NEWS AND VIEWS: Moscow is not moved by tears (12/12/99)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Moscow is not moved by tears

by Taras Hunczak

Despite numerous newspaper and television reports with graphic descriptions of women and children who have been mutilated by Russia's indiscriminate bombings and artillery fire, and reports of Chechen towns and villages turned into rubble, the architect of this genocidal policy, Vladimir Putin, the prime minister of Russia, still has the audacity to write in The New York Times ("Why We Must Act," November 14) that the Russian military "target only opposing armed forces."

Furthermore, after releasing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse against the Chechen people - spreading war, famine, pestilence and death - Mr. Putin tells readers that "the Chechen citizens, after all, are our citizens, too." Such a caring tone after labeling the people of Chechnya "terrorists" of the Caucasus, so as to justify their extermination simply for their desire to be independent!

As for the bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow, allegedly by Chechen "terrorists," the only thing that can be stated with certainty is that only the perpetrators of those heinous acts know who did it, since, to this day no evidence was found that might implicate "terrorists" from Chechnya. Therefore, to accuse the people of Chechnya without any evidence of the crime is to be irresponsible and, even worse, is to use innocent people for diabolical plans that call for justification on the international arena and serve as a call to patriotism at home.

As I read Mr. Putin's article, I was particularly taken aback by his attempt to gain American sympathy for what Russia is doing in Chechnya by drawing an absurd comparison between Chechnya, on the one hand, and Montana and Idaho, on the other. Surely, there must be individuals among Mr. Putin's advisers who know the nature of our federal structure - our states are not culturally or nationally identified entities and, therefore, to compare our states with Chechnya is to display one's ignorance.

Of course, from a historical perspective, the current Russian policy in Chechnya is really nothing new. The people of the Northern Caucasus experienced their first major Russian effort to turn the region into a Russian colony during the reign of Peter I in the early 1700s, for whom the region of North Caucasus was to serve merely as a staging area for his expedition against Persia.

This Russian expansionism did not go unchallenged. Being a proud people, the Chechens and neighboring ethnic groups resisted Russian imperial ambitions, resulting in prolonged wars, which, ultimately, Russia won. What is interesting to note is the fact, as noted by Prof. Smirnov in his "Politika Rossii na Kavkaze v XVI - XIX Vekakh" (Russia's Policies in the Caucasus in the 16th-18th Centuries, Moscow, 1958) that "massacres of the local population and large-scale destruction of crops became the usual means of dealing with rebellious natives."

Russia's wars against these peoples became particularly ruthless in the 19th century. Thus, for example, General A.P. Ermolov attacked, burned towns and villages, and conducted indiscriminate massacres hoping to intimidate the "tribes." He and his successors did this hoping to subjugate the tribes, whom they considered rebels against the Russian tsar. Their methods proved counterproductive: the infuriated indigenous population was now united in its common hatred of the Russians.

Hence the entire first half of the 19th century was a prolonged battle between the expansionist Russian Empire and the people of Northern Caucasus. Even Tsar Nicholas I became personally involved, issuing his notorious instruction to Count I.F. Paskevich in which he urged him to achieve one of two goals: "The pacification forever of the Mountain peoples or the extermination of the unsubmissive."

Even from a cursory examination of the historical sources of the region, one is forced to conclude that the tragedy of the people of Chechnya and others of that region consisted in the fact that their desire to be independent challenged Russian historical imperial expansionism. R. Fadeev, in his "Letters from the Caucasus ..." (1865) reported the position of the Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich, who, as commander of the Russian troops in the Caucasus, stated that "... it was necessary to exterminate half of the Mountaineers to compel the other half to lay down its arms." One might well ask whether Russian tactics and objectives have really changed in 200 years.

Besieged in Istanbul at the summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe by Western critics, President Boris Yeltsin branded the Chechen fighters as "terrorists and bandits." "We do not accept the advice of so-called objective critics of Russia," he declared. "Those people," he continued, "do not understand that we simply must stop the spread of cancer and prevent its growth from spreading across the world." After such a self-serving statement one is tempted to say "doctor, heal thyself."

The urgings of the various statesmen from different countries and of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan not to inflict indiscriminate violence and terror on innocent civilians have been to no avail. On the contrary, the policy of genocide against the people of Chechnya has been pursued with new vigor after the Russian president's meeting with the heads of states in Istanbul.

At this juncture it is obvious that Messrs. Yeltsin and Putin, and the entire power structure of Russia, have remained true to the Russian historical tradition where human suffering, particularly of a conquered people, is of no significance.

Dr. Taras Hunczak is professor of history at Rutgers University.

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