Chechens are an ethnic minority living mostly in Russia's North Caucasus region. For the past two hundred years, they have generally been governed by Moscow although at times, they have had varying degrees of de facto autonomy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Chechen separatists launched a coordinated campaign for independence, which resulted in two devastating wars and an ongoing insurgency in Russia's republic of Chechnya. Militants in and around Chechnya continue to agitate for independence, though the death of separatist leader Shamil Basayev in July 2006 weakened the separatist movement. However, violence in the North Caucasus has escalated since 2008, and Moscow experienced its most serious attack in six years with the recent bombing of a metro station in March 2010 (Bhattacharji).
Russia did not have significant contact with people from the North Caucasus prior to the sixteenth century. This ultimately changed after Ivan the Terrible's conquest of the Khanate of Astrakhan in 1556. During the second half of the eighteenth century, Prince G. A. Potemkin, the governor-general of southern Russia, and the alleged lover of Catherine the Great, began to implement a grand plan to extend the Cossack line across the whole North Caucasus. He imposed his will heavily on the Cossack people by developing a policy of using their communities as examples showing the power that Russia had in the region. For example, in 1763, the Russians established the fortress of Mozdok but it was met with serious resistance among the Chechens.
Beginning in the early years of the nineteenth century, Murids, Muslim warriors or fighting monks that lived in the mountains, tried to organize the Muslims of the North Caucasus into a single Islamic state. Truth and legend about these Murids are so mixed that it is difficult to be sure where one ends and other begins (Gokay). However, what we do know is, the Chechens played a significant role in the Murid wars of the nineteenth century. They were lead by a great master known as Shamil. It is said that Shamil's Murids preferred death to being disarmed and that no Murid was ever taken alive (Gammer). It was only after the defeat of the Murid Uprising that the Chechen lands came under Russian rule.
During the last decades of tsarist Russia, a small group of intellectuals grouped together hoping to unify the mountain people of the North Caucasus into a single nationality. Although it was not popular at first, it eventually caught on after the February Revolution of 1917 and the League of the United Mountain Peoples was formed. They called for the creation of a federal republic of the autonomous and self-governing provinces, each with its own elected legislature. They came to an agreement with the other nationalities of the Caucasus and saw this rapprochement as essential for the purpose of common democratic ideals based on mutual respect. Unfortunately, this did not end the age long religious fervor and ethnic tensions, which eventually became the excuse for opposition. This collapse in order enabled Bolsheviks to come out openly in favor of Soviet power reestablishing Soviet rule, which in turn caused another holy war. This holy war was one of the most serious challenges the Red army had ever faced thus far. Eventually the Red Army pulled it together and crushed the revolt. Interestingly, the rebels that revolted did not leave any survivors to write their memoirs because they subscribed to the theory of 'fighting to the end.' In the end, these wars left a long lasting heritage of anti-Russian xenophobia.
During the Second World War, Stalin deported the entire Chechen population to Central Asia because he believed they collaborated with the Germans. The territory that remained was divided up between the Russian and Georgian Soviet Republics. Chechen place names were replaced with Russian names and the land was given to new Russian settlers. All mosques were closed in 1943 and were not even reopened when the Chechen people were allowed to return in the 1960s (Nekrich). This may explain why, upon their return, the Chechens seemed to be more militant and religious than ever. As history shows, nationalism in Chechnya is centered on Islam and Sufism. Today, by a strange but logical paradox, in spite of seventy years of Soviet official rule of militant atheism, Sufism in the North Caucasus appears to be more dynamic than seventy years ago (Gokay).
One hundred and fifty years after Lermontov, from the 1970s onward, thousands of Russians emigrated from Chechnya and Daghestan unable to cope with the xenophobia of the local Muslim people. According to Gokay, the legacy of two centuries of warfare was heavy and caused Chechnya to become a symbol of Russian's political and moral failure. He goes on to theorize that this is why many Russian historians, even under glasnost, and even after the end of the Soviet system, continue to pretend that the Caucasian wars and the Stalin deportations were all due to the misdeeds and banditry of the Chechens themselves. This was the case in the eighteenth century and it has been true for all Chechen opponents of Russia ever since. Frankly, the Russian perception was, the only way to deal with a Chechen resistance was [and still is] the policy of massive force, implemented with single-minded ruthlessness (Gokay).
In present times, the first quasi-independence of Chechnya started in 1991 and lasted until 1994. During this time, Russian federal troops withdrew from Chechnya only to reenter the republic in 1994. The period of the first war between Chechen militants and federal authorities lasted from late 1994 through the fall of 1996 resulting in the Russian army to withdraw once again. Interestingly, the period between 1996 and 1999 was also the time when Islamic fundamentalism developed in Chechnya drawing international terrorists from Afghanistan and the Middle East. These foreigners established training camps for future Chechen militants where they taught them methods of combat as well as the ideology of Islam. By the time the Chechen government finally realized the seriousness of this threat and tried to expel the extremists from the republic, it was too late. So, from this point until 1999, Chechnya was ruled by representatives of the militants led by President Aslan Maskhadov. In October 1999, this period of chaos and anarchy ended with the intervention of Russian federal troops.
