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The Eurasian Politician - Issue 1 (May 21st, 2000)
By Roman Khalilov
Date: December, 12, 1999
Today, when there are already more than 300,000 refugees, and an estimated 6,000 Chechens have been killed and more than 8,500 Chechens wounded, questions are asked about the causes of the present Russian aggression against Chechnya, which is the second genocide of the Chechen nation in the last five years. As the tragedy of the Chechen nation and the fate of Russian democracy attracts world-wide attention, deep and full analysis of the causes of the war and the war itself will certainly be a subject of future debates among scholars of modern history, academics of International Relations and lawyers of International Law.
Thus, leaving this difficult task to them, I hereby attempt to give a brief analysis of the causes of the war and some events that are thought to have contributed to the beginning of the present war. This analysis, therefore, is not aimed at achieving any academic recognition but is only made in an attempt to clarify certain points, which presently cause much controversy and result in sometimes completely different claims. I will suggest here that four main causes have led to the breakdown of the present war. Namely:
At the end of this essay I intend to try to define the relative importance of the four causes.
The events of August 1996 in Chechnya and those that led to them are perhaps well known and hardly require detailed explanation. Nevertheless, a short restatement of some key facts might be useful. To those who have little or no knowledge of Chechnya and the history of Russian-Chechen relations much of the story might seem like a tale told by a writer of adventure fiction full of unprecedented bravery, distinguished heroism and perhaps a somewhat unbelievable happy end. However, for Chechens this was a story full of blood, tragic tears, unrecoverable losses, and complete devastation of their homes and their motherland. At the beginning of the breakdown of the former Soviet Union, Chechens were given hope that their 300-year-old struggle against the mighty and cruel Russia was about to end. In this hope Chechens declared the independence of Chechnya on 1 November 1991 - a new page of tragic Chechen story was about to be written. The Russian response to the Chechen declaration of independence was based on anything but respect for Chechnya and the right of Chechens to self-determination. Having failed to succeed in its half-criminal attempts to destabilise Chechnya, Russia on 11 December 1994 began its cruel war against Chechnya which was to last up to August 1996 and end in humiliating defeat of the Russian Army, followed by an agreement signed between Russia and Chechnya by the Head of Russian Security Council, General Alexander Lebed, and the head of the Chechen Army, General Aslan Maskhadov. The fantastic Chechen victory can hardly be put in better words that those of journalists Carlotta Gall and Thomas De Waal: "And - most incredibly - a small Chechen guerrilla army that had been dismissed as ‘bandit groups’ brought the Russian army to its knees and forced it to withdraw." ["A small Victorious War" C. Gall & T. De Waal].
Despite the obvious Chechen victory the cost of the war was incredibly high. An estimated 80,000 people were killed in the war and the whole Chechen economy, infrastructure, both private and public premises, were almost totally destroyed. Perhaps the most harmful damage done to Chechens by the war, was the fact that it created generations of fighters and total unemployment. The real danger of these two things coexisting was to be exposed in the post-war period. On the other hand, the war turned a once victorious Russian Army into a shameful mass of armed forces members who often preferred to conceal their membership of the humiliated and unpopular army. Generals and politicians blamed each other for the Russian defeat in Chechnya. Furthermore, NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999 was seen by many Russian officers and politicians as an almost direct result of the defeat: it seemed that the Russian army was no longer thought to be capable of causing a real threat to the West (except, of course, the Russian nuclear arsenal). In addition, hundreds of Russian tanks and other armed vehicles that were destroyed by the Chechens during the war, which meant that traditional Russian weapons became less attractive to their usual buyers. This, of course, meant that the powerful arms-dealing lobby in Russia was also interested in restoring the traditional image of Russian weapons.
These facts together meant that top Russian generals and interest groups in the area were ready to exploit any opportunity to ‘save face’ in a new war. And the new war was, of course, to be directed against Chechnya. However, two pre-conditions were required to begin the new war: political will on the part of Russia, and the support of Russian population - which, inter alia, meant that the traditional ‘freedom-loving’ image of Chechens had to be changed to a barbaric and terrorist one.
It is, perhaps, by now almost undisputed that Yeltsin and the Family (the term ‘the Family’ is widely used in Russia and refers to not only biological members of Yeltsin’s family but also to top level officials and oligarchs who felt they had much to fear once Yeltsin was gone) had been desperately looking for an acceptable candidate to replace Yeltsin - acceptable in the sense as being able to guarantee the future of the Family. Finding such a candidate was crucial for Yeltsin, because he feared being prosecuted not only for war crimes committed in Chechnya but also for the events of November 1993 in Moscow, i.e. the dissolution of the Russian Parliament by Russian military force, which is believed to have cost about 1,000 lives. The Family, in turn, not only hoped to stay in power but also feared being prosecuted for corruption.
