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.
You're still holding a grudge because Stalin bumped off Trotsky, aren't you Luis?
"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."
I know that given enough rope, you'd reveal yourself as an old communist.
A bunch of bluster from Mr. Moneybags. As much as he carps about Putin etc, they guy has made a mint from "the new Russia." The last thing he'll do is disturb that. Soros needs to be deeply investigated, and all that is found shared openly with the whole world. I think we would all find out things that are quite surprising to each of us were this to be done.
Or perhaps, a new National Bolshevik?
>Or perhaps, a new National Bolshevik?
If you mean Mr. Limonov's National Bolshevik Party, it ceased to exist for me, after he called for surrender in Chechnya during Beslan crisis.
Please don't tell me about thread manners. You used the same argument (without merit) twice.
FYI I was pinged to this thread by someone else. Are you attempitng to get me banned and that's why you made that comment? Is that your M.O.?
And since when is having a discussion a flame war? If it were a flame war, you would DEFINITELY know it.
There's an article posted and an ongoing discussion on it. Are you going to comment on it, or carry on an argument from an unrelated thread?
Any legitimate grievances the Chechan seperatists may have had against the Russian government were nullified by their terrorist tactics against the civilian population. Russia has the sovereign authority to suppress such lawless insurrection and rebellion. If Chechens wish to wage a legitimate war of independence, they should restrict their actions to legitimate government targets.
Well, maybe I'll comment on it since you asked me nicely.
I don't care that years ago 25 million people suffered under the Russian regime. I care whether Russia will not take on terror.
Okay with you now?
http://www.chechnyafree.ru/index.php?lng=eng§ion=mhiscoseng&row=1
Imam Mansur launched an anticolonial war in the Northern Caucasus in 1785. His men attacked the forts of Kizlyar, Vladikavkaz and Grigoripolis, as well as numerous Cossack villages. And it was not until 1859 that Russia had finally settled the problem of the left bank of the Terek by capturing Imam Shamil and scattering his troops.
http://www.cecenonline.com/eng/history.htm
1780 - The Chechens started a rising against the occupation by the tsar Russia. The leader of the Jihad was Sheikh Mansur! Imam Mansur was arrested in 1791 and got the martyrdom in 1794 in the jail of Slisselarg.
"Speedy Gonzales was a little to fast with his history. Chechnya has been part of Russia since the 18th century."
So who is wrong now 'useful idiot'?
Yeah. There are MANY Chechen-bandit (and KLA, etc.) "human rightser" apologists, at the highest levels of Western society. But they are in NO WAY real humanitarians--they just want to destroy traditional societies and pick at their flesh and bones for economic gain and political power. And they use islamist thugs to do their dirty work.
These are the same "human rightsers" who are imposing the gay agenda on us beleagered American Lutherans, and on other churches and countries (e.g., eastern European aspirants to EU/NATO membership, most of which are Orthodox Christian but some of which also have sizeable orthodox Lutheran populations). I say PHOOEY to all of them!!!!
By the way, I am one of the alleged "leaders" who gets those Economist subscription ads in the mail--they're probably trying to appeal to my vanity. I'll bet that many others reading this post get the same mailings.
Poland is Roman Catholic, but also has problems with Western promotion of pederasty.
The poster in question is a tool, I don't waste my time...
There are people in this world who, lacking the ability to advance a notion, support an idea, or debate a point, resort to the one method available to them...vitriol.
You are one of those people.
Chechen terrorists committed an atrocity of monumental scale in Beslan, no one in this thread, myself included, has actually defended them; the article begins with a clear statement to that effect: "Nobody should excuse what happened in Beslan."
But beyond that, and addressed in the second part of that opening line is the actual topic of the article: "but Chechnya still needs a solution."
Here's a clue cowboy: Chechnya will not be nuked, they will not be razed from the Earth, and their people will not be massacred by the Russians. None of those are solutions that either Russia, or any civilized Western nation will embrace, and anyone who advocates such actions is no better than the people who murdered those children, because they too will be advocating the murder of children.
Now, in your infinite ignorance, you believe that a sophomoric game of name-calling while hiding behind the anonymity of an Internet bulletin board makes you brave, or maybe strong, or maybe even a man...it does none of those things, and in all actuality, it has the exact opposite effect...it exposes you as an immature, boorish dolt.
Chechnya still needs a solution, and you don't have the first notion of what that solution is...as a matter of fact, you can't even get Chechen history straight:
Imperial Russia's control of the Caucasus stretched from 1818 to 1917 the Chechens fought bitterly during an unsuccessful rebellion in the 1850's led by Imam Shamyl; the Bolsheviks seized the region in 1918, but were dislodged in 1919.
After Soviet rule was reestablished, the area was included in 1921 in the Mountain People's Republic, the Chechen Autonomous Region was created in 1922, in 1934 it became part of the Chechen-Ingush Region, and in 1936, it was made a republic.
The fact that an Imam from the region attacked Cossacks in 1785 has nothing to do with the fact that Russia conquered Chechnya in the 19th, not the 17th, Century.
Years ago?
I recall the Evil Empire existing not all that long ago.
Absolutely correct. Likewise, Russia has a lot to answer for in their treatment of the Chechen people.
"Russia has the sovereign authority to suppress such lawless insurrection and rebellion."
To my amazement, this forum praises the Spanish for throwing out the Muslims seven hundred years after their conquest, but seems to think that the Chechens should not be allowed to throw the Russians out of their land.
"If Chechens wish to wage a legitimate war of independence, they should restrict their actions to legitimate government targets."
I don't see anyone on this thread, or in this forum saying anything to the contrary...I'm certainly not.
So now...what's the solution to Chechnya?
How would you guarantee safety for the neigboring Russian provinces? How would you provide access to the world for the Chechen state? (Chechnya is in the middle of Russian territory with the exception of mountain passes to Georgia)
How will you prevent a new influx (through those mountain passes) of Islamist militants? How will you prevent the tribal warfare between Chechens, Ingush, Osetians, Dagestanis and other tribes?
Will the NATO troops do better job than in Kosovo? Will the Bondsteel style American base be established in Chechnya? If Russian government collapses how will you stabilize Russia?
If Russian treated Chechens the same way Americans treated warlike Indian tribes, the problem would not exist. Or at least same way as Poles treated Ukrainian guerillas (in the mountain area in south-east, in size comparable to Chechnya) after WWII (they deported and dispersed them over newly acquired territories in the West).
Should Russians emulate those two examples?
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