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English Language Page Alexander Cherkasov, “Memorial” Human Rights Center Recently, the Chechen problem which was in the focus of the mass media during a decade, has been sort of removed from the agenda. Brief reports maintain that the war in the Caucasus is practically over and legitimate power has been established in Chechnya. The essence of what’s happening and the reasons behind it are actually not discussed in the mass media: as a rule, the authors maintain that everything is clear. The same is true for the public at large: some “versions” and myths dominate and eventually become perpetuated in people’s minds. Òo put it simply, we may say that the Chechen society is fixated on the idea that the events of the recent years are the continuation of the anti-Chechen policies of Russia that for the past several centuries has been waging war against Chechnya, trying to uproot the Chechen people every fifty years or so. The fact that kidnappings or invasion into Dagestan that triggered the war of 1999 do not fit in this scenario is waved away by references to a provocation of the Russian special services (or even of the “world Zionism”). Similar myths exist in the Russian society and mass media. First, a demonic image of Chechens is upheld — a historic substantiation here is equally profound, starting with General Yermolov (though official point of view is that “bandits have no nationality”). Second, an international conspiracy, Islamic extremism, international terror, etc., are presented as the cause for the troubles of the recent years. Indeed, Russian-Chechen confrontation has deep roots — but the relationship of the two peoples should not boil down only to this. Similarly, it is hard to deny an active role of various special services (from British and Osman to the contemporary FSB), extremist and terrorist organizations. But this can hardly explain, let alone predetermine, the events of the past years. Apparently there were objective reasons and prerequisites. Experts acknowledge this point. For instance, the FSB General Mikhailov offers the following logical sequence. Chechens who returned in 1957 from the Central Asia [1] could not find employment. There were no vacancies in industry. Mountain villages, unpopulated for thirteen years, became desolate. To provide accommodations to those who returned, two districts to the North of the Terek river were added to the Chechen-Ingush Republic. But when industrial construction started in Chechnya in the 80-ies, the response was in the form of an ecological movement which soon became a national scale one. From here, through numerous intermediate points, General Mikhailov draws a direct line to the “second Chechen war.” According to the General, there were no other options — in fact everything was predetermined. That is indeed an example of a correct assumption being developed into an absurd theory. Another example of this kind is “the pipe theory” which explains the conflict in Chechnya (and in the Caucasus, in Asia and throughout the world) by the struggle for oil deposits and oil transportation lines Apart from objective prerequisites, shadow activity of special services and “historical roots,” there has been something else to the recent developments in Chechnya. Namely — activity of popular masses and decisions by politicians. That is the margins for making a choice, and thus for taking responsibility. History can’t be altered. But we may attempt to understand it and learn from it. The history of the Chechen wars at the edge of the XX and XXI centuries cannot be retold on a few pages. Although below you will find some brief notes, which might be disputable but, in our opinion, happen to be important to comprehend the processes happening in Chechnya today. If we are to analyze the relevant federal politics since 1990, it becomes evident that there is absolute continuity in the recent evens. These politics have one thing in common — they result from political interests of the moment, rather than from the strive to resolve a most complicated socio-economic problem. * * * In the 80-ies, the political crisis in the USSR was brought about to a greater extent by the economic crisis. It manifested itself in major and minor developments. For instance, reduced investment in the agricultural and industrial sectors and shrunk construction in rural areas deprived Chechens of the opportunity to get hired as construction workers (earlier, this occupation had helped reduce the problem of unemployment). Tens of thousands of young men who would have left the region to work elsewhere started to compete for jobs in Chechnya itself and becoming a “stock” for public movements. As was mentioned above, the attempt to resolve socio-economic problems resulted in the advent of an ecological movement which promptly turned into a political and clearly separatist one. This was promoted by the national specifics of the Chechen people, which had been stressed by Solgenitsyn, and by enhanced “political education” of the population. Many Chechens made it a point to read underground publications by their famous country fellow Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov The Chechen national movement in 1990–1991 was fuelled by the confrontation between Gorbachev and Eltsyn. The Union center in its confrontation with the leadership of Russia was trying to find support in the autonomous republics of the USSR. In response to this, Eltsyn offered the regions as much sovereignty “as they can take.” In November 1990, the first Chechen National Congress was convened. It was an opposition movement headed by Major-General Dudaev. Immediately after that, the legislative body of power — the Republican Supreme Soviet headed by Zavgaev adopted a declaration of the republic’s sovereignty. And in March of 1991, the Supreme Soviet refused to take part in the All-Russian Referendum on the introduction of the position of the President of the Russian Federation. That was the beginning of Chechnya’s refusal to be involved with any All-Russia voting, which lasted for many years. The official power, already doomed, was trying but in vain to intercept the opposition slogans. It should be noted that it was only in Chechnya of all Caucasus republics that national movement declared the course to secession from Russia. In other republics it was merely a confrontation of local elites which were appealing to Moscow as to a referee At the same time, that is in the late 80-ies, during Zavgaev’ rule, there started an exodus of the Russian-speaking population from Chechnya. Like in other republics of the Caucasus, the “enhanced status” of the “core nationality” was accompanied with “national cadres” occupying high positions. Unemployment was also driving Russians out of Chechnya. Besides that, criminal pressure was directed against those who were not protected by tribal and family ties, i.e. against non-Chechen population. * * * Those gradual processes were replaced with spasmodic ones after August 19, 1991. Zavgaev who had supported the 1991 Coup (GKChP) was overthrown on September 6 by the Dudaev National Congress, and on October 27 presidential and parliamentary elections were held in