Here, we come to the obvious question: "Why was the wartime Prime Minister of Russia, Victor Chernomyrdin, not acceptable to the Family?" The answer lies in both the wartime behaviour of the Prime Minister and his personal wealth. During the war, Chernomyrdin somehow managed not to be associated with Russian aggression - indeed, he seemed to have created something of a peacemaker’s image for himself during the June 1995 incident in Budyonnovsk. Most of the time he pretended that he was dealing only with Russia’s economic problems. In my personal opinion, his behaviour was well chosen. If the war were to be praised he could have at almost any point in time claimed the laurels of the war victor. If the war were to be condemned, he would not be blamed either for the failure or for the atrocities of Russian army. His personal wealth also mattered a lot. Chernomyrdin’s future depends on political changes in Russia only to minor degree. It is believed that he managed to create not only unimaginable personal wealth but also a great deal of both personal influence within Russian business (particularly, through his chairmanship of gas monopoly "Gazprom") and the ability to survive unfavourable changes in the leading cast of backroom dealings of Russian politics. Thus, not surprisingly, he has hardly ever been in trouble since he left the Prime Minister’s office.
Since then, there have been three Prime Ministers of Russia not counting Vladimir Putin. The first of them, Sergei Kiriyenko, seemed to have been chosen as only a short-term instrument to be used while a search for a more appropriate candidate was underway. The second, Yevgeny Primakov, was seen as if not powerful, then at least respected. He might not have been ‘the right choice’ for at least three reasons. First, he was too old - the Family needed someone who could last long. Second, his future behaviour might not have been seen as predictable. And finally, to be 100% sure the family needed someone who was ready to stain himself with Chechen blood - the best guarantees of future behaviour. The third, Sergei Stepashin, might have been a reasonable choice: he was instrumental in the first war in Chechnya and his future almost totally depended on the will of the Family, because he had neither a significant amount of personal wealth nor a substantial degree of influence. However, the Family was not sure that he could win the presidential elections and he got fired.
Finally, however, the Family made its choice - it was Mr. Putin. Putin was, perhaps, the best candidate that the Family could ever have wished for. He was young and ambitious and was ready to pay almost any price to succeed. He was a political ‘nobody’, which meant that his future success depended almost totally on the ‘goodwill’ of the Family. Furthermore, he was ‘raw material’ that had no value for the Family’s key rivals - so, there was no danger of betrayal. Once chosen for the task, he was to pass a beginner’s test of being in charge of the FSB in which he succeeded. It should be noted here that all of the last three Russian Prime ministers have had direct connection with the KGB and later with FSB. So as a result of a determined search for the means of survival on the part of the Family, he got the job of Prime Minister and became a potential candidate for the office of Russian President. By then, the time was right to create ‘the desirable’ image of Chechens.
In Chechnya at that time the Russian Secret Service and the Russian Military Intelligence were enjoying their first victories in the attempt to destabilise Chechnya and to create the much-needed image. There were two ways of achieving these objectives. First, the Islamic factor, if developed, was a useful means of playing up the ‘danger of Islamic State’ in Chechnya. But this factor alone might not have been sufficient. Thus, the second means which would make the first even more powerful was ‘to show’ the world that those freedom-loving Chechens, much praised by the first wartime journalists in Chechnya, were turning into ‘kidnappers’, ‘killers’ and so on. It all seems to have began at the time when the Russian 1994-96 military campaign’s failure was becoming more and more obvious. It is, unfortunately, beyond the limits of the information I possess to state when the first case of kidnapping in Chechnya took place. Nevertheless, one thing is obvious: the roots of the evil lay in the Russian practices in Chechnya during the first phase of the first war.
Faced with, perhaps, unprecedented resistance, heavy casualties, and systematic cases of surrender by Russian soldiers, the top level Russian intelligence was working hard to find a way out of the disaster. Various ways were tried, such as indiscriminate bombings of Chechen villages until Chechen fighters were asked by their own families to leave in order to limit the damage done by the bombings, attempts to ‘buy’ certain Chechen leaders, systematic jailing of Chechen male civilians, and creating ‘new’ pro-Russian ‘Chechen governments’. However, none of them seemed to work.
