Why the West allows Russia to butcher Chechens

[Green Left Parramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following article appeared in the latest
issue of Green Left Weekly (http://www.greenleft.org.au),
Australia's radical newspaper.

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 Why the West allows Russia to butcher Chechens

 By Norm Dixon

 ``Troops descended on the town ... and detained at least a dozen
 men and 20 cars ... Villagers had a similar wake-up call two days
 earlier when ... troops swept in and beat or harassed dozens of
 unarmed residents. Nearly 60 people were detained ... Nearly all
 male refugees in town were arrested ... The images remain: the
 40-foot crater in the middle of a food market, laughing children
 who went out for water and came back screaming ... The greatest
 evil: the countless deaths and wounding of soldiers and civilians
 every day ... there is no one to count or verify the casualties''
 -- a report from Pristina, Kosova, last year? No, from Grozny in
 Chechnya, in January.

 Since September, unchallenged by anti-aircraft defence systems,
 Russian warplanes and helicopter gun ships have been making up to
 100 bombing sorties a day over Grozny and Chechnya's southern
 mountains. Artillery shells, bombs and missiles have rained down
 on Grozny without let-up since Christmas Day. The sickening dull
 thud of exploding Scud and Grad missiles reverberate through the
 apartment buildings of Grozny.

 Beneath the buildings, up to 40,000 residents -- mainly old
 people, many ethnic Russians -- shelter in basements hoping that
 the next thud they hear won't be their last. As many as 250,000
 refugees have streamed into the neighbouring republic of
 Ingushetia since September.

 While graphic descriptions of Serbian dictator Slobodan
 Milosevic's terror against the Kosovans were used by the US to
 justify a vicious NATO air-war against Belgrade in the name of
 ``humanitarianism'' and ``respect for human rights'', Washington's
 reaction to the Russian military's brutal campaign to obliterate
 the independence of Chechnya -- and its people -- cannot have
 been more different.

[Picture]Russia's lightning invasion of Chechnya was met with
 virtual silence from the West. Then, as the conflict
 dragged on, Washington began to issue diplomatic rebukes of
 Moscow's ``excessive'' and ``disproportionate'' use of force.

 US criticisms have recently become louder and more insistent --
 partly due to pressure from international public concern at scale
 of Russia's violence and the public's growing recognition of the
 obvious hypocrisy of the West's inaction when compared to its
 reaction to Kosova.

 However, Western leaders have bent over backwards to reassure
 Russia's leaders that no specific action will be taken to end the
 carnage against the Chechens. Criticism of Moscow's military
 tactics is routinely tempered with a defence of Russia's right to
 fight and defeat ``international terrorism''.

 Washington's real concern

 Acting US secretary of state Strobe Talbot stated on October 22
 that Washington's main concern was that the ``increasing loss of
 civilian life further jeopardises the security and stability of
 the region'' and raises concern ``in the US and elsewhere about the
 prospects for a peaceful settlement of the conflict''.

 Talbot said that Russia's last war in Chechnya in 1994-96
 demonstrated that there cannot be a ``purely military solution to
 the problem and that there must be a vigorous and conscientious
 effort to engage in a serious political dialogue ... We call on
 the Russian government and responsible Chechen leaders to open a
 political dialogue urgently in the interests of the right of the
 Chechen people to a normal, peaceful life, in the interest of
 regional peace and security and in the interest of Russia's
 continuing reform.''

 Talbot's message was that while Washington supports Moscow's
 efforts to crush the Chechen people's attempt to exercise their
 right to national self-determination, it is concerned that the
 way Moscow is going about it cannot succeed.

 More worrying for Washington is the likelihood that Moscow's
 brutal sledgehammer tactics will result -- and probably already
 has -- in the most militant Islamic elements within the Chechen
 liberation movement winning the allegiance of a large number of
 Chechens and taking control of the independence movement.
 Washington fears that ``responsible'' Chechen leaders, such as
 President Maskhadov, who might be prepared to compromise with
 Moscow, will be sidelined.

 Not only would a militant Islamic leadership be beyond the
 control of both the US and Russia -- perhaps turning to ``rogue''
 states like Iran and Afghanistan for political, military and
 economic support -- but Washington is afraid that its
 intransigent fight for independence will win adherents among the
 masses of the oil-rich newly independent Caucasus and Central
 Asian republics.

 But Washington's overriding concern is, in the words of Talbot,
 Russia's ``continuing reform'' (translation: restoration and
 entrenchment of capitalism).

 Another defeat in Chechnya like that in 1994-96 could result in
 the serious destabilising of the Russian political establishment.
 At a minimum, acting president Vladimir Putin may be defeated --
 or fail to win convincingly -- at the March presidential
 election, leaving Russia without a viable successor to Boris
 Yeltsin. A military defeat could trigger mass social unrest.

