#19 - RW 12-24-05 - RW Home
RIA Novosti
December 23, 2004
EUROPEAN AID TO CHECHNYA, A CHRISTMAS PRESENT?

MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev) - One rather mysterious part of President Putin's recent visit to Germany may shape Europe's policy for the coming years. Mr. Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder discussed Chechnya.

Very little is known about their discussion except that in the fall, Germany sent Mr. Putin a set of proposals on Chechnya in preparation for the visit and recently, in Hamburg, Mr. Putin said he "agreed completely" with the proposals.

The next day in Schleswig, Mr. Putin said, "we are ready to discuss them [problems of Chechnya] with our partners in Europe." And finally, on the train to Schleswig, the press services announced that the Russian president and the German chancellor had discussed Chechnya.

The first and most obvious point is that an idea is still being discussed and therefore it has not been announced yet. It may be announced next year unless, of course, this German-Russian project fails.

In any case, an opportunity for Europe to play a real role in the Chechen crisis is a Christmas present (even if it is for next Christmas). Europe will get the opportunity to address seriously relations between the Western and Muslim worlds.

So far, too much of what the EU and Europe as a whole have done in this respect has shown their total unpreparedness and, moreover, their lack of a basic understanding of the root of the problem.

Europe displayed pro-Muslim leanings in the 1990s, when it sided with the creeping expansion of Islamic terrorist organizations in Serbian lands in Kosovo. And then its urban population demonstrated their anti-Muslim reflexes during the dramatic dispute about girls wearing headscarves in schools. Europe has also shown contradictions in its attitude toward Israel and Palestine, Iran and Iraq. Some European countries participated in the US-led war in Iraq when others stood on the side. In general, it is total intellectual and political chaos. It does not helpthat the purely cultural problem has been compounded with Islamic terrorism in Chechnya, Palestine and Iraq.

Oddly, Europe's "Islamic blindness" was most apparent in the EU's recent discussion to begin membership negotiations with Turkey, which may take 15 years. Too many people, including the general public, believe that Turkey has been given time to become a purely European country and stop being part of the Muslim world. However, everything could be more complicated.

In regard to Chechnya, Russia has been asking different European organizations, including the EU, the OSCE and PACE, to take part in the republic's reforms for a long time. Each time Russia saw that there was a complete lack of understanding about what can and should be done there. Europeans seem to imagine Chechnya as the fantasy of a melancholy film director but not a real territory with real problems and needs.

For example, what can one say about the awareness of people, who today, three years after Moscow reached political settlement with the largest anti-Russian militant group, seriously recommend that new negotiations begin and that power be given to military force that lost and has subsequently transformed into an underground terrorist organization?

Chechnya's current problems are not military problems, but not quite policing or typical postwar refugee problems. Chechnya's problems are related to creating normal economic infrastructure and civil society in a Muslim republic after a war with large terrorist forces. Chechnya's problems are similar to the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq, or Kosovo (vise-versa).

Consequently, Chechnya is important for the West's problem of relations with the unstable, unhappy and violent Muslim world. Naturally, it would be extremely useful for Europeans to see such realities as postwar reforms of at least a small part of the Muslim world first hand. But even with a mutual understanding, Russia and Germany are not expected to be able to work out a clear plan of what can be done together quickly. It is encouraging that the discussion has begun and it is a discussion, not a conversation between two deaf people.