February 24, 2005
NEW PALESTINE:
Russia's forgotten war (Ilyas Akhmadov, February 24, 2005, Boston Globe)
TODAY'S SUMMIT in Bratislava between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin is a golden opportunity for reassessing conflict and peacemaking in the age of terrorism. It is an opportunity to nudge one of the bloodiest conflicts in European history since the end of World War II toward a peaceful resolution. The war in question is the forgotten conflict between Russia and Chechnya.The summit falls around the 61st anniversary of Stalin's effort on Feb. 23, 1944, to wipe out the Chechen nation by deportation in cattle cars to Central Asia and Siberia. This was recognized as an act of genocide by a resolution of the European Parliament in 2004. The memory of the deportations motivated the Chechen drive for independence, and in 1991 the Republic of Chechnya proclaimed its independence. Unable to remove the Chechen president by covert means, the Russian military launched its first war into Chechnya in December 1994.
During this decade-long war, more than 200,000 individuals -- one quarter of the Chechen population -- have lost their lives, including thousands of children. Roughly 300,000 Chechens have fled to escape annihilation. Tuberculosis, cardiac problems, deafness, and depression are rampant. As families have been destroyed, some surviving kinfolk have been driven out of desperation to suicide bombing attacks against Russia.
For Russia, Chechnya and the northern Caucasus region have been turned into a tinderbox of armed confrontations. Over the course of the last decade, the Russian military has lost more men than the total number of combat deaths in the Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The war in Chechnya has consumed a large portion of Russia's defense budget. Opinion polls in Russia indicate growing restiveness at Putin's inability to bring the conflict to an end.
If Mr. Putin feels the need to put up a security wall or something in order to save face by all means let him, but it's time for Russia to quit Chechnya once and for all. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 24, 2005 7:44 AM
Does this mean that Darfur will be recognized as genocide in 2063?
Posted by: jim hamlen at February 24, 2005 11:43 AMHowever banal it is to repeat the accepted intelligence,the possibility of touching off the dreaded domino effect in the Muslim southern tier of Russia, an area of large petroleum reserves, would argue against Chechnea being cut loose any time soon.
Posted by: ed at February 24, 2005 11:49 AMIts time for Russia to do lots of things, before they bury the last Russian. I don't think Putin has it in him to do any of them.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at February 24, 2005 12:41 PMRussia doesn't have a very large Muslim population anymore. The only other large Muslim ethnic group is Tatars and they number about 6 million I think. Dagestan which borders Chechnya is predominantly Muslim but is also a yeasty ethnic stew with no group having more than about 15% of the population and all manners of Muslim observance present as well. Ossetia is Christian and Kalmykia is Buddhist.
OJ's wall might be the easiest and wisest move.
Posted by: Bart at February 24, 2005 3:31 PM