#6521 #6522
#6 - JRL 6521
National Post (Canada)
October 29, 2002
Dirty little war all but forgotten in the West
Russians and Chechens have been killing each other for centuries
By Matthew Fisher
In Voina, or War, a hugely popular Russian film produced last year, a soldier taken prisoner by a Chechen rebel asks his captor when he thinks the war in the Caucasus will end.
"When all you Russians live in the North," the rebel replies without a hint of humour.
For Westerners, Chechnya is a forgotten war in a faraway place.
There was some interest in the conflict in the mid-1990s, but almost none lately. With other wars raging in Afghanistan, Africa and the Middle East, few Westerners have cared to follow a dispute that Vladimir Putin, Russia's President, has declared over and won many times.
But the fighting in Chechnya has never stopped. Almost every day Russian newspapers carry brief bulletins reporting five or 10 casualties -- men from a Siberian infantry division slaughtered in an ambush or rebels led by an infamous warlord decimated in a firefight.
Russians and Chechens have been killing each other in this way for centuries. Their interminable conflict, which stabbed at the heart of Moscow last week with predictably lethal consequences, is renowned for its depraved violence and the inability of either side to compromise or concede anything.
That could be seen again after the hostage taking in Moscow ended three days ago. The kidnappers had demanded Russian forces quit Chechnya. Mr. Putin responded by calling them "dirty scum" and vowing to avenge the deaths of more than 100 hostages by devoting even more military resources to the war.
It was in the early days of what is sometimes called the first Chechen war in 1994 that I first travelled to the restless corner of the Caucasus that includes Christian Georgia and predominantly Muslim Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. These were especially harrowing times in Chechnya and there were numerous close calls. Chechnya is a charnel house where death can come at any moment.
It arrives from the sky in the form of attack jets and assault helicopters, from a great distance from big artillery guns or up close in the form of bloody ambushes, land mines and booby traps. Most intimately of all, it often involves beheadings, disembowelling of soldiers and civilians alike, and almost every other obscene cruelty that mankind has devised.
One day a group of Russian and Chechen civilians, including many children, were drawing water from a well when they were ripped apart by an artillery shell. A few hours later another shell exploded in the middle of a road, cutting down a pair of elderly Russians who had dared to leave what was left of their homes to search for food. That night a group of Chechens in a badly overloaded Lada careered into a sudden stream of tracer bullets fired by some Russian lads perched on a hill -- who were apparently just having some fun. Most of those in the car died.
Russian artillery pounded Grozny into Dresden-like rubble long ago. The few buildings that were rebuilt were quickly flattened again during new offensives. Despite these bombardments, several tens of thousands of people live still live in the Chechen capital. The Russian army has never been able to completely control the city. At times, its tenuous grip has extended no more than a few blocks.
The rolling countryside around Grozny and especially the mountains of southern Chechnya are even more dangerous for the Russians. Using classic guerrilla hit-and-run tactics, small groups of Chechens have repeatedly surprised much larger groups of Russian troops and slaughtered them.
It has often been said that Afghanistan was Russia's Vietnam. But comparisons between Vietnam and Chechnya are just as apt. As was the case in Indochina, a lot of the dirty work of the past few years has been by transport and attack helicopters. This owes something to the rugged terrain, but mostly it is because Russian forces have great difficulty moving safely anywhere on the ground.
The helicopters have presented their own problems, however. The Chechens have been able to acquire a healthy supply of Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles. A few months ago they managed to shoot down a helicopter with more than 100 Russians on board, a great feat for the Chechens. Dozens of other helicopters have met a similar fate, though with fewer casualties.
Being around Russian or Chechen fighters is an exhilarating, terrifying experience. It is a cliché, but for all that true. Chechen boys really do grow up with a rifle in their hands. Theirs is a warring culture and wars across the Caucasus never seem to really end.
Regular soldiers from the Russian army and Chechen irregulars swagger and exult in being murderously tough. Yet they can be gracious and sensitive hosts, sharing what little they have to eat and drink with outsiders they meet by chance.
The Chechens, often swaddled in bandoliers and grenades, and always with an AK-47 assault rifle in hand, may welcome strangers like brothers. But they have a vile habit of kidnapping for ransom those who have come to visit them. If their ransom demands are not met, they have no compunction about slitting the throats of those they have kidnapped. Russian prisoners are, of course, treated even more ruthlessly.
The Russians tend to be equally garrulous, much better armed, and every bit as capable of wanton violence as their enemies.
There are other macabre similarities. Russian troops in Chechnya destroy themselves with drink and drugs and by selling their arms to the enemy. Chechens murder one another in unfathomable clan disputes, which stretch back centuries and inevitably involve medieval ideas about honour.
Perhaps the only substantial difference between Chechen and Russian fighting men is that the Russians would rather be anywhere than in Chechnya. The Chechens would rather be in Chechnya than anywhere else.
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