CONFLICT-RUSSIA: Disagreement Over War Strategy In Chechnya

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, Jan 21 2000 (IPS) - As Russian officials argue the armed groups in Chechnya must be eliminated to ensure military victory, Chechen activists and non-governmental organisations (ngos) think otherwise. All agree, however, that Chechnya’s post-war rehabilitation will be the trickiest one.

“We understand that we’ll not be able to destroy all ‘bandits’, but their bases will be destroyed,” said General Stanislav Kovun, deputy commander of Russian Interior Ministry Forces.

“Our part of the job should be completed,” he told IPS this week.

With assault on the Chechen capital Grozny intensifying, Russian military campaign against Chechen separatists appears reaching nadir.

During the first two-three months of their campaign, Russian troops seized most of Chechnya’s low-land, meeting virtually no resistance. But the situation changed greatly in Grozny and the mountains to the south of the city.

The Russian military planners had promised the troops would capture Grozny without combat, but air-raids and blockade have failed to dislodge the militants. Then Russian tactics changed and ferocious street-by-street, house-by-house battles raged across central districts of Grozny. Minutka Square in the southeastern portion of central Grozny, and important bridge over the Sunzha river that bisects the city have been the venues of fiercest battles.

Since earlier this week Russian aircraft were flying some 200 raids a day – highest intensity in this war so far. Air strikes and artillery barrages have reduced much of downtown areas of Grozny to rubble, and not much of the city is now left for the Russian troops to seize.

In the southern mountains, Russian aircraft pounded the Argun Gorge, a key supply route for the militants, as well as mountainous villages. The latter include Vedeno, a stronghold of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who is widely blamed for provoking the war by his invasion of the neighbouring Russian region of Dagestan last August.

“Russian army has been assaulting the very same Chechen towns and villages for the past 200 years,” concedes Vladimir Kulakov, Russian government’s deputy representative in Chechnya.

However, he insists that Russian offensive in Chechnya is an anti-terrorist drive, designed to destroy “formations of bandits” – organised groups of more than 100 fighters. Kulakov argues these groups would be destroyed by the end of February.

Nonetheless, Russian defense minister Igor Sergeyev claimed Jan 20 that no deadlines to complete the onslaught had been set.

The Chechen people have become victims of political infighting, in Chechnya and in Moscow as well, argues Aslambek Aslakhanov, head of All-Russia Moslem Congress, a Chechen NGO. The Chechens, as well as Russian army itself, became hostages of the political infighting, he told IPS.

At least 10,000 civilians remain in Grozny, sheltering in cellars with little food. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused the Islamic fighters in Chechnya of abusing civilians and endangering their lives by provoking Russian counter-attacks on civilian neighbourhoods.

“Chechen militants have endangered civilians by taking positions in areas that were heavily populated by civilians and firing at Russian aircraft. Chechen fighters are endangering civilians by trying to hide in their midst, but they are bound by the laws of war as much as any combatants,” says Holly Cartner, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division.

The Council of Europe (CE) has also lashed out at Russia’s war in Chechnya. However, the CE seems to refrain from suspending Russia’s membership of the 41-nation parliamentary assembly.

CE envoy, Lord Russell-Johnston, speaking on his return to Moscow from a tour of North Caucasus, said there was no need to penalise Russia despite non-adherence to its commitments to resolve disputes peacefully. He called for an immediate cease-fire and the opening of negotiations between Moscow and Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov.

Military operation is obviously not the most difficult task in Chechnya, said Kulakov. Longer time will be needed to rebuild peaceful life and re-integrate Chechnya within the Russian Federation, he told IPS.

Kovun also concedes that the Chechen issue can not be solved by purely military methods as economic measures are needed to achieve a semblance of normality in a troubled region.

Apart from army units and Interior Ministry troops, pro-Moscow and anti-Maskhadov Chechen militia, led by Bislan Gantamirov, is the part of the drive to take control of Grozny.

However, Nikolai Baransky, head of “Civil Concord” foundation, a Moscow-based think-tank, argues that controversial warlord Gantamirov – once convicted embezzler later pardoned by Moscow – could be a temporary political solution.

Analysts also argue that Moscow’s efforts to work out a sort of political solution for Chechnya are hampered by reluctance of many influential Chechens to co-operate, because when the Kremlin clinched a peace deal with Maskhadov in 1996 many pro-Moscow Chechen leaders were ignored.

Rights groups, however, view the problem differently. “Many ordinary Chechens want any politician – even somebody like Hitler – to lead them so as to stop the war and bombardments,” Aslakhanov argues.