"THE
MOST SUBSTANTIAL FORUM
OVER
NINE YEARS OF THE RUSSIAN-CHECHEN CONFLICT"
Nadezhda Banchik
13.01.2004
A representative conference "Catastrophe in Chechnya: Escaping the Quagmire" took place in Washington
on December 10, the World Human Rights Day. It was organized by the American
Enterprise Institute, American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, Amnesty International, Freedom House, Jamestown
Foundation and Radio Liberty.
That is what many participants said about it. Including the
Chechen foreign minister Ilyas Akhmadov.
"Although nothing concrete was outlined, for the first time over nine
years our common pain was discussed" - he said.
The conference discussed "facts and myths about Chechen terrorism,"
reasons and factors of such terrible bloodshed which has resulted in a
catastrophic situation of Chechens and Russia's
tragedy. Prospects of peace were also discussed.
However, the conference left a conflicting expression. From the one hand, we
witnessed an exchange of opinions and facts between US political and public
figures, most of whom are called
"right-conservative." They represent the forces which played a
significant role in the political establishment during "the cold
war," formed the strategy of a political-economic defeat of the world
communist system. They know well what are Soviet secret services and other
bodies of "the Evil empire," which, as many
believed, sank into oblivion together with the parental USSR, but
it turns out - that is not the case. From the other hand, these figures are no
longer in the major directions of US politics, their influence is limited, at least on the
Russian vector of the US foreign policy.
The analytical approach of these "experts" destroys raw myths about
"Chechen terrorism as part of international terrorism" and the main
reason for Russia's invasion into Chechnya
- and gives way to inexorable logic of irrefutable facts revealing the true
motive of the endless massacre. So, speaking at the conference, Davit Setter, a
Russian correspondent for The New York Times in 1990-2002, the author of a well
known among political scientists book "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the
Russian Criminal State," carefully analyzed the failed terrorist act in Ryazan in 1999 and other events he had witnessed and came
to the conclusion that the monstrous crimes in the Russian cities in 1999,
which killed more than 300 people, were organized not by "Chechen
terrorists," but certain circles, with the participation of FSB, for
political reasons. Setter suggested establishing an independent international
commission to investigate the terrorist acts as well as the hostage taking
crisis on Dubrovka. "Such investigation would
help the Russian society recover," the speaker said.
Other participants discussed different aspects of the Chechen war and the
humanitarian catastrophe of the Chechen people. "Chechen refugees are
deprived of attention from the side of international humanitarian organizations
given to refugees and civilian population in Afghanistan, Iraq and other crisis regions, although their situation is no
better," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud
Lubbers (the former Dutch premier) said in his introductory speech. The lack of
such attention, from the one hand, leaves refugees without enough help for
survival, and from the other hand, allows Russian and
Ingush officials to force them back to the territory they fled - to die in Chechnya.
This is a direct violation of rights of refugees and displaced persons, Lubbers
underscored.
Most speakers demonstrated the major conclusion: extraordinary violence of
Russian troops against the Chechen population and lack of political will of the
Russian leadership to search for ways to settle the conflict with the minimal
consideration of interests of both warring sides, push Chechens to the abyss of
desperation. Some Chechens, especially young people, find the way out in
adoption of terrorist tactics. But this is not the manifestation of
international terrorism, but extreme desperation.
Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky, who
visited Chechnya past summer, said in this respect that although elements of
radicalism, including under the banner of Islam, are present in the Chechen
Resistance ("especially among young men in the mountains"), they are
not its backbone. "The Resistance is focused on itself, deeply underground, any information about it is banned. Having no
legal outcome, resistance to the cruelest terror of Russian forces can turn
into a mass spontaneous revenge, leading to a real Chechen terror," Babitsky stressed. At the same time, "under condition
of legalization of moderate forces, which constitute the bulk of the
Resistance, all negative processes can easily be reversed."
Babitsky expressed concern about the desperate
situation of Chechen non-combatants. "The number of Chechen refugees in Prague, where I
live, increased this year from 200 to 3,000. The inflow of refugees grew after
the so-called "election." A mass outflow, the journalist emphasized,
- is an absolutely new phenomenon for Chechens, because they usually become
rooted to their native land. "That means the Chechen population has lost
the last hope for an improvement of the situation in the near future," and
now everyone tries to flee. Meanwhile, "the keys to solve the conflict are
in the hands of one person: the Russian president, - but he makes no effort to
really settle the issue, although the whole Russia is
marked with the Chechen tragedy."
