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THE ROVING EYE
Chechnya: The
struggle will go on
By Pepe Escobar
President Vladimir Putin hardly blinked when he
authorized his special forces to gas hundreds of Russian
citizens so that they could be liberated from a group of
50 or so explosive-laden, hostage-taking Chechens.
Until the fateful moment at the weekend when the
Chechen war was literally played out at a theater right
in the heart of Moscow - and for all the world to see -
Putin was Russia's darling. The former KGB operative in
East Germany, who arguably restored Russia's dignity,
enjoyed real pop star status. Now Moscow sociologist
Boris Kagarlitsky is bold enough to say that "the sun is
starting to set on Putin's rule".
What kind of
suffering must a woman have been through to attach loads
of explosives to her body and decide to kill other women
and children? Russian writer Viktor Chenderovich was one
of the few who dared to pose the question - on the radio
station Echoes of Moscow. Chenderovich said that
Russians used to pretend that they were in Europe, and
the war was very far away. "But the war is not in the
Caucasus, it's in Russia. Russian society was asleep, as
if it has inhaled some kind of gas."
And
tragically, the gas is not metaphorical any more. It was
revealed by the authorities to be a "special substance".
According to Russian scientists, it may be BZ, a nerve
gas based on a hallucinogenic drug, used by the US
during the Vietnam War. At the latest count, the gas
killed all but two of the 117 dead hostages, and sent
650 to Moscow hospitals, 200 of them in critical
condition. In any Western European democracy, a
government responsible for gassing its own citizens -
even under these circumstances - would have to resign on
the spot. But this is Russia - where democratic
decisions and respect for human rights are not exactly
high on the agenda.
The Russian military still
refuse to disclose the exact nature of the gas. All of
the Chechen women who had strapped explosives to their
bodies died inhaling the mysterious gas. Extremely
fragile Chechen political authorities insist that the
women were not Chechens: they might have come from the
Gulf. Putin insists that the whole episode was a plot
hatched with the participation of "Afghans and Arabs".
In Putin's world view, Moscow is a sequence to Bali in
Indonesia.
There's no denying that Saudi and
Jordanian radical Islamists directly or indirectly
linked to al-Qaeda have been involved in the Chechen
independence struggle against Russia. Chechens have
trained - and fought - in Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan. But Moscow is definitely not a sequence to
Bali. This amounts to no less than intellectual
terrorism by the Kremlin - a stunning manipulation of
world public opinion. Under the Kremlin's diktat, if
radical Islamists are guilty of the Moscow theater
operation, this implies a total negation of the Chechen
war - which keeps going under the passive complicity of
the West.
Putin was one of the great benefactors
of September 11. He was elected in 2000 on account of
his hand of steel in Chechnya - and subsequently in 2001
he managed to sell his dirty war as an alliance of
orthodox Russia and the West against radical Islam.
Putin always conveniently obscured the fact that
Chechnya has been a national conflict since at least the
mid-19th century - an unresolved offshoot of Russian
imperialism.
Chechens were not exactly waiting
for a hand of providence in the form of al-Qaeda to
fight Russian occupation in the Caucasus. In Chechnya,
Putin chose war instead of any hint of negotiation.
Kagarlitsky, the sociologist, emphasizes, "There was
never any attempt to conduct a counter-terrorist
operation in Chechnya. It hasn't even been a war, but
rather a brutal and senseless pogrom."
The
Kremlin line since Putin took over was that the Chechnya
war could not be won - but it could be forgotten. But
now the war - in another fabulous metaphor - has just
been represented inside a Moscow theater, demonstrating
among other things the absolute failure of the FSB (the
post-KGB Russian secret services), and the military.
Kagarlitsky reminds that "it is the federal army that
over three years has abducted and killed Chechens;
systematically pillaged and destroyed peaceful villages;
and has been terrorizing innocent people".
