From Russia With Terror

Some interesting exchanges on the Chechnya-sl List at Yahoo.


Andrea Strunk wrote:

I have been a reader of the discussions on this list for quite a time now. Even in the past there has been much lamenting about the indifference the world shows towards the war in Chechnya, the hypocrisy of politicians, the stupidity of the media etc. I have my doubts about this very bleak way of looking at things, because I know more than a handful of very engaged journalists who try to explain what is going on in Chechnya and I see a lot of private initiatives trying to help. Maybe Mr Putin does not care, maybe Bush and Schröder and Blair do not, but they are not the world or are they? But what annoys me much more is thatI cannot remember that there has ever been criticism of the terrorists acts committed by Chechnyans on this list and I ask myself what is wrong with you guys. The amount of hypocrisy I see in the members discussions is not any smaller than the one you are criticising. Does supporting a case make you blind for what is right and what is wrong? Every time some Russian soldier or civilians in Russia get killed, I cannot help but have the feeling, there is a certain kind of cheering in the comments on this list. Another bad one dead! And yes, Kadyrov was not necessarily
the man you would like to have your Sunday tea with, not to speak of his son and his friends, but killing him is outrageously stupid and it is wrong, no matter how you twist and turn the arguments. Maybe Norbert is right in saying, that there is a lot of sympathy for Kadyrov and none for all the other people that got killed (which, as said above, I see slightly differently). But does that make anything better? On this list
I have not read a word of sympathy for the two children who got injured during the blast, the other civilians who got killed. What are they? Just casualties in a righteous war for Independance? Shit happens? I have read many comments about the female suicide bombers. In not a single one of these comments did I find sympathy with those who got killed. Not one of all the supporters of the Chechnyan cause here stood
up and was horrified about the fact, that someone could use an ideological struggle as an excuse for murder. On the contrary: between the lines there was appoval, hidden joy. Got 'em! Or do you, Norbert and the others, really think, that under certain circumstances terror (the correct term on this list seems to be partisan struggle) is an adaequate way of accomplishing your aim? Don't get me wrong: I am not trying to
excuse these wars Russia has waged against Chechnya, I am not trying to belittle any of the Russian atrocities. But I cannot find a moral justification for terrorism when it is committed by Chechnyans. It is not less inhuman, not less cynical. Moreover, it is doing harm to their own people. Or do you really believe, the mothers, the children of
Chechnya want their men and their sons, their brothers to go out and get killed in fighting the Russians? Place bombs in the streets of Grozny, in stadiums? Do you think, they feel good about the thought of being the next victim. Should, maybe, they be happy about that? Because they are dying for the right cause, die for the freedom of their country? Bullshit. All these arguments are not far away from the sticky
romanticism of Tolstoi and Lermontow. And don't you sometimes get the impression, all this independence and freedom-stuff is just another men's thing. I mean, come on, what should Chechnya do with independance. Live on the oil they have? It is not enough to carry the country through. Even Chechnyans say and know that. Even Chechnyans see, that there is no one anymore to lead the country. No skills, no industry, a dangerous lack of know-how. No political elite, no intellectual fundament. How can you build a country on that? And as for the woman, most I have talked to don't give a damn about this independence thing. All they want is peace, send their kids to school, go shopping again, have good hospitals, have enough to eat and reasonable heating. If all the independence supporters and Russian-haters on this list could put their efforts into helping them to accomplish that instead of revelling in verbal tinkling. Chechnya might
need to get rid of the Russians, but it has to get rid of their own bunch of idiots as well.

Andrea

And Norbert Strade replied:


Dear Andrea,

I think that your criticism of the attitude on this list, of me personally, and in a wider sense also of the Chechen Resistance, is unjustified.

You claim that nobody had anything to say about the civilians who were killed in the explosion that killed Kadyrov. This is wrong. I wrote just two days ago: "It would have been right to send condolences to the families of the innocent victims of the explosion, including the unfortunate journalist.But by sending them to Putin and expressing "sympathy" for the exterminators of more than 200,000 people, Solana and his colleagues are once again openly assuming the role of accomplices of the mass murderers."

I have nothing against sending condolences to the victims, but these guys sent their condolences to the chief of the mass murderers, instead of to the Chechen people in general and the relatives of the victims in particular. Instead of showing simple human decency towards the innocent victims, they used this sad event to restate their cynical support for Putin. It is as if the Chechen people already ceased to exist in the
view of our wonderful democrats. Aslan Maskhadov, btw., denounced all forms of terrorism (as he has done dozens of times, with no reaction from the so-called "civilized world") and said in his comment: "I express sincere condolences in my own name and in the name of the government to the families and relatives of the
innocently killed compatriots".

And I must say that I fully agree with this. Btw., I think that the emerging facts raise serious doubts that the Chechen Resistance had anything to do with the attack on Kadyrov. IMO, the suspects are, a - fellow criminals in the Quisling structures, b - a
part of the Russian war structures which didn't want Kadyrov to share too big a portion of the loot, and c - Russian "services" which retired him because he had done his job and now simply was a security risk.

I've already said what I think about it. The Chechen Resistance couldn't have a serious interest in killing Kadyrov, and especially not at this point. It is extremely important that some of the war criminals survive, so the facts behind this whole campaign can be investigated by a regular court trial.

You also seem to assume that I'm criticizing journalists as a group. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are fortunately quite a few journalists who take their job seriously and try to report the truth, as far as they can access it, and who are even ready to endure personal danger in order to do so. You won't hear a bad word from me about them. What I think must be strongly criticized in this connection is the behaviour of a large majority of "mainstream" media all over the world. With their uncritical (in the best case) copying of Russian propaganda constructs, they are very seriously taking part in the defamation of the complete Chechen people, on an ethnic basis, as being of a criminal nature, exactly as introduced by the colonialists of the
19th century, reinvented by Stalin, and dug up again by Yeltsin. This behaviour of the media can't be denounced sharply enough, because it's in contradiction both with the values of good journalism and of humanism in general.

