What drives Chechens separatists to commit such terrible outrages?

[Syncronaut Seven]

http://slate.msn.com/id/2106287/

I've been watching this develop for more than a decade. Here is a good summary of Chechen history. There are some important distinctions to be made here as Faux ramps up the fear machine.

As utterly unconscionable as the acts of the separatists are, they didn't occur in a vacuum. Inoculate yourself against the coming propaganda blitz.

For those who would flame me, I have a 10 year old daughter who is the light of my life and the meaning of my existence. The video of the grieving and dead hit me at a level so primal it may have changed me forever.

I expect that effect will be exploited to it's fullest in this fine election season.

My child doesn't watch TV, this is one reason why, I'm not sure how I would explain it to her. I can only begin to imagine what they are feeling in Beslan today. I hope they affix the blame to the proper source. Dad needs to stop crying now, she'll be up soon.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2106287/

[pop goes the weasel]

1. It is for this reason

that I am depressed this morning. Seeing Bush take this country in the same failed direction as Israel and Russia, falsely promising that security can be won through repression, rips at my heart. The children who grow up under conditions of violent repression become adults immune to tender feelings. What fresh horrors await us if this policy is allowed to continue?

[slojim240]

28. Check out their history. Russia has killed over 300,000 of them while

we have turned our heads beacuse they are largely Muslims. They fight bact in the most dastardly ways because they have no real weapons with which to fight their oppression. It's Israel and the Palestinians all over again. It's Iraq under US occupation. It's Native Americans fighting the invadng Europeans. It's Sourth Africa under Apartheid. It's the history of the oppressed rising up against their oppressors by any means possible.

[pop goes the weasel]

30. I know their history already

Why do you think I'm so depressed? Abuse is the "gift" that keeps on giving.

[stavka]

2. Occupation

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. It is only fair to note...

That there are reports that a number of the attackers were of Arabic ethnicity. Frankly, the a fair way to reference them is "Arab Adventurists".

Or murderers.

[Syncronaut Seven]

4. Be wary

I have been getting conflicting reports regarding the ethnicity of the perpetrators. Remember OkC and 9\11. It doesn't seem to follow an "Al Qaeda" MO but is entirely consistent with the Chechen resistance.

However it would be more politically convenient if it were in fact "Arab Adventurists". I trust neither my government, nor it's corporate media lap dogs to tell me the truth, in fact I have become so cynical as to reflexively assume I am being lied to. Sad huh?

Edit:sp

[SOS]

5. self delete

[Zell in Hell]

6. Russia...

They created this mess by not giving the Chechens the same thing that they gave many of the other USSR minorities: A chance to forge their own destiny.

[makhno]

25. They had a chance

1990-94 - de facto indepdence, tens of thousands from among the Russian minority were murdered, raped, kidnapped and displaced by the criminal non-state that existed at the time.

Inform yourself.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. They must hate Russia for its freedoms

I'm almost waiting for Georgie to say that.

[leesa]

8. Are you sure who did it? What possible advantage could they have

gained from it? Just because Putin, former KGB, says so, does not necessarily make it so. The one who gained politically from this is Putin. He is doing the same thing Bush is....stage a terrorist attack and then do what you will to the Chechens....very convenient?

Your own question begs an answer. Why WOULD they do this???

[Finder]

9. An interesting side note...

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
RUSSIAN JOURNALIST REPORTEDLY POISONED EN ROUTE TO HOSTAGE NEGOTIATIONS
Another journalist detained at Moscow airport

New York, September 2, 2004--The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by reports that prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned last night en route to Beslan, North Ossetia, where about 40 heavily armed fighters, reportedly of Chechen and Ingush origin, seized hostages at an elementary school yesterday.

In a separate incident this morning, Andrei Babitsky, a correspondent for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was prevented from flying from Vnukovo Airport to Mineralnye Vody--a town about 125 miles (200 kilometers) northwest of the Chechen capital, Grozny--from where he was to travel to Beslan, according to the independent Moscow-based radio Ekho Moskvy. It is unclear whether he has been released.



http://www.nieuwsbank.nl/en/2004/09/03/f006.htm

[Zynx]

10. This was not staged.

You need to lighten up on the tinfoil.

[I_Hug_Trees]

34. Unbelievable

And you all really believe this? That it was staged for a political purpose? Children were slaughtered and it was all Putin's fault---unbelievable. Lay blame where blame is due and that is on the Muslim terrorists.