Also the phenomenon called by the Russian propaganda as "black
widows" was discussed. Chechen girls and women, having lost close
relatives or family members, often as a result of barbarian abductions during
cleaning up operations and tortures in filtration camps; having been subjected
to tortures or rape (which is considered an utmost disgrace in the Chechen
society) appear before a choice: to die taking revenge or to die slowly in
humiliation. "If they are zombied, then not by
mythical "Islamic hunters for souls," but cruel and desperate reality
of the endless war, which has deprived them of prospects of future life,"
Andrew Mayer said; a journalist who crossed Russia and described the journey in
his book "Black Earth: A Journey Throughout Russia After the Fall."
Of course, Zbigniew Brzezinski's
speech was the highlight of the conference. Described by Soviet propaganda as
"a monster possessed by the idea of destroying Russia," an aide for
national security of US President Jimmy Carter (late 70's), the author of the
doctrine of human rights around the globe as the major objective of the US
foreign policy, at present - the director of the Institute for strategic and
international studies, Dr. Brzezinski made a speech,
each word of which deserved applauds. "I personally take part in the
search for ways to stop the war in Chechnya,
because the lessons of the 20th century - the most lethal century in the
history of mankind, make me assume part of moral responsibility for what is
going on in the world. In the 20th century the Chechens is the third nation, if
we were to rank them, destined to be killed after the Jews and the
Gypsies." A prominent figure in US politics, Brzezinsky
criticized the present US administration. "We invited a series of senior U.S.
officials, whose names I will not list, but who didn't come and most of whom
did not even respond. We are fortunate to have one official with us, but I
cannot say that the U.S. Government is massively represented here today. And I
wonder whether that doesn't tell us something about the moral issue at stake.
If I have to look at American policy towards the issue of Chechnya,
from the onset of the Chechen dilemmas almost a decade ago to today, I would
say that, by and large, we have seen an evolution from initial ignorance to
self-preoccupied indifference. Initial ignorance reflected in the remarkable
statement by the President of the United States that the conflict in Chechnya
is like the American Civil War, which I think most charitably can be described
as a ignorant statement. But now we have
self-preoccupied indifference because we know that the subsequent President
actually knows better. He actually knows better. So we're not dealing with
indifference. We're not dealing with ignorance. We're dealing with a tactical
expediency. After 9/11, it is better to sweep this issue under the rug, even though
we know better... And don't we know from 20th century history that silence is
sometimes de facto complicity? I think that's something that one needs to ask
at a time when we are being challenged internationally, that we need to
respond, but if we are to have credibility and moral authority, we have to
stand for principle." With pain Brzezinski said
that for clear political motives US immigration officials delayed until 2005
the decision on granting political asylum to Ilyas Akhmadov referring to a Russian extradition warrant
received from Interpol - and that is after the world-wide known scandalous
"case of Zakayev!" Brzezinsky
urged to launch a wide public campaign in support of Akhmadov.
"The Chechnya issue has some analogies - I emphasize the word "some"
because analogies don't mean identity. It has some analogies, some similarities
- some - to the Algeria issue that once stood in the way of the modernization,
democratization, and Europeanization of France. And just ask yourselves, Where
would France be today if the Algeria
issue had not been resolved, if it was still being repressed, if the French
were still claiming that Algeria
is France and that ultimately Algerians are Frenchmen? It took a great man to
resolve that issue, to cut the Gordian knot, to break with the past and to draw
the conclusions that permitted France to
be what it is. De Gaulle was a great man, figuratively and literally. Putin is not. He's a small man who's appealing to the worst
instincts.
There is no room in the Western community, in the Atlantic community,
there is no room in the European Union for a country that is pursuing a
colonialist policy in a genocidal fashion, whether intentionally or de facto.
And to keep that issue as part of the international agenda, two things specifically
need to be pursued. The first is to keep emphasizing the international
responsibility for preserving the fabric and the existence of the Chechen
nation, because it is faced with the possibility of genocidal extinction,"
Brzezinski said.