Putin's rise to power in 1999 was based partly on a pledge to take down Chechen separatists. Shortly after his nomination as the head of government, apartment bombings in Buynaksk and Volgodonsk took place, causing hundreds of deaths and injuries. Putin used these bombings as an excuse to undertake a full-scale military mobilization against Chechnya. Appealing to Russian chauvinism and making crude attacks on Chechens, he was swept into office as Russian's president on a wave of national hysteria (Gokay). Hence the beginning of the second Chechen war, where terrorism became increasingly cruel and murderous. Civilians, including women and children, were targeted, multiple executions took place, and fleeing hostages were shot in the back. It is possible the Chechens resorted to terrorism because of the Russian's excessive use of violence, as well as their reckless targeting of civilians.
An interesting note concerning the apartment bombings mentioned above is that pending further evidence, the simplest, clearest explanation for the apartment blasts is that they were perpetrated by Islamist extremists from the North Caucasus who were seeking retribution for federal military attacks on the Islamist enclave in the central Dagestani villages of Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi, and Kadar (Ware). One piece of evidence that supports this hypothesis is that Chechen leadership did not take credit, as they had always done. This leads one to ask why would any Chechen wish to enrage Russians by attacking civilians in their sleep? And why did the explosions stop when Russian troops reentered Chechnya? According to Ware, if Chechens were behind the blasts, there is no doubt that the blasts would have continued after warfare resumed (Ware).
During the second Chechen war, terrorism was transformed from an occasional tactic, usually targeting specific Russian officials into a strategic weapon of choice. Like terror everywhere, Chechen terror was increasingly employed against civilians, and carried out by civilians (Henkin). One example of this was women suicide bombers, who were responsible for at least 220 deaths in 17 recorded incidents. Another, more shocking example would be the school in Beslan. There were 317 hostages killed [including 186 children]. It should be noted here that Russia blamed Muslim extremists and not the Chechens for the Beslan attack and that Russian and/or local forces used rocket-propelled incendiaries and tank fire, almost certainly contributing to the collapse of the school gymnasium and fire, which caused many of the casualties.
One of the major themes of the second Chechen conflict has been Russia's attempt to portray it as an anti-terrorist operation in which the federal forces were fighting the threat of international Islamic terrorism [rather than the secession of Chechnya]. This was the overarching conceptual prism through which most of the current events in Chechnya and those relating to it, such as the terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2004, were explained (Snetkov). This change in rhetoric is perhaps best characterized as the Russian's attempt to remove Chechnya from the political agenda because it is certainly a problem that it has failed to resolve.
The Russian army engaged in indiscriminate bombing, failing to take care of civilians during the first and the beginning of the second Chechen war. To eliminate a few separatist fighters, the army would attack an entire village killing dozens of innocent civilians. The military had little concern for 'collateral' damage; in October 1999, the house of the Chechen commander Shamil Basayev in Grozny was targeted by missiles and the strike destroyed an adjoining house killing four innocent neighbors. Subsequent indiscriminate bombing leveled a nearby residential district, killing hundreds of civilians. Grozny was almost fully carpet-bombed in the first weeks of 2000. Excessively lethal armaments were used without any intention of protecting civilians and without clear attempts to target military facilities. The use of cluster munitions stuffed with pellet bombs produced heavy civilian casualties; such bombs were dropped near the central post office in Grozny and near a maternity hospital, killing 140 civilians and injuring over 200. Air strikes sometimes hit large groups of people and convoys of vehicles on roads when they were trying to escape from towns because of the bombing. People were left, in fact, without the choice of whether to stay in their houses, which could be destroyed, or to try to leave the cities, facing the danger of being bombed in a convoy. People could not even safely bury their relatives. For example, in October 1999, the funeral procession of Tamara Chankayeva and her 12 year-old granddaughter (both killed in an earlier bombardment of Grozny) was attacked from the air and, as a result, one person was killed and five wounded (Popovski). No military officer has ever been held liable for these violations.
In order to better understand why the Russian's were so ruthless and indiscriminant in their dealings with Chechnya, a chronology of the known Chechen suicide attacks/bombings is provided:
June 2000 - Chechnya experienced its first suicide bombing when a young woman drove a truck loaded with explosives through a checkpoint of an OMON (Russian Special Purpose Detachment of Militia) base at Alkhan-Yurt in Chechnya. She detonated her bomb outside the barracks, killing a number of troops. Another "suicide operation" was carried out a couple of days later at a checkpoint in Khankala by a former Russian soldier who had converted to Islam and joined the rebels; this explosion killed two OMON officers.
