Excellent piece on Chechnya

[Chris Doss <lookoverhere1@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is only a snippet of the whole 28K thing, which
went out on JRL. It's not in the JRL archives yet, and
you can't see it on ceip's website, so if anybody
wants to see the whole excellent piece, let me know!
Thank God for people like Lieven.

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
www.ceip.org
Policy Brief # 35
March 2005
A Spreading Danger:
Time for a New Policy Towards Chechnya
By Fiona Hill, Anatol Lieven and Thomas de Waal

About the Authors
Fiona Hill is a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution and has researched, published, and
commented extensively on Russian and Eurasian affairs
and on international strategic and energy issues. Her
book with Brookings senior fellow Clifford Gaddy, The
Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out
in the Cold, was published by Brookings Press in
December 2003.
Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. From 1990 to 1996
he was a correspondent for the Times (London) in the
former Soviet Union, and covered the first Chechen War
as a reporter. His book Chechnya, Tombstone of Russian
Power was published by Yale University Press in 1998.
His most recent book, America Right or Wrong: An
Anatomy of American Nationalism, was published by
Oxford University Press in 2004. A journalist, writer,
and historian, Lieven writes on a range of security
and international affairs issues. Previously, he was
editor of Strategic Comments, published by the
International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
in London.
Thomas de Waal is Caucasus editor at the Institute for
War and Peace Reporting. He studied Russian and Modern
Greek at Oxford before working in London and Moscow
for the BBC World Service, the Moscow Times, the Times
of London and the Economist. He is co-author (with
Carlotta Gall) of Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus
(NYU Press, 1998) and author of Black Garden: Armenia
and Azerbaijan through Peace and War (NYU Press,
2003).



(big snip)


Although reliable data are also hard to come by, much
of
the Chechen rebel movement has clearly adopted a wider

radical agenda which goes beyond only independence for

Chechnya. During and after the war of 1994-1996, a
small
but influential group of international jihadi fighters

based themselves in Chechnya under the leadership of
an
Arab with the nom de guerre of Khattab, while
home-grown
rebel leaders, such as Shamil Basayev, Arbi Barayev,
and
Movladi Udugov allied themselves with this group and
began
to look to Middle Eastern Islamists for support.

Arabs based in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, alongside

Chechen fighters were associated with a plot to launch
a
terrorist attack in London using the poison ricin.
Members
of the international Jihadi movement have sought to
exploit the Chechen conflict for their own wider ends
just
as they have in Palestine, Kashmir, and many other
placesand unfortunately, with considerable success.
This
strategy has been set out by Al Qaeda?s
second-in-command,
Aiman al-Zawahiri, in his pamphlet ?Knights Under The
Prophet?s Banner.?

Although Russian claims about the importance of the
international terrorist element in the Chechen
conflict
are often exaggerated, this factor is nonetheless a
real
and important one. There clearly is now an ideological
and
financial link between the Chechen radicals and
international jihadi terrorists; and there is also a
demonstration effect. Terror tactics adopted by
jihadis in
Chechnya have been propagated by video and the
internet,
and adopted elsewhereincluding in Iraq. This link with

international jihadi terror should be of direct
concern to
Western governments because they must face the
possibility
that the next ?soft target? of North Caucasian
terrorism
could be a Western one.

President Putin has provided an opening for a more
positive Western role in the region by informing
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of his desire for an
active
Western involvement in the economic development of the

North Caucasus region. The West should exploit this
opening by actively pursuing intensive talks with
Russian
officials on how such a program can be developed in
detail.

This approach should involve both Western state aid
organizations and international financial institutions

like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank
and
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD).
Western-supported programs should include restoring
transport and communications links, improving social
infrastructure like housing and electricity, creating
new
educational institutions and helping in the creation
and
growth of small businesses. Western help to the North
Caucasus region will be good in itself, and will be
good
for the West because it will help to limit the spread
of
Islamist extremism and terrorism. It will also help to

develop a climate of trust between Russia and the West

that should give the West greater chances of positive
influence in Moscow over the conflict in Chechnya and
other areas of concern.

A Flawed Foreign Response

Foreign responses to the conflict in Chechnya have too

often been marked by ignorance, bad faith, and the
projection of other agendas. Western politicians have
repeatedly let their own political aims vis à vis
Russia
shape their reaction to events in Chechnya. In
1994-1996,
for example, Western support for Boris Yeltsin in his
purported struggles with the remnants of the Communist

Party constantly softened Western criticism of Russian

brutalities in Chechnya. More recently two other
agendasthe ?war on terror? and a growing campaign to
try
to limit Russian influence in the states of the former

Soviet Unionhave further distorted Western thinking
about
Chechnya.

On the other hand, much of Western public comment on
Chechnya has been uninformed or biased against Russia.

Both media and policy elites disregarded the real
threats
to Russian security and to the stability of the North
Caucasus emanating from Chechnya during its period of
quasi-independence between 1997 and 1999. In these
years,
the Western media largely failed to report the wave of

savage kidnappings against Russian citizensincluding
senior Russian officialsand the establishment in
Chechnya
of international Islamist extremists. Casualty figures
in
Chechnya have often been grossly exaggerated by
Western
journalists and commentators (see box). These have in
fact
reduced markedly in recent years.

