Chechen Conundrum

Once again the mountains of the Caucasus are the backdrop to scenes of violence, cruelty and suffering. The Russian government last week warned all civilians in Grozny, the capital of the breakaway republic of Chechnya, that they must leave the city in a days or be killed when the city is destroyed in an apocalyptic artillery barrage and bombing. This is a particularly cavalier escalation of a war which has already been very punishing for Chechen civilians.

But a closer examination of the conflict quashes the popular predilection for bestowing states on oppressed minorities, yet it also casts doubt on the viability of continued rule. If nothing else the war in Chechnya is a lesson in the complexities and lack of real solutions to ethnic conflict, and a rebuke to the advocates of easy answers.

Much of the suffering of this war has been caused by Russia's strategy. In the last war, poorly trained and demoralized conscripts were badly mauled by Chechen guerrillas. Now the Russians have decided to avoid direct fighting. Instead they are using military might to mercilessly pound the Chechen countryside wherever rebels might be hiding; paving the way for Russian ground troops. Since rebels often hide in villages, civilians have suffered greatly as a result of Russia's new casualty minimizing strategy. As the Russian army moves deeper into Chechnya, it leaves a swath of devastated villages, home to maimed and wounded civilians who receive little assistance because Russia has not allowed international aid agencies to operate in the area.

But it is essential to understand the reasons the Russians have adopted this strategy. In order to maintain popularity, they must minimize Russian troop casualties. It is easy to condemn this strategy and its real and atrocious human cost, but it is not unlike American justification for the use of the atomic bomb on Japanese cities during WWII. Moreover, as in all wars with guerrilla fighters, it is often hard to tell Chechen rebels from ordinary villagers.

Nor are the Chechens innocent in these conflicts. In the last war some Chechen commanders were notorious for raiding Russian territory and taking villagers hostage, in one case even seizing a hospital and its patients.

It should not be surprising that Chechens would be up in arms following this kind of treatment. But their suffering at the hands of Russia extends back much further. Chechnya only became part of Russia after 19th-century wars. During World War II, Stalin was suspicious of their loyalty, and deported almost the entire nation to Central Asia in cattle trucks, a journey which perhaps a third of them did not survive. Unsurprisingly, they declared themselves independent as many minorities in the fomer U.S.S.R. did, starting the first Chechen war, from which they emerged with a limited form of autonomy.

But there is a great danger in using a litany of past and present wrongs against a minority group as justification for their sovereignty. It is especially tempting with the Chechens, who have a remarkable courage and perseverance in the face of long odds, which they demostrated in the fiercely noble stand a few Chechen fighters made against the massive Russian army this decade.

But Chechnya's experience with autonomy dashes this romantic longing for independence. After Russia was badly mauled in the first Chechen war earlier this decade, the peace settlement gave Chechnya five years of autonomy before a referendum on independence. Despite the election of a moderate president, the country quickly descended into chaos as warlords carved out fiefdoms and law and order almost completely broke down. Foreign aid workers were captured, several were beheaded and the notorious Chechen mafia had a field day in the chaos.

The bad state of affairs was not helped by the fact that most of Chechnya's infrastructure had been destroyed and many cities and towns reduced to rubble, creating an unemployment rate estimated at 60 percent. Reconstruction aid promised by Russia unsurprisingly never showed up. In these circumstances Chechnya's side into chaos is not surprising and probably inevitable.

If Chechnya were to gain independence in this war, the devastation would be even worse and Russian aid even less forthcoming. Life for most people in Chechens would be nasty, brutish and short. The unfortunate fact is that the rule of a distant, incompetent and corrupt government is a better way to live than the war of all against all which would ensue in an independent, but devastated Chechnya.

The consequences of Chechen independence would not only be misery for the Chechens but a destabilization of the already unsteady Caucasus. During the past few years of autonomy, Chechnya became home to several foreign Islamic fundamentalist warlords, who have taken advantage of the confusion and abundance of arms to use it as a base for spreading rebellion in neighboring provinces. Russians often point to the Chechen government's ties to organized crime, and warn that an independent Chechen state could quickly become a conduit for drugs and smuggled arms. There is little doubt that that a Chechnya that wins its independence--but is devastated in the attempt--will quickly turn into a black hole of anarchy in the Caucasus.

But keeping Chechnya under Russian control is stricken with almost as many problems. The devastation the Russian army has left in its wake has done irreparable damage to any sort of legitimacy the Russian government might have had to rule the Chechens. Russia recently tried to organize a loyalist government--the only Chechen who would co-operate with them was a former mayor of Grozny in Russian prison following his conviction for embezzlement. In every shelled village, everyone who is killed or maimed leaves behind several family members who fiercely hate the Russian army and its rule.

Hopes that the U.S. could somehow influence Russian policy are equally naive. The war has proved exceedingly popular in Russia, and the only two politicians to oppose it are a catspaw of the Chechen mafia and Grigory Lavlinsky, the hopeless neo-liberal whose principled stand got him denounced as a traitor to the Russian cause. As the generals leading the war make veiled threats to politicians who might oppose the war, the talk of cutting off foreign aid and diplomatic pressure is an exercise in unreality. At present, the only U.S. policy that could bring real comfort to the Chechen, is helping the refugees and displaced civilians.

The Chechen conundrum has no easy solutions. We must be wary of sliding into the classic response of seeing an oppressed minority and leaping forward, enthusiastic they they should have their own state. Nor should we relax, confident that Russia's reconquest of the province will restore stability. The only sure consequence of this war is that Chechnya will be destabilized for years and possibly decades to come. Perhaps the West can serve a useful role when the fighting has ended in advising or reconstruction. Regardless, for the corpses of Russian conscripts and Chechen civilians mouldering amidst the harsh beauty of the Caucasus, this war has been worth very little at all.

Charles C. De Simone '01 is a government concentrator in Dunster House.