Window on Eurasia

Moscow’s Actions in Chechnya, Islamic World Reflect ‘Double Standards,’ Analyst Says

Paul Goble

Vienna, July 4, 2006 -- Moscow often complains about what it calls the West’s “double standards” on Chechnya, but it is equally inconsistent in its approach to the Muslim world, simultaneously seeking out friends among Islamic radicals abroad while cracking down against them in the northern Caucasus, a leading Russian analyst argues.

In an essay posted online on Friday, Sergei Markedonov, who writes
frequently on ethnic conflicts, argues that deaths a few days apart of
Chechen leader Khalim Saydullayev and Russian diplomats in Baghdad show
that Moscow is not pursuing a consistent policy
[http://www.prognosis.ru/news/region/2006/6/30/markedonov.html].

Indeed, Markedonov suggests, Moscow is increasingly acting in ways in
Chechnya that suggest that the central authorities have not clearly
defined their own interests as opposed to those of the local
“pro-Moscow” government, or how their actions there and in the
Middle East are related to one another.

“Up to now,” he writes, “the Chechen question has been considered
by the Kremlin as a certain regional ethno-political anomaly rather
than as a microscopic portion of the manifestation of other, far larger
political crises.” And that means it is not only pursuing inconsistent
policies but ones that undermine its own position.

If Chechnya’s many specific features might have justified that
approach somewhat in the past, the near simulatenous killings of
Saydullayev and the two Russian diplomats is not only “evidence of
Russia’s lack of a strategy to resolve the Chechen problem but also
indicate serious problems in [Russia’s] internal and foreign
policies.”

The killing of Saydullayev, however justified as the liquidation of a
terrorist, not only eliminates yet another Chechen leader who might
have been willing and able to talk to Moscow but also feeds the “naïve”
notion that Russian can unilaterally decide with whom it will speak if
at all.

But there are two other factors that make his liquidation even more
problematic for the central Russian government. On the one hand, it was
done in a way that was not consistent with Russian legal procedures,
even though it could easily have been done in that way.

Indeed, Markedonov complains, because of these failings, “the
successor of Aslan Maskhadov, the organizer of the armed forces of
‘Ichkeria,’ and the milant leader of the separatists, turns out to
have been ‘clean’ from the point of view of Russian laws,” to
which he ought to have been subject.

Failure to follow such legal process, Markedonov says, has the
unintended effect of providing ammunition for pro-independence Chechens
who argue that given Moscow’s policies, Chechnya and Chechens are
already not part of the Russian Federation.

Given Moscow’s current approach, the Moscow analyst continues, that
argument is certain to impress some Chechens, especially since, unlike
in Soviet times, Moscow has not attempted to modernize the north
Caucasus or to make sure that Russian laws and legal protections are
put in place there.

And on the other hand, this action clearly benefited Ramzan Kadyrov,
the pro-Moscow Chechen leader in Grozny, but it is far from clear that it
actually benefited Moscow. But no one there was asking who in fact
would benefit, a failure that highlights Moscow’s incompetence on this and
other issues.

Now that terrorists demanding that Moscow withdraw its forces from
Chechnya have kidnapped and killed two Russian diplomats, Markedonov
continues, Russian officials should pause and reflect on the links
between Chechnya and a broader divide in the world, one they have paid
lip service to but made the basis of their policies.

Trying to make friends with Islamist groups like Hamas or other Muslim
radicals, the Moscow analyst says, while fighting in Chechnya against
those whom the radicals see as their comrades in arms in a worldwide
struggle against the infidel is a strategy doomed to failure even if it
appears to offer some tactical success against the U.S.

And continuing to seek to open “a constructive dialogue” with
either Chechen radicals or Hamas or the others appears to be “at the very
least naïve.” As the successor to the USSR, Russia, “beginning
with Afghanistan has guaranteed itself a place in the first ranks of the
infidel Satanist countries.”

Moscow’s Chechen campaigns, like its fight against Islamic
fundamentalism in Daghestan and other North Caucasus republics “have
only strengthened this image,” and as a result, “attempts at
building a ‘multi-vector world’ along the paths of rapprochement
with all anti-American forces” almost certainly will be a disaster.

It should be “obvious” to officials in Moscow, Markedonov
concludes, that “one must not support an anti-American and anti-Israeli
‘jihad,’ while at the same time seeking to wipe out its own in the
North Caucasus.”

Given such connections, he argues, “the Chechen theme now requires a
serious revision of Russia’s foreign policy strategy and the search
for other allies.” That should not present a problem: “In the same
Islamic world, there are not a few secular regimes which have extensive
experience of fighting their own ‘jihadists’” and other radicals.