Fake referendum and surreal ‘normalisation’

By Musa Youssoupov, Le Monde diplomatique, June 2003

JUST before Russia's second invasion of Chechnya in 1999 General Alexander Mikhailov, the former spokesman for Sergei Stepashin, who served briefly as Russian prime minister, appeared on television and said: “If we can wipe out Chechnya in a month, the West won’t even notice.” Cynical but true. Except that the Russian military have been trying to wipe out this tiny republic for four years.

Human rights activists and prominent figures in Russia and the West have called for an end to this tragedy, but their voices have not been powerful enough to bring peace. Foreign leaders view the conflict in terms of their own interests, which do not usually coincide with much-vaunted humanist values and principles. The international community encourages the Russians' wilful domination of Chechnya.

The core of the problem lies elsewhere. Without going back to the roots of regional instability, we need to understand why the players in this conflict are so determined to keep it going. The Russian authorities hypocritically classify the people who ask them for a ceasefire and peaceful settlement as bandits and terrorists. In the name of restoring “constitutional order” they ride roughshod over the norms of Russian and international law, authorising the army to conduct terrorist operations against the population.

This is hardly surprising. Russia has been recolonising Chechen lands for years. That is the real goal of the media, psychological, economic, technical and military onslaught against the Chechens. This strategy comes from a political culture based on an elite and a civil service from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Polit icians and generals publicly pride themselves on their experience in waging war on the peoples of central Asia, the Baltic states, Ukraine and the Caucasus. But it is unlikely that past formulae can be applied to the Chechen problem. The Caucasian tradition is to look for compromises based on reciprocal concessions, with the help of mediators. This approach is in line with modern democratic trends, but not with imperial ambitions.

The Russia army also perpetuates the war to safeguard its own resources. Because of the offensive of autumn 1999, the defence ministry received 100% of its budget for the first time in 10 years. In 2000 it even got an increase of 60bn roubles ($2bn) for the pursuit of this war. This cost Moscow over $40bn in all. Military personnel are also motivated by personal profit: in Chechnya they are involved in trading oil and precious woods. The conflict has been privatised by the soldiers, who will therefore never willingly let go. Instability in the region also benefits Russia's oligarchs, who have used it to prevent sections of the military from sharing the spoils. The first major redistribution of state-owned assets took place during Russia's first invasion of Chechnya (1994-96). The next phase coincided with the second invasion. If social conditions worsen, Russia's bureaucrats and wealthy elite will rely on conflict to divert attention from social grievances to ethnic relations, justifying the declaration of a national state of emergency.

Because of Chechnya, a modest bureaucrat, Vladimir Putin, was elected president. But although 70% of Russians supported the war in 1999-2000, more than 60% now favour negotiations. This is not so much a leap of faith as a reaction to the absurdity of the conflict. However, the Kremlin is unlikely to reconsider its existing policies. Regional instability will be a feature of Putin's second term, though the election campaign might lead him to go through the motions of “normalising” the situation.

These factors outweigh Russian leaders' fears that the current federation might meet a Soviet-style fate. The Chechen leadership, including Dzhokhar Dudayev and Aslan Maskhadov, never called for total independence; rather, they sought internal autonomy and external political ties within Russia's borders. Opinion surveys show that the Chechen people are split into three: those who want legal parity with other federation members; those who support maximum independence within the feder ation; and those who seek total independ ence. These differences should have been addressed by negotiations, not war.

Analysts and experts are well aware that a possible break-up of the Russian Feder ation would come from socio-economic factors and the country's territorial and demographic East-West split. But these factors have little to do with what is at stake in Chechnya: do the Chechens have the right to choose their political rulers? How should the Russian Federation be organised on a social and state basis? How will its institutions evolve? What are the prospects for freedom of expression for social and ethnic groups? War has led to the increased militarisation of the Russian elite and society as a whole, acting as a brake on democratisation. What applies to Russia goes for Chechnya too.

Military conflict helps the ruling forces to overcome the crises of transition, functioning as a safety valve through which the negative energy of a sick society can escape, and fostering an unchecked accumulation of illicit wealth. The fragments of information on military operations and “terrorist” acts that do get out give little clue as to what is really happening: Russia's and Chechnya's interests are intertwined, as are national and community interests, and those of government departments, influential groups and individuals. These converging interests are being grafted on to the rift between the centre and the regions and the historic confrontation between the Russian state and the Chechen people. Russia, with its military and police forces, has the upper hand in Chechnya. The Russian-designated puppet administration only reflects the federation's will. The main resistance leaders have been forced underground because Russian military units have complete control of all sectors. Soldiers, administrators, resistance fighters and the general popu lation all live in a constant state of fear.

The Chechen resistance will not defeat the Russian army: its real goal is to preserve its forces while demonstrating its willingness to find a peaceful solution. Given the extended nature of the conflict, Moscow is betting that the resistance will become exhausted, demographically and materially, and that the conflict will run out of steam. Russia is doing everything it can to Chechenise the war by pitting the Chechens against each other. Oddly, these moves also aim to divide the pro-Russian Chechen elite.

There is talk of leaving the problem for future generations to sort out. In any event Moscow will have to maintain its security apparatus in Chechnya if it wishes to preserve those organs of power loyal to Russia. But stamping out the resistance will not resolve the conflict. Any efforts to pacify the situation will fail because the Chechens are angry, and this anger will pass to future generations: not just the daily humiliations but the deaths of 150,000-200,000 civilians. If Chechnya is to become stable, people will have to reflect on the conflict's origins and evo lution, taking into account the balance of power and sensibilities within Chechen society. Stability means finding mutually acceptable ways to normalise Russian-Chechen relations. The only way to end this is through peace negotiations.