Do you remember General Massud? The leader of the Northern Alliance, and the last obstacle to full control of Afghanistan by the Taliban, after having been the leader of the resistance against the Soviet occupation in the 80s, he was assassinated on 9 September 2001, in a move which has been widely associated with 9/11.
Last week, Aslan Maskhadov, the elected President of the Chechens, was also assassinated, by Russian forces. There are many troubling similarities between Massoud and Mashkadov – honourable men engaged in a thankless fight for their countrymen against a massively superior force, sometimes supported by the West but most of the time ignored and forgotten in the name of realpolitik. Both were also moderates in a fight increasingly dominated by extremist Islamists. I am not predicting another event like 9/11 in the wake of this assassination, but some parallels are eerie and some lessons for the West are stark.
Below is the scathing indictment of our cowardly behavior by André Glucksmann, a French philosopher long involved in fighting causes like Bosnia and Chechnya, as well as other viewpoints on the topic.
The French version of his text was published by Le Monde. Below is a translation provided in Johnson’s Russia List, an e-mail distribution list partially published on the net here.
Thanks from the new Czar
A comment on the assassination of Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov.
By Andre Glucksmann
Thank you, Messrs Chirac, Bush and Schröder. Aslan Maskhadov, the man elected president of Chechnya under international supervision, is dead. Assassinated.
The Russian authorities have succeeded. Their only opponent now is Shamil Basayev, the radical warlord they themselves trained and often spared, be it in Budyonnovsk or Dagestan. Mr Putin, the Soviet agent who spends his holidays in the company of Messrs Schröder and Berlusconi, finds himself faced with a man like himself, a man who may not have his clout yet, but already his cruelty. The massacre may now continue, the attacks recommence.
Aslan Maskhadov had just declared a unilateral ceasefire and announced he represented Western values, not those of radical Islamism. This ceasefire had been respected by all boeviki (Chechen fighters) for the past month. Maskhadov had shown his strength. The time had therefore come to kill him to prevent the spirit of "permanent revolution" which our friend, the Czar, abhors from reaching the northern Caucasus.
Not a single Western leader dared call for the Kremlin to negotiate with the only legitimate leader of a martyred and heroic people. Remember Ahmed Shah Massoud of Afghanistan? First he resisted the Russians, then the Islamists. He was abandoned by the world’s democracies and assassinated to Osama Bin Laden’s benefit. There too, not one of our representatives contradicted Vladimir Putin when he equated Chechen pro-independence military resistance with international terrorism. On the contrary, Chirac and Schröder proclaimed the master of the Kremlin the archangel of peace in view of his sympathy towards Saddam Hussein, a blank cheque the KGB man has now cashed in.
Stripped of their morals, our leaders have also shown remarkable political stupidity. Who will now be able to calm the thousands of torture victims who dream of nothing but revenge? Who will now be in a position to negotiate if the Russians don’t one day become aware of their murderous insanity? Where in this young generation that has known nothing but war and oppression can we find a man of Maskhadov’s stature and temperance? Chechnya will plunge further into horror, but it won’t dive alone.
Who prevented the pain-crazed fighters from blowing up a nuclear power plant in Russia? Corrupt secret servicemen, perhaps? Evidently not. Who reined in the influence of Basayev a former agent of the GRU, the Russian army’s special forces within the Chechen resistance movement? Who, if not Aslan Maskhadov?
The dying Yassir Arafat was granted full honours in France and Europe. And yet the Chechen president who never called for the murder of civilians died alone, just as he had fought. Abandoned by the world, isolated in his rebel mountains, seeing his people massacred amid general indifference, Maskhadov unconditionally condemned the Moscow theatre hostage drama and the horrors of Beslan, offering to go there in person to forbid the massacre of innocents. Just as he had not hesitated to denounce the September 11th attacks.
Despite being a pro-independence hero, Maskhadov proposed an anti-terrorist peace plan that deferred the question of independence. In the name of peace. His plan called for the demilitarisation of the fighters under international supervision. The UN, EU, OSCE, Nato and all the other "things" designed to preserve the peace among the world’s peoples and guarantee the self-determination of nations didn’t even see fit to discuss the three-year-old and constantly reiterated plan.
