Age-old conflict with Chechnya sews fatal seeds
FRED WEIR, CP
2004-09-05 04:39:11

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/09/05/616588.html


MOSCOW -- As Russia's summer of terror reached a
bloody climax Friday, it might be easy to forget that
a long and agonizing conflict is behind the
headline-grabbing horrors that have included exploding
airliners, suicide bombs in crowded subway stations
and hundreds of schoolchildren taken hostage.
Independence-seeking Chechen fighters like those
believed involved in the current wave of attacks have
been a bone in the Kremlin's throat for almost 300
years.

President Vladimir Putin faces the same dilemma that
earlier led czars and Communist commissars to seek
"solutions" to the Chechen problem that were as brutal
as any in the annals of warfare.

"We have had war with Chechnya for two centuries and
not much has changed," says Konstantin Simonov, an
expert with the Centre for Current Politics in Moscow.


But the conflict has recently mutated into a savage
war of terrorist violence against helpless civilians,
one for which Russian security forces appear woefully
unprepared.

Terrorist attacks have killed more than 700 Russians
in the past five years. The attackers have grown
bolder, downing two airliners, bombing a Moscow subway
and seizing a school in broad daylight in the past 10
days.

"Our law enforcement bodies are in decay," says Pavel
Felgenhauer, an independent security expert. "So far
we've been lucky that the terrorists have launched
only random attacks and not a full-scale campaign of
terror against us."

Until this week, the worst incident was the seizure of
800 hostages in a Moscow theatre by a Chechen "suicide
squad" in October 2002. That siege ended when security
troops pumped a still-secret "sleeping gas" into the
theatre, then charged in and killed all the Chechen
fighters.

The operation was a tactical success but a political
disaster. Nearly 130 people died from the effects of
the gas, prompting a wave of public outrage at the
authorities' inability to protect the hostages.

Russians may decide that security forces similarly
botched Friday's storming of the Beslan school, which
lasted for hours, left the building in ruins and
killed hundreds, many of them children.

Gen. Mikhail Yermolov, who led Russian forces in a
ruthless 30-year campaign to conquer the Caucasus
region in the 19th century, called the Chechens
"congenital rebels."

But novelist Mikhail Lermontov, who fought in that war
as a Russian officer, thought better of them. "The
Chechens' god is freedom; their law is war," he wrote
in 1832.

Yermolov eventually subdued Chechnya by incinerating
its forests to deny cover to the guerrillas, and by
executing dozens of Chechen hostages for every Russian
soldier he lost.

In 1944 Soviet leader Joseph Stalin accused the
Chechens of collaborating with the Nazis and had the
entire nation -- half a million people -- deported to
Central Asia. An estimated 150,000 Chechens died
during the forced winter march.

"Deportation and the exile that followed united the
Chechens, in bitterness, sorrow and rage," says
Vladimir Dimitryev, an expert with the Russian
Institute of Ethnology. "We are reaping the harvest
today."

Copyright © The London Free Press 2001,2002,2003
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

300 years of tension
September 5, 2004 - 12:44PM

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/05/1094322627265.html?oneclick=true


Conflict between Russia and the tiny Caucasian
republic of Chechnya goes back three centuries to the
early 1700s, when Tsar Peter the Great used the
mountainous region separating Europe and Asia as a
staging post for his expedition against Persia.

Russian expansionism and the arrival of Cossack
settlers provoked the Chechens, one of several Muslim
peoples in the Caucasus, to rise up in rebellion,
notably under the leadership of Mansur Ushurma from
1785 to 1791.

During the first half of the 19th century Chechnya was
one of the bastions of Islamic rebels fighting for
independence in the Caucasus, with imam Shamyl leading
a "holy war" from 1834 to 1859. A further insurrection
followed from 1877 to 1878.

Between 1917 and 1924, prior to the formation of the
Soviet Union, the Chechens joined with other peoples
in the region in fighting the Russian presence - not
just that of the Bolsheviks but also the White
Russians opposing them.

Under Soviet rule the Chechens and the Ingushetians
were formed into autonomous regions, then united into
a single region in 1934, which became a republic in
1936.

Stalin dissolved the republic in 1944, deporting large
numbers of Chechens and Ingushetians for alleged
collaboration during World War II with Nazi Germany,
which was interested in the oilfields on the Caspian
Sea. They were "pardoned" in 1957 and the
Checheno-Ingush republic restored.

Soviet army General Djokhar Dudayev was elected
president in 1991 and in November of that year
declared unilateral independence.

The Ingushetians withdrew from the republic in
December 1992 following fighting along the
Chechen-Ingush border.

In December 1994 Moscow sent in 40,000 troops to
attempt to crush the independence movement. The
fighting was ended in August 1996 after more than
50,000 people, most of them civilians, had died, and
Russian withdrawal was completed in January 1997.

Russia launched a second offensive to wipe out
separatism on October 1, 1999 under then president
Boris Yeltsin and his prime minister Vladimir Putin,
Yeltsin's successor since the start of 2000.

AFP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whys, whos of attacks in Chechnya
Associated Press
Sept. 5, 2004 12:00 AM

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0905russia-sidebar05.html#

MOSCOW - Rebels linked to the school hostage-taking
seek independence from Russia and to make Chechnya a
Muslim nation.

The first war between Chechen rebels and Russian
forces in the past decade had less of a religious
element than the current conflict, which began in
1999.

In the 1994-96 war, separatists led by Chechen
President Dzhokhar Dudayev appeared to be driven
primarily by centuries of resentment of Russia, which
subjugated the region, and its Soviet successors, who
ordered the wholesale deportation of Chechens to
Central Asia in 1944.

After Russian forces withdrew in 1996, warlord Shamil
Basayev forced Aslan Maskhadov, who had become
president, to declare Sharia law, or Islamic law, an
idea that has less support among the public than it
does among the rebels.

Basayev led a Chechen insurgent raid into neighboring
Dagestan in 1999 with the aim of establishing an
Islamic enclave. That raid was one of the Kremlin's
justifications for trying to forcefully regain control
of Chechnya and touched off the current conflict.

Maskhadov still holds some fighters' loyalty, but
those who answer to Basayev are believed to be a far
larger, more violent group.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More on Chechnya at:
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/6443/Chechnya/






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