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Chicago Tribune
November 6, 2002
Lasting crisis seen over Chechnya
Analysts blame absence of talks
By Alex Rodriguez
Tribune foreign correspondent
MOSCOW -- Russia's blueprint for peace in Chechnya has parallel goals: Crush the separatist movement in the southern republic while rebuilding the war-ravaged province village by village, block by block.
That plan, however, dooms Russia and the Chechens to a vicious cycle of violence for years to come because it leaves no room for political settlement, analysts and Western diplomats say.
Before the theater takeover last month that led to more than 120 civilian deaths, Russian President Vladimir Putin's policy toward Chechnya dismissed any negotiations with Chechen Islamic separatists. Now that the crisis is over, Putin and his aides have restated that stance in even stronger terms.
Russia has tightened security in Chechnya, and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said he had again postponed a long-promised withdrawal of troops from the region.
"From the Chechen underground, there is no one we are ready to talk to," said Putin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky. "We have to wipe out the commanders of this movement."
At the top of that list is Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen rebel leader who the Kremlin believes engineered or had prior knowledge of the Oct. 23 theater takeover. The United States has fallen in line with that belief, calling the exiled Chechen president "damaged goods."
Nevertheless, the U.S., many analysts and several Russian opposition leaders think the best chance for peace in Chechnya lies in the separatists' finding someone to replace Maskhadov and Russia's signaling a willingness to negotiate.
Suicide bombings threatened
At stake is more than just the future of a battered Chechnya. The rebels who stormed the theater warned of others roaming Moscow streets, ready to begin a campaign of suicide bombings.
"The process [the Russians] have been trying over the last several months, normalization without negotiations, is doomed to fail," a U.S. diplomat said. "There will have to be some sort of political process . . . for the conflict to ever be truly ended. The ongoing efforts to normalize the situation by preparing for elections and beginning reconstruction [are] likely to be repeatedly derailed by new upsurges in violence."
The Kremlin has long hoped to pull out thousands of army troops as part of its strategy to portray the three-year conflict as an "anti-terrorist" operation run by police and Interior Ministry forces. But the broadening drive to smash guerrilla resistance in response to the Moscow theater takeover has shelved those plans again.
"The quicker we rid ourselves of the terrorists, the quicker the situation will normalize in Chechnya," Putin said Tuesday. But, he said, the new military operations "must be of a well-directed, targeted nature."
For the Chechen rebels, finding someone to step forward in place of Maskhadov would be difficult. The separatist fighters are fragmented and loosely organized, with groups of battle-tested nationalists committed to an independent Chechen state, Islamic extremist segments that have trained in Al Qaeda camps, and criminal groups driven in large part by oil and arms profits.
Even as they suffer losses, the rebel factions are drawing new recruits from Chechen villages victimized by the Russian military's infamous zachistkas, or mop-up operations. In theory, the zachistkas are meant to round up suspected Chechen rebels for detention and questioning, but many victims report being beaten and tortured. Others have died, their disfigured corpses turning up later in fields and pastures.
Earlier this year, Putin vowed to curb the atrocities associated with the mop-ups, but human-rights groups say the army has failed to live up to that pledge.
"The census has shown that there are around 1 million people in Chechnya--in other words, 500,000 able-bodied people," said Emil Payin, director of the Moscow-based Center for Ethnopolitical and Regional Studies. "An army cannot do anything against such a strong resource. This resource can fight for 30 years, and Russia does not have that much time."
Terror links unclear
The Chechen separatist movement maintains a financial pipeline to Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups, analysts and U.S. officials say. But how much terrorist network money fuels Chechen attacks is not clear.
Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center says rebels pocket some of the money from abroad.
"Most of these rebels are former Soviets," Malashenko said. "They build homes with the money. A lot of it just disappears."
In the days since the hostage standoff ended, the Kremlin has worked hard to portray Maskhadov as an agent of international terrorism and a player in the planning of the takeover of the theater. While the United States is not yet ready to accept the latter charge, an American diplomat said Washington has believed for some time that Maskhadov has renewed close ties with Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev.
Washington regards Basayev as linked to international terrorism. Also, Russian authorities said that the hostage-takers' leader, Movsar Barayev, said in a cell phone conversation with an exiled Chechen leader in Qatar that he took his orders from Basayev, who in turn acted on behalf of Maskhadov.
"I don't see a way for Maskhadov to find his way back into the good graces of Moscow," the U.S. diplomat said. "So the question is whether some other leaders can emerge."
A potential candidate, Maskhadov envoy Akhmed Zakayev, was arrested by Danish authorities last week at the Kremlin's behest.
Convenient excuse
The absence of a viable Chechen representative gives the Kremlin an easy answer to calls for negotiations: The Russians have no one with whom to sit down. But even if separatists presented someone untarnished, the likelihood of Putin's agreeing to talks remains slim.
Putin rose to power by taking a hard line on Chechnya, a policy that tapped into the deep frustration Russians felt about the army's loss in the first Chechen war in 1994-96 and the fear that gripped Russians after apartment bombings killed more than 300 people in Moscow and other cities in 1999.
In the eyes of Russians, Putin emerged the victor from the hostage crisis, even though 118 of the hostages who died were poisoned by gas used by commandos in the raid Oct. 26.
"Russia will not make any deal with the terrorists and will not yield to any blackmail," Putin said two days later. He then said he would intensify the nation's counterterrorism efforts.
Analysts believe Russia has already begun to see the first signs of that campaign. Late last week, scores of Chechens living in Moscow were being rounded up, detained and questioned.
Russia's liberal party leaders worry that the tense climate gripping Russia could worsen, leaving little hope of any kind of negotiated settlement over Chechnya. Grigory Yavlinsky, a member of parliament, leader of the country's liberal Yabloko faction and a staunch opponent of the war, said that day may not be far away.
"If the state is not talking to the terrorists, then what are the terrorists going to do?" Yavlinsky said. "They're going to do what they do in Palestine, like in Israel. `No talks? That's OK. We'll just make explosions, and that's it.'"
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