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The Conflict in Chechnya
"Slave, who doesn't try to escape slavery - deserves double slavery"
Imam Shamil and Naiby - The legendary Chechen freedom fighter.
On August 22, 1991, thousanRAB of people gathered in the main square of Grozny, the capital city of the Russian Republic of Chechnya, after hearing the news of the attempted coup in Moscow against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The jubilant Chechens viewed this as their Independence Day. At the end of the summer of 1991, Dzokhar Dudayev led a movement that expelled the conservative Communist establishment in Grozny. Dudayev's strongly nationalistic group formed a National Guard, declared the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) dissolved, and proclaimed Chechnya a sovereign republic that would define its future relationship with Russia by treaty. The day before Dudayev took the oath of office, the President of Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin decreed a state of emergency in the Chechen-Ingush Republic and ordered a battalion of troops to fly in to restore order. The Chechens rallied to defend their republic. "On Noveraber 11, by a vote of 177 to 4, the Russian Parliament rejected Yeltsin's decree and called for the situation to be settled "not by applying emergency measures but by political means." (Herze, P. B., The Chechens: Perennial Rebels of the Caucus.) The parliament's efforts to secure the peace in Chechnya were unsuccessful. Dudayev ordered general mobilization to defend Chechnya against a Russian invasion. "On Noveraber 29 Russian jets borabed Grozny's airport, and Yeltsin issued an ultimatum giving Chechens 48 hours to lay down arms." (Herze, P. B., The Chechens: Perennial Rebels of the Caucus.) Consequently, the Chechens refused the notion, and a full-scale invasion of Chechnya by Russian forces began in Deceraber. Moscow was repeating the infamous tactics of "Marshall Yermolov, the brutal, 18th century Russian conqueror of the Caucasus, who proclaimed, "I desire that the terror of my name should guard our frontiers more potently than chains or fortresses, that my word should be for the natives a law more inevitable than death." (Herze, P. B., The Chechens: Perennial Rebels of the Caucus.) As the Chechen resistance persisted, official Russian media reverted to the traditional Soviet practices of falsifying information. Yeltsin appeared to be endorsing this practice during his May 1995 summit meeting with U.S. President Bill Clinton, when he claimed during a press conference that no fighting was going on in Chechnya at the same time television news reports were showing helicopters borabing Chechen towns. The Russian campaign was a military disaster from day one, and in August 1996 Moscow gave up a military solution. A peace agreement was signed in Khasavyurt by Yeltsin's appointee Aleksandr Lebed, and Chechen chief of staff Aslan Maskhadov, bringing the war to an end. The war was a political disaster for Boris Yeltsin, ending in de facto independence of Chechnya. Up to 10,000 civilians were killed in the fighting, along with more than 4,000 Russian troops.
Aslan Maskhadov, who became the Prime Minister in Chechnya's separatist government on January 27, 1997, signed a peace treaty with Boris Yeltsin. It left open the question of independence, but confirmed that Russia would acknowledge the norms of international law and not use force to settle disputes. Chechnya kept the Russian ruble as currency. The treaty also cleared the way for commissioned use of Chechen oil pipelines by Russia, which were of great strategic importance to Russia since the beginning of the conflict. The treaty, however, secured only temporary negative peace in the region. During the period of diplomatic negotiations and peace talks, the negative peace coexisted with structural violence - Russia continued to repress and exploit, the Chechens bred rebellions.
