MORTUARY:
The bodies of the dead fill the Beslan schoolyard
Posted Sunday, September 5, 2004; 11.27 BST
That's bad news for Putin and for the whole of the Caucasus. In 1992, North Ossetia and Ingushetia fought briefly but violently over the disputed district of Prigorodny in North Ossetia. About 1,000 people died, and between 40,000 and 60,000 Ingush were forced out of Prigorodny before Russian troops intervened. The conflict has been smoldering ever since. "One push, like a new Ossetian-Ingush war, and the entire Caucasus will be engulfed in one bloody, senseless and hopeless melée that Russia will not have enough troops to contain," says Ruslan Khasbulatov, former Speaker of the Russian parliament.
Putin wasted no time declaring he would crack down even harder rather than negotiate a political solution to the Chechen conflict. In his televised speech on Saturday, he paraphrased Stalin: "We have shown weakness. The weak ones get beaten." With the Kremlin claiming that nine of the terrorists in Beslan were of Arab descent — something independent observers have not yet been able to confirm — Putin blamed the crisis on the "direct intervention of international terrorism" aimed at breaking up Russia. He promised a new "set of measures to reinforce the country's unity," as well as tougher rule in the Caucasus and a new "crisis management system" that would enhance the powers of the security services. Some observers, including senior officers in the security services, worried that these new measures could be used to further enhance Putin's power, entrenching the country ever deeper in his authoritarian rule.
The Chechen conflict doesn't fit easily into the "war on terror." Most Chechens do not share al-Qaeda's religious fundamentalism, and they don't seek a return of the caliphate. What they want is their own state, something Putin has vowed never to give them. But Chechen rebels and foreign Islamic terrorists do have links that have grown stronger as the war for independence has dragged on.
Arab militants have been apprehended in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, a former haven for Chechen separatists, and a fundamentalist wing of the Chechen resistance has been gaining influence inside Chechnya. The hard-line guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev, the man alleged to have masterminded the Moscow theater siege, receives money from Middle Eastern and Gulf states, and has produced fund-raising
We are dealing with a total, cruel, full-scale war ... we have shown weakness. The weak get beaten.
— VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian President
videos with Arabic voice-overs. And the Islambouli Brigades, a little-known group that claims al-Qaeda links, says it brought down the two Russian airliners two weeks ago in revenge against Russian policies in Chechnya — but there is no known connection between the Islambouli Brigades and Chechen separatists.
Nevertheless, according to Alexey Malashenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, Putin's crackdown has helped to create a radicalized faction within the Chechen separatist movement that has no qualms about turning to al-Qaeda operatives for help. The al-Qaeda connection "is not the cause" of the Caucasus conflict, Malashenko argues. "This is the effect of Putin's policies."
Critics of those policies say Putin's main achievement has been to reduce Russian news coverage of the violence inside Chechnya, thus enabling him to claim to a population tired of the war that the whole region is returning to normal. But in fact, instability is spreading. Late last month, rebels briefly seized control of two districts in the Chechen capital, Grozny, despite the massive presence of Russian forces. In June, rebels simultaneously attacked four towns in Ingushetia, killing at least 79 people — 43 of them law enforcement agents and other government officials, including the acting Interior Minister — and looting arms depots at will.
Rebels regularly bomb and ambush Russian forces in Dagestan, inflicting steady losses through a series of lightning strikes and skirmishes. And guerrilla attacks have also recently been reported in previously quiet parts of the Caucasus, like the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. Putin vows to prevent the breakup of Russia, but doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that his Caucasus policies may be helping to rip the region apart.
Beslan now faces the task of putting itself back together after last week's atrocities. In the wake of the violence, townspeople were drawn to the hospital, the makeshift morgue and the school site; after the bodies and debris had been cleared away from the gym, many stood inside the bombed-out shell, just to bear witness. In such a small town, everyone has lost someone. On Friday evening, one man brought back the body of his 16-year-old nephew from the morgue. "I was not going to leave him there for another night," he said. Two of his nieces survived the siege, but another didn't. "Imagine," he said, "I fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya, but my knees buckled when I saw her name" on a list of the dead outside the hospital. As the night wore on, he dropped his reserve for a moment, and said in quiet anger: "You don't storm and hammer a place where there are hostages. You just don't do that." Putin, of course, would argue that his forces had no choice.
Back to the Drawing Board [May 24, 2004]
After the assassination of Moscow's man in Grozny, Putin must devise a new exit strategy for Chechnya
No Way Out [Oct. 09, 2003]
After the election in Chechnya, Putin wants to declare victory and get out.
Profits of Doom [Oct. 09, 2003]
A Russian special ops commander says the Chechen war is really being fought for oil, arms and money
Awfully Familiar [July 21, 2003]
The war in Chechnya — now sending suicide bombers to Moscow — is becoming Russia's version of Palestine
No End In Sight [Jun. 30, 2003]
The war in Chechnya helped Putin win the Russian presidency. With a wave of new suicide bombings, could it now become his downfall?
Living on a Powder Keg [Feb. 07, 2003]
The forgotten link between Chechen terrorism and the war in Chechnya
Mogadishu at 60 Miles an Hour Arms merchants are once again doing brisk business after a rapid change of power in this tough town, but so far the peace has held
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