Posted on 09/09/2004 10:39:04 AM PDT by Luis Gonzalez
Nobody should excuse what happened in Beslan—but Chechnya still needs a solution.
“THEY have declared war on us,” said one Russian television anchorman as he began his report on the massacre in Beslan. And indeed, the terrorists who devastated a school and its hostages on September 3rd wrought carnage of proportions usually seen only in wartime: the death toll, in what is only a small town, may exceed 500.
Even wars are rarely this cruel. They have rules, sort of, one of which is to avoid harming civilians where possible, and especially children. The terrorists in Beslan deliberately went for the most innocent and defenceless targets; they timed their attack, on the first day of the school year, to catch the maximum number; they tortured their small captives by refusing them all food and water; and when one of the explosives they had rigged in the school gymnasium went off, apparently by accident, they shot fleeing hostages in the back before blowing the building apart. If this were war, such bestial, inhuman acts would richly deserve the name of war crimes.
The world should recognise and affirm that. Yet it is also important to draw other lessons from Beslan. One is that the Russian security forces made mistakes that may have cost many lives. They had not established how many hostages or terrorists there were, they did too little to secure the area and bring in emergency services, they even allowed armed civilians to join the siege. That may have forced their hand when the terrorist bomb exploded.
Just a week earlier, the blowing-up of two Russian airliners by suicide bombers had made little difference to government policies or to Russians' lives, besides a perfunctory increase in identity checks on passengers arriving at Moscow airports from the south of Russia. Beslan, however, has shaken the country's leadership to the core. “This is a total, cruel and full-scale war that again and again is taking the lives of our fellow citizens,” said Vladimir Putin, Russia's president.
The language of war can unify a nation. Like George Bush, who declared “war on terror” after September 11th, Mr Putin is putting his country on a war footing. He has promised “measures aimed at strengthening our country's unity”, better co-ordination of forces in the northern Caucasus, and “entirely new approaches to the way the law-enforcement agencies work.” And, as before, he has striven to link Russia's problems to America's: “What we are facing is direct intervention of international terror directed against Russia.” In effect, he wants “9/3” to be seen as Russia's 9/11.
But that is disingenuous, and may even be dangerous. The verified links between Chechen terrorists and al-Qaeda are few and tenuous. Intelligence sources doubt that the “Islambouli Brigades” that claimed responsibility for the two aircraft bombings last month actually did the deed. The Russians claim that ten of the hostage-takers in Beslan may have been Arabs, but no proof has been offered besides indistinct pictures and some sounds that just might be Arabic. All the signs are that the mastermind was Shamil Basayev, a Chechen who has organised a series of terrorist attacks, including on a hospital in Budyennovsk in 1995 and a theatre in Moscow in 2002
Governments that go to war have a duty not only to win, but also to stop future ones breaking out. And that means understanding their root causes—which is not at all to imply excusing or condoning them. Stressing the Chechens' links with al-Qaeda lets Mr Putin wriggle out of acknowledging that America's and Russia's terrorist threats are more different than they are alike. Al-Qaeda's jihad is the product of complex circumstances, in many countries, in which America's foreign policy was only one contributory factor.
Russia's conflict in Chechnya is home-grown, nurtured in a republic that has been systematically destroyed in the struggle for power. Russia has tried to wipe out Chechnya's separatists, first through direct military force, and more recently through “Chechenisation”—ie, foisting the problem on to a local strongman (the latest luckless candidate, Alu Alkhanov, was put in place in rigged elections only two weeks ago). But the result has been to breed an anarchy in which soldiers and separatists alike kidnap and murder the innocent with impunity.
Crackdowns on rebels hiding in neighbouring republics have simply spread the lawlessness. The Beslan raiders included not just Chechens but Ingush and other northern Caucasians. Their evil deeds may now revive the old conflict between mainly Christian Ossetians and mainly Muslim Ingush. “Chechenisation” was meant to contain Chechnya; now it threatens to engulf the region. Yet Mr Basayev's Islamic fundamentalism is borrowed from abroad; it would attract few sympathisers were it not for the misery created at home.
Mr Putin said after Beslan that “we showed ourselves to be weak, and the weak get beaten.” The implication is that he will now be even tougher in Chechnya. Not only is that likely to stir up more terrorism; it also ignores one of the conflict's main drivers, which is cash. It suits certain Chechens, particularly the Kadyrov clan that now in effect controls the republic, to keep the war going, in large part because they make money out of it. It suits many in Moscow who connive at and benefit from the corruption, smuggling and worse in Chechnya. And it suits some Russian commanders and law-enforcement bosses who get their cut from Chechen oil wells, arms sales and the bribes that everyone—terrorists included—pays to get through the checkpoints that dot the northern Caucasus.