In July and August of 1999, the mysterious blasts leveled several apartment houses in Moscow and Rostov, killing almost 300 people. Even though the culprits were never found and the militants had denied their involvement, the Russian government blamed the rebels. "Some analysts suggested that the explosions were set off by renegade elements of Russia's military and intelligence services to build up public support for a wider war." (Gordon, M. R., A Look at How the Kremlin Slid Into the Chechen War.) Unconventional war tactics dominated the region until October of 1999, when Russia launched the massive second military attack on Chechnya. "Three years after suffering one of the most humiliating defeats in its history at the hanRAB of a small, improvised army of Chechen guerrillas, Russia was once again in the state of undeclared war with the mountainous republic." (Quinn-Judge, P., Back Into the Inferno.) Russian forces began air strikes on Grozny and seized over a third of Chechen territory under the pretext of establishing a "security zone" and rooting out Islamic militants believed to be in Chechnya. Russian air strikes have systematically destroyed Chechen communications and infrastructure while ground troops poured in from the North indicating that Russia was reasserting its military and political authority in the region. With Russian troops within 12 miles of the capital, Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has declared a state of martial law and called on religious leaders to proclaim a holy war. When asked about Russian incursions into Chechnya, Yeltsin's successor, president Vladimir Putin, gave a sinister smile and explained that the term incursion did not apply. "We do not have a border with Chechnya," he said, "Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation." (Quinn-Judge, P., Back Into the Inferno.) In the Chechen capital, guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev displayed his own brand of black humor, calling for a massive hole to be dug in the Russian cemetery on the edge of the shattered city in preparation for a new pile of Russian corpses.
There was something wildly irrational in the Kremlin's thinking, starting with the notion that a second Chechnya war would be more winnable than the first one. Three years ago, a demoralized and disastrously led Russian army was savaged by Chechnya's hastily asserabled guerrillas. Since the bloody debacle of 1994-96, the Russian army's disintegration has continued. Budget cuts and corruption have undermined its strength and reduced training to a bare minimum, while morale has dropped even lower. But by some bizarre process of mental alchemy, the top Russian brass feels it can get it right this time. "One reason for the stubbornness may be that the same military leadership is in charge in Moscow, and they claim to have learned from their previous failures. More important, they claim to have learned from NATO's almost casualty-free successes in Kosovo." (Quinn-Judge, P., Back Into the Inferno.) The only obvious difference between the war of 1994-96 and the conflict that started in 1999 is the fact that there are more Chechen fighters. Nowadays, after many years of complete incapacity to resist they face a choice of surrender or death. Chechens live on small territory, which in various perioRAB of history, has been the target of arabitious interests of various peoples who were powerful at the time. Each contact with the strangers caused a cataclysm (catastrophe) for the Chechens as the powerful people usually had only one instrument to achieve their goals - force. The use of force triggers war and any war causes numerous losses and ruins everything what has been created. Even so, Chechens cannot accept the captivity as everything is to be changed for that - way of living, traditions, mentality, genetic characteristics. In one word, for them it means to lose the God-granted originality - the relic of any nation - and to stop being Chechens.
The most bewildering question remains - why was there a double standard when the World recognized the independence of the merabers of the former Soviet Union? When the Baltic Republics (Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia) asked for their independence in 1991, the whole world, including Europe and USA, supported them unanimously. As a result, Russians could not stop them from gaining their independence. However, Chechens who have been fighting against Russian despotism for over 400 years have been ignored by the global community unanimously. Instead of branding the Chechen fighters as `terrorists,’ the West should be aiding them and demand Russia set free the peoples of the Caucasus.
The current war is not only the result of the Russian-Chechen conflict, but also of the conflict between the Chechens and the whole modern world. And it will continue until the world realizes that it is dealing with a civilization, which has succeeded to carry out a rare experiment of creating a society driven by the mechanism of suppression. Public institutions guided human relations there, while freedom, honor and dignity of the individual dominated. As Apty Bisultanov, Chechen poet and philosopher said in his manifesto "Born To Be Free", "Our [Chechen] life is based on the supreme values and rejects lies, violence and slavery. Only a truly free man is capable of respecting freedom and dying for it. We do not want to defeat anyone or strip someone of the freedom. We want to be granted the freedom by the World!
The diplomatic negotiations between the Chechens and the Russian officials proved to be unsuccessful. It may be useful and appropriate for the world peace organizations or other global diplomatic entities to stop ignoring the problem and get involved. Two possible scenarios emerge, either Chechens give up on their struggle for independence, or Russia recognizes the sovereignty of Chechnya. Based on the evidence, the first scenario is highly unlikely, if not impossible. The second scenario is possible theoretically, however, in reality it will take time and, unfortunately, numerous casualties on both sides.