In spite of the filtration camps, the ethnic cleansing, the rape and theft, the death of almost a quarter of the population (imagine if 10 to 15 million people were wiped out in Italy or France) and the exodus of a similar number of frightened civilians, Chechnya resists both the Russian barbarity and the sirens of religious fanaticism. Why all this relentless hounding of a population of (once) a million people? Why so little compassion?
Moscow’s obstinacy is based on neither strategic motives nor mere interest in fuel. The main reason for three centuries of colonial war and Russian cruelty in the Caucasus is pedagogic. The great Russian poets had identified it: it is simply to set an example and teach the Russian people themselves that it’s not worth disobeying orders. In 1818, General Ermolov gave Czar Nicolas I the key to such a combat: "This Chechen people inspires by its example a rebellious spirit and a love for freedom even in your Majesty’s most devoted subjects." Putin has translated the lessons of czarist imperialism into his terms, that is, those of a Soviet-era non-commissioned officer. He says these eternal rebels should be "kicked all the way down the drain".
So yes, Aslan Maskhadov had blood on his hands, just like the resistance fighters in France and elsewhere. But he was up against an enemy armed and guided by genocidal impulses. It’s not good being a resistant nowadays, not a real one. Maskhadov also died because of our lexical inability. We constantly make a hue and cry about genocide except when it actually happens, as was the case in Rwanda in 1994. We describe as "resistants" the Salafists and Saddamites who slit the throats of election officials and voters in Iraq, yet refuse to use the same term for freedom fighters who won’t accept the annihilation of their people. By refusing to call him what he is, namely a president and a patriot, western leaders gave their blessing to his assassination in advance.
Maskhadov liked me. During my travels in Chechnya in June 2000, we couldn’t really talk properly, as our meetings were interrupted by bombs on three occasions. I sent him my questions, he replied by cassette, a very long letter in which he denounced Islamism and concluded, "In a free Chechnya, no Chechen woman would ever be forced to cover her face."
At the end of his last novel "Hadji Mourat", Tolstoy painted a hallucinatory picture in the form of a literary and political testament: A spineless Czar is brought the decapitated head of a noble Chechen leader on a plate. Aslan Maskhadov died yesterday in the village of Tolstoy-Yurt. Chechnya has lost its de Gaulle, and we have dishonoured ourselves once again.
The article was published in French in Le Monde dated 10 March, 2005, and in German in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 11 March, 2005.
André Glucksmann is a philosopher.
While less accusatory of the West, most press comments in Europe underline the fact the Maskhadov’s death also means the death to any negotiated solution to the Chechen war:
"Arresting or eliminating Maskhadov was never an insoluble task from a military-tactical point of view", says Izvestiya, suggesting that his killing was "the result of a decision taken at the highest level" as part of "a fundamental change" in the Kremlin’s policy on Chechnya.
"The weakening argument that there was nothing to discuss with Maskhadov, who controls nobody, has been replaced by the unchallengeable argument that now there really is nobody to talk to", the paper concludes.
(…)
Similarly, Germany’s Die Welt says the killing has put paid to any prospect of the conflict being settled round the negotiating table."With Maskhadov, a negotiated solution for Chechnya has died, too," the paper says
As this neutral obituary in the Economist puts it, his story is similar to that of Massoud, that of an Army officer becoming a war leader almost by accident, and trying to restrain the worst impulses of his co-fighters.
Then in 1991, as the Soviet Union splintered, Mr Maskhadov teamed up with another talented officer, a bomber pilot called General Jokar Dudayev, to proclaim the creation of a new Chechen state. While each of 15 territories which once formed the Union became an internationally recognised country, Chechnya had no such luck; because it was legally part of the Russian republic, its independence bid was seen as an illegal act of secession. In December 1994 Russia began a cruel, clumsy effort to reassert control by carpet-bombing Grozny.
