CHECHNYA LINKS LIBRARY

“Chechnya, Quo Vadis?”

Oscar Braun, special to Prague Watchdog

“Why our ration of flour has been reduced again?” “Your flour just haven’t come. You know, resources are being moved to Afghanistan.” “But we have nothing to live on! Why has the world forgotten about us?”

This is a typical conversation between people in Chechnya, or the poor in refugee camps in Ingushetia, and the staff of relief aid agencies. After September 11, 2001, the Chechens were given another impulse to deepen their sadness and grievance. The interpretation of Chechens’ intentions that is spread around the world almost exclusively by Russian media has turned the picture of the nation into one full of terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists who approved or straightly supported last year’s attacks on New York and Washington.

However, the reality is different. Not that you would hardly find a Chechen of militant opinions who is willing to use violence to reach his aims (strikingly, there are many of them), but what troubles most Chechens is to save their bare lives. Moreover, those who have a relatively good standard of living mostly feel sorry for the people in New York. An unnamed American diplomat (surprisingly, the first American to pay an official visit to Grozny in March 2002 after the attacks in September 2001) made a fitting remark looking at the ruins of the Chechen capital, comparing them to a huge Ground Zero.

Especially those who did not manage to flee Grozny before the war ravages can too easily imagine the feelings of the victims stuck in New York’s Twins. And that is why a wave of solidarity mounted among refugees in refugee camps in Ingushetia after September 11, 2001. And, similarly, that is why Chechens got disappointed when they learned that the free world fed with Russian propaganda has started to identify their nation with terrorists and suspect them of cooperating with Al Qaeda. And, last but not least, that is why people in Chechnya felt desperate seeing that humanitarian aid allocated for them is moving to Afghanistan. Let’s ask those people in Grozny who for several months had been waiting for roofing material promised by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. They had to spend harsh Caucasian winter in temporary shelters.

By no means Chechnya is a safe place. The reputation the country made between the first and second wars (1996 – 1999) will be difficult to change soon. The number of kidnaps rocketed to hundreds and the kidnapped, including members of foreign humanitarian agencies, were often killed. And with the beginning of the second war in Chechnya, when awfully deprived Chechens resigned to their fate, it is rumoured, though not confirmed that most probably Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov’s issued a threatening order: “If you want to keep hope, do not touch humanitarian workers”. Since then only one kidnap of a foreign humanitarian worker has taken place. The victim was Kenneth Gluck from non-governmental organization Médecins sans Frontiéres – Hollande. Fortunately, Gluck was released after three weeks of detention.

To set off for Chechnya requires a humanitarian, journalist, or let alone an ordinary tourist to have a good deal of courage. The danger threatening from Chechens, however, is far less probable than in the period between the first and second wars. As a matter of fact, danger is unpredictable there and usually comes from Russians or is indirectly connected with them. Between the Chechen-Ingush border there is a variable number of checkpoints guarded by various power structures: the military, the Federal Security Service (FSB), Ministry of Interior forces OMON, the Chechen police under the Russian command or an “ordinary” transport police (GIBDD).

There used to be fourteen checkpoints there. Now the number of them is reduced, but it can rise again at any moment. A 60-kilometre journey from the infamous checkpoint “KPP Caucasus” on the way from Ingushetia to Chechnya often takes a whole day unless you have magic permits. Checks at all checkpoints are pretty tough. Moreover, if there is a “mopping-up“ operation somewhere on the route, with rude soldiers mistreating local people in a sealed-off area in an effort to track down potential terrorists, checkpoints are closed and you have to spend hours stranded between two of them. And if you are not able to get to your destination before checkpoints close (they usually work from 8.00 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.), you have no choice but look for a shelter in the nearest village.

You could bear all the contempt at the checkpoints if the checks were really aimed at terrorists and were done by trained soldiers. However, those who guard the points are mostly drunk youngsters who make fun by shooting into the air. They have the historical AK 47 sub-machine guns and wear torn running shoes instead of military boots and strange net-like transparent camouflage looking like a prostitute’s dress rather than a uniform.

To look at Russian soldiers makes you feel pity. When they request ten rubles for cigarettes and vodka, a Chechen often gives the money to show mercy rather than pay a toll bribe. It is remarkable how most of poor Chechens are able to keep their pride and dignity in nowadays hard times, regardless of the communism and the recent two wars leaving in ruins not only their homes, but also their values and ethics. And it is ridiculous and tragicomic to see the army, declared to be one of the biggest in the world, that should conduct an antiterrorist operation but abuses Chechnya in order to justify its “raison d’être”.