[sid dicious]

43. Well Putin has continued the oppression of the chechens

They are lashing out in a way in which they can afford to do. But then again, how could they afford to have such an elborat plan and be able to get so many terrorists on site with so many hostages? again!!

Putin has to seel the "war on terror" to the old hardliners who still don't trust the west and particularly the US. and why should they? all of the United States energies in the 80s were put towards killing soviets and seeing to the destrutction of the countyr.

I wouldn't put it passed Putin to not set this up. but to let it play out the way it did. He probally did not want over 300 dead people...but to let this play out on tv and conveniently find arabs among the rebels was probably staged.

[Junkdrawer]

17. I don't think it was Putin, but.....

If Putin wanted to use this incident to justify a major Chechen crackdown, he would have NEVER given the speech he did.

See:

....
We showed weakness, and the weak are trampled upon. Some want to cut off a juicy morsel from us while others are helping them.

They are helping because they believe that, as one of the world's major nuclear powers, Russia is still posing a threat to someone, and therefore this threat must be removed.

And terrorism is, of course, only a tool for achieving these goals. But as I have already said many times, we have faced crises, mutinies and acts of terror more than once.
....

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3627878.stm>

Clearly, Putin is implying that an outside agitator (US???) is trying to separate Chechnya from Russia. He also is saying that he's not going to take that kind of shit anymore.

Why would an outside power want to separate Russia and Chechnya? Because Russia's main method of getting the Caspian Oil out is through Chechnya.

Perhaps you would be surprised by the membership of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya
http://www.peaceinchechnya.org/about_members.htm

Elliott Abrams
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Midge Decter
Frank Gaffney
Robert Kagan
William Kristol
Michael A. Ledeen
Richard Perle
Richard Pipes
Norman Podhoretz
Gary Schmitt
R. James Woolsey

[smirkymonkey]

21. Hmmm...More like "PNAC in Chechnya"

Quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say?

[Junkdrawer]

24. I think Putin's speech may be a real watershed....

Something tells me that that wasn't the reaction everyone expected.

[I_Hug_Trees]

35. OMG

I never thought about this being a "blood for oil" thing.

*save a life--hug a tree*

[H2O Man]

39. However:

(1) the neocons have no reason to want to separate Checknya from Russia;

(2) American interests are enhanced by a stable Russia;

(3) Putin was referring to other interests trying to divide the Russians from their oil source.

(4) The "other interests" are the pan-Islamic forces that recognize they are in a position to be a top dog on the world scene. How? By controlling their oil supplies.

It's important to recognize the actual relationship between all of the nations/interests involved on the international stage.

[Junkdrawer]

41. Here's the funny part...

I've been Googling Putin's address to see world reaction. While many foreign news sources see the speech as a warning to outsiders to "back off", that part of the speech has been cut out of US news accounts.

Funny, huh?

As I've said, I'm guessing Putin's address was NOT what the neocons expected. Look for Powell or some other high administrative official to fly to Russia in the coming days to quiet things down.

[H2O Man]

44. I do not see the reports as significant

as far as implying that Putin's "back off" was directed at anyone beyond the Islamists.

[Junkdrawer]

45. From The Globe and Mail....

....

Mr. Putin took a defiant tone, acknowledging corruption in Russian law-enforcement agencies but lashing out pointedly at unspecified foreign foes seeking to tear the country apart.

"Some want to cut off a juicy morsel from us; others are helping them. They are helping, believing that Russia, as one of the world's biggest nuclear powers, is still posing a threat to them," Mr. Putin said. "Therefore, this threat must be removed."

Analysts said Mr. Putin had turned a new page in his foreign policy, blaming terrorism on the West. "(W)ho fears our nuclear weapons? Who are they aimed at? It's the West. It's not Osama bin Laden," said Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst.

Mr. Putin promised measures to "strengthen the unity" of Russia and tighten its borders, and demanded "action from our law-enforcement organs that would be adequate to the level and scale of the new threats."

...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040905.wbeslan0905/BNStory/Front/

[allemand]

49. "The attackers wore NATO-issued camouflage"

Maybe this is where the suspicion comes from?

"The attackers wore NATO-issued camouflage. They carried gas masks, compasses and first-aid kits. They communicated with hand-held radios, and brought along two sentry dogs, as expertly trained as the attackers themselves, the officials said. All suggested detailed planning, including surveillance and possibly rehearsals, the officials said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/international/europe/06plot.html?hp

The Georgian army now uses NATO-issued camouflage.

The terrorists were very well armed and very well trained. The question is, of course, where did they train and how did they get all that equipment.

