Хаос на Кавказе

Saint-Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance

English Language Department

Chair 1

“The Chaos In the Caucasus”

Written by Nebesoff I.,

453. gr.

Checked by Kirillova O.G.

Saint-Petersburg,

2002.

Contents.

Contents. 2

Introduction. 3

Chapter 1. History of terrorism. 4

Chapter 2. Clash, or conspiracy? 5

Chapter 3. Enter the Wahhabis 6

Chapter 4. Geopolicy. 8

Chapter 5. Economy. 9

Conclusion 12

Introduction.

You see, nowadays the Caucasus problem is one of the sharpest and most

important for our country. Chechnya and Dagestan are not only oil, but the

source of destability and terrorism.

After last autumn events in the United States even Americans and

Europeans understood that war in Checnya is not only Russia’s internal

business, and this war, which we have been leading for several years

already is not only the wish of the Russian Government and oligarchs to

take ‘their piece of pie’ from the Caucasus oil. The world community has

finally recognised that threat of world-wide terrorism is not a myth, and

this battle has to be led by forces of all countries, which want to live

undisturbed.

In this work I am trying to show the roots of Islam movement and the

history of confrontation in Chechnya. Another aim of this paper is to show

links between Chechnya and world Islamic terrorism, and to show how these

links work. Only when we recognise that terrorism is the ‘world-wide web’,

civilized world would be able to unite against this, maybe, the greatest

evil on the Earth, and, probably, one of the biggest world problems in the

new century.

And the last aim was to show how the Chechen war is affecting the

Russian economy, and what losses we have had since this war started

Chapter 1. History of terrorism.

At least until recently, the main enemy of Islamic terrorism seemed to

be the United States. However diverse and quarrelsome its practitioners,

they knew what they hated most: the global policeman whom they accused of

propping up Israel, starving the Iraqis and undermining the Muslim way of

life with an insidiously attractive culture.

Anti-Americanism, after all, has been a common thread in a series of

spectacular acts of violence over the past decade. They include the bombing

of the World Trade Centre in New York in February 1993; the explosion that

killed 19 American soldiers at a base in Saudi Arabia in June 1996; and the

deadly blasts at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August

1998.

In many of the more recent attacks it has suffered, the United States

has discerned the hand of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-bom coordinator of an

international network of militant Muslims. In February last year, he and

his sympathisers in Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh issued a statement

declaring that "to kill the Americans and their allies-civilian and

military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it."

Now, it might appear, Russia's turn has come to do battle on a new

front in this many-sided conflict. The Russian government has blamed

terrorists from the country's Muslim south for a series of bomb blasts in

Moscow and other cities which have claimed over 300 lives. And it has

launched a broadening land and air attack against the mainly Muslim

republic of Chechnya, where the terrorists are alleged to originate.

In their more strident moments, officials and newspaper columnists in

Moscow say that Russia is in the forefront of a fight between "civilisation

and barbarism" and is therefore entitled to western understanding. "We face

a common enemy, international terrorism,"

Whereas western countries have chided Russia (mildly) for its military

operation against Chechnya, Iran has been much more supportive. Kamal

Kharrazi, Iran's foreign minister, has promised "effective collaboration"

with the Kremlin against what he has described as terrorists bent on

destabilising Russia. Russia, for its part, has thanked Iran for using its

chairmanship of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to present the

Russian case.

Perhaps because of Russia's friendship with certain parts of the

Muslim world, Mr Putin has firmly rejected the view that the "bandits"

Russia is now fighting could properly be described as Islamic. "They are

international terrorists, most of them mercenaries, who cover themselves in

religious slogans," he insists.

But ordinary Muslims in the Moscow street — whether they are of

Caucasian origin, or from the Tatar or Bashkir nations based in central

Russia — fear a general backlash. "Politicians and the mass media are

equating us, the Muslim faithful, with armed groups," complains Ravil

Gainutdin, Russia's senior mufti. Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the

Russian Orthodox church, has been urging his flock not to blame their i8m

Muslim compatriots for the recent violence. "Russian Christians and Muslims

traditionally live in peace," he has reminded them.

