Chris Doss The Russia Journal ----------------------------
From: "Robert Bruce Ware" <... at brick.net> Subject: Chechen Peace (JRL #6320) Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002
It's a great relief that it took no more than 3,000 American deaths and the deployment of US troops in Central Asia and the Caucasus to nudge Brzezinski, Haig and Kampleman from their slumbers. Their latest contribution to the Washington Post (JRL #6320) is considerably more realistic than their past attempts on the topic of Chechnya. It comes along far enough to rehearse some of the points that have long been recognized as central to the settlement that eventually will be reached. Many writers have usefully compared Chechnya and Tartarstan, though it is never clear why Dagestan is overlooked as a model for Chechen integration in the Russian Federation. In any case, Chechnya eventually will have political autonomy and opportunities for significant self-determination within the Federal framework. Yet the naivetй of these authors remains an unfortunate impediment to their objectives in any context outside of the Washington Post.
For example, the authors believe "There is a reasonable probability that realism would dictate acceptance of (their) approach by the leadership of the Chechen resistance, except for its most fundamentalist Islamic elements." Who do Brzezinski and Haig think is doing the fighting if not the "most fundamentalist Islamic elements." Do the authors think that those elements will leave because they are asked to do so? Asked by whom? Where will they go? What country would take them? In fact, they will not stop fighting, and they will not leave under any peaceful circumstances. One reason that they will not leave is that most of them have families in Chechnya, and that is one of the reasons why no one in Chechnya is asking them to leave, and why no one in Chechnya will ask them to leave. The Islamists are the fathers, brothers, uncles, nephews, cousins and friends of those that would vote in the authors' referendum. But so long as these "Wahhabi" Islamists are in the region in any significant numbers all of the authors' proposals are meaningless.
Brzezinski and Haig put a lot of stock in Aslan Maskhadov, but when has Maskhadov clearly separated himself from those same "fundamentalist Islamic elements"? What has he done to lead the Chechens away from them? Exactly whom does he speak for anymore? Most importantly, who does he control? Certainly, he does not control the Islamists. He does not control them now and he never did. By 1999 he controlled little more than his own clan. Most of the warlords and virtually all of the Islamists were opposed to him. Hence, there is an astonishing naivete in the authors' conviction that "President Maskhadov ... would demand that those Chechen formations that refuse to accept a peaceful settlement leave the country." Who would listen? Who would leave? Why isn't Maskhadov demanding it now? In fact, Maskhadov exercises precisely that sort of "control" that was once famously asserted by Alexander Haig.
Problems in Chechnya will begin to end when the people of Chechnya decide to drag themselves out of the nineteenth century and integrate themselves within the modern world. When they do so the Wahhabis will no longer find them fertile ground, authoritative political structures will emerge, and legitimate economic development will be possible. When that happens it won't matter very much to anyone whether Chechnya is or is not a part of the Russian Federation.
Perhaps Brzezinski and Haig believe that they are making an important concession when they agree that "Russian troops would remain on Chechnya's southern frontier to protect from there the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation." Do the authors think that it is necessary "to protect ... the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation" from any serious threat in Georgia. Right now there are 4,000 Dagestani police on the Chechen frontier. The Dagestani government cannot sustain them, and their deployment along the border prevents them from fighting terrorism and crime within Dagestan. Dagestani officials are demanding that those police be replaced by Russian federal troops. The situation is equally desperate all around Chechnya. Russian troops along Chechnya's border with Georgia would solve absolutely nothing. They would prove just as porus to the transit of fighters, funds, and weapons as do the Russian troops along Dagestan's borders with Georgia and Azerbaijan. Most importantly, troops along Chechnya's southern border would do nothing to protect the people of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and other southern regions. Nor can Chechnya be cordoned off, for any effort to do so would be undermined by the rugged terrain and regional traditions of bribery and corruption.
People, like the authors, who think that this problem can be solved simply by making Chechnya an autonomous part of Russia are people who have never set foot in the region and know nothing about it. The most serious problems that Chechnya presents have to do with terrorism, crime, and destabilization ** within and among ** the neighboring Russian republics.
This is all the more apparent in the authors' admonition that "International support must be committed to a substantial program of economic reconstruction, with a direct international presence on the ground in order to promote the rebuilding and stabilization of Chechen society." The main reason that there cannot be "an international presence on the ground" in Chechnya is that it would be rapidly kidnapped. That's one of the reasons why there was no "rebuilding and stabilization of Chechen society" between 1996 and 1999. Nearly all of those internationals who attempted to help rebuild Chechen society were either kidnapped, killed, or driven away by the Chechen hostage industry. Indeed, during those years, some of those whom Moscow sent to Chechnya in order to achieve the sort of political settlement that Brzezinski and Haig are now demanding were kidnapped and killed. Why don't Brzezinski, Haig Kampelman, and Hiatt go to the Caucasus and roll up their sleeves? How many members of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya have spent time there? These are people who have never troubled themselves with the region so much as to ask what it's like to raise a family near the Chechen border. If they really knew or cared about Caucasians they would do so.
Yet in their post-September rectitude the authors try a bit too hard to hide their Russaphobia. Moscow deserves unflinching criticism for the abuse of human rights in Chechnya, and since September the West has flinched. Abuses breed resentment and militancy, and the fighting in Chechnya will not stop so long as the abuses continue. If the Chechens are Russian citizens, as Moscow contends, then Moscow must guarantee their rights. This must include a crackdown on anti-Caucasian prejudices, and their ensuing violence, throughout Russia.
What has always been needed from the West is a genuine and thorough appreciation for the deep complexities of this problem and balanced criticism of abuses on both sides. Lopsidedly bashing Russia from October 1999 to October 2001 served no purpose except to convince Russian moderates that they no longer had anything to lose in the West and thereby strengthen the hands of Russian hardliners. Russia bashing in the West has always made a political settlement in Chechnya a little less likely. It has served the interests of people like Brzezinski, Haig, but not the interests of people in the Caucasus.
Since September, Russia bashing has somewhat subsided, though its decline has followed a tortured and ignominious trajectory: The cry has gone from something like "Russia is barbaric and evil," to "Bush has been blinded by Putin's beady gaze," to "Putin has diabolically (and in the tradition of the KGB) wrenched a quid pro quo from Bush," but "maybe the Russians can help us with terrorism and oil," to a series of insipid jokes about "Pootie- Put". All of these themes have been endlessly rehearsed by that pack of intrepid scribes who rarely dared to visit the Caucasus before the Russian military returned, and who have never bothered to inquire whether Al Qaeda succeeded in obtaining Soviet nuclear material by way of Chechnya.
And now we find our cold warriors rousting themselves from irrelevance to "acknowledge their respect for the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation."