Chechnyan Murder of Innocents

This was one of the most heinous acts I know of in modern history.

All the dead children...

I thought it was political.

That's the terrorist mode, Whooda. Target the innocent; target the defenseless. The objective seems to be to prove that no one is safe. Anyway, military targets are tougher, better defended, and more dangerous.

Welcome back, by the way, and I love your signature. Ode to louse is my favorite Burns, and he's one of about two poets I care about at all.

akaRoger - of course.

Welcome, Whooda - however, according to American terrorist watch sources, their islamism is pretty doubtful - I will try to get you the link....

Here we go:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=888279#888279

And another interesting link from the same thread:

http://www.jmu.edu/orgs/wrni/islam8.htm

I suspect we are looking at other wellsprings for this act....

Not that that justifies it, but I think it wise to look before leaping to some conclusions...

The Chechnyan insurgency is NOT just another Jihadist thing.

The Chechens are one of a range of small mountain peoples whom the Russian empire took two centuries to subjugate, without ever quite succeeding.

In the fourties, Stalin had the Chechens collectively deported in cattle cars to Central Asia and Siberia. It was tantamount to attempted genocide. Enormous numbers died under way or of starvation when they "arrived" or were murdered. Mass murder. Those who survived were only allowed to return home decades later.

In the nineties, after some operetta Chechen leader with petty dictatorial aspirations (Dudayev) declared independence from Russia, around the time all these regions were declaring all kinds of autonomy, the Russian army tried to occupy the country. The war has lasted for years. Grozny, the capital city was flattened - if you see pics, its like Berlin after WW2.

Russian soldiers waged a campaign of mass terror against the civilian population. Massive scores of men "disappeared" into torture camps without a trace. Young, old. There have been a massive rapes of Chechen women and girls. Drunk, demoralised, underpaid, angry Russian soldiers acting out or a deliberate campaign? A combination, it appears.

All of this - the detention camps, the mass torture and dissapearances, the mass rapes, have been documented extensively by human rights groups, independent journalists - before they were all thrown out of the country by the Russian army.

I'm not saying the Chechens are innocent. We've all seen what the militants are capable of now. Plus, its worse. The traditional guerrilla war the Chechen rebels tried, failed. They were pushed back way up into the mountains. They couldnt win. Hence they've resorted to terrorism, the war of those without army as they say. Its ruthless terrorism. And after ten years of sectarian, fragmented leadership in conspirative, guerrilla-military settings, those now leading the Chechen rebellion are hardcore, merciless gangster-fighters.

There is a religious element, for sure. The eighteenth and nineteenth century rebellions were ethnic (or perhaps tribal, clan-like) rebellions that sprang up here, then there in the Caucasus. But the leaders also presented themselves as devout Muslims, fighters of the faith. That tradition is part of the history of Chechen rebellions. Whats more, ever since the Chechens lost the, lets say, independence-struggle phase of the war in the nineties and started resorting more and more to terrorism, they've attracted and recruited ever more support from outside, extremist Islamist sources, who are only all too happy to make this into yet another jihadist battlefield.

But as should be clear from the above (sorry about writing it down in such a sketchy / sloppy way, I should be in bed), it should also be clear that there's a little more to this than just more Islamist killing in the name of God.

The Russians basically colonized/conquered this region back under the Tsars but only with the greatest of troubles, and every time the smallest opportunity arose, the Chechens have tried to wrestle their way out. It was only Stalins iron fist that subjugated them for another 50 years, until the 90s. And then, the Russians started waging a war that must have directly reminded all Chechens of the fate of their parents and grandparents under Stalin, and that specifically singled out women as victims. Even without Islamist background, it shouldnt really come as all that much of a surprise that we now see Chechen women suicide-bombers.

[double post]

Anyway, the whole background's been discussed at length by various A2K posters last year on this thread by Walter. Lot of info.

Yes.

Thing is, assuming it is the religion is THE factor is a bit like doing a survey about who supported Hitler at a school for the vertically challenged in Germany in 1939.

You COULD draw the conclusion that short people are fascists.....but you may have missed other factors that were influencing your results.

if you see what I mean....

Yeah I think I do ... in fact, aren't we agreeing here?

I mean, the whole point of that long post above was to point out that though religion plays a role in this conflict, it is very obviously not the primary element -- and even if it had played no role at all, there still wouldnt have been anything surprising about the violence we are seeing now, such has been the nature of the trauma of the past ten years (and previous generations).

Guess I didnt make myself clear. Sucks.

Yes. Well, the Chechens earned my sympathy years ago, but sympathy is not only cheap, it is fragil.

I hope I don't sound as if I think anyone else I know of does support terrorism. I certainly don't.

I'm with you, Roger.

(...and, HEY!, I've missed you.)

I have read about the Chechens before--and felt very sorry for them....but they have lost my sympathy now. Nothing...NOTHING justifies what they have done.