Chapter 2. Clash, or conspiracy?

But even if Russia's southern war is not yet a "clash of

civilisations", might it soon become one? And if so, would that bring

Russia closer to the West, or push it farther away?

Islam is certainly one element in the crisis looming on Russia's

southern rim, but it is by no means the only one. The latest flare-up began

in August in the wild border country between Chechnya — which has been

virtually independent since Russian troops were forced out, after two years

of brutal war, in 1996 — and Dagestan, a ramshackle, multiethnic republic

where a pro-Russian government has been steadily losing control.

Many people in Russia did not need any evidence; the government's

allegations simply confirmed the anti-Chechen, and generally anti-

Caucasian, prejudice they already harboured. Other Russians take a more

cynical view. They believe the bomb attacks are somehow related to the

power struggle raging in Moscow as the "courtiers" of Ex-President Yeltsin

try to cling to their power and privilege in the face of looming electoral

defeat.

Such incidents are grist to the mill of Moscow's conspiracy theorists.

Some believe that the bombs were indeed the work of Chechen extremists, but

insist that the fighting in the south is mainly the result of Russian

provocation; some say it is the other way round. Whatever the truth, the

crisis has certainly played into the hands of the most hardline elements in

Russia's leadership. But there are also signs that people from outside

Russia have been stirring the pot.

Mark Galeotti, a British lecturer on Russia's armed forces, says there

is evidence that Mr bin Laden, while not the instigator of the urban

bombing campaign, has offered financial help to its perpetrators. And

fighters under the influence of Mr bin Laden have certainly been active in

Chechnya and Dagestan — though their presence is probably not the main

reason why war is raging now.

With or without some mischief-making by dark forces in Moscow, Russia

would have a problem in the northern Caucasus. Hostility between Russians

and Chechens goes back to the north Caucasian wars of the i9th century,

when the tsar's forces took more than 50 years to bring the Chechens under

control. As well as strong family loyal-ries, part of the glue that held

the Chechens and other north Caucasian people together was Sufism, the

mystical strand of Islam.

The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 promised to liberate all the subject

peoples of the sariat empire. As civil war loomed, Lenin and Stalin made a

cynical bid for Muslim support by promising the creation of semi-

independent Islamic states in Russia and central Asia, saying: "All you

whose mosques and houses of prayer have been destroyed, whose beliefs and

customs have been flouted by the tsars and the oppressors of Russia — from

now on your beliefs and customs, your national and cultural institutions

are free and inviolable."

The reality of Soviet rule was, of course, very different. Periods of

repression alternated with periods of relative toleration, but prechens

(along with seven other ethnic groups) were deported en masse to Kazakhstan

as part of Stalin's policy of punishing "untrustworthy" ethnic groups. But

Chechen culture, in particular, proved remarkably hard to destroy.

By the i98os, there were estimated to be 50m Soviet citizens of Muslim

ancestry. For most of them, Soviet rule had had a powerful secularising

effect. Out of cultural habit, many still circumcised their baby boys and

buried their dead according to Muslim custom. But the closure of all but a

handful of mosques, and the virtual end of religious education, meant that

knowledge of Islam had nearly evaporated.

Among the few places in the Soviet Union where Islam remained fairly

strong was the northern Caucasus. The Sufi tradition was well able to

survive in semi-clan-destine conditions. Even without mosques, the Chechens

were able to go on venerating the memory of their local sheikhs and

performing traditional dances and chants.

Chapter 3. Enter the Wahhabis

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Sufi tradition has

faced a challenge of a very different type. Emissaries from the Arab world,

especially Saudi Arabia, have flooded into the Caucasus and Central Asia,

seeing an opportunity in the spiritual and economic wasteland left by

Marxist ideology.

Financed by Saudi petrodollars, these preachers have begun propagating

a new form of Islam, which has become known (through a slight over-

simplification) as Wahhabism: in other words, the austere form of Islam

dominant in Saudi Arabia. The new version of Islam strives to be as close

as possible to the faith's 1,400-year-old roots. It opposes the secularism

of Russian life. Its universalising message aims to transcend ethnic and

linguistic barriers, and it has no place for the local cults of Sufism.

