Robert Bruce War's reporting on Chechnya was cited Thursday on this list and previously as an example of knowledgeable reporting about Chechnya. In particular the article "Helpiong the North Caucasus" It was described Thursday as "an excellent piece of journalism". It begins as follows:
--------------------------------------------------------- The San Francisco Chronicle
Helping the North Caucasus Robert Bruce Ware
Thursday, September 9, 2004
The United States can help alleviate the horrors in the North Caucasus, and it is crucial that we do so because we have important interests in the region. We can begin by debunking the misconceptions that prevent Americans from offering genuine assistance. For example:
"The wars in Chechnya have been separatist conflicts." Russia withdrew and granted Chechnya de facto independence in 1992 and again in 1997. Each time Chechnya sank into chaos, human-rights abuses and unspeakable horrors. Thousands of Russian citizens were kidnapped, tortured and enslaved. Thousands of Chechens suffered similar fates at the hands of their compatriots. In 1999, terrorists from Chechnya invaded the Russian Republic of Dagestan, murdering dozens and displacing 32,000 people. No power can tolerate a twice-failed state such as Chechnya on its border. Hence, Russia intervened, much as America did in Mexico in 1916. (and so on) --------------------------------------------------
Naturally, it is only big powers trampling small powers that have the right to talk in language such as their inability to tolerate this or that state on their border. An appeal on this ground means, essentially, arguing that Russia should have the same right as the US or other big powers to suppress less-powerful countries. This is fairness -- imperialist-style. The US imperialists got to invade Mexico, and Russian impeiralists should be allowed to invade Chechnya.
But this argument also rests on the assertion that Chechnya was a de facto independent country for a number of years in the 1990s, and look what a mess it made of things. If Robert Bruce Ware is wrong about this de facto independence, then everything that follows is also wrong. It would turn out that not the Chechens, but the Russian chauvinist bourgeoisie, bore the brunt of the blame for the present situation. So let's see.
He argues that Russia granted Chechna de facto independence in 1992. It wouldn't have lasted long, since Russia invaded Chechnya in force in December 1994. But did the Russian bourgeoisie really tolerate Chechen independence even for a couple of years?
Here's a few things Ware neglects:
November 2, 1991:
A resolution is introduced into the Russian Duma denouncing the Chechen elections. This is the formal resolution accompanying the beginning of protracted Russian efforts to forcibly resubjugate Chechnya. Where's the de facto toleration here?
November 7, 1991:
Yeltsin declares a state of emergency in Chechnya, orders Dudayev's arrest, and prepares to subdue Chechnya by force. Where's the de facto toleration here?
November 9, 1991:
Russian troops from the Interior Ministry fly into Khankala Airport outside Grozny. They are immediately blockaded by a new Chechen national guard, while a huge mass meeting in Freedom Square in Grozny rallies around the Dudayev government. Meanwhile, with the rivalry between Yeltsin and Gorbachev still proceeding, Gorbachev issues orders that Russian and Soviet troops should stay neutral. By evening, the Russian troops surrender their weapons to the Chechens and are bused out of the airport and back to Russian positions. Thus ends the first Russian attempt to retake Grozny.
Russian military base are, however, still all over Chechnya. Over the coming months, Chechens surround them, seeking to force the troops out but have them leave their weapons behind. Russia in fact loses most of these weapons, and all Russian troops are forced out by Chechnya by June 8, 1992.
December 1991:
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) dissolves. Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus join together in a loose Commonwealth of Independent States, which quickly grows to include a number of other republics of the former USSR.
January 1992:
The bourgeois nationalist Zviad Gamsakhurdia becomes president of Georgia in May 1991. Russia provides strong backing for a coup, which finally overthrows him seven months later, at the beginning of 1992. The result is several years of warfare. The overthrow of Gamsakhurdia helps Russia isolate Chechnya, while Gamsakhurdia is given refuge in 1992-3 by Chechen President Dudayev. The point here is not that Gamsakhurdia was a great guy; he wasn't. The point is that this was the start of a decade of Russian interference in Georgia. It's great power logic to jump up and down about the Chechens destabilizing the region, while being silent about the far more extensive Russian efforts to that end in one area after another of this region.
March 31, 1992:
Chechen opposition forces, backed and armed by Russia, attempt an armed coup in Grozny, but are driven out by the evening.
1992:
This year marked the beginning of the secessionist revolt of Abkhazia against Georgia. Many fighters come from other Islamic mountaineer peoples of the Caucasus to join the fight against mainly Christian Georgia. The Abkhaz nationality suffered greatly from Georgian chauvinism, and perhaps so did some of the non-Abkhaz nationalities in the area. At the same time, large numbers of ethnic non-Abkhaz people, who are a substantial majority in the area, eventually flee Abkhazia. And, what do you know, Russia provides strong military backing for the revolt. It wanted to destabilize Georgia, and it profited from this turn in the Abhaz situation. This did, however, have an unintended result, in that Russia helps supply the war in which many Chechen militants, such as Shamil Basayev, get their military training. Russia's interest is in destabilizing Georgia enough that it will turn to Russia for troops and support, as Georgian then-President Shevardnadze in fact did.
