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November 8, 2002
Chechnya and Moscow’s Hostage Crisis
The Moscow Theater tragedy of October 26, in which 120 of some 800 patrons and all 53 Chechen guerillas lost their lives, is likely to make murkier the environ of death and destruction already engulfing the tiny republic of Chechnya on the southern periphery of Russia. Not only that, its fallout is likely to affect adversely several Muslim countries of the world. It has already drawn closer the anti-terrorism stances of both the US and Russia.
Using rhetoric strikingly similar to that of the US President George Bush after 9/11, President Putin said: “Russia will respond with measures appropriate to the threats wherever there are terrorists, organizations of these criminals, or their ideological or financial sponsors.” He referred to the Chechen guerillas as “international terrorists”!
The Kremlin has thus launched a US-style war on terrorism. Among those already arrested are members of security agencies suspected of feeding information to the hostage-takers before and during the crisis.
Under pressure from Moscow, Danish authorities arrested on October 30 Ahmed Zakayeve, a prominent figure of Chechnya who had participated in the talks in 1996 that ended the war with Russia. He was in Copenhagen to attend a World Chechen Congress and had vehemently condemned the theater seizure by Chechen rebels. Kremlin had him arrested perhaps to stifle his moderate and convincing voice. He was, however, accused of being associated with the plot to capture the Moscow theater by Chechen rebels.
Zakayeve has repeatedly argued that a solution to the Chechen crisis lies in peaceful negotiations. President Aslan Maskhadov of Chechnya too has condemned the terrorist takeover of the Moscow theatre and offered to enter into unconditional negotiations. President Putin’s response: “Russia will never deal with terrorists and will not submit to blackmail”.
The Russian media while denigrating the Chechen rebels has, in some cases at least, indulged in anti-Islamic vituperations.
The root cause of the Chechnyan problem is lost sight of in the din and diversions created by the media. A heavyweight Russian paper, Nezavisionya Gazata, has commented: “The cruelty of this act of terrorism and the tragedy of all that has happened has temporarily obscured the main problem which lies behind these events - the problem of Chechnya…. Of course there are fanatics among the terrorists, but the main driving force was the despair felt by people who are unable to propose any other solution to the problem.”
Chechnya had been under the forced occupation of the Czars and then the Soviets for almost three centuries. Leo Tolstoy served in the Czarist army there and wrote about the often-losing struggle to make those mountain warriors loyal subjects of the Russian empire. Imam Shamil, a mystic warrior of the 19th century, carved a niche for himself in world history by confronting the mighty Russian empire for almost 30 years. His biography, which I read forty years back, struck me as fascinating as a work of fiction.
In 1944 Stalin sought a solution to these fiercely independent, hardy highlanders by deporting the whole lot of them to Siberia - a sort of present-day ethnic cleansing. Nikita Krushchev allowed them to return to their homeland.
At the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union all the republics were given the right to secede from the Union. The Baltic, Central Asian and the republics of the Caucasus elected to be independent. The claim of Chechnya to independence in 1991 was rejected.
Its oil reserves make it a special possession of Russia. Then, there have been plans for an oil pipeline from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea port of Novorossisik which would pass through Chechnya. Daily Izvestia has in a recent commentary accused the Chechen of the intent ‘to steal’ Russian oil by gaining control of the region as an independent state.
The Russian effort to re-impose its control over the region led to a brutal war for two years -1994-96. The Russian war was being fought by conscripts who were not receiving even their pay regularly. The Russian economy was in a tailspin. President Yeltsin entered into a peace agreement that granted virtual self-rule to the Chechens.
President Putin who succeeded Yeltsin decided to re-impose Kremlin control over the region. For the Russians he had been an unknown entity as he was with the KGB before being picked by Yeltsin as his Prime Minister. By subduing the Chechens, he would reverse the humiliation of 1996 withdrawal as well as boost his own image and popularity as a bold, nationalist leader. The ostensible reason was the spate of bombing of apartment blocks in Moscow. The Chechens were held responsible for them.
He sent into Chechnya in September 1999 some 100,000 troops who started pulverizing the tiny region. Chechnya has a population of a million and an area of 600 square miles, less than many a county in California. While confronting the Russian troops as best as they could in the situation, Chechen young men and women resorted to terrorist acts to settle scores and to attract world attention to their cause. In March 2001, they hijacked a Russian jet to Saudi Arabia. Saudi forces stormed the plane and killed three hijackers. In April, pro-Chechen gunmen held 100 hostages for 12 hours in Istanbul before surrendering to the Turkish police. In May this year, a bomb planted by Chechen rebels killed 34 persons at a Victory Parade in neighboring Dagestan.
And, in the last week of October, they seized the Moscow Theater. Their desperation may be gauged from the fact that 18 of the 53 guerillas were women. They were widows of Chechen rebels killed in the separatist war with Russia. Clad in black robes covering them from head to toe, this female suicide squad came to be called “black widows”. According to an ABC report, they told the theater audience that “their zest for death was stronger than their captives’ collective zeal for life.”
A scholar at the Virginia-based Terrorism Research Center has remarked: “For those familiar with mainstream Chechen society - which is a conservative society - the concept of front-line Chechen female combatants is unusual - a novelty.”
They traveled 1500 miles north to reach Moscow Theater in the shadow of the Kremlin to give vent to their frustration and sorrow. Their foolhardiness may be anchored in the depth of their personal tragedies, but it totally escapes logic and rationality. One hopes that they do not inspire other women to join similar suicide squads. Terrorism in all forms and shapes deserves to be abhorred in modern time: it does not in any case deliver the desired results. Those in a position to tackle it would be well advised to keep the root cause in sight in order to seek its removal.
(arifhussaini@hotmail.com Ph: 714-921-9634)
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