In a
July, 2002 report by the French NGO M'decins du Monde
(Doctors of the World), which caused a furor at the
United Nations and elicited an angry official Russian
response, Putin's "anti-terrorist operation" is
thoroughly deconstructed. According to the report, "The
sinister zatchiska - clean-up operations -
arbitrary arrests, summary executions and torture happen
daily. The barbarity displayed by the federal army is
unqualifiable. Violations of human rights are an
integral part of this conflict and happen behind closed
doors, in total impunity, under the general indifference
of the international community." In Chechnya, the
civilian population is in fact held hostage by Russian
paramilitary forces - with not even a peep coming either
from the US or the European Union. Adds Kagarlitsky, "If
you are looking for terrorists, you could do worse than
to start the search in the Kremlin."
The leader
of the Moscow theater operation was Movsar Baraev, 25,
who was cool, calm and collected as he appeared in front
of Russian NTV cameras inside the theater. The young,
radical Chechen resistance consider him to be an honored
mujahid. His message to the Kremlin at the beginning of
the hostage-taking operation is worth quoting at length:
"We came to the capital of Russia either in
order to stop the war or to gain martyrdom in the path
of Allah. Our demands are to stop the war and the
retreat of the Russian forces. We are from the military
observation and destruction unit that belongs to the
Martyrs of the Gardens of the Righteous. And every one
of us is ready to sacrifice ourselves in the cause of
Allah and for the independence of Chechnya and I swear
by Allah that we strive for martyrdom more than you
strive for life … in Chechnya old people, women and weak
children are killed and that's why we chose this path -
the path of jihad for the freedom of the Chechen people
… even if we are killed, there will come after us
thousands of brothers and sisters who are ready to
sacrifice themselves."
For three years now,
Chechen separatists have resisted the temptation to
resort to hostage-taking. The Moscow drama is a direct
consequence of the Kremlin's brutal behavior. Movsar's
real family name is in fact Suleimanov. The name Baraev
is a reference to his uncle Arbi Baraev - his mother's
brother, killed by Russian special forces in April 2001.
As Chechnya is a clan-based society with very ancient
traditions, Movsar had to pursue his uncle's combat.
Between the two post-Soviet Chechen wars - from
1996 to 1999 - Chechnya became a real black hole in the
heart of the Caucasus. This was a time of an horrendous
series of kidnappings and killings, some of them with an
alleged connection to Arbi Baraev. But in as murky a
political-military underworld as the Caucasus, by 2000
the Russian press was depicting Baraev either as an ally
of radical wahhabis or of the Russian FSB. The
predominant view in Russian political science circles is
that the FSB silenced Arbi Baraev because he knew too
much. It's crucial to remember that Russian specialists
trained Chechen special forces to wage war in the
Georgian province of Abkhazia. The Chechens certainly
learned their lessons well.
Movsar took over
after the death of his uncle. The Russians certified him
dead at least twice: first in August 2001 and then a few
weeks ago. His "martyrdom" now in Moscow - as he warned
- won't prevent the emergence of new Chechen "brothers
and sisters" ready to die for the cause. As much as
Washington's military response to September 11 has only
engendered further radicalization of a cluster of
hardcore Islamist fronts all over the world, Putin's
state terrorism in Chechnya has only engendered a
radicalized response striking at the heart of Russia.
Which brings us back to those remarkable images
of the veiled Chechen suicide women, holding pistols and
strapped with explosives, and then scattered lifeless
among the seats of the Moscow theater. In June 2000,
Khala Baraeva - no less than a cousin of the young
Baraev - drove a vehicle against a special forces
building near the Chechen capital of Grozny. Cassettes
exalting her are still on sale in that city's central
market. She didn't hail from the Gulf: she was in fact
the first Chechen female suicide attacker. And Putin's
policy in Chechnya will make sure that she is very far
from being one of the last.
(©2002 Asia Times
Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contactcontent@atimes.com for
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