Huh? You talking to me?

Of course you were clear - I was adding support to your post.

Nimh, Dlowan, and all: Appreciated the posts and links as they have put together many missing pieces for me. I was aware of the Czarist conquests, flattening of Grozny, and Russian genocide(?) against the locals, but the link regarding the Vakhabites was enlightening.

Nimh's comment, "It should also be clear that there's a little more to this than just more Islamist killing in the name of God" was provoking. Let's say the school murders were entirely political and sparked by pent-up hatred against the Russian iron fist. Shouldn't this action (targeting children) be so distasteful to any Chechan of a religious persuasion to deflate support for the separatist cause?

BTW, what IS the case for keeping Chechnya in the Russian federation? Is it merely a matter of preserving national pride for the Russians? Are they afraid of setting a precedent for other breakaway groups

WT - I've been wondering the same thing myself.

When the Soviet Union collapsed they gave independence to a dozen or more of their republics. So why fight so hard to hold onto Chechnya? Does anyone know why it is so important to the Russians?

Should hope so, eh. Its hard to gauge what the Chechen popular opinion is like - after all, outsiders (whether media or NGO) have little chance to get in and do independent research without overseeers and stuff.

I think anecdotal evidence shows that though the Russian soldiers are pretty universally loathed, that does not necessarily mean the rebels are liked ... especially since they've gotten to use ever more extreme actions, for which the Chechen population overall then is punished again. I'm sure they'll find enough recruits still, but what the general population thinks ...

Plus, there's always been plenty of sectarianism and rivalries among the Chechen rebels. When extremists like Basayev resorted to ever more violent terrorism it was not at all clear whether it was approved or agreed by people like former President Maskhadov - or whether it wasn't even rather part of his own rival grab for more power and "prestige" among the Chechen militants.


Good question, eh. Yes to both I guess. And more.

Precedence would be pretty fierce - the entire Northern Caucausus consists of small, ethnic-based republics that could then also want to break away from the Russian Federation - not to mention other republics much closer to the Russian centre, like Tatarstan. Still, I dunno. There are few of these Northern-Caucasus republics that have anything like as large an "ethnic" majority as Chechnya, where Chechens make up the overwhelming majority of the population (and did so already before the war). In others, Russians are a huge minority or even a majority, with often a firm hold on political power. Plus the main "wave" of autonomy declarations et cetera dates from the early nineties, decentralisation has pretty much been reversed under Putin.

Another argument would be not so much precedence, but consequence. Chechen rebels have struck in neighbouring Dagestan before, and Dagestan is a veritable mosaic of various ethnic groups. If Chechnya would be an independent state, it could well meddle in Dagestan affairs to the extent where the already extremely tenuous status quo there would fracture along a dozen lines and collapse into chaos. That seems a more serious threat at the moment than that of other republics also massively declaring independence.

Then there is Putin. He came to power on a platform of restoring Russian dignity, prestige, power. He is still very popular as a 'strong' leader. Both times he was elected president, it was partly because of mysterious Chechen terrorist attacks wrecking havoc just before. Promising to fight back is how he made his name.

Even if that fight becomes unpopular, Putin himself, a former KGB man with severe and long-standing loyalties to the concept of a strictly led, powerful Russian state, can be counted on acting on principle here, too.

Even with all that tho, it remains a good question. The Northern Causasus has caused trouble for the Russian empire for, what, two, three centuries now? Why not just give up? National pride (or the political manipulation of such), perhaps.

Plus, its a strategically important area - not perhaps Chechnya itself, but the Caucausus as a whole. Its the gate to Russian influence in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Those countries, again, are in a pivotal location regarding the Caspian Sea, its oil, and the oil's transportation northwards (to Russia) or westwards (to Turkey and the West).

Finally, in as far as Muslim zealotism plays a role, there might be the fear of it bleeding through to other areas with Islam-inspired rebels that Russia considers its "near abroad": Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan.

But whether any of that makes it all worth it? And isn't it just working counterproductively?

(reading, learning)

Well, that's something, obviously many do, especially US-Americans:
generalizing.

However, it's good that you have of the Chechens before, Sofia
Chechnya (or Chechnia or Chechenia) has been in the international news sincein August 1991 Dzhozkhar Dudayev, a Chechen politician and former Soviet air force general, carried out a coup against the local communist government :wink:

I dunno, Walter, I think "nothing justifies what they have done" can be both a generalization and accurate because of the horror of the thing they've done.

Personally, I understand the background (knew some of it, learning more here), and understand the desperation, and understand what kind of people that kind of life can breed, but stop well short of saying that what they did is justified.

so will we next have Putin display a show of force (if we go in with power, we can show those sonsabitches, what real killing is all about)
will we never learn?
or, perhaps Putin can take the Bush model and invade Nepal.