While many Chechens complain of the very high level of

official and unofficial criminality in their republic,

there are also some modest signs of improvement in
everyday life in Chechnya. Running water and
electricity
are more readily available, checkpoints are much
reduced
and travel less restricted, and mobile phone usage is
now
possible in the republic.

None of these improvements suggest that violence and
atrocities in Chechnya are by any means over; but in
portraying Chechnya as an unchanging, unmitigated
horror,
the West has precluded an honest discussion with
Moscow
about the conflict. It has also treated Chechnya in a
manner very different from its treatment of similar
separatist conflicts in Turkey, India and other states

aligned with the West.

In the case of Turkey, the EU took a harder line on
human
rights than the US, but both were careful always to
stress
their support for the basic aims of the Turkish
campaign
and for Turkish territorial integrity. Unlike in the
case
of Chechnya, they were also careful to recognize and
praise any progress made in terms of respect for human

rights, and in the case of the EU, to offer incentives
for
such progress in terms of greater integration into
Europe.

Finally, while Western officials and commentators have

continued to press the need for a ?political solution?
to
the Chechen conflict, with very rare exceptions they
have
not suggested what this political solution should or
could
bebeyond a call for Moscow to negotiate directly with
former Chechen President and separatist leader Aslan
Maskhadov. Nor have they suggested in any detail how
the
West might support a political solution.

In fact, hopes of long-term amelioration of the
situation
in Chechnya depend not on a solution, but a process,
involving growing political participation, economic
development, and the gradual creation of a modern
society
in Chechnya. This needs to be set in the wider context
of
development for the region as a whole.
Although Aslan Maskhadov maintains an important
symbolic
value for one segment of the Chechen people as the
legitimately elected former president, simply talking
to
Maskhadov is no solution. He is the face most familiar
to
Western observers, but he does not represent the only
political force in Chechnya and does not control all
of
the Chechens fighting against Russia. Maskhadov?s
ability
to ?solve? the Chechen conflict and ?provide peace?
has
dramatically declined over the years. Although he
retains
standing in the Chechen population, he has lost the
potential to unify broader groups of Chechens.
Maskhadov
should be part of a future process, but he cannot be
the
sole element.

The Need for New Perceptions

The first step that the West needs to take is to
change
the nature of the conversation that its
representatives
have with Moscow about Chechnya and the North
Caucasus.
Their approach needs to be more sophisticated, more
detailed and more focused on offering practical
solutions
to a range of problems that affect other countries as
well
as Russia.

Russia should rightly be reminded of the commitments
it
made to defend human rights when it joined
institutions
like the Council of Europe. But these reminders should
be
accompanied by a recognition that progress has been
made;
and assurances that the West is not just interested in

berating Russia, but is genuinely ready to offer
practical
help in dealing with the problems in the North
Caucasus.

There will be no single solution to the Chechen
conflict,
in the sense of a ?quick fix?an agreement or treaty
that
will end the violence. A very large numberperhaps a
majorityof the fighters in Chechnya and those carrying
out
terrorist attacks in Russia will continue to do so
irrespective of any settlement, whether for
ideological or
personal reasons; just as they did after the Russian
withdrawal from Chechnya in 1996.

It should be remembered that leading Chechen
commanders
and their Islamist allies revolted against the
authority
of President Aslan Maskhadov after the conclusion of
the
Khasavyurt Accord and the establishment of
quasi-independence in 1996. They did so in the name of
the
creation of an Islamist republic and the continuation
of
jihad against Russia, and despite the fact that
Maskhadov
had been elected President by an overwhelming majority
of
Chechens in January 1997.

One of the weaknesses of the Khasavyurt documents was
that
they stipulated a decision on the final status of
Chechnya
within the relatively short period of five years. The
clock was set ticking on Chechnya?s possible formal
independence from the very beginning. This heightened
the
inevitable tensions between Grozny and Moscow in the
post-war period, and meant that Russian-Chechen
official
meetings, instead of concentrating on vital immediate
issues like reconstruction, crime, and extremism, were

constantly diverted into fruitless bickering over the
question of formal independence.

Today, after a decade of war and devastation, and
against
a backdrop of similar conflicts in the international
arena, it should be clear that, for a very long time
to
come, the development of a Chechen state and of a new
Chechen political society will have to take place
within
the Russian Federation and that independence for
Chechnya
is off the agenda for many years. This now seems to be

accepted by the great majority of Chechens, including
officials of Aslan Maskhadov?s ?government? in exile.

Recovery from the physical and socio-economic
devastation
of the past decade, and the struggle against Islamist
extremism, are far greater priorities. Moreover the
periods of de facto independence in 1991-1994, and
still
more in 1997-1999, proved disastrous experiences. The
wide
realization of this fact marks an evolution from views
on
independence held both in Chechnya and the West in
1996.

(lots more lopped off)


Nu, zayats, pogodi!




__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/