#10
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2002
From: Eric Chenoweth <eric@idee.org>
Subject: Re: Chechnya
The debate surrounding Chechnya has fundamentally changed since September 11. Patrick Armstrong's intercession (JRL 6050) demonstrates the degree to which the U.S.'s desire for Russia's cooperation in the war on terrorism has turned attention away from Russia's war crimes against the Chechen people -- real, incontrovertible, and unrelenting terror -- to phantom menaces of Khattab and Bassayev or the supposed legions of Chechen fighters in Afghanistan.
Those like Armstrong who happily point to NATO General Secretary Robinson's expression of newfound sympathy with Russia's "war against terrorism" in Chechnya continue to miss the point: namely, no matter what threat was posed by Khattab and Bassayev or the breakdown of law and order in Chechnya -- which, as evidenced by recent court cases, was certainly not as great as claimed by Russia -- there can be no justification for the massacre of civilians, the wanton pillage and destruction of property and farmland, the mass raping of women, the forced disappearance of Chechen men, or the wholesale destruction of cities, towns, and villages and the targeted liquidation of an entire cultural heritage.
Contrary to the claim of a world arrayed against Russia for legitimately defending its interests, Russia has in fact received a special privilege in world affairs for her actions. Milosevic will not be exonerated in his war crimes by the KLA (as large a force as Khattab's and Bassayev's certainly); nor the Indonesian armed forces in East Timor because of armed guerillas. While the U.S. responds immediately to protests of errant bombs killing civilian loss of life or even of ill treatment of Al Qaeda prisoners, Russia sloughs off all world protest and continues without hesitation or remorse in its targetting of civilians and its mass kidnapping of men for ransom, many of whom are never seen again.
Most observers and even journalists covering Chechnya have not spent much time there or if they have it has been on visits controlled by the Russian armed forces. But there are a number of courageous journalists who have reported directly from Chechnya for signifiant parts of the 2nd war. Without exception, those who have spent longer time in Chechnya investigating the war have demonstrated that the claims of a Wahabbi-dominated Chechnya are utterly false; that the idea Khattab and Bassayev have won over the population to their brand of extremism is without foundation; that most Chechens are moderate in religious and political beliefs; that there are many brave Chechens willing to defend themselves against the unrelenting, brutal force of the Russian army who are completely against Khattab and Bassayev and remain under the authority of President Maskhadov; and that notwithstanding Russia's terrible crimes in Chechnya, the political leadership of Chechnya is willing to negotiate an end to the war.
If President Putin (and those supporting his war on Chechnya) were sincere in his claim to be fighting terrorism, he would take up the offer of Chechnya's political leadership to come to a reasonable settlement and focus any war on the extremists. But, in fact, the extremists were and continue to be Putin's best allies by providing justification for the real war being waged, the one being waged against Chechnya as a whole because its people desired to be free from Russian domination. So long as the world's attention is turned away, or its reaction muted, to Russia's terrror war in Chechnya, it will continue to take a harrowing toll on innocent life.
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