Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

A Revival in Chechnya, Under an Iron Hand of Russia’s Proxy - New York Times, September 30, 2007Three years after a wave of guerrilla and terrorist attacks caused many analysts to say that Russia’s war against Chechen separatists could not be won, the republic has fallen almost fully under the control of the Kremlin and its indigenous proxies, led by Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the Chechen president.

Mr. Kadyrov’s human rights record is chilling, and allegations of his government’s patterns of brutality and impunity are widespread. Yet even his most severe critics say he has developed significant popular support, in part because of the clear changes that have accompanied his firm and fearsome rule.

Fighting has been sporadic and small in scale for a second year. A large rebel offensive did not materialize this summer, as the separatists had predicted. Buoyed by a sustained lull in fighting and flush with cash, Mr. Kadyrov’s government has rebuilt most of its capital and outlying areas….

The insurgency, though diminished, is still a factor. Mr. Malashenko said that as many as several hundred fighters remain, although they do not appear as well organized or equipped as before.

Sarah Mendelson, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said it was too soon to say that Chechnya had recovered. Its lingering problems, including the questionable loyalties of the former rebels now in power and the competition between the Kremlin and the Chechen government for oil, are significant enough that the republic could slip into disorder again.

The north Caucasus: politics or war? | openDemocracy, September 7, 2007

It cannot be stated often enough that the Chechens are not Afghans. They are a small mountain people with a history of resistance to the Russian state, but also one of pragmatic accommodation with it. Most of them speak Russian much better than they do Chechen and almost all have relatives working in the rest of Russia. While they are Muslim, they are Sufis practicing a form of local Islam that is all but incomprehensible to Arab incomers. For years Chechens have dismissed these foreign interlopers with curses when they were told to stop visiting their local shrines or to start veiling their women.

Over the last decade the Russian state has given these ordinary Chechens nothing but contempt and violence, yet they remain the key to restoring some kind of stability to the north Caucasus. The trouble is that the Kremlin will have to make two difficult changes if it wants even to begin to enlist their support.