Re: another opinion on Beslan

[Chris Doss <lookoverhere1@xxxxxxxxx>]

This short item by Anatole Lieven is pretty good too
in its own way, mainly summing up the history of the
past 10 years in Chechnya (something which 99% of
Westerners seem to be completely clueless about).

   Anatole Lieven
A Western strategy for Chechnya

Anatol Lieven

After the Beslan massacre

WASHINGTON The vile massacre in the Russian town of
Beslan should bring a number of points home to Western
governments, and lead them to adopt a new and more
useful approach to the conflict in Chechnya.

First, the strategy adopted by President Vladimir
Putin has utterly failed to limit terrorism. The
Chechens he has chosen to run the republic have failed
to establish any real authority, and the abuses
committed by Russian troops have contributed greatly
to undermining Russia's goals in Chechnya.

This recognition alone, however, is insufficient as a
basis for understanding the Chechen conflict, let
alone helping to ameliorate it. We must also recognize
that there can be no negotiation or compromise with
the terrorists who carried out this atrocity, with
their commanders like Shamil Basayev, or with their
allies in the world of international Islamist
extremism.

Nor can the West encourage any political process which
could lead to these extremists once again gaining an
ascendancy in Chechnya, as they did during the period
of its de facto independence from 1996 to 1999.

After the Russian withdrawal in 1996, these radical
forces revolted against the democratically elected
government of President Aslan Maskhadov and turned
Chechnya into a base for a monstrous wave of
kidnapping and murder against Russians, Westerners and
fello Caucasians.

In alliance with radical Arab Islamists linked to Al
Qaeda, they launched a campaign to drive Russia from
the whole of the Northern Caucasus and unite it with
Chechnya in one Islamic republic. President Maskhadov
failed completely to suppress these groups. Indeed,
senior Russian envoys were kidnapped and murdered
while under his personal protection. According to
Western officials, the criminal and Islamist group
headed by the commander Arbi Barayev, which was
responsible in 1998 for the kidnapping and beheading
of four British telecom engineers, was under the
protection of Maskhadov's then vice president, Vaqa
Arsanov.

In other words, when we advocate a political
settlement in Chechnya, we should be quite clear that
what we are advocating is not an end to the struggle
against the Chechen extremists, but a way of reducing
their support in the Chechen population in order to
fight against them more successfully.

A new Western strategy for Chechnya should have three
main components.

The first would be directed towards Moscow, and would
echo our approach to Turkey, India and other countries
which have fought similar conflicts against
secessionist and terrorist forces. It would express
unqualified support for Russia's territorial integrity
and for its struggle against the terrorists.

However, it would combine this with demands that the
Russian state take much stronger action against abuses
by the military, that international observers be
allowed into Chechnya and that the Russian government
launch a much more broadly based and democratic
political initiative. This would include both the
holding of democratic parliamentary elections in
Chechnya and an offer of talks with Maskhadov and his
followers.

The second Western approach should be to Maskhadov and
his representatives in the West, like Ahmed Zakayev,
who has been given political asylum in Britain. They
should be reminded firmly that when they formed a
Chechen government in 1996 to 99, they failed utterly
to foster even minimal elements of a state in
Chechnya, to protect foreign citizens there or to
prevent Chechnya being used as a base by anti-Western
extremists. Their credibility as would-be rulers of an
independent Chechnya is zero.

Any thought of Chechen independence must therefore be
deferred until a solid basis for Chechen statehood has
been created. In return for Western support for
Chechen democracy and their own amnesty and
participation in the Chechen political process,
Maskhadov and his followers must accept autonomy for
Chechnya within the Russian Federation as a
short-to-medium-term solution and promise to struggle
for long-term independence by exclusively peaceful and
political means.

They must also commit themselves not only to break
absolutely with the terrorists, but to fight against
them alongside Russian forces. If they fail to make
this commitment, they should be treated by the West as
terrorist supporters.

Finally, the West should back such a settlement with
the promise of a really serious aid package for
Chechnya's reconstruction, calibrated so as to reward
supporters of peace, and of Western special forces to
help Russia in the fight against the terrorists.

It may be argued of course that such a commitment is
utterly unrealistic, given the contemptible failure of
Western countries even to meet their formal
obligations to liberated Afghanistan. But then again,
if Western governments and societies are not prepared
to give real help to Chechnya, how much is their
moralizing talk about the situation there really
worth?

Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace in Washington. His
book, "Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power," is
published by Yale University Press.

http://www.carnegie.ru/en/pubs/media/71142.htm



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