Part of the solution in Chechnya must be to break today's nexus of perverse incentives that do so much to keep the war going. That means not ever-tougher controls on the whole population, in a vain attempt to root out terrorists, but starting at last to tackle the top-to-bottom corruption that makes a joke of existing controls. Mr Putin seems sometimes to recognise that his armed forces are part of the problem, but his preferred solution still seems to be to impose control, through a Chechen placeman, rather than try a new approach.
What should that approach be? Ultimately, extreme autonomy, possibly leading to properly negotiated independence, should not be ruled out, if that is what most Chechens want. But right now, most just want peace. Simply making the republic independent would not only reward terror; it would not work, as Chechnya is too shattered to function on its own. Pulling the troops out would leave a bandit state, worse than the one that operated in 1996-99. Yet throughout the conflict, Mr Putin has refused to talk to moderate Chechens. Potential interlocutors have either turned extreme or lost support. Moreover, when Mr Putin calls Chechnya an “international” problem, he is right—though not in the way he claims. Ask Muslims around the world what aggrieves them, and they will mention Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, even headscarves in French schools...and Chechnya. Russia's conflict may not have started with foreign terrorists, but it has given them fodder for their own trouble-making.
That also gives western leaders an interest in helping to end it. One thing they must do is to keep telling the truth. They should offer sympathy and assistance to the Russians as victims of terrorism, not least in better training for their security forces. But even after Beslan, they should not condone Russia's human-rights abuses in Chechnya, and they should urge Mr Putin to seek out moderates with whom to talk. Perhaps after an interval, they might look for a more active involvement in the northern Caucasus. Russia has reached a dead end in Chechnya; if western offers of peacekeepers, human-rights monitors, financial or other assistance can help it to back out again, they would be well worth making.
Mr Putin will resist outside “interference”. But the Russians need help in Chechnya. And the one thing more tragic even than September 3rd would be if Budyennovsk, Moscow and now Beslan keep happening, over and over again.
Maybe, but its worth noting that aside from some grousing, the Russians let Kazakshstan go, which has one of the largest pools of oil in the world. And a population that is half Russian. They let all of the Central Asian republics go without firing a shot. Other ethnic republics have been given autonomy within the federation, again, without firing a shot.
There is something different about the Chechens.
Remember, too, that they won the war against Yeltsin, and won defacto independence, and the country became a safe haven for kidnap gangs, and islamists, and war lords atacking Dagestan and Ingushetia. That all preceded Putin's presidency.
Chechnya doesn't have anything anyone wants, but its a locus of lawlessness, and I suspect if we go back two centuries we will find the same thing. This may be what drew Russian troops into the area from the beginning two hundred years ago.
You should read the actual article.
As was the rest of Russia annexed by the Bolsheviks after very bloody Civil War.
It was as annexed as Poland was annexed by the Nazis.
To defend Islam is to be the most vile traitor to your people and to our nation and to human civilization itself.
I nominate this for quote of the century!
Most of Chechens emigrated to the Russian cities in search of better life - those Chechens are not a problem.
The remaining segment of Chechen population will be the most traditional and will be happy to live in their remote mountains without bothering their neighbors.
It would appear to me that Putin must finally sit down with whatever moderates he finds in Chechnya and try setting up some sort of government; granted, the first thing that needs to be done is to do away with the current corrupt one. Then he must go about reining in his troops; Russian occupying troops been known to get a tad too much enjoyment out of brutality.
Chechens outside of Chechnya are a thriving, hard-working lot (this as reported by Russian media), so I don't think that there's some sort of Chechen genetic defect that makes them all baby killers.
>I haven't seen American help to Chechen terrorists,
Check
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1208393/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1207808/posts
There was another article I posted about American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, but it was for some reason deleted by Moderator.
>but I am afraid that Putin wants the world to ignore not only the past atrocities committed there by Russian troops, but the coming retaliation. And don't get me wrong, there is no retaliation too brutal that can be rained down on those who had anything to do with Beslan, but historically, Russian retaliation has not addressed the culprits, but their families.
And that's wrong why exactly?
It's a total war on Russia, like WWII, there is neither time nor need for niceties.
>They've already begun rounding up people from villages...here's a clue, the terrorists are hiding in the mountains, not sleeping in town, but Russia has always been very efficient at rounding-up other than the guilty.
Actually, it's exactly where the terrorists are hiding - among their relatives within civilian population.
Most terrorists are like that - at night a terrorist - at light a peaceful farmer...
It's somewhat what we are doing in the ME.