Then, the only solution seems to have been to discredit Chechens and their struggle. Soon, the killings of members of the Red Cross mission in Chechnya followed. However, attempts to convince the public that Chechens were behind the attack seemed to have failed, mainly because even ‘the inventive’ minds of the Russian Intelligence failed to come up with any rational reason for Chechens to carry out these attacks. The next step was to let Chechens know that they could get paid for human lives. However, it was still impossible to make Chechens kidnap people.
This evil was not yet known to the Chechens. The solution, however, was soon found. Russians began to offer money to Chechens for releasing captured Russian soldiers and officers. The amounts offered often made Chechens wonder where the money was coming from - the limitations of the Russian military budget were very well known. It is important to remember here that in the early stages of the first war the Chechens would simply hand over Russian captives to their mothers without any conditions - this was very well covered in the media. Once the Chechens saw that this was one of the very few ways of obtaining the means of survival available to them, the Russian Intelligence success was achieved - it just required to be maintained further.
However, once the war was over there were no longer Russian soldiers and officers to be captured. And so began this Chechen disgrace, which is, perhaps, yet to be acknowledged and for which forgiveness is yet to be asked. Foreign journalists, aid workers, businessmen, and some of the Chechen collaborators with Russia during the war became victims of criminal elements in Chechnya. Although it is impossible to justify subsequent cases of kidnapping, in order to be objective one needs to know the economic and social conditions in Chechnya right after the war. As mentioned earlier, Chechnya was literally ruined by the war. Strong and well-planned economic and social programmes were needed. And yet it was impossible to have these in the absence of any kind of investment, access to foreign markets, and the ability of Chechen government to finance even its basic expenditure. Thus, faced with an estimated 95% unemployment, which, of course, meant that these 95% of employable citizens of Chechnya and their dependants had no income and indeed no means even to deal with basic needs, Chechnya almost inevitably was to face a rise in crime.
However, this was not the only evil to be faced by Chechens and Chechen state. Islamic factor was increasingly playing its part in the drama. For Russia to succeed totally, it needed strongly developed conflicts within Chechnya between those who believed that the Chechen State should follow its civil Constitution and those who favoured a State based on Islamic Law. The government of Chechnya favoured a civil state and the norms of International Law. But faced with the undetermined status of the Chechen State and at least a potential danger of new Russian aggression, to use force (although perfectly legitimate, since in no state can an armed opposition be accepted) would have meant the possibility of dividing Chechnya into two parts, which, of course, was what Russia wanted. Thus, whatever criticism of the Chechen government can, however rightly, be raised, the government succeeded in its main duty of keeping peace in Chechnya.
However, the greatest damage was still to come. Russia could not afford to take any chances: it needed to be sure of its success. The fighting in Dagestan was to play its part. Although some of the details of the events of the August 1999 conflict in Dagestan are relatively well known, the events that led to this are often misrepresented. A number of Dagestani villages [here, I would like to refer the reader to a map of 19th century Chechnya, which can be found in John F. Baddeley’s book ‘The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus’ first published in London 1908 - possibly the villages became Dagestani when Chechens were deported to Kazakhstan in 1944] on the border of Dagestan and Chechnya had declared a Shariat law, to which official authorities of Dagestan and Russia turned a blind eye for a while. Moreover, a movement for Dagestani independence from Russia was also in progress within Dagestan. A relatively strong and lightly armed group of Dagestanis formed the core of the movement, which was mainly based in the villages. Perfectly aware that a military action against them would result in calls from the movement to Chechens for help, the Russians launched their military operation. When the Russians began to use heavy artillery and aircraft, the calls for help were addressed to extremists within Chechnya. Whatever the actual facts might be, one thing is pretty obvious: a large number of volunteers from Chechnya headed by Khattab and Shamil Basayev entered the territory of Dagestan and by doing so diverted some of the fire meant for the armed Dagestani group. This conflict requires a detailed and deep analysis that is beyond my present intentions. Nevertheless, two facts seem to be obvious by now.
First, this was not a Chechen military intervention on the Russian/Dagestani territory, since no official Chechen army troops took part in the conflict. Second, Shamil Basayev who led the incursion into Dagestan, was either fooled or somewhat manipulated by outsiders. This is so because Shamil Basayev, whatever impressions he might give, is not an Islamic fundamentalist but a Chechen nationalist. Thus, he could have been led by anything except a desire to build an Islamic State in Dagestan. This, however, is not the case with Khattab - I believe that he, indeed, is led by Islamic Fundamentalist ideas.
