#9
The Economist (UK)
November 24-30, 2001
Russia and Chechnya
Jaw-jaw at last
A gleam of hope for peace in miserable, war-weary Chechnya
FOR a president who once said that the right way to treat Chechen insurgents was to "rub them out in the shithouse", it is an astonishing volte face. After several weeks of haggling about time and place, on November 18th negotiators representing the presidents of Chechnya and Russia had their first acknowledged meeting, at Moscow's main international airport.
Russia had to swallow hard, having always dismissed its Chechen rebels as mere terrorists on the verge of defeat. The Kremlin's spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, used to have a particularly fine line in contempt for the Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov, whom he labelled "a criminal", "insignificant", and unworthy of talks "in any circumstances", except as a defendant answering questions from Russia's chief prosecutor.
The likely reason for the shift is the realisation, probably by President Vladimir Putin himself, that for all their bombast his generals are nowhere near winning the war in Chechnya. Their forces suffer dozens of casualties every month and only shakily control Chechnya's main population centres. Russian soldiers still routinely extort and loot, and stand accused of torture and kidnapping.
The desperate Chechens, who frequently reply in kind, have suffered grievous losses too. They have not managed to inflict a decisive blow against the Russians, and show no sign of being able to do so. Now they face their third exhausting winter in the mountains. Tainted by allegations of association with Osama bin Laden, they are finding it harder to rustle up international support. Mr Maskhadov has distanced himself from his two main radical commanders, Shamil Basayev, and the Jordanian-born Khattab, as well as from Ruslan Gelayev, responsible for a recent raid south of Chechnya's border, in Georgia. Mr Maskhadov's people say that only a handful of Chechens, if any, are fighting in Afghanistan.
The political mess in Chechnya matches the military one: the Kremlin- backed puppet government is divided, weak and discredited, particularly because it is unable to protect ordinary Chechens against licentious Russian soldiers. Rebuilding the shattered republic has barely started.
For the Chechens, Mr Maskhadov has little clout outside his own group of fighters. Some say he spends a lot of time sheltering in neighbouring Ingushetia. His top negotiator is based in Turkey, his spokesman in Paris. It is a fair bet that Chechen civilians want peace, food, heat, medicine and jobs more than independence.
In any event, Chechnya's formal status can probably be fudged or frozen. Mr Maskhadov no longer insists on outright independence at once. The negotiators must now agree to a tricky deal involving simultaneous disarmament by the rebels and the withdrawal of Russian troops, along with a power-sharing arrangement between Mr Maskhadov's lot and the pro-Moscow Chechens, who are now panicking as they sense the political ground shifting. Outsiders may be able to nudge talks along and guarantee a deal. The Chechens would like that; the Russians, so far, would not. And criminals on all sides who profit from the war, as well as hawkish Russian generals and rebel diehards, all share an interest in preventing peace.
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