Chechnya, and Dudaev became President. In Moscow, the struggle for power started with the federal center responding to the Chechen developments in a controversial way: the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) did not approve of Eltsyn’s edict on imposing a state of emergency in Chechnya. Even the attempted interference in October of 1991 displayed lack of coordination among various law-enforcement agencies and armed forces. Another attempt to send troops to Chechnya was made in November of 1992, under the pretext of the Osetia-Ingushetia conflict settlement. Russian Vice-Premier, Egor Gaidar, managed to prevent the war at that time. But in the fall of 1993 Moscow was preoccupied with other things and Chechnya was not on the list of priorities. They were again dividing power in Moscow. The relationships between Moscow and Grozny stalemated. A solution could be found only at the negotiation table since legislative contradictions would not allow resolving the issue for certain only in favor of the federal center or in favor of the separatists. Economically, the Dudaev regime did not differ much from other regions of Russia — there was no privatization, for instance. Dudaev’s whole budget was used up by minting Chechnya’s own currency in 1994. (Nothing eccentric about it: apparently, many “red belt” governors in Russia were dreaming of having their own currency.) In October of 1993 Dudaev congratulated Eltsyn on his victory over the Supreme Soviet. The matter was that he had done away with his own parliament several months before that time. Slack negotiations were underway between Russia and Chechnya, which could sometime later result in a settlement (such was the case with the Republic of Tatarstan). Meanwhile, power structures were deteriorating, various armed formations acquired legal status, crime was on the rise. This trend should have been countered, but federal enforcement structures, on the contrary, were actively making use of the separatist enclave in their own interests, as a kind of an “off-shore zone” for special operations. For instance, during the war in Abkhasia Russian airborne troops and special task units ( spetsnaz) trained Shamil Basaev’s battalion. * * * But the victory of the Communists and Zhirinovsky at the Russian parliamentary elections in December of 1993 made the Chechen problem a priority. Having suffered a defeat in their ideological confrontation with “National-Patriots,” the federal power decided to follow suite and become “Stately,” to restore control over the mutiny province… and by doing so improve its deteriorated rating. “Negotiations in the context of forceful pressure” and anti-Dudaev opposition support were part of the federal plan. But six months later special services gained the control over the operation and the very concept of negotiations was forgotten. Now it was the territory of Russia that saw the formation of illegal armed detachments, the spiral of the civil war was spinning faster and faster. After an abortive assault on Grozny in November 1994, a full scale war broke out. On December 11, federal troops entered Chechnya. The rest is relatively well-known. The death toll of the “first” and “second” Chechen wars amounted to approximately 70,000 civilians and nearly 12,000 servicemen and staffers of federal enforcement structures. Exact figures are not known — only human right activists counted civilian casualties, and military losses are classified. The enforcement structures and the military maintain sometimes that the victory had been taken away from them, that Russian politicians had been bribed and they had hampered the advance of the troops. In fact, the three truces (in February and March of 1995 and in June of 1996) can be explained, as the whole war, by internal political reasons (President Eltsyn had to make an address to the State Duma, host foreign guests coming to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Victory in the Second World War, and finally win the presidential elections). Two more “stolen victories” (in Budennovsk in June of 1995 and in Grozny in May of 1996 — then some kind of peace was established for six months and three years respectively) happened to be failures where politicians only stated the results. During the second war, nobody was hampering the generals but the schedule of the advance into the territory of the republic was nearly the same in both wars, and no victory has been won so far. * * * The official point of view is that on October 5, 2003, Akhmat Kadyrov was voted President as a result of the elections in Chechnya. And this must be the end of the Chechen conflict — all the rest is irrelevant. Full stop. It is hard to agree with that argument. Free and fair elections were impossible by definition during the conflict, which is still underway, in the environment of the de facto existing state of emergency and the terror on the part of the “death squadrons.” The election campaign itself was tuned to uphold the favorite: first, Kadyrov’s actual opponents — the separatists — had been withdrawn from the race, then his real competitors — Malik Saidullaev and Khussein Dzhabrailov were also eliminated. All the “administrative resource” was used to support the Acting President. Journalists and human rights monitors who were in Chechnya on October 5 all noted a low turnout of voters. But according to the official protocols, nearly all the voters participated in the elections, and most of them cast their ballots for Kadyrov. The number of voters was determined on the basis of the 2002 Census, the results of which had been overstated. PACE and OSCE chose not to observe the elections, and the UN Human Rights Committee noted that the elections did not meet relevant international standards. However, the federal authorities assert that after October 5 Kadyrov acquired legitimate status of the President of Chechnya, with the republic being one of the subjects of the Russian Federation. The future will show if the issue of Chechen separatism has been resolved in this new reality. But in the very least, the armed conflict in Chechnya is not over. In Chechnya itself a roadside war goes on, clashes continue, people get killed and “disappear.” The war is not confined to the limits of the republic — the December 2003 events in Dagestan testify to that. And explosions in a commuter train in Yessentuki on December 5 and at the Manezh Square of Moscow prove that the terrorism issue is far from being resolved. * * * A few months prior to the All-Russian Parliamentary Elections (December 2003), the Chechen problem became practically void from the front pages of periodicals. Indeed, it is impossible to win two elections gapped by four years under the same slogan of a “small-scale victorious war.” By now, the term “small-scale” simply would not apply and “victorious” does not fit either. All that taken into account, there is a pressing need to analyze the situation in and around Chechnya, to look for a solution, to have a public debate. If we continue to hold on to a tangle of myths, rather than to Ariadne’s clew, we will not be able to find a way out of the maze. 1 After their deportation in 1944. Íàçàä |
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