Overhrow terrorist friendly governments, and set in place governments willing to self-police.
You must be joking! At best it is like the land of Apaches annexed by the Americans.
>It would appear to me that Putin must finally sit down with whatever moderates he finds in Chechnya and try setting up some sort of government
Actually it was done.
Putin picked up a moderate Islamic Cleric, Mufti Ahmad Kadyrov and appointed him a head of the Chechen administration.
In 2002 he was elected president of Chechnya, only to be killed by terrorists during Victory Day celebrations on May 9, 2004.
>granted, the first thing that needs to be done is to do away with the current corrupt one.
Why do you think any other Chechen government will be different?
>Then he must go about reining in his troops; Russian occupying troops been known to get a tad too much enjoyment out of brutality.
As far as I am concerned, they are not brutal enough. That's why Chechen terrorism still exists.
>Chechens outside of Chechnya are a thriving, hard-working lot (this as reported by Russian media), so I don't think that there's some sort of Chechen genetic defect that makes them all baby killers.
That's not what I read in Russian media.
Clue - do words Chechen mafia ring a bell?
"It is very interesting that just one week prior to a series of the acts of terrorism which have shaken Russia, the West through influential mass-media has actually issued Moscow the ultimatum. Extremely precisely the position of western, and primarily of Anglo-Saxon elite concerning Caucasus has been formulated one week prior to the first acts of terrorism in authoritative British magazine The Economist which expresses positions of the establishment of the Great Britain. As a matter of fact, the article suggests the Kremlin to leave from Caucasus where its policy has failed, and to invite there the West."
Actually, Beslan is proof positive that Kremlin policy in Chechnya is a complete failure.
I guess you are of Russian descent, or maybe even Russian; but try as you may, you cannot argue that Russia's Chechen policy has been a success at any level.
The number of Chechen citizens either kilee or displaced by the conflict nears 50% of the population, and the situation there is more chaotic now than ever.
By the way...nothing that you posted pointed to any help for terrorists coming from America.
But what would you want from a supporter of the Chechen cause. The Russian cause is just if not their execution of it.
Why is not Gonzales talking about the depravity of the "non al-Qaeda" Chechens that makes them unworthy of nationhood? Why would Gonzoles support Chechnya? What good will itto the region? No good. It would not be good even for the Chechens since they suffer living under their own kind worse then they did under the Soviets and Russians.
You are a new breed Gonzales - Islam's useful idiot -just as one time many in the West served as Communisim's useful idiots (Example: I don't excuse Lenin/Stalin's violence but the Reds have to be better than the Czar right?).
>Chechnya was conquered by the Bolsheviks and forcefully annexed to the Soviet Union in 1923.
As far as I am concerned, Chechnya was conquered and annexed to Russian Federation in 2000.
And definitely, Russia has nothing to be ashamed of it - Chechens DESERVED Russian conquest.
Well, you seem to be under the impression that a different government in Russia would make a difference in the actions of the Russian government.
And that somehow, Russia is different from the USSR...in spite of the fact that basically, the same people are still in charge.
The only other solution that you could possibly be advocating here is genocide, and if you are advocating genocide, or if the Russian government is considering killing the remaining half of Chechnya's population as a solution to this problem, then a change in government did not change Russia at all.
>Actually, Beslan is proof positive that Kremlin policy in Chechnya is a complete failure.
And 9/11 is proof positive that Washington's policy in Middle East is a complete failure.
Right?
Of course not.
>you cannot argue that Russia's Chechen policy has been a success at any level.
Actually, it's the very success of Russian military in Chechnya that enrages terrorists and causes them to resort to such horrible atrocities.
>The number of Chechen citizens either kilee or displaced by the conflict nears 50% of the population, and the situation there is more chaotic now than ever.
That's bullshit and you know it.
The Chechen population in Russia increased by 20% over 1990-ies and in fact, they now enjoy the highest growth rate among Russian nationalities.
Perhaps, that's the root of the problem...
As for situation in Chechnya being more haotic, I'd ask as compared to what?
>killing the remaining half of Chechnya's population
That's a lie. A deliberate lie, at that.
Goodbye, Chechen-lover...
Oh really?
As usual, you are wrong.
No, but it does point to failures in our intelligence.
"Actually, it's the very success of Russian military in Chechnya that enrages terrorists and causes them to resort to such horrible atrocities."
Atrocities by the Russian Army have been widely reported across the world. Your failure to admit to them gives me a clue as to who and what you are.
"That's bullshit and you know it. The Chechen population in Russia increased by 20% over 1990"
That's funny, on one breath you claim that I posted bullshit, and on the next you provide proof of the massive displacement.
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