After that, Mr Maskhadov often found himself cast in the role of quiet but increasingly marginalised conciliator, doing his best to restrain his wilder compatriots, often unsuccessfully. As a military man, he lacked a politician’s touch. He was embarrassed by the bombastic style of Dudayev, who was eventually killed by a Russian missile in 1996, and loathed the wild, counter-productive extremism of the young warlord, Shamil Basayev. He also disliked the new Saudi-inspired school of militant Islam that was replacing the old Sufi traditions, and it was only with reluctance, and under pressure from senior comrades, that he proclaimed a regime of sharia law in 1998.
Mr Maskhadov’s best days were in 1997, when he was elected president in a decentish ballot and received in the Kremlin, where deals were made that placed Chechnya, in effect, under his control while leaving its future status vague. But the peace these agreements promised was shattered in 1999, when an incursion by Mr Basayev into neighbouring Dagestan and a mysterious wave of bombs in Moscow triggered a fresh Russian onslaught and five years of war and atrocity.
Mr Maskhadov condemned last year’s massacre at a school in southern Russia. Earlier this year he proclaimed, and broadly enforced, a three-week end to hostitilies. He insisted that if he were given just half an hour with Mr Putin, and allowed to explain what was really happening, the war would end quickly. All these initiatives, however, were a threat to those–from militant Islamists to Russian officers-turned-profiteers–with a stake in Chechnya’s bloodshed.
That request for a half-hour conversation came in an interview published a few days before his assassination:
In a statement on his Web site, Maskhadov said; "We think that 30 minutes of honest eye-to-eye talk would be enough to end this war, so as to explain to the Russian president what Chechens want. I believe he does not know,"
"To start this dialogue it would be enough to deal with the following questions. For (Chechnya), the security of the Chechen people and for Russia, the defense of her regional and military interests in the North Caucasus."
Maskhadov also said that the Kremlin ignored his offer of peace talks and said that Putin isn’t aware of the real situation in Chechnya, where soldiers and rebels clash every day.
Putin refuses to hold talks with Maskhadov, and has labeled the rebel leader an international terrorist, even linking him to al-Qaeda network.
In February, Maskhadov ordered his fighters, including Shamil Basayev, to observe a 30-days ceasefire and to stop all attacks in Chechnya and bordering areas as "a display of good will."
He also renewed his calls for negotiations with the Russian leadership, which has frequently dismissed his demands.
Russian officials claimed at the time that Maskhadov’s call was fake and that it was made to attract media attention.
"I think the Russian president has been led into a grave error. His special services, his generals, his advisers and his local puppets are mainly to blame for this," said Maskhadov.
Putin’s attacks on Chechen rebels failed to end the war, which has spread into neighboring regions, Maskhadov said, adding that the Kremlin only had itself to blame.
"There is no need to blame bin Laden or al Qaeda. I am convinced bin Laden couldn’t even find these republics on the map," said Maskhadov, stressing that rebel fighters in other regions were under his control.
A longer article on his comments can be found here. Another view is that of Peter Lavelle, a more pro-Russian, but thoughtful commentator:
A number of Moscow-based analysts are of the opinion that the selling of Maskhadov as a "moderate" was nothing more than a ploy of spinning Maskhadov as "good cop" of the political wing of Chechen resistance, with Basayev playing the role of "bad cop" of the military wing.
The West is now in a bind. In the Western outcry over Maskhadov’s death, claims are being made that terrorists’ acts will now increase, rebel groups will become even more radicalized, and most importantly these groups will seek aid from foreign militants. Can the West support any rebel leaders or groups in Chechnya under these conditions?
Support of Shamil Basayev as an alterative is simply untenable. This is the Kremlin’s strategy. With Maskhadov dead, the West is left with the Kremlin’s simple proposition: "Are you with us or against us in the fight against terrorism?"
The West will also have to take another look at Kremlin-supported Chechen President Alu Alkhanov. While not universally loved in Chechnya, Alkhanov has a modicum of legitimacy as an elected leader. The Kremlin called Maskhadov a terrorist, but more than anything else he represented a threat to the Kremlin-supported regime. With Maskhadov gone, the Kremlin’s "Chechenization" approach begun before the assassination of Russian-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov in 2004 is set to get boost.
Whether Maskhadov was accidentally killed or what he could have done as a "moderate" no long matters. His removal from the political scene has given the Kremlin the initiative and challenges the West to rethink its approach to Chechnya. Putin has essentially turned the tables on those in the West sympathetic to the Chechen rebel cause.