September 6-7, 1992:
Russian special forces and other armed units enter a Dagestan village bordering Chechnya, preparing to enter Chechnya. They are blocked by the local population, and are forced to retreat.
November 1992:
There is a bloody clash between the Ingush Republic and Ossetia over the Prigorodny district, which had originally belonged to the Chechen-Ingush autonomous republic but had been handed over by the Stalin government of the Soviet Union to North Ossetia after the mass deportations of 1944. Russia basically sides with Ossetia, but the Ingush Republic continues to cherish hopes that Yeltsin may make good on his promises and that Russia may aid it in getting the region back. This is one of the reasons that Ingushetia did not join Chechnya in demanding full independence from Russia.
In connection with these events, Russian troops in Ingushetia move toward a still unsettled border with Chechnya, and Russian and Chechen armored forces confront each other. But an agreement is reached between Russia and Chechnya to end this particular crisis.
December 1992:
The Yeltsin administration decides to step up its support of forces in Chechnya opposed to the Dudayev government.
May 27, 1994:
There is an attempt to assassinate Dudayev with a remote-controlled car bomb. The second car in a procession of official cars--the spot usually used by Dudayev--is blown up, murdering two high Chechen officials, but this time Dudayev was in the third car. The high-tech nature of the attack leads to the belief that it was organized by the Russian secret services. And of course, om April 1996 during the first Russo-Chechen war, Dudayev would be assassinated by a Russian missile.
Summer 1994:
Russia puts more emphasis on the "half-force" option (something like American "low-intensity conflict", which gained notoriety in Central America) to overthrow the Chechen government. This means overthrowing Dudayev through a covert operation with Chechen front-men and Russian personnel disguised as Chechens. The Yeltsin government steps up the military and financial support to the Russian-backed "Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic" which had been founded in December 1993.
August 1, 1994:
The Russian-backed "Provisional Council" declares that it has taken power in Chechnya. This indicates its intention, not the reality, and serves as a request for more Russian aid. On August 25, a secret resolution of the Yeltsin government recognizes the "Provisional Council". On August 30, fighting intensifies between the Russian-backed forced "Provisional Council" and the Dudayev-government of Chechnya.
October 15, 1994:
Armed forces under the command of some elements of the Russian-backed opposition stage a surprise attack on Grozny and, without much fighting, occupy some administrative buildings.They leave Grozny on the same day, apparently due in large part to contradictions among the different factions of the opposition and between the Yeltsin government and Khasbulatov. Khasbulatov, the former leader of the Russian parliament who was a Chechen, had been jailed after Yeltsin's suppression of the parliamentary revolt in 1993. He is released from jail in 1994 and goes to Chechnya, where he has some popularity (no doubt enhanced by his imprisonment by Yeltsin), and intrigues to replace the Dudayev government with his own rule of a Chechnya restored to Russia. The Yeltsin government may well have feared that any success on October 15 would rebound of the advantage of its current bitter rival, Khasbulatov, and prefered to overthrow Dudayev on its own. In any case, the fiasco on October 15 shows that the "half-force" option isn't working.
November 24, 1994:
The Russian-backed "Provisional Council" of Chechnya creates a Government of National Rebirth.
November 26, 1994:
A substantial Russian armored force, in the guise of Chechen oppositionists, attempts to install a "Government of National Rebirth" in Grozny. Russian television announces that the Dudayev government has fled the Presidential Palace, but the attack is, in fact, another fiasco. It is not only beaten back, but 21 Russian soldiers are taken prisoner, exposing the real force behind the attack.So much for the "half-force" option.
All this happened prior to the outbreak of the first Russo-Chechn war in December 1994. This was not a period of de facto recognition, but of continual Russian subversion of Chechnya, such as with the "half-force" option.
Then with the war of 1994-6, Chechnya is completely devastated. Among other things, the economy, already reeling from the result of Russian hostility, is utterly destroyed.
Ware tells us that Russia gave de facto recognition to Chechen independence in 1997. But the Khasavyurt accords that end the war leave the issue of sovereignty for later settlement. A joint Russian-Chechen commission is supposed to run the economy of Chechnya under these accords, but it dies quickly. Instead Chechnya is strangled economically. To present this as de facto independence would be the same as presenting Israel as recognizing the de facto independence of the Palestinian Authority.
The wrecked and devastated nature of the Chechen economy, as well as other results of the years of hostility and convert destabilization and then war against Chechnya, have profound results. The tragic political situation in Chechnya in the years leading up to Putin's renewed invasion of Chechnya, and the years since then, could hardly have been avoided, given this economic situation. This situation deproletarianizes and declasses Chechnya.
So Robert Bruce Ware doesn't just have an imperialist standpoint towards subordinate peoples. He also hides the reality of what has been going on in the Caucasus.
-- Joseph Green