Many Chechens and Dagestanis find the new form of Islam alien and

uncomfortable, and some actively oppose it. It has caused division, and

even violence, within families. But by building mosques and establishing

scholarships, the Wahhabis have won a following, especially among the young

— often impatient with what they see as a corrupt official religious

establishment left over from Soviet times. Moreover, in the confusion of

post-Soviet Russia, the new creed offers disillusioned and money and

weapons and a sense of purpose which they cannot find anywhere else.

A daredevil hijacker and hostage-taker, Mr Basaev took part in the

Russian-backed war against Georgia in 1992-93, and then fought ruthlessly

against Russia in the Chechen war of 1994-96. Trained in the Soviet army,

he now says his life's mission is to wage holy war against Russia and

avenge its crimes against his people. He is not himself a Wahhabi, but he

seems to have decided that the new Muslims would make useful recruits for

his jihad, even though he does not share their extreme puritanism.

Mr Basaev was both a Muslim and a Chechen patriot; the two qualities

are inseparable. But despite his bushy beard and talk of holy wars, he does

not quite correspond to the image of a single-minded fundamentalist. His

heroes, after all, included Garibaldi and Abraham Lincoln.

Educated in Saudi Arabia, Khattab fought the Russians in Afghanistan

before settling in Chechnya. In other words, he is one of the

"Afghanis"—the 15,000 or so unteers from all over the Middle East

(particularly Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Algeria) who did battle, with

strong American support, against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan. Since

the war ended, these fighters have returned to their homelands, or . moved

to other countries, in search of new Islamist causes to fight.

It is the existence of the Afghanis (of whom the most notorious is Mr

bin Laden himself) which helps to explain why Russia regards its own

Islamic adversaries as Frankensteinian monsters created by western

governments and their friends in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The Afghani

connection also helps to explain why Russia and Iran see eye-to-eye on the

question of Islamist violence. As well as loathing the West and all its

works, some of the Afghanis — as zealous practitioners of Sunni Islam — are

sworn enemies of the Shia Muslim faith, of which Iran is the main bastion.

Iran has always been resentful of America's connections with Saudi

Arabia and Pakistan, even though its own relations with those two countries

have been improving. Russia sympathises, to put it mildly, with that

resentment. America, for its part, is highly suspicious of Russia's

friendship with Iran.

Chapter 4. Geopolicy.

If there is a geopolitical stand-off involving Russia, America and the

Islamic world, it is not a simple triangle. If anything, Russia and America

have each identified different bits of the Islamic world as friends, and

each is suspicious of the other's partnerships.

Although Russian diplomacy has been quite adept at manipulating the

geopolitical divisions within the Muslim world, there is a real possibility

that its own clumsiness and brutality could create a Muslim enemy within

its borders, as well as alienating Muslims farther afield. Already, the

Kremlin's heavy-handedness has galvanised the Chechens to mobilise for a

new war against Russia. The neighbouring Ingush people, related to the

Chechens but hitherto willing to accept Russian authority, may now be drawn

into the conflict—along with at least four or five other north Caucasian

peoples who have until now been content to let Russia run their affairs.

If Russia found itself at war with half a dozen Muslim peoples in the

Caucasus, the effects would certainly be felt in places farther north, such

as Tatarstan.

But if some sort of common Muslim front ever emerges in Russia,

resentment of Moscow will be the only factor that holds it together. In the

Caucasus and elsewhere, Muslims are fragmented; there is not even a united

or coherent Wahhabi movement.

Nor is there any natural unity between Chechnya and Dagestan. The two

also differ over their relations with Russia. The Chechens still feel the

scars of their last war with the Russians, and so the secessionist impulse

is much stronger than in Dagestan, which has little sense of a common

national identity and is economically heavily dependent on Russia.

