[Marxism] 11.000 to 25, 000 Russian troops killed in Chechnya -- another Afghanistan?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

1,.BETWEEN 11,000 AND 25,000 RUSSIAN SOLDIERS KILLED 
 
Libération (Paris) December 11, 2004 
 

http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=260918 
 
*On Dec. 11, 1994,* Russia launched the first Chechen war to retake
control of the small Caucasus republic that had declared its
independence in 1991. 
 
*In 1996,* defeated at Grozny, Moscow agreed to sign a cease-fire that
interrupted the fighting for three years. 
 
*Since Oct. 1, 1999,* a "second campaign" has enabled Russian forces to
reconquer Grozny and install a pro-Russian administration in the
northern part of the Republic.  But fighting and attacks against Russian
forces are still frequent in Grozny, especially in the mountainous south
of the Republic, where independentist fighters are holed up. 
 
*Totals.*  Ashamed of its very heavy losses, the Russian army resists
giving a precise account of losses.  The latest count lists 11,000
Russian soldiers killed in the course of the two wars.  According to the
Soldiers' Mothers committees, the true number of dead, counting all
Russian forces, is 25,000. The Russian army also says it has killed
14,000 rebels during the second Chechen campaign.  The number of
civilians killed, still difficult to evaluate, is estimated at 70,000
for the first war, and is said already to have reached 20,000 for the
second. 
 
 
 
2.CANCER OF CHECHNYA EATS AWAY AT RUSSIAN SOCIETY 
By Lorraine Millot 
 
** Ten years of war and imprecise civilian and military death counts ** 
 
Libération (Paris) December 11, 2004 
 
http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=260917 
 
VLADIMIR (Russia) -- Dmitri lost a leg in Chechnya and doesn't complain.
He lives with his parents in a block of public housing in Vladimir,
cradle of Russian history, on 1,150 rubles (31 euros [$40]) a month.
"Sure, it's not much to live on," he admits.  "Especially since I lost
my sales job a year ago.  It got to be too hard physically," says this
28-year-old young man.  On Dec. 28, 1994, the first war in Chechnya had
just begun when his convoy was caught in an ambush.  "It was early in
the morning, everybody was sleeping in the truck.  There were about
twenty of us...  Four of us survived." 
 
Ten years of war in Chechnya have bled Russian society like no other
conflict since the Second World War.  In a city of 350,000 like
Vladimir, the number of dead is estimated to be between 126 and 400.
But the exact count, the minimum homage that might be rendered to those
who died for Russia, is unavailable. "I don't see why I should give you
that number.  Besides, it's time for my lunch," retorts Gen. Nikolai
Sienchov, local head of the military office, hanging up the phone twice.
The number of wounded is also kept secret.  "The military committee
refuses to give us a list of the wounded, saying that it's on account of
a counterterrorism operation," sighs Natalia Volynova, who manages a
center for the disabled. 
 
COFFIN 
 
Nicolai Kirillov, president of a local association of Afghanistan
veterans, is one of the few who protests:  "In the time of Afghanistan,
when a coffin arrived in the city, all Vladimir was in mourning for ten
months.  Today, when there's an attack, you think about it for five
minutes, and then it's forgotten.  The young people who come back from
Chechnya don't realize how much they're being misled.  They're
constantly being cheated by their officers and they come back here
terrified." 
 
"I served in Chechnya from September 2000 to May 2001, and I can tell
you it was dangerous:  every morning, we inspected the roads to look for
mines.  They had promised us 810 rubles (22 euros [$29]) for every day
spent in the war zone," says Denis, 23.  When payday came, they told him
that since Dec. 31, 
2000 he had not been participating in a war, but in an "antiterrorist
operation," which only gave him the right to 1,000 rubles (27 euros
[$35]). In spite of everything, he remains convinced the war is
justified:  "Without it, all the Chechen bandits would be in Moscow.  At
least we're keeping them there." 
 
At the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, a courageous NGO that brings
together twelve Vladimir parents, Angelina Roussakova, 60, has trouble
still believing in the Russian army's greatness after all the
misfortunes that come across her desk:  "In my youth, girls wouldn't
have let a guy who hadn't been in the army look at them," she recalls.
"Today, the state can't even find a stamp and an envelope to inform the
young people who are sacrificing their lives, to tell them at least
what's due to them.  On the contrary, everything's arranged so they
never get their money." 
 
BREEDING CRIMINALS 
 
Traumatized by what they've lived through in Chechnya, ignored or
humiliated upon their return, the "Chechens," as the veterans of these
two wars are called, breed criminals.  In the police blotter of the
local media one frequently reads how a recruit back from Chechnya has
slit his wife's throat, chopped up his father with an ax, or simply
committed suicide.  "When you get back, you still feel a little like
you're at war," says Denis and Sacha.  "At first, you're always on
edge...  You take care to hide the end of your cigarette so that snipers
can't pick it out..."  Andrei Sodatov, a reporter, expresses concern:
"In the special forces, every division has to put in three-month
missions in Chechnya.  That adds up to a lot of people who learn how to
operate in death squads, and then come back home." 
 
The war in Chechnya is eating away at Russian society like a cancer.  In
Vladimir, the Soldiers' Mothers can no longer pay their rent and are
afraid they'll have to close their office.  Dmitri, disabled, accepts
his fate and the war that drags on:  "It's not for me to decide whether
or not this war has to be fought," he explains.  "Sure, it's not a good
thing to make an invalid live on 1,150 rubles.  But if I complained,
what would that change?" 
 
 
 
--
Translated by Mark K. Jensen Associate Professor of French Department of
Languages and Literatures Pacific Lutheran University Tacoma, WA
98447-0003 Phone: 253-535-7219 Home page: http://www.plu.edu/~jensenmk/
E-mail: jensenmk@xxxxxxx
 
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