(Peter Lavelle provides a number of other interesting view points here)
Putin is successfully surfing on Bush’s "you’re either with us or against us" policies, by eliminating all other options, presenting Chechens as evil Islamist terrorists (after having pushed them in that direction by conducting a dirty all out war on both civilians and combatants and targetting the "moderates" more than the hardline warlords), and bringing the West into a nasty contradiction between the fight against terrorism and the fight for democracy…
Nobody is clean in this conflict, and the Chechens, whose main "industry" after the peace accord of 1996 was that of kidnappings, can justifiably be blamed for the Russians coming back in to bring order to a lawless region whose unstability was spilling into neighboring areas. Of course, nothing excuses the Russian Army policies of destruction, mindless killing of civilians, large scale torture, and its own participation in trafficking and looting, and nothing excuses the West’s pathetic ignorance of these horrors to cozy up with Putin for ill-defined great power games.
The worst is that, while the West has clearly lost its honor in this conflict, as Glucksmann states eloquently, it is highly unlikely that the Russians’ hamfisted policies will work against terrorism. As Latynina, a good observer of Russian power circles writes:
Maskhadov’s death was a huge propaganda victory for the Kremlin. But the death of the president of Ichkeria will not end the war in Chechnya, just as the death of former Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev didn’t stop the fighting. Because no war that is being waged by the people will end when one of the representatives of the people dies. Moreover, now that Maskhadov, a former Soviet army colonel, is gone, there is no one left among the separatists who wants to hold talks with Russia and who will work within the Western – or at the very least Russian – framework.
From the point of view of military tactics, Maskhadov’s death has left the Russians in a less-than-favorable position.
The second Chechen war is not merely a war of Chechen against Russian. It is also a civil war of Chechen against Chechen. It began before the invasion of Dagestan in 1999. It began inside Chechnya itself. It began because Maskhadov could not keep control of field commanders or stop the increasingly popular Wahhabis from fighting with proponents of more traditional forms of Islam. Maskhadov was not able to prevent this war and did not want to take part in it.
When top mufti and deceased Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, a believer in traditional Sufi Islam, began demanding that Maskhadov get rid of Wahhabis like warlord Shamil Basayev, Maskhadov replied that he wasn’t about to start a civil war. So Akhmad Kadyrov went over to the Russians because as someone used to ruling the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of the faithful, he found the Wahhabis far more terrifying than the Russians.
Maskhadov had legitimacy, but he didn’t have enough strength. He could not manage the field commanders while at the same time acting as president of Chechnya. He was a symbol of the resistance, but not its driving force. His death will give field commanders an excellent excuse to band together in a very real way.
However, the strategic consequences of his death could prove even more dangerous.
Russia is successfully fighting the separatists.
Once upon a time, it battled them successfully in Chechnya. Now it is successfully fighting separatists all across the North Caucasus.
In the past, Russia fought Chechen field commanders. Now it is fighting Wahhabi jamaats, or religious cells. What began as a civil war in Chechnya has now turned into a holy war across the entire North Caucasus.
Field commanders and their guerrillas are a kind of military organization.
Jamaats are a way of life. Field commanders can’t gather and elect a president of the North Caucasus, for example. Jamaats, in contrast, can get together and choose a Wahhabi imam for the North Caucasus. Whether that imam will be Basayev or someone else is a question of secondary importance.
The Kremlin has not killed a separatist leader. The Kremlin has killed Russia’s last hope of maintaining control over the North Caucasus.
Like in Afghanistan 15 years ago, the Russians are creating and feeding a monster. This time, we are supporting the other side, but by again ignoring the moderates, we are encouraging the extremists and, of course, losing control of the consequences of unleashing such monsters in an unstable area of the world. The Russians are likely to be the first ones to pay the consequences of these choices, but it could end up falling on us as well.
Have a thought for the Chechen population which has been caught in war and massacres for the past 10 years; for the young Russian soldiers who are sent in a thankless guerilla war with limited training and equipment and get killed, injured or permanently scarred by the atrocities they see, do or face, and for our lost honor.