The conference sitting dedicated to discussion of possible ways to achieve
peace turned the weakest. None of concrete plans was discusses, even the speech
of Ilyas Akhmadov boiled
down to criticism of the current situation and flirting of western leaders with
Putin's regime. However, Andrei Piontkovsky,
the director of the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Studies, expressed an
interesting, though questionable opinion. Putin
became the president on the wave of the Chechen war and that's why during the
first term of his presidency he has been unable to find compromises with the
Chechen resistance. Today the war resource seems almost exhausted and this
spring Putin is going to campaign, most probably,
under different slogans (to all appearance, the struggle against
"oligarchs who robbed the country") - and therefore he will be more
free in finding common grounds with Chechens. "The Russian society is
tired of this war, its consequences are becoming more
dangerous for Russia. If Putin decides to make certain steps
to find a compromise in the Chechen question, the people will support
him."
In my opinion, A. Piontkovsky's approach might have
been more successful if we had a pure ethnic-political conflict. In such case Russia
could have avoided bloodshed by means of direct talks between Yeltsin and Dudayev back in 1993. Alas! Aside from the political
conflict, here we face what Anna Politkovskaya calls
"a dirty war." The status of "de-facto independent Chechen
Republic of Ichekria" led it beyond the sphere
of law, both Russia and international, which allowed different mafia structures
to turn the territory of the republic into a "black zone" - to
illegally and with total impunity commit any economic, war crimes and even
criminal offences blaming them on "Chechen terrorists" invented for
that purpose. Traces of colossal crimes as well as economic benefits of
"black market" keep initiators of the war from its completion. The
war has turned into a self-reproducing closed system, and the world community
can do nothing about it. And may be it does not want to.
That's why other participants of the discussion only confirmed their previous
positions. Lord Judd urged "to seriously talk to Putin
reminding him of the fact that if Russia is
an ally in the struggle against international terrorism, then it must abandon
the policy of reproducing terror." Leon Aron, a
researcher for the American Enterprise Institute, underscored that no peace in Chechnya
could be achieved until "all injustices regarding the Chechen people of
the past and the present were recognized. Greater international mediation is
necessary. Putin is on the wave of popularity, and if
he decides to move towards people, the people will follow him." However,
in my opinion Aron does not have enough understanding
of origins and factors of the war. "After 1997 there were no Russian
troops in Chechnya. And the republic turned into a hotbed of anarchy and crime, slave
trade and terrorism." He did not analyze why and who was to blame - that
means the war unleashed in 1999 was necessary?! Aron
also referred to statistical data: "at the recent referendum 78% of
Chechens spoke out for Chechnya within the Russian
Federation, and 60%
for a wider autonomy;" but the researcher did not explain in what
conditions "the referendum" had been conducted. But in general - his
idea of rendering more international support to moderate Chechen forces from
and the necessity of real moral and material compensations to the Chechen
people for the terrible persecution - seems praiseworthy.
Next to such prominent scientists and politicians A. Lukashevich,
a political advisor for the Russian Embassy, looked pale and unconvincing. He
could produce nothing except dry and repugnant stereotypes about "Chechnya
as the center of crime and terrorism" and the current gradual
"normalization" of the situation. "We invited international
organizations, including from the USA, to
monitor the presidential election in Chechnya.
No one except two Arab organizations arrived," Lukashevich
said "forgetting" about the background of the election, and no
respected international organization took it seriously.
That statement by the Russian official was followed by a rhetoric question from
Chechen politician Kaimov: "Were international
organizations invited when carpet bombardments turned Grozny and other Chechen settlements into ruins?" The reply was
surprisingly stubborn: yes, they were invited! And such organizations stayed in
Chechnya during that period! (Well, Gogol's Repetilov and Griboyedov;s Skalozub are immortal!).
So, "the most substantial forum" ended. What's next? There is almost
no hope for a positive shift in the attitude of "the world strong" to
bleeding Chechnya. It seems we shall abandon all hopes that they, the strong, will
understand an acute necessity to help the remnants of democratic forces in Russia.
Advantages of the cooperation with Putin's Russia,
fear of the reviving empire within it, probably, unwillingness to assume moral
responsibility for the fate of the small people and the vast country
determining fates of the world in many respects - all that appears to be
stronger than universal human rights, which until recently has been considered
an unshakable foundation for policy of Western Europe and the USA. But I think
we "talked about our common pain" not in vain. I believe that now the
Chechen tragedy will find more space in mass media, and therefore in American
public opinion. And this is a factor which affects politics and even beyond. At
least, in the countries which still respect democratic principles within themselves.