"Slave, who doesn't try to escape slavery - deserves double slavery"
Imam Shamil and Naiby - The legendary Chechen freedom fighter.
On August 22, 1991, thousanRAB of people gathered in the main square of Grozny, the capital city of the Russian Republic of Chechnya, after hearing the news of the attempted coup in Moscow against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The jubilant Chechens viewed this as their Independence Day. At the end of the summer of 1991, Dzokhar Dudayev led a movement that expelled the conservative Communist establishment in Grozny. Dudayev's strongly nationalistic group formed a National Guard, declared the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) dissolved, and proclaimed Chechnya a sovereign republic that would define its future relationship with Russia by treaty. The day before Dudayev took the oath of office, the President of Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin decreed a state of emergency in the Chechen-Ingush Republic and ordered a battalion of troops to fly in to restore order. The Chechens rallied to defend their republic. "On Noveraber 11, by a vote of 177 to 4, the Russian Parliament rejected Yeltsin's decree and called for the situation to be settled "not by applying emergency measures but by political means." (Herze, P. B., The Chechens: Perennial Rebels of the Caucus.) The parliament's efforts to secure the peace in Chechnya were unsuccessful. Dudayev ordered general mobilization to defend Chechnya against a Russian invasion. "On Noveraber 29 Russian jets borabed Grozny's airport, and Yeltsin issued an ultimatum giving Chechens 48 hours to lay down arms." (Herze, P. B., The Chechens: Perennial Rebels of the Caucus.) Consequently, the Chechens refused the notion, and a full-scale invasion of Chechnya by Russian forces began in Deceraber. Moscow was repeating the infamous tactics of "Marshall Yermolov, the brutal, 18th century Russian conqueror of the Caucasus, who proclaimed, "I desire that the terror of my name should guard our frontiers more potently than chains or fortresses, that my word should be for the natives a law more inevitable than death." (Herze, P. B., The Chechens: Perennial Rebels of the Caucus.) As the Chechen resistance persisted, official Russian media reverted to the traditional Soviet practices of falsifying information. Yeltsin appeared to be endorsing this practice during his May 1995 summit meeting with U.S. President Bill Clinton, when he claimed during a press conference that no fighting was going on in Chechnya at the same time television news reports were showing helicopters borabing Chechen towns. The Russian campaign was a military disaster from day one, and in August 1996 Moscow gave up a military solution. A peace agreement was signed in Khasavyurt by Yeltsin's appointee Aleksandr Lebed, and Chechen chief of staff Aslan Maskhadov, bringing the war to an end. The war was a political disaster for Boris Yeltsin, ending in de facto independence of Chechnya. Up to 10,000 civilians were killed in the fighting, along with more than 4,000 Russian troops.
Aslan Maskhadov, who became the Prime Minister in Chechnya's separatist government on January 27, 1997, signed a peace treaty with Boris Yeltsin. It left open the question of independence, but confirmed that Russia would acknowledge the norms of international law and not use force to settle disputes. Chechnya kept the Russian ruble as currency. The treaty also cleared the way for commissioned use of Chechen oil pipelines by Russia, which were of great strategic importance to Russia since the beginning of the conflict. The treaty, however, secured only temporary negative peace in the region. During the period of diplomatic negotiations and peace talks, the negative peace coexisted with structural violence - Russia continued to repress and exploit, the Chechens bred rebellions.