Theoretically, every step aside is dangerous in Chechnya. The number of landmines set around the territory is unidentified, and the maps of their locations are available only to Russians. However, understandably, these maps locate only Russian landmines. As a matter of fact, that does not mean that the Russian army cares a lot about marking the places where the mines have benn laid. And if so, warning signs are rare and inscriptions like “Ostorozhno, zdes miny” („Warning! Landmines!“) are illegible.

As far as Chechen guerillas are concerned, landmines planted by them are not under control at all. Moreover, guerillas mostly use remote-control mines called “fugas”, whose occurrence is absolutely unpredictable. Their attack usually goes as follows: overnight or at an appropriate moment in the day, a fighter plants a landmine into dust near the road, and later, while a military vehicle is passing the place, he sets it off. Eventually, the blast is described in the Russian media as another “terrorist attack” which proves that there has to be a tough military power in Chechnya.

Russian soldiers look at every Chechen with suspicion and consider everybody a possible terrorist. Similarly, all foreigners, be it humanitarians or journalists, rank among suspected because everybody can be a spy. A fitting comparison, quite popular among Chechen intellectuals, takes the inspiration in the famous film Stalker by Russian director Andrey Tarkovski, in which people in a post-catastrophic world face the snares of the "Zone". And Chechnya is like the Zone where you can never predict what happens to you round the corner or behind the crossroads and where the situation radically changes in a few seconds.

Most Chechens think that the current situation just prolongs the war and suffering of the people. What plays the most important role are commercial interests: oil, bribes and fluent stream of money from Moscow to power structures on the one hand and slowly weakening stream of sources to Chechen guerillas one the other hand. Besides, the latter stream seems to spring at various Arabian and Turkish donors rather than straightly at Al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, there is no evidence confirming that information. Each having their own aims, all the parties to the conflict (it is in fact hard to say that there are only two of them as the situation in Chechnya is marked by disintegration and confusion) treat civilians as ransom and keep the climate of constant tension.

Now even extremely unpopular head of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow administration Akhmad-Khadzhi Kadyrov claims that most rebels do not fight any more avoiding their homes only because they are afraid of “mopping-up“ operations, detention and killing. Kadyrov supports the idea of amnesty for rebels on condition that they lay down arms. The Russian army, however, keeps on advocating a tough attitude towards them.

The Chechens get under pressure from various sides nowadays, even from Ingushetia, which used to be helpful. After general Murat Zyazikov, an experienced member of KGB and its successor FSB (he used to be a deputy to FSB chief in Astrakhan, south Russia), became the President of Ingushetia in doubtful elections, Chechens face expulsion from local refugee camps. Those should be closed by September 2002, and the Russian army units which recently settled near the camps are going to help with that.

Oleg Mironov, Putin’s plenipotentiary for human rights, characterized the plan of fast repatriation of Chechens from Ingushetia as the biggest potential human rights catastrophe in the modern Russian history. As a matter of fact, Chechens are afraid of the repetition of the atrocities of February 23, 1944, when the whole nations were deported to the Central Asia for alleged collaboration with the Nazis.

Scarcely any recent news seems to be positive for the Chechen people. The friendship between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, which was born in the summit in Slovenia more than a year ago, saw confirmation after terrorist attacks on the USA. Furthermore, the recent meeting in Moscow resulted in establishing close relationship between NATO and Russia, and the conflict in Chechnya drew little or flagging attention.

Although the death of Arab commander Khattab in March this year seems to be a good news, it raised no happiness among the Chechens as it in fact says the following: “We let your people live till it brings advantage for us.” What proves this attitude is the killing of one of the most cruel and bloodthirsty field commanders Arbi Barayev who was able to move around Chechnya almost freely keeping a counter-intelligence permit, despite being accused of a number of the worst crimes (though not confirmed, it has been claimed by many independent sources). And the last straw was the arrival in Georgia of US military experts in an effort to stamp out suspected terrorism in the Pankisi Gorge near the Georgian – Chechen border.

The Chechen nightmare keeps going on. The year 2002 is entering its second half and the hope of the Chechens for better living is slowly fading away. Most Chechens resigned themselves to preparing for the fourth war winter, which can be harder than the previous ones for some of them if they lose access to humanitarian aid in refugee camps in Ingushetia.

Translated by Prague Watchdog.

(T)