By
Latheef Farook
CHECHENYA is yet another Muslim entity destroyed and rendered a wasteland in the two senseless Russian wars to subjugate the republic. Demonising and killing Chechen Muslims were popular pastimes for Russian leaders in order to win voters.
Going by historical records, war against Russia has been a regular unfortunate event for around a million
Chechens for centuries, usually in intervals of every fifty years, each conflict lasting between six to twenty-five years. Because of this almost ceaseless war and the sufferings it brought on the Chechen people, there exists a larger Chechen Diaspora in Turkey and Jordan than in their own republic.
Russia considers oil rich Chechenya as part of its territory, but Chechens, describing their struggle as a “war of liberation”, always claimed that they never voluntarily joined Russia, which conquered their territory by military force. All that the Chechens, known for their deep respect to elders and strong bond of friendship, wanted was independence or self rule to run their own affairs in keeping with their political and economic needs and religious traditions.
The latest tragedy struck when Chechenya declared its independence from Russia in November 1991.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin, known for his over-consumption of alcohol and erratic behaviour, backed by forces hostile to Islam and Muslims in the West, asked Chechn fighters to disarm and surrender before ordering the military attack in 1994, triggering off last century’s first Chechen war. Chechnya’s Special Representative in Europe, Dr. Alembic Kadiev said, “Yeltsin started the war to control the Caucasus oilfields and pipeline routes and increase his popularity to get re-elected president in 1996”.
Russian forces began massive bombardments, resulting in horrific scenes of death and destruction everywhere. The Chechens fought back. Some analysts even described Russia’s two-year invasion as one of the worst military engagements of the 20th century with some of the most savage depictions of war. Unable to either crush or contain Chechen fighters, Yeltsin was forced into a humiliating peace deal in August 1996, under which Russian forces withdrew, leaving behind more than 100,000 of their soldiers dead and the country reduced to rubble.
Under the ceasefire agreement signed on 12 May 1997 by Yeltsin and the Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, the two sides agreed to renounce use of force or the threat of force in resolving disputes, and to conduct relations within the framework of international law. Since the war ended, the Chechen President and his government constantly tried to initiate a dialogue with Russia to discuss almost every issue including a peaceful solution to the Chechen conflict. But Russia refused.
Chechens almost felt that they had won independence, and in an effort to form their own government, following the withdrawal of Russian troops, they elected Askan Maskhadov, a former rebel military commander, as their President in January 1997, though under the Russian-Chechen peace deal the final status of Chechenya was delayed for five long years. But the century-old Chechen dream for freedom turned into a nightmare when Maskhadov found it difficult to control his field commanders. As a result, law and order in the republic began to deteriorate rapidly.
Three years later, on 1 October 1999, Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin, a relatively unknown former Soviet spy and KGB Agent, carefully chosen and imposed on Russia by retiring President Boris Yeltsin and his Western supporters, once again unleashed Russia’s massive military might on Chechens under the guise of launching an “anti-terrorist operation”.
In fact, the first decree issued by Putin after assuming office was to grant pardon and immunity to Yeltsin and his family members who, according to reports, had robbed the nation of US$15 billion. The reason for the second war on Chechenya was to ensure that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was elected president as waging war and killing Chechens became a vote-catching tactic for Yeltsin and his nominee Putin.
The justifications for the second war were bomb explosions in high-rise apartments in the capital Moscow, killing more than 300 persons, for which Russia blamed the Chechens. Rejecting charges of Chechen involvement the Chechen Government offered to co-operate in the arrest and extradition of suspects if the Russian authorities could provide evidence to support their claims. There was no evidence or cooperation from Russia, which cleared the debris of all involved buildings within 24 hours even before investigations began into the cause of the explosions. Subsequent reports from the West stated that the Russian intelligence itself had planted the bombs and destroyed the apartment complex and killed its own people to put the blame on Chechens to justify a new war.
Within days, Putin, who came to power with a promise to resolve the Chechen problem by force, launched a ferocious military offensive. Employing Russia’s military might and deadliest of weapons on frightened people, Russia once again began carpet-bombing, indiscriminately destroying the infrastructure and killing people. Within weeks the world began to wake up to the true face of Russia’s scorched earth policy of emptying Chechenya of its people, under what was admitted by a Russian general, as a meticulously planned military campaign long before the explosions at the apartment buildings.
As expected, the free world, let alone the Muslim world, simply watched without condemnation, while the United Nations was busy with humanitarian aid.
As a Russian Commander in the North Caucasus insisted that Moscow “would go right to the end” and relentless aerial bombardment, which virtually destroyed every village, went on in full swing, forcing more than 200,000 people to flee their homes into refugees camps. But in the eyes of the head of the United Nations refugee agency, Sadako Ogata, the refugee crisis there was “not a catastrophe”, though further aid was vitally needed.