It may seem that the war in Dagestan, presented by Russian propaganda as a Chechen intervention, was a sufficient excuse for the new Russian aggression against Chechnya. But this was not the case - the Russian public opinion was not yet ready to accept a new war in Chechnya. To understand this, one needs to know the Russians: although Dagestan is part of Russia and Dagestanis are Russian citizens, the conflict in Dagestan was somewhere far away for many Russians. To claim a certain territory as part of Russia is one thing for the Russians, but to feel the same way about the inhabitants of that part as Russians do for Russians is a completely different one. Thus, the masterminds within the Russian intelligence were about to bring ‘the Chechen threat’ to the very heart of Russia - Moscow. The unfortunate fate of victims of ‘terrorist’ attacks in Moscow, which were followed by the similar attack in Volgodonsk (another mainland Russian city) is well known, and all human beings in this world should feel sorry for them. I by no means intend to belittle their tragic suffering, but one must also be unbiased towards Chechens who were traditionally blamed for the attacks.
Although the Russian masterminds achieved their goals through the tragic outcome of those attacks, it is hardly possible to say that the Russian FSB’s arguments in blaming Chechens for the attacks were even simply intelligent. First, the FSB failed to produce any evidence that Chechens were behind these attacks. And if the FSB, the daughter of the former almighty KGB, is unable not only to produce any evidence but also to link any Chechen national to the attacks, what does this imply? - It is for yourselves to answer this.
Second, even during the most awful and difficult times of the last Russian aggression against Chechnya, even after Russian troops murdered some 400 civilians in a Chechen village called Samashki in April 1995, even after the first Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev was murdered by the Russians, even when the truth about torture of Chechens in Russian ‘filtration camps’ was revealed, never did Chechens blow up any civilian buildings. Third, these attacks did not bring any benefits to Chechens nor could they. Fourth, in an incident in Ryazan (another heartland Russian city), which happened just after the explosions in Moscow, Russian security forces were caught red-handed planting explosives in a block of flats. Naturally, the FSB claimed that it was carrying out ‘a training exercise’. And finally, no Chechen has ever claimed responsibility for the attacks. One would think terrorists should proudly take credit for their work - unless, of course, they are members of the Russian Security Service.
When Chechens declared their independence, many of them somewhat naively believed it would get a favourable response from both the Western democratic world and the Eastern Islamic world. This was so because, on the one hand, they believed that the West would welcome the fact that another nation was getting out of the brutal rule of Imperial Russia which was followed by the Godless Soviet Union. They thought that the West would help them exercise their right to freedom of self-determination and to build a real democracy. On the other hand, they hoped that the Islamic World would welcome the liberation of Chechens from the evil’s hands and would employ a policy of recognition towards the much-needed but even much more deserved Chechen independence.
Unfortunately, none of these dreams were to become reality. However, when the first Russian aggression against Chechnya began, the hopes were once more in the air. The Chechens, this time believed that at least gross abuse of human rights should not be tolerated. Nonetheless, their hopes deceived them once again. The next time was when Chechnya defeated Russia. This time Chechens thought that they have proven their right to be free by being able to defend their country and by paying a heavy price of 80,000 lives for their independence. Once again, the naive Chechens were fooling themselves: the world was not as just as they thought it was. The international community did nothing to recognise Chechnya or to help Chechnya recover from the damage of the war. The Chechens finally saw this, but they were not the only ones who did - Russia also saw that the international community was quite willing to ignore Chechnya and that by doing so it was in effect untying Russia’s bloody hands once again.
When NATO (thank God!) intervened in Serbia to stop the genocide of Kosovars and when we were all told that Bosnia and Kosovo must never be repeated, the Chechens thought that at least now they were secure from future genocide. This hope was even more increased when the UN intervened in the East Timor to stop the mass killings that were taking place there. Paradoxically, it turned out that the Chechens were about to experience another genocide of their nation by the very same enemy - Russia. Now they can only hope that the international community and International Humanitarian Law shall not betray them this time. Whether they are still naive remains yet to be seen.
Finally, judging the relative importance of the four main causes, outlined above, it seems prudent to ask a question: "Absence of which of the four main causes could have prevented the war?" It might be up to the readers to answer this question themselves but it seems to me that the answer is this: the absence of the political situation in Russia in the run up to the Parliamentary and Presidential elections would have made it impossible for Russia to wage a new war against Chechnya.