 Since September, Russian officials have sought to maintain the
 Russian people's support for the war by whipping up Russian
 nationalism and anti-Chechen racism, exploiting outrage over a
 series of ``terrorist'' bombings in Moscow (immediately blamed on
 Chechen forces, but widely believed to have been masterminded by
 Russia's own security establishment), systematically concealing
 the number of Russian troop casualties and promising a quick
 victory.

 But as the Chechen war has dragged on, it has become increasingly
 difficult to hide the truth. Soldiers have openly contradicted
 the official count and more families are learning of the deaths
 of their sons and fathers.

 Russian officials, after months of stonewalling, admitted on
 January 26 that 1055 troops had been killed and 3000 injured in
 close-contact fire-fights with small bands of highly motivated
 Chechen guerillas. Unofficial estimates put the true toll at
 around twice that. On February 1, a presidential decree calling
 up 20,000 military reservists came into effect, bolstering doubts
 about the military's official casualty figures.

 No change

 While press coverage of US secretary of state Madeleine
 Albright's most recent forthright criticism of Russia's slaughter
 in Chechnya may have given the impression that Washington has
 changed its position on the war, a speech she delivered at the
 Diplomatic Academy in Moscow on February 2 shows that this is not
 the case.

 ``No one questions Russia's responsibility, even obligation, to
 combat insurgency and terror within its borders'', Albright
 reassured the Russian elite.

 ``But the world increasingly has questioned doing so at such a
 high cost in innocent human lives and suffering, and such high
 cost to Russia's international standing. These tactics will not
 set the stage for building a peaceful, prosperous Chechnya within
 the Russian Federation. Only a political resolution of the
 conflict will do that. As long as fighting continues, it will
 serve as a magnet for extremism that could one day risk the
 stability of the entire region.''

 Some on the left, pointing to Washington's vigorous attempts to
 detach the oil-rich Caucasus and Central Asian republics from
 Russia's sphere of influence as evidence, claim that the US
 supports Chechnya's attempts at independence, and that the
 Chechen independence movement is a ``puppet'' of Washington.
 Reality does not bear this out.

 Since Chechnya won its de facto independence in 1996, the West
 has continued to recognise the republic as part of Russia. The US
 and Europe have been complicit in Russia's blockade against the
 rebel territory. The move in August by some militant Chechen
 fighters to spread the struggle to neighbouring Dagestan -- the
 action that Moscow seized upon to relaunch its war against
 Chechnya -- was motivated by the need gain access to the Caspian
 Sea to break this crippling blockade.

 US imperialism is not so much attempting to ``Balkanise'' Russia as
 to convince its capitalist leaders to accept the reality of the
 post-Cold War, US-dominated new world order and Russia's place
 within it.

 Recognising Russia's enormous diplomatic and military weight, the
 US is offering Russia a role as junior partner in the region,
 with certain policing responsibilities. When Yeltsin announced a
 Russian version of the ``Monroe Doctrine'' in 1994, Washington did
 not object; when Moscow put this into effect in Chechnya in
 1994-96 and again last September, the West gave the nod. Russia's
 participation, albeit with caveats and disagreements, in US
 imperialism's operations in Bosnia and Kosova bears this out.

 In her February 2 speech in Moscow, Albright renewed Washington's
 offer: ``America and Russia have enough major interests in common
 to surmount our disagreements and work together in dealing with
 the biggest dangers and opportunities we face in the new century
 ... In the Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central
 Asia ... the sources [of potential instability] are similar:
 ethnic hatred, fanaticism, economic hopelessness and too little
 democracy. And the tensions they spawn create fertile breeding
 grounds for many forms of organised thuggery ...

 ``In avoiding such developments, [the] US and Russia both have a
 clear stake in stability in Kosovo, in a Middle East transformed
 by peace, and in a lasting settlement of the dispute over
 Nagorno-Karabakh. In each of these areas, Russia and the United
 States have worked together to seek sound solutions ... In
 Kosovo, we had very strong disagreements but our nations knew
 they had an interest in ending conflict and ushering in an era of
 stability in the Balkans. Today, our soldiers serve alongside one
 another to give peace the best possible chance ...

 ``Such cooperation illustrates how the United States and Russia
 can also work together with the countries of the Caucasus and
 Central Asia. These sovereign states face the quadruple challenge
 of protecting their independence, creating modern political
 institutions, building prosperity, and maintaining stability. The
 fact that many of them border on a region to the south that has
 been an exporter of extremism and terror adds to the challenges
 they face.

 ``Russia and the United States have much to gain, and nothing to
 lose, from the success of the strategies that these states have
 chosen. These countries believe they need access to international
 markets for their exports, especially energy and natural
 resources; they want to be part of international institutions;
 and they seek normal, mutually beneficial relations with their
 neighbours.

 ``In each of the vital policy areas that I have just discussed,
 Russia and the United States have common interests. This means
 that there is a basis for true cooperation in each, even if
 differences seem at times to occupy centre stage.''
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