July 2000 - Chechen guerrillas launched five suicide bomb attacks into Russian military and police headquarters and barracks within 24 hours. In the deadliest, at least 54 police troops were killed and 81 wounded at an OMON dormitory.
December 2000 - 16-year old Mareta Duduyeva attempted to drive a truck laden with explosives into a police station in Groznyy. The vehicle was stopped within thirty feet of the police gate after police opened fire at her. She survived, and during questioning confessed that, the widow of a local warlord had hired her.
March 2001 - Three bomb-laden cars exploded simultaneously in three southern Russian towns. Twenty-one were killed and more than 140 injured.
November 2001 - A young Chechen woman, Elza Gazuyeva, carried out an assassination attempt on the Urus-Martan military district commandant, identified only as General Geydar Gadzhiev, blowing herself up with a hand grenade near a group of Russian soldiers. Gazuyeva had lost a husband, two brothers, and a cousin in the war. The general, who was accused of atrocities against civilians by locals, reportedly had personally summoned Elza to witness her husbands and brother's torture and execution.
February 2002 - A 16-year-old girl detonated a small bomb inside a police station in Groznyy. She was the only casualty.
October 2002 - Approximately fifty abductors, 18 of them women dressed in black and wearing explosive belts, seized a Moscow theater crowded with over 800 patrons. This marked the first time in the history of female suicide terrorism that such a team was established, signaling a shift from an individual action to a group structure. Although large-scale operations occurred in the past, only a small number of women had assumed the role of warriors.
December 2002 - Chechen suicide bombers ran vehicles into the republic's heavily guarded government headquarters in Grozny, bringing down the roof and floors of the four-story building. Chechen officials said about 80 people were killed and 210 wounded; Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the attack's planning and execution.
May 2003 - Two suicide bombers drove a truck full of explosives into a security complex in northern Chechnya. Sixty people were killed and more than 250 wounded, including many civilians.
May 2003 - During a busy Muslim festival at Iliskhan-Yurt, Chechnya, a female suicide bomber detonated her explosive belt in an attempt to kill Chechnya's Moscow-appointed leader, Akhmad Kadyrov. He survived the attack, but the explosion claimed 16 lives and left 145 wounded. A second female suicide bomber killed only herself in a second blast.
June 2003 - A female suicide bomber ambushed a bus carrying Russian Air Force pilots in North Ossetia, blowing it up, killing herself and 20 others, and wounding 14.
June 2003 - In Grozny, a suicide truck bomb-driven by a man and a woman-targeted Russian government buildings, killing eight and wounding 25.
July 2003 - Two young Chechen girls were stopped by security guards at separate entrances outside a rock festival at the Tushino airfield near Moscow, and detonated their explosives, killing 15 people. For many observers, the Tushino suicide attacks appeared out of place. The bombings marked the first time that Chechen separatists had attacked civilians with no apparent motive; there were no demands or political aims, not even a claim of responsibility.
July 2003 - A widow from Ingushetia, was arrested as she walked down a street carrying a homemade bomb. She said she agreed to be recruited by Chechen rebels as a suicide bomber in exchange for $1,000 in compensation to her relatives to repay them for jewelry she had stolen from them.
July 2003 - A bomb expert was killed after an apparent mechanical failure prevented a female suicide bomber from detonating her bomb at a downtown Moscow restaurant. The 22-year-old female bomber was arrested and charged with various counts, including terrorism and premeditated murder.
July 2003 - Southeast of Grozny, a female suicide bomber detonated her explosive charge at a military base, as president Kadyrov's son was reviewing troops.
August 2003 - A suicide bomber driving a truck packed with explosives blew up a military hospital in the town of Mozdok in North Ossetia, bordering Chechnya killing at least fifty.
September 2003 - In Magas, Ingushetia (provincial capital city), a truck with two suicide attackers drove through a fence and exploded near a Federal Security Service Directorate building. The blast left a crater 30 feet wide and six feet deep. The blast killed the two attackers and injured 25.
December 2003 - A shrapnel-filled bomb believed to be strapped to a lone male suicide attacker ripped apart a commuter train near Chechnya, killing 44 people and wounding nearly 200.
December 2003 - In the center of Moscow, a female suicide bomber set off explosives near the Kremlin. The bomber used suicide belts packed with ball bearings to kill six people and injure another 44. Shamil Basayev later claimed responsibility.
