29.08.1996

Endgame in Chechnya

Ceasefires in Chechnya have been two a penny since the Russian Federation headed by Boris Yeltsin decided to try and halt the Caucasian republic’s drive towards independence by sending in the troops back in December 1994. At least 30,000 people in Chechnya have died since then. The majority of them have been the local civilians, but several thousand Russian soldiers have lost their lives in the vain and discredited attempt by Moscow to hang onto this area.

Most of the Russians are badly paid and know that the state will not look after their dependants if they are killed. They do not know why they are in Chechnya, let alone why they should die there, and they show all the signs of disintegration displayed by the Americans in the last years of US involvement in Vietnam. The desertion rate among Russian soldiers has been very high, they have often relieved their frustrations by committing atrocities against local civilians, and their combat performance against the Chechen separatists is poor, with entire battalions blundering into ambushes in spite of being able to benefit from aerial reconnaissance.

Now there is an attempt to hold the latest ceasefire together. Many have already been broken, but this time it really is an endgame, even though it may take a while for the fighting to sputter to a halt. The clear sign that the Russians want out is their willingness to ditch their local collaborators.

Like most occupiers, the Russians have sought to enlist local people and used them to set up an administration. In reality the Russian generals gave the orders, but the pro-Russian government headed by Doku Zavgayev provided a cover. It is not as if Zavgayev has no support at all - the Chechens are divided along tribal and localist lines, and Zavgayev has a following in the Nadterechny and Urus-Martan areas of the country. He also has a militia, though the Russian army does not trust them to fight the separatists.

Russian leaders have a low opinion of Zavgayev. The Russian media have noticed his habit of flying off to Moscow for “consultations” every time the separatists gain ground on the battlefield. Furthermore, General Aleksandr Lebed, the former Russian presidential contender who now heads the security council, referred to Zavgayev as a “Cossack chieftain without a gold reserve” - or, in English slang, a waste of space. He and some of the Russian commanders have taken to praising the Chechen separatist leaders. Lebed recently said that the press spokesman for the separatists, Movladi Udugov, was doing a better job for his side than the Russian army’s press department was doing for the Russian cause.

The Russian general Tikhomirov met Chechen separatist leaders like veteran fighter Aslan Maskhadov on August 27 and Tikhomirov said afterwards that he thought the Chechens sincerely wanted to end the war. Up till now the Russian generals have tended, in the best security forces tradition, to refer to the separatists as “bandits” or “terrorists”.

For their part, the Chechen separatists may be willing to stop short of outright independence. Chechnya has few natural resources and an urgent task will be the rebuilding the country. The capital, Grozny, once had a population of 400,000, but most of it now lies in ruins.

The Chechen people may be on the verge of winning self-determination. But without unifying working class leadership Chechnya looks destined to slide towards internal turmoil under the influence of reactionary, despotic warlords.

John Craig