#6
The Economist (UK)
October 20-26, 2001
Editorial
Russia and the Caucasus
Dangerous relations
The battle in Afghanistan should not blind the West to the
trouble brewing in the Caucasus
AS THE United States rallies its forces and friends for the fight against Osama bin Laden and his cronies, the terms of almost every other conflict on the planet, from the streets of Belfast to the mountains of the Balkans and the Horn of Africa, have changed. Parties to local quarrels—Palestinians and Israelis, Indians and Pakistanis, Slavs and ethnic Albanians in Macedonia, Armenians and Azeris—are under heavy American pressure to renounce violence, cut links with extremists in other countries and patch up their disputes.
In many places the drive to avoid distractions and “tidy up” could well prove beneficial. But in the Caucasus, particularly in Chechnya and in Georgia, the web of interlocking disputes is so dense, and the legacy of bitterness so heavy, that the world's preoccupation with Afghanistan is in danger of being misread by locals, with tragic results.
Like everywhere in the world, this lawless region—whose mountainous terrain is almost as difficult to control as that of Afghanistan—has felt the repercussions of the terrorist attacks on America. Because the most militant Chechens have links to an international network of Islamist violence, western opinion has tilted against their cause—and now seems more inclined to sympathise with Russia's effort to bring their independence movement to heel. Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechens' elected leader, has come under pressure from the West to sever ties with extremist comrades and to cut a deal with Russia. President Vladimir Putin may yet be interested in such a deal; but a powerful faction in the Russian armed forces has a stake in waging war indefinitely.
In Georgia, meanwhile, people are more nervous than ever that Russia may use its pragmatic new friendship with America—based on co-operation against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan—as a cover to meddle with impunity in its neighbours' affairs. Those fears have been stoked by furious verbal attacks on Georgia in the Russian media. President Edward Shevardnadze's government is accused of sheltering Chechen rebels in a region of northern Georgia adjacent to Chechnya. Now the separatist authorities in Abkhazia, a Russophile statelet in northwestern Georgia from which Mr Shevardnadze's forces and about 200,000 ethnic Georgians were driven out in 1993, claim to be fending off an invasion by Chechen and Georgian fighters. In Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, there has indeed been some hot-headed talk of recapturing Abkhazia. But cooler heads fear being sucked into a conflict that would give Russia's army a chance to intervene.
The rules should still apply
Mr Putin says he will respect Georgia's independence. Yet it is all too easy to imagine a scenario in which Russians, Georgians and Chechens are drawn into an escalating crisis that could well infect half a dozen more of the mini-states in the northern Caucasus, which are united by the Muslim faith but are sharply divided by language and ethnicity. If militant Islamists have gained a degree of influence in Chechnya, that is mainly because of despair, poverty and popular anger over Russia's brutal tactics there. Further conflict in the region would only enlarge the breeding-ground for extremism.
However distracted they may be by the fight against terrorism, western governments would do well to spare some energy for dousing the flames of war in the Caucasus. The message to all sides should be that such conflicts can be settled only on the basis of international law: that includes respect for territorial integrity, human rights and the right of refugees to return home. Russia and its neighbours need to be reminded that a better relationship with the West still depends on it.
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