Outrage Upon Outrage

On Friday, September 3, in the small North Ossetian city of Beslan in Russia's northern Caucasus region, two explosions went off in a gymnasium loaded with explosives and packed with more than a thousand children and adults. It was the dramatic climax of another massive hostage-taking perpetrated by Chechen terrorists. The death toll: 339. The appalling images in and around that school were as gruesome as any fictional scenes in a horror film. It was the most vicious terrorist outrage committed by Chechens in the long and bloody history of the Chechen struggle for independence from their Russian overlords.

A nation of 1.3 million in a territory the size of New Jersey, Chechens have no common bonds with Russians. They speak a Caucasian language unrelated to Russian. They are Sunni Muslims and have been battling Russian conquerors since the days of Tsar Peter the Great nearly 300 years ago.

Angered by their insistence upon national independence, Stalin in 1944 accused Chechens of collaboration with the enemy, herded more than 500,000 into cattle cars and banished them into the Siberian wilderness. Only in 1957 did Khrushchev allow the survivors to return home.

In the fall of 1991, when the Soviet Union was falling apart, Chechnya officially claimed the right to secede from the federation, as recognized by Russia's constitution. Neither Boris Yeltsin nor Vladimir Putin, however, seriously considered allowing Chechnya to become an independent country. Given the traditional Russian Orthodox disdain for Muslims, Yeltsin would not even discuss the issue with Chechen leaders.

Russian troops tried to eradicate the Chechen resistance but instead wrecked the country's infrastructure. In 1996 Yeltsin pulled his troops out of Chechnya and left its government in shambles, to be taken over by those who elbowed themselves to the top in the ensuing chaos, corruption, and violence. Since the first war against the Russian occupation began in 1994, 200,000 Chechen civilians have lost their lives.

When Chechens staged increasingly shocking terrorist acts, particularly in Moscow, Putin vowed to bomb Chechnya into submission. He accused the Chechen terrorists of collaboration with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida. Yet, the evidence does not support this claim.

Al Qaida explicitly targets Westerners and their non-westerners allies. The Chechens so far have targeted only Russians and their collaborators. They have made no Islamist demands but have consistently cried out for an end to Russian rule. That is why Muslims widely sympathize with the Chechen struggle against non-Muslim overlords, just as they sympathize with the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation.

Putin and his supporters stand in the long line of land-hungry Russian imperialists who cannot bear the thought of losing one more square mile of the vast territories (twice the size of the United States) they have forcibly amassed over the past three centuries. In a world in which all nations, large and small, have a democratic right to determine by whom they want to be governed, it is irrelevant that Chechnya has deposits of oil, natural gas, limestone, and alabaster that Russians wants to exploit.

Chechens obviously have the same right to national autonomy as Israelis, Palestinians, Iraqis, Irish, or--alas! --Russians themselves. The days are over--or ought to be over--when empire builders--in Moscow, Washington, or elsewhere--unilaterally impose their kind of "freedom" upon unwilling nations.

If we Americans--including President Bush and his brain trust--want to be advocates of freedom and human rights, it would serve us well to take our clues from our own past president Woodrow Wilson. It was he who first called for genuine national self-determination for all peoples, at a time when most Western politicians were still unable to grasp the irreconcilable contradiction between colonial and democratic rule.

Already in 1917, Mr. Wilson demanded that the "settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or political relationship [must be] upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own interior influence or mastery."

Wolf D. Fuhrig	Home	09-19-04
Outrage Upon Outrage
On Friday, September 3, in the small North Ossetian city of Beslan in Russia's northern Caucasus region, two explosions went off in a gymnasium loaded with explosives and packed with more than a thousand children and adults. It was the dramatic climax of another massive hostage-taking perpetrated by Chechen terrorists. The death toll: 339. The appalling images in and around that school were as gruesome as any fictional scenes in a horror film. It was the most vicious terrorist outrage committed by Chechens in the long and bloody history of the Chechen struggle for independence from their Russian overlords. A nation of 1.3 million in a territory the size of New Jersey, Chechens have no common bonds with Russians. They speak a Caucasian language unrelated to Russian. They are Sunni Muslims and have been battling Russian conquerors since the days of Tsar Peter the Great nearly 300 years ago. Angered by their insistence upon national independence, Stalin in 1944 accused Chechens of collaboration with the enemy, herded more than 500,000 into cattle cars and banished them into the Siberian wilderness. Only in 1957 did Khrushchev allow the survivors to return home. In the fall of 1991, when the Soviet Union was falling apart, Chechnya officially claimed the right to secede from the federation, as recognized by Russia's constitution. Neither Boris Yeltsin nor Vladimir Putin, however, seriously considered allowing Chechnya to become an independent country. Given the traditional Russian Orthodox disdain for Muslims, Yeltsin would not even discuss the issue with Chechen leaders. Russian troops tried to eradicate the Chechen resistance but instead wrecked the country's infrastructure. In 1996 Yeltsin pulled his troops out of Chechnya and left its government in shambles, to be taken over by those who elbowed themselves to the top in the ensuing chaos, corruption, and violence. Since the first war against the Russian occupation began in 1994, 200,000 Chechen civilians have lost their lives. When Chechens staged increasingly shocking terrorist acts, particularly in Moscow, Putin vowed to bomb Chechnya into submission. He accused the Chechen terrorists of collaboration with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida. Yet, the evidence does not support this claim. Al Qaida explicitly targets Westerners and their non-westerners allies. The Chechens so far have targeted only Russians and their collaborators. They have made no Islamist demands but have consistently cried out for an end to Russian rule. That is why Muslims widely sympathize with the Chechen struggle against non-Muslim overlords, just as they sympathize with the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation. Putin and his supporters stand in the long line of land-hungry Russian imperialists who cannot bear the thought of losing one more square mile of the vast territories (twice the size of the United States) they have forcibly amassed over the past three centuries. In a world in which all nations, large and small, have a democratic right to determine by whom they want to be governed, it is irrelevant that Chechnya has deposits of oil, natural gas, limestone, and alabaster that Russians wants to exploit. Chechens obviously have the same right to national autonomy as Israelis, Palestinians, Iraqis, Irish, or--alas! --Russians themselves. The days are over--or ought to be over--when empire builders--in Moscow, Washington, or elsewhere--unilaterally impose their kind of "freedom" upon unwilling nations. If we Americans--including President Bush and his brain trust--want to be advocates of freedom and human rights, it would serve us well to take our clues from our own past president Woodrow Wilson. It was he who first called for genuine national self-determination for all peoples, at a time when most Western politicians were still unable to grasp the irreconcilable contradiction between colonial and democratic rule. Already in 1917, Mr. Wilson demanded that the "settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or political relationship [must be] upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own interior influence or mastery."

Wolf D. Fuhrig

Home

09-19-04

Outrage Upon Outrage