Putin had the blessings of forces hostile to Muslims. To cite an example, a month before the attacks began; Israel’s then Prime Minister Ehud Barak signed a security pact with Russia in Moscow to crush Muslims demanding independence from Moscow. Under this pact, Israel was given the right to operate inside Islamic republics under Russian control, to spy on them and to interfere in Russia’s internal affairs in return for Zionist Jews lobbying international support for Putin to become President of Russia. These ties between Russia and Israel continued to strengthen. For example, during the first week of September 2004, heavily armed masked men had seized a school and taken hostage more than 1,000 teachers, children and parents in the Russian town of Beslan in the province of North Ossetia near Chechenya. No one knew who the masked men were, but within minutes Russia blamed Chechens and stated that Arabs were seen among the hostage takers. Venting his rage, President Putin called Chechens “terrorists and bastards”. Russian defence minister later denied that the hostage takers were Chechens. Later there was a dead silence regarding who the hostage takers were. Unfortunately, hundreds had died by the time Russian troops were able to storm the school to free the hostages. Days later, even before the dead were buried, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was in Israel signing a memorandum to cooperate in fighting what both sides claimed was international terrorism.
Almost all Islamic republics in Central Asia have suffered Russian oppression for a long time and they have been struggling to win freedom since the sixteenth century. The brutal military campaign isolated Putin and his government in the international scene until the Zionists pressurised Tony Blair to visit Moscow and give Putin a seal of approval and acceptance.
Though thousands of Chechens and even Russian soldiers too were killed, there was very little pressure on Russia from the outside world to stop these killings and find a negotiated settlement.
Russia was accused of war crimes and international human rights organisations, Amnesty International, Nobel Prize winning Medecines Sans Frontiers (MSF) and the Human Rights Watch urged the United States to protect the Chechens. The Strasbourg-based leading European human rights watchdog, The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, which draws it members from 44 national parliaments, adopted a resolution calling for the setting up of an international war crimes tribunal with a clear majority in Chechenya to bring to book those responsible for human rights abuses on both sides – Russian and Chechens. The report said that everyone failed to protect the people of Chechenya from human rights abuses.
After a visit to Chechenya during mid-2003, International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHFHR) delivered a damning assessment of the situation, citing what it called “a high level of grave abuses”. The IHFHR called on Russia to invite a United Nations team to investigate the disappearance of hundreds of civilians.
The team said the security situation remains grave and the people of Chechenya are living in a state of terror. Rape and death have been common. After six visits to Chechenya since 1999, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture of the Council of Europe issued a strongly worded denouncement of the use of torture by Russian forces in Chechenya and criticized the failure of the Russian authorities to deal with cases of torture. The tone of the report suggested that brutal actions of federal forces in Chechenya could well lead to more Chechen sympathisers being pushed towards extreme acts.
Describing the Russian atrocities on Chechens, which the world opted to forget, a columnist stated the following: “Does anyone know about the Russian Resolution number 247? Has anyone heard of a place called Cheornakosova? It is a sort of concentration camp for Chechen captives that include civilians. In Abu Gharib, where American and British soldiers tortured and killed thousands of Iraqi, more than ninety percent who were innocent civilians, is a Five-Star hotel compared to this Russian hell. The Russians are committing abuses beyond imagination. They are lucky that there is no one is running around with digital cameras…Examples of some of what would be caught on film would be fingers, ears, and other body parts chopped off…tongues nailed to tables… Fathers forced to rape their sons and vice versa; depriving captives of food, then smashing their teeth and forcing them to eat salty food. Check out the Eliza Kongayva case and then talk to me about civilisation and humanity. For all those who will deny these charges, the truth is out there in the Russian concentration camps: Mazdock, Urus Martan, among many others…Media coverage of the Russian atrocities was very restricted as the Russian military is free to act with much greater brutality. There are reports that young Chechen men disappear at checkpoints and are detained and tortured on suspicion of being rebel fighters”.
The events of September 11 turned the world’s attention from Chechenya, as killing Muslims under the pretext of fighting terrorism became the order of the day under George Bush’s crusade. Russian atrocities were conveniently forgotten and the US refusal to recognise Aslan Mashkado as a negotiating partner provided Putin with a free hand to press ahead with his senseless and merciless destructions and killings without attracting the limelight of the media.
The international community can stop this war. There are international mechanisms and political institutions, which have proved themselves effective in resolving crises. But who cares, as those being killed are Muslims. As a result Chechenya is just another killing field and a Muslim land laid waste by a senseless war.
COURTESY:latheeffarook.com