Nor is it inevitable that Islamic militancy in the northern Caucasus

and in other parts of the Muslim world will reinforce one another. Rather

than being proof that political Islam is spreading, the fighting in the

Caucasus is a reminder that Islam exists in many different forms. In the

heartland of the Muslim world, the Middle East, the wave of Islamic

militancy appears to be receding. In the early i98os, the years immediately

after the Iranian revolution, the Arab countries and Turkey felt themselves

most vulnerable to political Islam.

Those expectations are now subsiding. Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia —

all countries that experienced serious Islamic opposition — have survived,

bruised but intact. Even Algeria, where Islamism took the most violent form

and was suppressed with particular harshness, seems to have entered a more

hopeful phase.

In the Caucasus and Central Asia, as in former Yugoslavia, the moment

of opportunity for political Islam came a decade or so later, with the

collapse of communism, and so the new Islamic movements are younger and

still developing. They are a powerful and potentially destabilising force,

but they are no more destined to win power than their equivalents

elsewhere.

There is, however, a form of "peripheral" Islam which ought to be

giving Russian policymakers food for thought: the impressive strength of

the Muslim faith, sometimes accompanied by political radicalism, in western

cities that lie thousands of miles from the heartlands of Islam. From

Detroit to Lyons, young Muslims have been rediscovering their beliefs and

identity—often as a reaction against the poverty, racism and (as they would

see it) sterile secularism of the societies around them. This phenomenon

owes nothing to geopolitical calculation, or to the policies of any

government, either western or Middle Eastern; nor can it be restrained by

government action. If radical forms of Islam can flourish in places like

Glasgow and Frankfurt, there is no reason why they canot do so in Moscow

and Murmansk—particularly if the Russian government seems to be fighting a

brutal, pointless war at the other end of the country.

Chapter 5. Economy.

There is a way to resolve the conflict, to which international

involvement is key. Such international involvement, however, can only

happen with Russia`s consent, though both the E.U. and the U.S. have the

means to change the numbers in the Kremlin`s calculations using political,

diplomatic and economic leverage. Such involvement must help Chechnya to

become a truly democratic and peaceful state, thereby eliminating whatever

threats to Russian security it might pose. Incentives are necessary, and

the prospect of a de jure recognition of Chechnya will be a strong

incentive for Chechnya to undergo decisive democratization and

demilitarization. The idea is simple: statehood in return for democracy.

This idea can be implemented through the United Nations Trusteeship

system under Chapters XII and XIII of the U.N. Charter. Since this can only

be done with the agreement of Russia, and since Russia is a member of the

Security Council, she will have a decisive say in the terms under which

Chechnya will be governed for the period, and in the designation of the

administering authority. This could make Russia feel more comfortable with

the idea, which needs to be a Russian-initiated proposal to succeed.

The terms of the trusteeship will also have to be acceptable to the

Chechen side, since without the Chechen side’s voluntary consent no such

system can be implemented. The prospect of recognition of Chechnya,

together with help in reconstruction and an immediate withdrawal of Russian

troops, are likely to secure Chechnya`s consent.

The European Union might be a good choice for the role of

administering authority, since the E.U. is seen in Moscow not as a threat

to Russian interests but as an opportunity. The administering authority has

to be charged with the speedy and effective implementation of

democratization procedures at all levels in Chechnya, with the aim of

preparing Chechnya to assume the responsibilities of a recognized

independent state. Economic reconstruction, demilitarization and the

training of civil servants and police will have to be given priority. The

E.U. has acquired much experience in this field in the Balkans.

Chechens, along with the other ethnic groups that have lived in

Chechnya since before the first war, should be offered a choice whether to

stay or relocate. Those that desire to relocate to or from Chechnya should

be given the necessary economic and legal support for their transportation

and resettlement.

Since virtually everyone in Chechnya owns some kind of weapon, a

sophisticated scheme for demilitarizing the country must be worked out,

taking account of local idiosyncrasies. The most effective way to collect

weapons would be to offer market-price compensation. This will succeed if

the inflow of weapons from outside is prevented, which will require an

effective border control.

The only non-Russian border Chechnya has is with Georgia. OSCE

observers, together with the Georgian border forces, are already monitoring

this border. In future, they can and should be joined by Chechen border

guards.

