Terror in Moscow - chechenya

[Dalni]

Chechnya comes back to haunt Putin

 

Leader

Friday October 25, 2002

The Guardian

 

The apparent ease with which several dozen Chechen separatists stormed a theatre in central Moscow, less than three miles from the Kremlin, and took hundreds of people hostage has stunned Russians. Armed with automatic rifles and explosives and dressed in combat fatigues, the Chechens seem to have encountered no real difficulty in launching their latest anti-civilian outrage. That is surprising and alarming news for the Russian president, too. As prime minister in 1999, Vladimir Putin won domestic plaudits for the uncompromising policy he pursued after a series of bomb attacks blamed on Chechens killed over 100 Muscovites. Ignoring the terrible lessons of the 1994-96 conflict initiated by Boris Yeltsin, he sent the army back into Chechnya where it remains to this day. Mr Putin's tough-guy image proved to be a crucial factor in propelling him into the presidency in 2000 after Mr Yeltsin retired. Since then, the president has repeatedly declared the Chechen wars to be over. But the reality on the ground in Grozny, in other ravaged Chechen cities, and now in the heart of Moscow itself is clearly rather different.

This front doorstep reminder of unfinished business is deeply embarrassing for Mr Putin, who was yesterday obliged to cancel his attendance at the Pacific Rim summit in Mexico, where he was due to discuss Iraq and the "war on terror" with US President George Bush. The Russian leader was quick to link the theatre attack to recent atrocities in Bali and the Philippines, without providing any evidence. In similar vein, he has persistently argued since September 11 that the Chechen insurgency should be regarded not as a war of liberation but as a component part of the global terrorist threat.

 

There may well be loose al-Qaida connections with Muslim militants in Chechnya and in neighbouring Georgia, as US and Russian officials say. But Mr Putin's overall argument is misleading. It has been used effectively to silence international criticism of Russian repression in Chechnya (where both sides are guilty of human rights abuses). The consequence of that has been political neglect and, specifically, the indefinite postponement of meaningful dialogue with the exiled, elected Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov. By classifying Chechnya simply as a terrorism problem, Mr Putin has made a political solution much harder. And that has left the stage door wide open for violent extremists.

 

Special reports

Russia

Chechnya

[Dalni]

What do you think of this unfolding scenario? Do you think it will affect putin's popularity in Russia? Do you think this kind of hostage taking makes a point or brings to independence to Chechens? Lets hear it from you

[Abdi2005]

Im person who speak russion and say to the basterd russion criminals Sukenziin( that was in russion).

You have to know the russion criminal have kild 80 000 chechens in the last war and up to 100 000 in the forst chechen war. And they are kiling this smal nation who is les than 500 000 people. Ther have ben geneside agens chechen under the stalin time when he deported milions of chechen to siberiya, in 50s few who survivd the cold was alowd to go back to chechnya. And now russions want to finish of the the smal group that is left.

RUSSIA ACCUSED OF 'THINNING OUT' CHECHEN YOUTHS   From Robin Shepherd in Moscow   AN INTERNATIONAL human rights group has issued a damning report on President Putin’s war in Chechnya, accusing Russian soldiers of targeting "men of productive age" for execution in an attempt to "thin out" the male population. The International Helsinki Federation, which was set up 20 years ago to monitor abuses in the Soviet bloc, reported violence on a huge scale, particularly in proportion to Chechnya’s population, which numbers about 500,000. It said that up to 80 bodies of young Chechen men were found each month and that this was a conservative figure.   The report accuses Western governments of standing idly by as a sop to Mr Putin’s support for the War on Terror. Russian human rights groups estimate the civilian death toll in the two wars in Chechnya at between 80,000 and 150,000. "This violence is on a huge scale in the world context. It is difficult to find an analogy to this," Aaron Rhodes, the Helsinki group’s executive director, said.   The Russian authorities issued a swift and angry response. Stanislav Ilyasov, head of the pro-Russian Government in Chechnya, blamed most civilian deaths on "criminals" and said that the Helsinki group’s findings were "immoral and irresponsible". He said: "Human rights activists cannot be allowed to analyse social processes."   Russia has been largely successful in keeping the bloody war in Chechnya off the international news agenda. Censorship at home has been matched by a strategy to portray the war as a campaign to root out terrorists along the lines of the US operation in Afghanistan or even Britain’s struggle with the IRA in Northern Ireland.   Most historians say that the roots of the Chechen conflict go back to the 19th century, when rebel groups tried to shake off Tsarist Russian control and embarked on a violent campaign for independence.   In 1944 Stalin deported the entire nation to Central Asia and Siberia, accusing Chechens of collaborating with the Nazis. More than 100,000 people died and the survivors were not allowed to return until the 1950s. The struggle for liberation was not to be defeated swiftly, as President Yeltsin found when he waged war in the breakaway southern republic in 1994.

[Medley of extemporanea]

It seems the whole worlds is basically forgotten that little country. Letting the Russians do whatsoever they want. The war is going on for 4 years now. It’s really sad . . . But wrongs like those don’t just go unpunished, the Russians are going to pay.

 

It’s interesting to note that the West and UN are saying nothing, nothing at all. Which goes to prove (if more evidence was needed) that as long as it’s Muslims that are being exterminated no one cares. For any one who believes all the bullschnit coming out of the UN and West about human rights and freedom, just let them look at Chechnya which is happening right now, right this minute.