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rfmcdonaldLast week, two Russian airplanes were destroyed by Chechen suicide bombers at the cost of 90 lives. Yesterday, a suicide bombing at a Moscow subway station killed another ten Russian civilians. Now, terrorists are holding hundreds of schoolchildren hostage (see the CBC, Christian Science Monitor, and The Guardian).
Anne Nivat, Moscow correspondent for Libération, wrote in 2001 an interesting book (Chienne de Guerre) about her experiences travelling inside a Chechnya devastated by the ongoing second war. She examined the lives of Chechens deformed by a brutal ongoing conflict between Wahhabi-inspired rebels who kept fighting no matter how many of the people they claimed to defend were killed, and a Russian army that didn't distinguish between rebels and other Chechens. Her conclusion is worth quoting:
As things stand, it's not likely that this will happen, not as long as Chechen terrorists are willing to inflame Russian public opinion by murdering huge numbers of uninvolved civilians. A peace of exhaustion, perhaps, when Chechnya has been more thoroughly devastated still and the Chechen diaspora is as large as the Circassian? The death toll en route must, of course, be imagined. Or perhaps not?
Anne Nivat, Moscow correspondent for Libération, wrote in 2001 an interesting book (Chienne de Guerre) about her experiences travelling inside a Chechnya devastated by the ongoing second war. She examined the lives of Chechens deformed by a brutal ongoing conflict between Wahhabi-inspired rebels who kept fighting no matter how many of the people they claimed to defend were killed, and a Russian army that didn't distinguish between rebels and other Chechens. Her conclusion is worth quoting:
Though the Russians have lacked dramatic military success in this latest conflict, they have won the propaganda war. They have managed to confuse the West by representing their “Operation Antiterrorist” as an effort to save the southern reaches of Russia from Islamic extremism. Is this fair to the Chechens? Who are the Chechen enemy? Bloodthirsty rebels who would impose the charia on their neighbours at any cost? Or confused and isolated men and women, who dream of only on thing: an end to this conflict so that their children can return to school and “normal” life can resume?
A minority of secessionist Chechens will indeed fight to the bitter end. They will continue to prey on the Russian troops as long as the Russians are present in Chechnya. But the majority of the Chechen population longs to put an end to the killing. We must look to them to convince the Russians to find a solution to this conflict. We must not forget the countless humiliations and acts of violence that these Chechens suffer in their daily lives (256).
As things stand, it's not likely that this will happen, not as long as Chechen terrorists are willing to inflame Russian public opinion by murdering huge numbers of uninvolved civilians. A peace of exhaustion, perhaps, when Chechnya has been more thoroughly devastated still and the Chechen diaspora is as large as the Circassian? The death toll en route must, of course, be imagined. Or perhaps not?