February 2004 - A bomb ripped through a Moscow metro car during morning rush hour, killing 39 people and wounding 134. A previously unknown Chechen rebel group claimed responsibility for the bombing; the claim came from a group calling itself "Gazoton Murdash," led by Lom-Ali ("Ali the Lion"). According to the statement, the group launched the attack to mark the fourth anniversary of the killing of scores of Chechen civilians by Russian soldiers who took control of the Chechen capital Groznyy.
April 2004 - A suicide car bomber attacked Ingushetia President Murat Zyazikov's motorcade. Zyazikov, a former KGB general, was only lightly injured; he was saved by the armor plating of his Mercedes-Benz car. Two died and seven were wounded.
August 2004 - Flight #1353 Volga-Avta express and flight #1047 Siberia Airlines crashed nearly simultaneously. Traces of explosives were found in the planes' wreckage. An Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in which 90 people died.
August 2004 - A man tried to set off a handmade bomb at a polling station in Grozny. A police officer saw a suspicious-looking bag in the hands of the man and asked him to open it. The man then set off the bomb, killing himself.
September 2004 - Chechen terrorists took more than 1,200 children and adults hostage at a school in Beslan, Russia. Some of the terrorists, including women, were armed with suicide "bomb belts." An estimated 320 people (180 of them children) were killed in the retaking of the school by Russian security forces.
September 2004 - Agents of the Russian security service detained a woman girded with a so-called "shaheed belt" bomb in Chechnya's Urus-Martan district. Agents who searched the woman found a satellite telephone, charging device, and the belt stuffed with a kilo of plastic explosives and wire.
January 2005 - According to a Chechen separatist website, a suicide bomber destroyed three vehicles and killed ten Chechen security service members (according to earlier reports of the Chechen Interior Ministry, a car crash occurred at the highway).
May 2005 - Police killed two female suicide bombers and two field commanders in the settlement of Sernovoskoye, Chechnya. They were supposed to drive a Kamikaze truck carrying over one ton of explosives.
May 2005 - A female suicide bomber was killed by Russian servicemen as she was about to blow up the police headquarters in the Staropromyslovsky district. The female suicide bomber was carrying a so-called "shaheed belt" and was planning to enter the police headquarters and blow herself up.
December 2005 - A suicide bomber prematurely detonated his explosives in Makhachkaha, Ingushetia, killing himself and wounding another.
Continuing the war against Chechnya is important for Putin's regime for two reasons. First, it allows Putin's government to employ the threat of 'terrorism' in order to legitimize its stance on law, order, and security. Second, the loss of this small republic would decisively weaken Russian influence in the north Caucasus-a region with international significance because of its strategic proximity to key oil pipeline routes and rich oil deposits.
Chechnya has been attempting to the attain independence from Russia since 1991. Following the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, the future of the Caucasus border territories, previously controlled by the U.S.S.R., were left undetermined. This left some territories fighting for some form of sovereignty and others seeking reunification with "Mother Russia." Those territories that did not desire full reunification fall in to one of three categories: those seeking full sovereignty, those seeking partial sovereignty while maintaining ties to Russia, and those that are undecided. Chechnya, which had been overtaken by the U.S.S.R. in 1859, was among the countries that desired full sovereignty but was not granted complete independence. The failure to emancipate Chechnya in 1991 led to the development of the terrorist ideology that seeks to separate Chechnya from Russian control in order to make the country a sovereign nation. Terrorism in a situation such as the one between Russia and Chechnya is often viewed as one of the only remaining options for success. The Chechens, unable to negotiate the desired change through political means, have deemed it necessary to resort to measures that are more drastic in order to make their demands known. Obviously, the end goal for them is to force Russia into granting Chechnya's full independence in return for an end to the violence.
Genocide is still being practiced against the Chechen people under the opportunist guise of the 'war on terrorism'. The killings in the Moscow theatre and at the school in Beslan are an illustration of the methods favored by Putin, the former KGB agent. Putin not only enjoys the resigned support of the Russian people but also an aloof attitude from Europe, which has learned to turn a blind eye when substantial oil or energy contracts are being negotiated. Like a pyromaniac fireman, Putin has watered down the Chechen resistance movement into an ill defined, generic 'war on terrorism' that could be construed as being in conformity with the militaristic rhetoric of Bush.
Today no one is allowed to witness the genocide in Chechnya. Putin and his advisers have come to realize that, while information may be a power tool that is both used and abused outside Russia, the absence of information makes it possible to wield unlimited power.
If we apply the test of systematic indiscriminate attacks on noncombatants to the conflict in Chechnya, we find that it is Russia that is the guiltiest party. The use of terrorism by Chechen resistance, however terrible, is peripheral to the national resistance as a whole and has been a reaction to Russia's strategy of excesses, whether to deter it or to exact revenge. All the while, having experienced a humiliating loss of power and prestige after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia continues to reassert its influence in Eurasia and restore its international greatness.
