-Qaeda will be one step closer from taking control of the Caucasus and the oil wealth there. And should that happen, God help us all.

If people are truly concerned about all of the innocent civilian dead in Chechnya (and this is a fair and noble concern), they should either help the Russians to put down Basayev and his thugs or they should appeal to the Chechen al-Qaeda to lay down their arms and surrender as some have done in the last several days. The violence in Chechnya will stop when the Russians exterminate the Chechen al-Qaeda, preferably sooner rather than later. Protesting about the tragic events of war is only going to embolden the Chechen al-Qaeda and serve as a harbringer for still more death and destruction, just as I'm sure that whoever's at the head of al-Qaeda's Shura Majlis (board of directors) smiles every time they see CNN International footage of the anti-war protesters.

The bottom line about concern for the Chechen people is all well and good, but there's quite an adequate recipient for such feelings. His name is Mufti Hajj Ahmed Kadirov, and he's the head of the legitimate government of Chechnya, as opposed to the Wahhabi al-Qaeda organization and he's quite committed to returning peace and prosperity to his land. Also, he somehow doesn't see being a Chechen as meaning that he has to go out and kill Russians. And if everyone protesting the war in Chechnya would give him their support, they could do a great deal to help the actual Chechen people.

At least, that's my $0.02 on the subject.

"Do you write copy for the Russian media?"

No, afraid not. I don't even speak Russian.

"Your version of events could be taken right off the official Russian Government Party line."

Indeed. And 90% of Free Republic's posters repeat the "US Party line" when it comes to our characterization of al-Qaeda. That doesn't prevent the situation from being true.

"The old Soviet Union was not above slaughtering their own citizens if it advanced the goals of the Communist Party and it’s leaders."

Indeed. However, one might argue that such tactics significantly contributed to its downfall, which is why the USSR no longer exists and we have instead the Russian Federation.

"The KGB would have been quite capable of bombing Russian civilian apartment buildings."

I don't doubt it. However, I doubt that they could carry out a fraud cleverly enough to fool everybody, have no leaks whatsoever, and have only a handful of opposition politicians being the wiser. Additionally, Khattab's forces had already invaded Dagestan at this point so the Second Chechen War had already begun and there was no need to "justify" it to the global community, notwithstanding the fact that sovereign states can generally do whatever the hell they want inside their own borders, especially nuclear ones.

"The people who were taught by and then joined the Communist Party and occupied its positions of power are the same people still running Russia."

Very true, though I expect they're starting to die off. Also, the fact that they joined the Party (which was a requirement for all high-ranking positions in the USSR) doesn't necessarily mean that they were wedded to its principles or even particularly liked its tenets. I would note that an economic shift from collectivist to market economy has occurred in Russia since 1991 to the degree that no devout Marxist could stomach.

"Do you believe that such ideas would no longer cross their mind?"

Perhaps, but there is the question of why they would choose to blow up their own apartment buildings when Khattab and his mujahideen were already attacking Dagestan at this point. So no justification was needed, and certainly no need to undertake a move that would damage tourism in one of Russia's most popular cities. Putin may be ruthless, but he's not that wasteful or stupid.

"If the Government was not directly involved then many corrupt government officials took a payoff to allow the acquisition and transport of explosives into Moscow."

A distinct possibility. That may also have been the case with Barayev's recent theater seige, but there is a huge amount of difference between the Chechens bribing corrupt officials and Putin ordering the FSB to blow up those apartments.

"What tends to happen is that a military unit moves into a village and indiscriminately slaughters those present because they are easier to find and put up less resistance than the rebels. Then a report is filed claiming all Chechens killed were rebels."

A couple of things. First of all, if this were routine practice there would be a LOT more mass graves than those that have been reported. Secondly, I would point out that no matter how ill-trained the Russians are, they, like most humans, generally do not like to kill large numbers of innocent people. The general scenario in which civilians are killed is the same as that in Israel: the terrorists use their civilian populace as hostages and human shields. It's no different than the Taliban storing troops and military supplies inside a mosque.

"Unless you have been reading and believing Arab propaganda you can’t make any serious comparison with how Israel operates."

As opposed to Chechen propoganda? Using civilians as shields is one of the oldest guerrilla war tactics in the book and it's listed as recommended in the al-Qaeda training manual, "The Afghan Guide to Jihad," which is, from what I gather, required reading for the Chechen "rebels." Israel, while it maintains a better trained army and a smaller combat area, is also frequently hamstrung by the fact that when terrorists take the conflict into a civilian area, lots of innocent people face the possibility of dying. But the fact that this occurs speaks to the horrors of terrorism, not the people fighting them.

"Even if the Russians are on the same side in a fight against Radical Islam that does not excuse their indiscriminate slaughter and often-counterproductive efforts to exert control over Central Asia."

Their efforts seem to be somewhat schizophrenic over the last year given that they had no problem of our sending advisors to Georgia (which they will likely invade) or the establishment of US garrisons in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, traditional centers of Russian power. This is rather strange if Putin has some dream of recreating the Russian Empire. At this point, Moscow would likely be satisfied with simply cessation of the conflict in Chechnya and Putin's historical record would be assured as the man who saved his country from Basayev and Khattab. More to the point, given how tied down Russian forces are in Chechnya at the moment, I doubt they could expand into a second military theater even if they wanted to.

The Apartment bombings would not have been carried out for foreign consumption but rather for domestic purposes. The mothers of Russia had grown tired of watching their son’s come home in body bags fighting a far off conflict that did not affect them. Bringing the conflict directly the heart of the Russian people would overcome the opposition that had been organized by the Russian Mom’s of dead soldiers during the first Chechen conflict. It is hard to disprove a conspiracy simply because none of the participants have come forward to expose it. If there were a government conspiracy to bomb the apartment buildings then the Russian Mob would almost assuredly have been involved. The Russian Mafia’s power and connection within the Russian society would make it possible to intimidate or silence most exposure of the truth.

As for most people or Russian soldier being hesitant to kill innocent civilians, history is and even are current time are full of examples to the contrary. The western press when it covers the story of the Chechen war is full of examples of indiscriminate slaughter on the part of Russian soldiers. While the western press is not perfect it still does much better at presenting the truth than does the Arab press.

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