But my criticism in the case of Kadyrov was directed solely against the so-called "world-community", which now seems collectively to have said goodbye to its own established rules, and where each member has its own individual reasons to support the bloody regime of Vladimir Putin, all the way even into the realms of political farce, as in the recent flood of condolences sent to the murderer instead of the victims.

You are equally wrong in your opinion that you "cannot remember that there has ever been criticism of the terrorists acts committed by Chechnyans on this list". Please remember that this list is almost 10 years old. Many things have been discussed ad nauseam, and at some point, nobody feels the urge to repeat things again and again. If you go through the archives, you'll find numerous messages criticizing terrorist acts and war crimes committed by Chechens. I have personally called e.g. Shamil Basayev and Hattab war criminals, for attacking civilians and murdering Russian POWs. With regard to Russians getting killed in Russia (I guess you refer to the so-called "suicide bombings"), I must say that by far the largest number of Russian civilians has been murdered by the Yeltsin and Putin gangs. Remember 1999. Not to mention several ten thousand Russian civilians murdered in the carpet bombings of Grozny in 94-95.
Personally, I'm still not convinced that there has been a significant number of "suicide bombings". In most of the alleged cases, there hasn't been any evidence for the involvement of suicide bombers which would hold in a civilized court. Except if one believes that Basayev's constant "taking responsibility" is proof enough. The only case where real "black widows" (a racist term which has been succesfully introduced by the Russian propaganda experts) were involved was the Dubrovka event, where everyone now knows that Russian special services made their own important contribution (and again, the Russian civilian victims weren't killed by Chechens but by the Russian "law enforcement agencies"). This tradition goes back to the first war, when even during Basayev's and Raduyev's raids into Russian territory, the part of killing Russian
civilians was done by the Russian forces. I for one fully agree with Chechen president Maskhadov, that terror very simply can't be justified under any circumstances. And I've said it here many times. I have no idea what gave you a different impression. Talking about "lamentations", one of my main lamentations is the consequent lack of proportions even in the declarations from some human rights organizations. They seemingly feel the urge to present both sides as equally bad, always trying to compare a few hand-picked cases of "Chechen" atrocities with the massive crimes against peace, humanity and
war crimes, including the crime of genocide, committed by the Russian side, and ending this comparison of uncomparable entities with the conclusion that "both sides commit violations...". Which is quickly caught by the Western politicians as a justification for their active support for the Putin regime.

Some other actions, which have successfully been labelled as "terrorism" by the Russian propaganda, were of an absolutely military nature, which is accepted by the international rules of war. Partizan warfare is a fully legal activity, if your country is under foreign occupation. E.g. the bombing of the Quisling headquarters in Grozny. People who did similar things during WWII are now heroes (including a couple of them
heroes of Russia). If some suicide attackers had rammed a truck full of explosives into the premises of a local quisling "government" during that war, there would be monuments to their honour today.

With regard to the alleged "cheering" over the death of Russian soldiers, I can only say the following:

This war isn't just a bloody clash for no reasons, with roots in the mystical "Russian and Chechen souls". It has two sides, of which one side attacked the other one in a clear-cut aggression. On top of it, the aggression wasn't conducted in a "military" way - regulated by the Hague convention about land war - i.e., by fighting the enenmy's military forces, but in a traditional medieval Tsarist-Stalinist way, by trying
to terrorize the civilian population into submission and to reduce the size of the enemy's population to a point where they would never be able to rise again.
This isn't a war with no sense on any side. There's a Chechen state whose independence is legally valid an documented, and this state has been attacked by its former colonial power with the aim to bring it back into the colonial sphere - by eliminating its civilian population, if necessary. In other words, one of the two sides is right, and one is wrong. And the Chechen side isn't simply defending some principles and
pieces of paper, but the very form of the Russian aggression has made it clear that armed resistance is the only way to stop, or at least, reduce the impact of the genocide, i.e. to defend the physical existence of the Chechen nation. Soldiers die in such a war, and some are dying on the right side, others on the wrong side. Dear Andrea, I can tell you that I deplore the loss of every single Russian conscript boy who has been forced to fight for the Nazi criminals in the Kremlin. But on the other hand, it's very hard to produce any tears for the medieval torturers from the mercenary
units, or the so-called "professional" Russian soldiers who know very well what crimes they are committing. The sad truth is that every lost Russian soldier translates directly into saved lives of Chechen civilians. And as I have said here several times before, a Russian soldier who wants to do the right thing should either defect, or turn
his gun around and against the enemies of both the Chechen and the Russian people. Those who don't do this will end up in the historic records as "the bad guys" and victims on the wrong side.

Finally, I sure admit that there are people (on this list, too), who seem to have a very romantic attitude towards the Resistance. Though I find it difficult to blame them. Decent human beings would always support the underdog. Of course there are Chechens on the Resistance side who have committed incredibly ugly things. And for the political side of it, I for one certainly don't agree with everything Maskhadov
ever said or did. But again, one must look at the proportions. And one more thing is important: This isn't just about the little piece of land called Chechnya, and the remaining 3/4 of its population. It's important in a much wider sense. We are dealing here with a conflict about the standards of international law - especially if it is universal or can be individually adjusted due to geopolitical and economical interests, and due to the relative strength of its subjects. The conflict is also of central importance for current and future decolonization struggles. I.e., this war is of
direct, one could even say, physical, importance for many millions of people world-wide. And I for one believe that it's in our own interest as citizens of more or less peaceful and democratic countries to support the Chechen struggle.

Best regards,
Norbert