[lbo-talk] "Moderate Chechen rebels" in Lebanon!

[Chris Doss]

(I gotta say it's kind of funny how the media people
have been trying to wrap their heads around the fact
that Russia won Chechen War 2 by hiring the opposing
force. It totally violates the Chechnya narrative
they've been adhering to since Day 1.)

Chechen Soldiers Relish Tour of Duty in Lebanon
By Pavel Davydov

Special to The St. Petersburg Times

SIDON, Lebanon - Not so long ago, the Russian camp was
a war zone.Today, the biggest bang most of the 250
military engineers here encounter is the 5 a.m.
wake-up call at the sandy settlement of 50 or so tents
nestled against the Mediterranean.

The relative calm is largely due to the end of
hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. But it's
also because two platoons of elite soldiers plucked
from the Army's 42nd Division's East and West
battalions, based in Chechnya, are standing guard.

"Everything is calm here," says Rasud Baimuratov,
commander of one of the platoons. An ethnic Chechen
with a towering figure, Baimuratov and his comrades
have been welcomed by locals who say they trust
Russians more than Western forces. Bilyal Adzhami, a
store owner in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatia,
explained that many locals see the Russian troops as a
counterbalance to the French, Italian and Spanish
forces, among others, helping maintain a UN-imposed
peace.

"People don't trust the NATO countries that sent
peacekeepers here under the UN mission," Adzhami said.
"The local populations think their goal here is to
protect Israel. And Moscow has always stood up for
fair negotiations of the Middle East crisis and for
keeping the peace in Lebanon."

What's more, as Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has
noted, sending soldiers who are mostly Muslim to
patrol a Muslim country has its benefits.

"We get along great with the local population," said
Malgobek Khamurzayev, one of the Russian soldiers
deployed to southern Lebanon.

Russia declined to take part in the United Nations'
peacekeeping operation. But it did send engineers to
rebuild bridges in an area hard hit by 34 days of
aerial bombings and intense ground combat.

The decision to send the Chechen battalions has been
widely viewed as a move by the Kremlin to show the
republic as stable after years of war.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has called the move
"entirely logical," saying military operations in
Chechnya have long since come to an end.

Still, the Chechen battalions, which report to the
Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff,
are composed of an unusual bunch.

The East battalion includes former Chechen separatists
who once battled Russian Army troops but later
switched sides. Human rights groups have accused the
battalion of atrocities against civilians in Chechnya
during regular search-and-destroy missions.

Anatoly Tsyganok, head of the Center for Military
Forecasting, voiced confidence that the Army engineers
would fulfill their mission but had doubts about their
Chechen protectors, who he said were not trained in
peacekeeping.

"Conducting negotiations, coordinating with local
police - these are difficult things," Tsyganok said.

The East and West battalions were formed during the
second Chechen war, which began in late 1999, in an
effort to rely more heavily on local recruits in
operations against Chechen rebels.

The Lebanon mission appears to have proven popular
with the Chechen troops.

Ruslan Musayev, an officer with the Interior
Ministry's Chechnya branch, said soldiers vied for a
handful of sought-after spots in the Lebanon
contingent.

"Word had it that for three months in Lebanon, each
soldier would get $5,000," Musayev said. "For that
kind of money, a lot of people would agree to be sent
to even more distant places."

Yusup Satuyev, a West battalion soldier now in
Chechnya, suggested he and his comrades would like to
take part in future missions abroad.

"We're one of the bravest peoples in the world,"
Satuyev said. "And we have tremendous experience in
military actions, which we should share with others,
but only in the interests of defense."

Timur Aliev contributed to this report from Grozny,
and Carl Schreck contributed from Moscow.



 
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