#14 - JRL 9085 - JRL Home
RIA Novosti
March 10, 2005
WILL MASKHADOV'S DEATH DEEPEN RUSSIA-WEST DIVIDE?

PARIS (by columnist Angela Charlton for RIA Novosti) - The death of Aslan Maskhadov exposed anew the chasm between how the West sees Russia and how Russia sees itself. Once initial emotions die down, will his absence deepen this divide or help bridge it?

Russians called Tuesday's killing inevitable. Many welcomed the news, others braced for more chaos and terrorism from southern Russia. Some asked "Why now?", but no one asked "Why?"

Western observers, meanwhile, were stunned, horrified and deeply disappointed. Most called it the last blow for peacemaking efforts, and claimed it was proof of Vladimir Putin's ruthlessness and a validation of policies aimed at isolating Russia.

Maskhadov had become like Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1990s, or Eduard Shevardnadze in his late presidency: a symbol of freedom abroad, but discredited, disdained and lacking authority at home. His envoys and PR team were as effective at showing his "human" face to the West as the Kremlin was at showing his "inhuman" one to Russians.

The real Maskhadov was more complex, and was killed more for his actions than his image.

He spoke diplomatically while his comrades-in-arms spoke feverishly and viciously. He negotiated a face-saving truce with Russian forces in 1996 and spoke convincingly of a peaceful and free Chechnya. But while Maskhadov was officially president of Chechnya from 1996-1999, his extremist and corrupt colleagues ran the show, kidnapping civilians, staging public executions, and raging for Islamic revolution.

Whether he encouraged these atrocities or just tolerated them, Maskhadov did nothing to stop them. His government embezzled most of the money meant to rebuild his shattered land. By the time Russian forces re-entered Chechnya in 1999, Maskhadov had lost legimitacy among Chechens and Russians. In recent years he vacillated between condemning extremism and justifying it, between preaching Islam and promoting secular separatism, between praise and disregard for international law, between claiming that all Chechen fighters answered to him and claiming that he had nothing to do with their terrorist attacks on civilians.

Based on Maskhadov's role in ending the first Chechnya war, western observers blindly considered him key to any possible peace talks for the current war. Yet it's unclear whom Maskhadov was expected to negotiate with. Russian leaders buried all hopes of talks with him five years ago and have shown no sign of budging since.

Russian officials have called him a terrorist since Chechens raided neighboring Dagestan in 1999. But the accusation fell on deaf ears abroad, even when the United Nations later added Chechen superstar Shamil Basayev - Maskhadov's on-again, off-again ally - to its list of terror suspects.

Russian officials always knew they wouldn't hold talks with Maskhadov, but now that he is gone they're hoping that the rest of the world will finally get the point, and abandon efforts toward a political solution in Chechnya. The risk is that with relations between Russia and the West already strained, U.S. and European officials may abandon efforts at cooperation with Moscow altogether.

Western officials talks about "solving" the Chechnya problem, but Russia's policymakers don't see anything to solve. They compromised in 1996 and regretted it. This time, they're firm: Chechnya is a republic of Russia and should have a government that adheres to Russia's constitution and is accountable to Moscow.

Maskhadov's death was a victory for this Kremlin policy, but not a blemish-free one. The cloudy and contradictory details of how he was killed make the FSB look clumsy instead of invincible. The timing raises questions: If Maskhadov was able to travel unnoticed to a town just 12 kilometers from Grozny, why did it take federal forces more than five years to catch him? Or at least why did they wait until now to nab him?

Federal troops will step up offensives and may go after the much more dangerous Basayev. But Maskhadov's demise will not make Chechnya's mountains more passable or make its fundamentalist warriors into Russophiles. Much depends on the Chechens, on whether they unify in Maskhadov's name or splinter, whether Maskhadov's death spawns a new generation of organized resistance or a new spate of terrorist attacks.

Maskhadov's absence won't make Russians rethink their Chechnya policy. It could, but probably won't, make western countries rethink theirs. In the meantime, Russians will continue to call the Chechens bandits and terrorists, and western media will continue to label them rebels. It will take more than one high-profile death to overcome this linguistic chasm, and the wider chasm over Russia's direction that it reflects.