For the sake of peace, amnesty can be given to all war crimes and

atrocities committed during the last two conflicts. Such amnesty can reduce

the Russian military and security services’ fears of prosecution and

therefore increase the chance of peace.

This scheme has advantages for all parties. Russia will free itself

from the constant problem of Chechnya. The relocation of the Chechens who

chose to do so would mean that Russia would be freed from its hostile

population - a problem that Russia has been trying to solve for centuries

(the 1944 deportation of Chechens is an obvious example). Russia would also

free itself from the burden of the economic reconstruction of Chechnya, as

well as stop wasting already limited resources on this unwinnable war.

Moreover, acceptable adjustments can be made to the Russian-Chechen border

in the northwest of Chechnya, thereby making the idea more attractive to

Russia`s public. In addition, the E.U. could compensate Russia by

increasing economic aid, particularly to southern Russian republics.

The E.U. will also be a winner. Today it might be a "reluctant

empire," but as it undergoes deepening and expansion it is bound to play a

more assertive role externally. Its very presence guarantees its actorness.

While Russia may never become a member, it will become more and more

important to the E.U. due to its proximity. By resolving the Russian-

Chechen conflict, the E.U. will benefit from the increased chance of a

future democratic and stable Russia, the importance of which can hardly be

overestimated. The enormous economic resources that will be required to

administer and reconstruct Chechnya may not be too high a price to pay for

the stability of Europe. Moreover, a substantial part of this expenditure

can be covered by using Chechnya`s own natural resources.

The benefits to Chechnya are self-evident. It will get what it has

always strived for - a state of its own. However, even if independence

were to come to Chechnya today, there would not be much to celebrate

since the last two wars have had such tremendous human, economic, and

social costs. Chechnya alone is not likely to be able to succeed in

addressing the huge and difficult post-war challenges that it would have

to face. The trusteeship system will guarantee reconstruction and

economic aid from outside and, by democratizing Chechnya, will help it to

get rid of those who have hijacked the Chechen cause for their own goals.

In short, Chechnya will benefit from all angles.

Conclusion

As you can see, both Russia and Chechnya are tired of this

unperspective war. We need to find some ways to settle this conflict. But

we, of course, have to do it in such a way so that not to violate the

interest of our country.

The problem is that one country, or even the Union of several of them

can’t beat the system of world terrorism. The only way out is to unite with

all other countries which suffer from terrorism to. The Chechen war is not

the Russian internal bisiness, but the act of world fight against

terrorism, that is why world community should give us a hand in this

violent war. It’s rather pressing, because our own economy isn’t able to

stand such expenditures to win world terrorism alone.

Glossary

amnesty – giving freedom for prisoners (for some of them, or for everybody)

armor – synonym for “weapon” (look)

atrocity – violent action

blast – synonym for ‘explosion’ (look)

bombing – fighting target with bombs from the aircraft

border forces – military troops, whose aim is to protect state border

expenditure – outcome, wasting

explosion – the process of quick burn

hijack – thiefing the plain by threats of armor and bombs

implementation – realisation

independence - freedom from will of another state

Islam – the religion of Eastern people, who believe in Magometh.

jihad – holy war against unfaithful

a Muslim country – a country, where Islam is an official religion, or area,

where Islam is the most wide-spread

occupier – enemy soldier which controls the territory of the captured

people

opposition – group of people which withstand the official point of view

Orthodox - traditional

peripheral – placed far from centre, near the border

prosecution – making somebody responsible for something illegal.

puritanism – kind of behavior, when man refuses himself from many joys of

life

reconstruction – rebuilding and restoring the economy, changing its

profiles.

Sufism - one of Islam brunches, a confession

terrorism – kind of banditism, encouraged by Islamic ortodoxes, aimed

against Western peoples

trusteeship – kind of protection, looking after somebody.

unfaithful – man, who doesn’t believe in Islam

unity – collecting together

Wahhabi – one of Islam brunches, a confession

benefit – profit, income

weapon – pistols, guns, and other military technique.