Rethinking Putin’s ‘Chechenization’

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

MOSCOW – It was the day after the school hostage crisis in Beslan ended in a hail of gunfire and explosions. The charred and mangled bodies of the more than 330 dead, scores of them children, lay draped in plastic sheets in overflowing morgues. As families sought desperately for lost loved ones, a somber-looking President Putin addressed the nation on television.


For a very brief moment, the president – who has never wavered from his commitment to suppress Chechen separatists by force – appeared to say that his policies had failed.


“We need to admit that we did not fully understand the complexity and the dangers of the processes at work in our country and in the world,” he said.


But the moment didn’t last.


“In any case, we proved unable to react adequately,” Mr. Putin added. “We showed ourselves to be weak. And the weak get beaten.”


Since the Kremlin launched its second war against separatists in the mainly Muslim republic of Chechnya in 1999, Russia has suffered through a litany of terrorist attacks blamed on extremist Chechen rebels. In the week before the Beslan crisis, a suicide bomber killed 10 outside a Moscow subway station and explosions downed two planes simultaneously over southern Russia,killing 90.


But nothing – not even the dramatic hostage-taking at a Moscow theater that ended with 129 dead in October 2002 – has compared with the horror of the Beslan massacre. After seizing a school packed with more than 1,000 children, parents and teachers on September 1, terrorists demanding an independent Chechnya held out for 53 hours before Russian forces stormed the building. The world watched in horror as half naked children ran screaming into the streets and mothers wept over blackened bodies pulled from the wreckage.


But will Beslan change anything? Should it?


For Mr. Putin and his supporters, the only answer is to stay the course.


Meeting with a group of Western journalists and scholars last week, Mr. Putin bristled at suggestions that Moscow should seek a negotiated settlement with Chechen separatists.


“Why don’t you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House, engage in talks, ask him what he wants, and give it to him so he leaves you in peace?” he said. “You find it possible to set some limits on your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child killers?”


Since coming to power in 2000, Mr. Putin has pursued a two-fold strategy in dealing with Chechnya: violently suppressing separatist rebels and sympathizers while installing pro-Moscow Chechens in key positions of power, a policy his advisors called “Chechenization.” His supporters insist the plan is working.


“Moscow’s policy on Chechnya has been successful,” said a political scientist who worked to develop the policy, Sergei Markov. “The Islamist army is eliminated. Most areas of Chechnya are now under relative control. Chechnya has started to restore all of its political institutions and the economy is being rehabilitated. …All these developments will continue and any negotiations about separating from the federation can only be considered harmful.”


Critics say Moscow’s successes in Chechnya are tenuous at best. While the military does effectively control most of the republic, Russian soldiers and pro-Moscow Chechen officials die almost daily from rebel attacks. And efforts to promote a stable, local-run administration in Chechnya have run into countless obstacles. The first Chechen president elected under a new Constitution last year, Akhmad Kadyrov, was assassinated in a bomb attack in the Chechen capital Grozny in May. A successor, Alu Alkhanov, was elected in August, but experts say Mr. Alkhanov will be lucky to live out his term, let alone bring substantial change.


And, perhaps most importantly, the conflict in Chechnya is spreading far beyond its borders, with radical separatists increasingly adopting the methods of international terrorist groups. In the last two years alone, nearly 1,000 people have been killed in suicide bombings, hostage-takings and other attacks in Moscow and other Russian regions.


Critics charge that Russia’s policies in Chechnya are the driving force behind terrorist attacks and the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalists in the region.


“The behavior and ideology of the Chechen fighters…has changed markedly in recent years, especially among the young. Field commanders who pursued separatist goals have been replaced by people wrapped up in the global fundamentalist network,” an independent political analyst, Andrei Piontkovsky, recently wrote. “The Kremlin’s refusal to negotiate with separatists, combined with the excesses committed by federal forces against the civilian population, have driven ever more people into the terrorist camp.”


While almost no one is calling on Moscow to negotiate with radical separatists like Shamil Basayev – the rebel leader likely behind every major terrorist attack – critics have repeatedly called for talks with moderate rebel leaders, such as former Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov.


“In fact, holding talks with moderates is the brutally pragmatic approach, because it would help Russia to divide and conquer and to deprive that most evil of enemies – global Islamist terrorism – of its breeding ground in Chechnya,” Mr. Piontkovsky wrote.


Malik Saidullayev, a Moscow-based Chechen businessman and politician who has twice been excluded from running in the republic’s presidential elections, said that at first he thought Beslan might mark a turning point in the Kremlin’s Chechnya policy.


“I thought that these events would make the authorities understand that from now on they must choose peaceful means to protect the citizens of Russia. I thought that the Kremlin would take new measures. But no,” he said. “Instead, the country is now experiencing a throwback to the Communist times, with democratic rights being taken away.”


On Monday, Mr. Putin announced a series of electoral changes he said were designed to help Russia more effectively combat terrorism. Under the proposals, the heads of Russia’s 89 regions and republics will no longer be elected by universal suffrage, but essentially appointed by the Kremlin. Full proportional representation will also be introduced for elections to the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of Parliament, making it impossible for small opposition parties to get deputies elected on independent tickets.


Opposition politicians and foreign governments have expressed concern at the moves, which will consolidate Mr. Putin’s already-firm grip on power.


Speaking in Washington on Tuesday, Secretary of State Powell said: “In effect, this is pulling back on some of the democratic reforms as seen by the international community that have occurred in the past. … We have concerns about it and we want to discuss them with the Russians.”


Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended the proposals yesterday, noting that the United States had itself passed “harsh” measures after the September 11 attacks.


“Our process is our internal matter, and all of these changes are taking place within the framework of the Russian Constitution,” he said. “At the very least, it’s strange that the U.S. Secretary of State, talking about his concern for the Russian Federation’s alleged diversion from the democratic process, should be conveying the thought that democracy can exist in only one form.”


The New York Sun

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