#10 - JRL 9093 - JRL Home
Moscow News
www.MN.Ru
March 16-22, 2005
Basayev Gets Carte Blanche
By Emil Pain, political analyst

Aslan Maskhadov was killed after five years of unsuccessful attempts to take him out. During this time he did not leave Chechnya even once, holding numerous war councils, giving hundreds of interviews, and appearing in dozens of video footage and photo ops - and at the same time remained elusive in a tiny territory many times smaller than Iraq or Afghanistan. This should not be taken as an appraisal of the performance of Russian security services and many other agencies that had been hunting Maskhadov. I would just like to stress that only a person enjoying the support of the local population could have evaded his pursuers in such conditions for so long.

The aforementioned applies to all leaders of Chechen armed resistance. The sheer fact that for many years the population has been sheltering numerous field commanders answers the main question: Have the federal authorities benefited from Maskhadov's death? If the aim is to weaken armed resistance, my answer is they have not. The internal resources for replenishing the ranks of Chechen armed resistance are still large and are unlikely to shrink following the elimination of Ichkeria's last president. Furthermore, I will venture to say that resistance will actually intensify. It will be driven not only by the desire to avenge Maskhadov's murder. After all, the Chechen militants have much to avenge (the number of slain presidents alone has now reached three - Dudayev, Yandarbiyev, and Maskhadov), to say nothing about the fallen relatives, members of the same clan (teip), tribe (vird), etc.

The main thing is that with Maskhadov gone there is no force in the Chechen resistance now that could in any way restrain its most radical wing. The period of diarchy is also over. While the jury may still be out on the clout that the late Ichkerian president had within Chechnya's armed underground, there is no denying that Maskhadov and Basayev competed for influence over the military, this competition weakening both of them. Now the Russian political establishment has made Basayev the sole leader of the armed underground. With any formal political leader today Basayev will not have any real competition.

We may not believe in the sincerity of Maskhadov's statements condemning the terrorist attacks in Moscow and Beslan. But we cannot doubt his wish to come across as a moderate politician and even a peace-maker in the eyes of the international community. That aspiration alone caused him to declare unilateral ceasefires, call for peace negotiations, and suppress the most odious forms of terrorism. By eliminating Maskhadov the federal authorities have only brought about a situation where the separatists will have no more forces capable of counterbalancing Basayev in any way.

Of course the federal authorities have gained something from Maskhadov's death. First of all, it strengthens the Russian president's political rating and enhances his credibility that was shaken by the Beslan hostage drama and the latest protest actions by Russian pensioners. Polls indicate that public expectations that the federal forces will achieve a final victory in Chechnya have been steadily plummeting since 2002. Following the special operation in Tolstoy-Yurt, these hopes are set to grow, but how long is this going to last?