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COMMENTS ON PART II

Svante E. Cornell
Dr. HC Svante E. CORNELL, lecturer at the Departments of East European Studies and Peace and Conflict Research of Uppsala University, Sweden.

The conflict between Russia and Chechnya can be defined as a now nine-year old struggle that has gone through four stages, two non-violent and two violent. The non-violent stages were those between Chechnya’s declaration of independence in 1991 and December 1994, and between August 1996 and September 1999; the two violent phases are the war of December 1994–August 1996, ending in a Chechen victory, and the renewed war since September 1999 until the present. Throughout this time, the main contentious issue has been the same: the status of Chechnya and its relationship with Russia. However, the ways in which conflict behaviour has been legitimized has varied, especially on the Chechen side. The Russian Government has held a fairly simplistic view of the conflict, portraying itself as fighting against Islamic radicalism and terrorism. On the Chechen side, the conflict has until recently been defined chiefly as an ethnic or national issue. The Chechen state, before and during the first war, legitimized itself through the principles which the international community holds dear: it claimed to be based on the principles of national self-determination, human rights and democracy. The audience of this discourse was equally clear: Chechnya was oriented toward the West, and hoped to achieve recognition as a nation-state by Western powers. Although Chechnya was by then a thoroughly Muslim society, President Dudaev largely refrained from Islamic rhetoric even during the war.

The situation at present is different. Through Chechen Internet sites, anyone can observe the fact that the present military effort is heavily cloaked in religious terms. The Chechen leadership has declared a ‘Jihad’ or holy war, and fighters refer to themselves as ‘Mujahideen’—the term used in the Afghan Jihad against the Soviet Union. Before the present war, Chechnya had already introduced Shari’ah and been proclaimed an Islamic state. Needless to say, the use of Islam for purposes of legitimization has increased dramatically since the fighting resumed. This development can be traced to two main causes. First, the 1994–96 war led to a strengthening of Islam in Chechen society. This is no wonder given the extreme devastation of Chechnya and the death of close to 50 000 people: in times of crisis, it is common to see an increase in religiosity. That soldiers were especially affected by this is equally natural: for a warrior whose life is on the line every day, the promise of martyrdom present in Islam is a significant attraction. Second, Chechnya’s erstwhile Western orientation brought it nothing in terms of either moral or financial support from the West. Instead, the Council of Europe accepted Russia into its helm just as it was violating that organization’s most holy foundations. When Russia attacked Chechnya again in 1999, with similar brutality and indiscriminate use of force, Chechnya then had little reason to adhere to ‘Western’ principles of secularism and democracy. However, support was to be found in the Persian Gulf, primarily among private institutions or individuals having benefited from petrodollars, whose sole aim was and remains to promote chiefly radical forms of Islam globally—a similar phenomenon can be observed in Afghanistan’s Taliban movement. This aid was nevertheless conditional on adherence to political Islam, proclamation of Shari’ah, and an inclination toward the Saudi-style Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. Hence Chechnya was under both internal and external pressure to increase the Islamic character of the state and of the struggle.

The consequences of this change in the character of the conflict are significant. From the Chechen perspective, it has implied a secure flow of cash to support the war effort; moreover, the number of foreign volunteers seeking to take part in the Jihad is constantly increasing. Chechen sources claim hundreds of volunteers have joined their forces; actually, the Chechen side even argues that it at present has no need for further manpower. Similarly, the Russian security services claim to have arrested 1500 volunteers on their way to Chechnya at the Ukrainian border, and that 400 people have been trying to enter Chechnya through Georgia. Here it is necessary to note that both parties ironically enough have an interest in inflating these figures: the Chechens to point to their foreign support, and the Russians to further the depiction of the conflict as a struggle against ‘global Islamic terrorism’. However it remains clear that the Chechens lack neither arms nor soldiers to fill the positions of deceased troops. Moreover, the influx of foreign volunteers boosts the morale of the Chechen forces. Consequently, this foreign support plays an important role for the Chechen war effort, and increases the chances of an eventual repetition of the August 1996 victory.

For Russia this is bad enough, however the consequences may be much greater. An ethnically defined Chechen war like the one in 1994–96 entailed only a very limited following or support among other, Muslim North Caucasian peoples. By contrast, a religiously defined conflict as is increasingly the case at present entails a significantly greater risk of contagion. Although the risk of veritable rebellions in other Muslim areas of the Russian Federation remains low, it is likely that the loyalty of the North Caucasian populations toward the state will wither away further, and that Russia’s control over the region will erode as the Islamic revival in the Caucasus continues. Among the fighters in Chechnya, up to a few hundred members of other North Caucasian peoples, mainly Dagestani, may already be present. And irrespective of the outcome of the war, most of these individuals will eventually return to their native regions and promote their views there, with unforeseen problems for the Kremlin.

Looking back to the Chechnya-based ‘Islamic Peacekeeping Army’s’ invasion of Dagestan in August 1999, it should be mentioned that it was not a completely Chechen operation. A large part of the fighters were indeed natives of Dagestan, and the invasion was led by a Chechen (Shamil Basaev) and an Arab (Khattab). This is not to say that Dagestanis in general supported it. Quite the contrary, the invasion and its militant Islamic rhetoric repulsed most Dagestanis. However elements among Muslim North Caucasian groups are attracted by the militant Islamic ideologies preached by Khattab and his associates. Naturally, the continuation of the war will fuel this tendency.

In other words, the first Chechen war—and Russia’s refusal to commit to Chechnya’s reconstruction—has led to an increase in militant Islamic currents in the Northeastern Caucasus. As ideas travel fast, this meant a process that could not be limited to Chechnya but encompassed especially Dagestan, the historical bastion of Sunni Islam in the Caucasus—witness the villages held for over a year by militant Wahhabis. Given the economic condition of the region, its political instability, and that the overshadowing effect of the Chechen war prevents Moscow from addressing the problems of the North Caucasian republics, the continued rise of tendencies toward radical Islam is to be expected throughout the Northern Caucasus. The Russian military’s appalling and by now well-documented violations of all laws of war is only likely to fuel the assertion put forward by the Chechens that Russia is the enemy of Islam. The occasionally openly racist treatment of all persons of Caucasian nationality in mainland Russia furthermore undermines the loyalty of North Caucasians toward the Russian state.

The Islamically coloured picture of the Chechen conflict that Russian propaganda has been painting for the past decade has become largely reality in recent months. Moscow’s inability to use any methods other than brute force in dealing with the Chechen issue, including its refusal to commit resources to Chechnya’s reconstruction in the ‘inter-war era’ has amounted to pushing Chechnya into the arms of the global radical Islamic movement. In other words, Russia has contributed to the realization of its worst nightmare: the appearance and consolidation of Islamic radicalism on its very territory.