--- John Bizwas <bizwas at lycos.com> wrote:
>
> Even with this and the comments below, I'm not sure
> why this is a credible figure. Relative to so many
> other sources, it seems a bit low.
> In any case, we are still talking about a lot of
> people dead, two military campaigns against Chechens
> alone amidst all the other turmoil in the region,
> and quite lengthy occupations/deployments.
The reason I am skeptical about 100,000 is this: according to the 1989 Soviet census, the Chechen-Ingush Republic had a population of about 1,250,000, of which about 730,000 was Chechen (http://www.nupi.no/cgi-win/Russland/etnisk.exe?Chechnya-Ichkeria). When Chechnya and Ingushetia were separated, that lopped off about 250,000 people (if memory serves). This leaves a population of 1 million, including both Chechens and non-Chechens. Non-Chechens (and Chechens, but mainly the former) began to leave immediately in 1992. Let's say that 50,000 people left from 1992-1994. I'd say this is a conservative figure. About 300,000 people were refugees in Dagestan in the first war, and perhaps 100,000 others fled to elsewhere in Russia, including almost the non-Chechen population. That means that Chechnya had a real population in 1994-1996 of 550,000. The 100,000 dead figure is usually cited for the First Chechen War -- I'm not going to project the figures because that would get really complicated. That would mean that almost 1 out of 5 people, men and women, young and old, in Chechnya were killed in a war that lasted 18 months. I think that is implausible.
>
> You make it sound like something a few dozen people
> could sort out at the court house. We are talking
> about a Russian military deployment in N. Ossetia
> that displaced tens of thousands of Ingush, who are
> an ethnic identity very close to the Chechens--a
> grouping the Russians themselves make from the
> Russian center.
Are you saying that Moscow defined the Chechens and Ingush as a people? Chechen-Ingush refer to themselves collectively as Vainnak. Dudayev denounced the Ingush as race traitors for refusing to rebels against Russia.
I believe that your version of events is incorrect, but prove me wrong if you know otherwise. I was under thr impression that the Ingush wanted territory and property that was taken from them and given to the Ossetians when they were deported by Stalin:
During the summer and early fall of 1992, there was a steady increase in the militancy of Ingushetian nationalists, culminating in an October 1992 decision by an ad hoc meeting of "representative governing authorities of Ingushetia" (including Ingushetian communities in North Ossetia) to implement the statute on "Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples" by force. More precisely, it was decided "to form armed detachments in all Ingushetian communities in North Ossetia . . . [in order to ensure] that all the Ingushetian territories seized by Stalin are returned to the Ingush Republic." At the same time, there was a steady increase in incidents of organized harassment against Ingushetian inhabitants of North Ossetia by their North Ossetian neighbors and North Ossetian police. Instead of reacting promptly to prevent a full-scale explosion, however, Moscow temporized, relying on the attempts of local authorities to stabilize the situation through half-hearted negotiations. As a result, the conflict continued to escalate, until, by the end of October, Ingushetian separatists were in control of a sizable part of the Prigorodny region, large numbers of Ingushetians from elsewhere in North Ossetia had been forcibly evicted from their homes, pitched battles between Ossetian and Ingushetian military formations were raging on the outskirts of the North Ossetian capital (Vladikavkaz), and Ingushetian volunteers were pouring across the Ingushetian-North Ossetian border. It was only at this point that Moscow finally decided to take action.
http://www.rand.org/publications/CF/CF129/CF-129.chapter1.html
>
They also look to be, in part, the
> sort of people the Russians hire to stand on people
> elsewhere in the region.
>
Are you suggesting that Russia instigated this itself?!?!?
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