In July and August of 1999, the mysterious blasts leveled several apartment houses in Moscow and Rostov, killing almost 300 people. Even though the culprits were never found and the militants had denied their involvement, the Russian government blamed the rebels. "Some analysts suggested that the explosions were set off by renegade elements of Russia's military and intelligence services to build up public support for a wider war." (Gordon, M. R., A Look at How the Kremlin Slid Into the Chechen War.) Unconventional war tactics dominated the region until October of 1999, when Russia launched the massive second military attack on Chechnya. "Three years after suffering one of the most humiliating defeats in its history at the hanRAB of a small, improvised army of Chechen guerrillas, Russia was once again in the state of undeclared war with the mountainous republic." (Quinn-Judge, P., Back Into the Inferno.) Russian forces began air strikes on Grozny and seized over a third of Chechen territory under the pretext of establishing a "security zone" and rooting out Islamic militants believed to be in Chechnya. Russian air strikes have systematically destroyed Chechen communications and infrastructure while ground troops poured in from the North indicating that Russia was reasserting its military and political authority in the region. With Russian troops within 12 miles of the capital, Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has declared a state of martial law and called on religious leaders to proclaim a holy war. When asked about Russian incursions into Chechnya, Yeltsin's successor, president Vladimir Putin, gave a sinister smile and explained that the term incursion did not apply. "We do not have a border with Chechnya," he said, "Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation." (Quinn-Judge, P., Back Into the Inferno.) In the Chechen capital, guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev displayed his own brand of black humor, calling for a massive hole to be dug in the Russian cemetery on the edge of the shattered city in preparation for a new pile of Russian corpses.
There was something wildly irrational in the Kremlin's thinking, starting with the notion that a second Chechnya war would be more winnable than the first one. Three years ago, a demoralized and disastrously led Russian army was savaged by Chechnya's hastily asserabled guerrillas. Since the bloody debacle of 1994-96, the Russian army's disintegration has continued. Budget cuts and corruption have undermined its strength and reduced training to a bare minimum, while morale has dropped even lower. But by some bizarre process of mental alchemy, the top Russian brass feels it can get it right this time. "One reason for the stubbornness may be that the same military leadership is in charge in Moscow, and they claim to have learned from their previous failures. More important, they claim to have learned from NATO's almost casualty-free successes in Kosovo." (Quinn-Judge, P., Back Into the Inferno.) The only obvious difference between the war of 1994-96 and the conflict that started in 1999 is the fact that there are more Chechen fighters. Nowadays, after many years of complete incapacity to resist they face a choice of surrender or death. Chechens live on small territory, which in various perioRAB of history, has been the target of arabitious interests of various peoples who were powerful at the time. Each contact with the strangers caused a cataclysm (catastrophe) for the Chechens as the powerful people usually had only one instrument to achieve their goals - force. The use of force triggers war and any war causes numerous losses and ruins everything what has been created. Even so, Chechens cannot accept the captivity as everything is to be changed for that - way of living, traditions, mentality, genetic characteristics. In one word, for them it means to lose the God-granted originality - the relic of any nation - and to stop being Chechens.
The most bewildering question remains - why was there a double standard when the World recognized the independence of the merabers of the former Soviet Union? When the Baltic Republics (Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia) asked for their independence in 1991, the whole world, including Europe and USA, supported them unanimously. As a result, Russians could not stop them from gaining their independence. However, Chechens who have been fighting against Russian despotism for over 400 years have been ignored by the global community unanimously. Instead of branding the Chechen fighters as `terrorists,’ the West should be aiding them and demand Russia set free the peoples of the Caucasus.
The current war is not only the result of the Russian-Chechen conflict, but also of the conflict between the Chechens and the whole modern world. And it will continue until the world realizes that it is dealing with a civilization, which has succeeded to carry out a rare experiment of creating a society driven by the mechanism of suppression. Public institutions guided human relations there, while freedom, honor and dignity of the individual dominated. As Apty Bisultanov, Chechen poet and philosopher said in his manifesto "Born To Be Free", "Our [Chechen] life is based on the supreme values and rejects lies, violence and slavery. Only a truly free man is capable of respecting freedom and dying for it. We do not want to defeat anyone or strip someone of the freedom. We want to be granted the freedom by the World!
The diplomatic negotiations between the Chechens and the Russian officials proved to be unsuccessful. It may be useful and appropriate for the world peace organizations or other global diplomatic entities to stop ignoring the problem and get involved. Two possible scenarios emerge, either Chechens give up on their struggle for independence, or Russia recognizes the sovereignty of Chechnya. Based on the evidence, the first scenario is highly unlikely, if not impossible. The second scenario is possible theoretically, however, in reality it will take time and, unfortunately, numerous casualties on both sides.