"They were well equipped, carrying night-vision goggles, sniper rifles and silencers, as well as an arsenal of explosives."
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/05/1094322642755.html?oneclick=true

The diplomatic faux pas of the official European Union statement on the Beslan tragedy certainly didn't help to diffuse the tension.

Russia blasts EU crisis statement
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3628692.stm

[Pallas180]

64. Actually, if you read the link in the header that was posted, it's a

pretty good explanation of why the Chechens are carrying a hatred for
Mother Russia......and there is also the suggestion in the story that
Putin in the past has staged some of these things ala mihop.

[topanga]

11. All the evidence of htis points to it being a set-up.

And it looks like Putin is taking a page from Shrub's playbook.

My only suprise is that they did not kill many more.

[topanga]

12. All the evidence of htis points to it being a set-up.

And it looks like Putin is taking a page from Shrub's playbook.

My only suprise is that they did not kill many more.

[makhno]

26. Non pertinent

...

[I_Hug_Trees]

48. And to think

that they would allow all those children to die. What beasts. I am just so angry right now.

[Name removed]

61. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Yupster]

13. I read a book a year or so ago

from my library by an American jihadi warrior.

I can't remember the title. The author's name was something like Aksai Jones.

Anyway, he was converted to Islam in a US prison. He went on jihad a couple of times. He was in Kashmir for a while, then he went to two different trips to Chechnya where he did much fighting against the Russians.

Very interesting book.

He was wounded in the leg and eventually had it unnecessarily amputated so he could get an artificial leg and get back to Chechnya to fight again.

He eventually turned on the Chechnyans and became a CIA plant. He said the reason was that he was not there as a terrorist, he was defending Islam. As more operations targetted civilians, he turned.

He offered to set up a weapons training camp for his friends in Arizona under the guise of a shooting gallery. He explained that the idea would be that every potential Moslem terrorist would eventually go through his camp and the FBI could get every single name. The planning went forward, but it was nixed by Janet Reno. At that point, he stopped dealing with the government. I think I would have nixed it too.

Anyway, the interesting parts of the book were the jihadi warriors. The network was very loose. The warriors were mostly Arabs, right out of school, who would infiltrate across the border into Chechnya with zero training. Religious leaders would be nominally in charge, but there really wasn't any formal organization. The jihadis often died quickly. This was all in the mid 90's.

Next time I'm in the library, I'll try to check it out again. It would be a good book for many of us to read.

On edit, I found the book on Amazon - here's the link

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585745650/103-7882722-7454263

[salin]

47. Interesting - thanks for the link

eom

[Karenina]

14. What drive Americans

to allow such HORRIFIC ONGOING ATROCITIES to be committed in their names??? :freak: :freak: :freak:

[BonjourUSA]

15. For this attack the Chechens weren't in majority

but others from many Russian republics and some Arabs.

Perhaps among them the "Black Widows", like two years ago in the theater of Moscow. They have lost their huband, brothers, father..; Killed by Russian army for many years. These women are not really terrorists but nurses, saleswoman, studients...

[LisaL]

18. You have got to be kidding me.

Not really terrorists?
Once they take a gun, a bomb or a knife and take little children hostage they are terrorists.
Geez!

[makhno]

27. No kidding

The disconnect from reality among some of these "oh, but they are regular folks, not terrorists" posters is amazing! I wonder what moral principles guide their lives. Sad.

[Sailorman]

16. You better learn how to explain it to her

or you put her in harms way. The world is a dangerous place filled with war and terrorism. Hiding her from the truth will only leave her vulnerable.

[kayell]

19. FEAR, fear, fear

Do you really think that teaching children that "The world is a dangerous place filled with war and terrorism" will make them safer or their life better? What a sad attitude.

[Ohio rules]

20. I saw Putin on TV

It looked like he was only "going through the motions" of comforting those in pain during a hospital photo op.

Maybe all those years being KGB made him immune to showing honest human emotion ? He sure looked uncomfortable in what he was doing.

Or maybe he was...just going through the motions of a photo op?

Seems if Stalin sent the Chechans to Siberia ( accused them of being Nazi collaborators ) all would have been forgotten in a generation or two.
I believe it was Kruchiev(sp) who allowed them to return.

The situation predates Czarist Russia actually.

The current situation has its roots in the last years of the Cold War. The Soviets were chased out of Afghanistan and the word of that retreat played on the hopes of old family tribal ties.

There isn't a black and white,cut and dry answer.

just my 2 cents

[smirkymonkey]

22. Or maybe he was channelling George W. Bush...

nobody "goes through the motions" without a shred of honest human emotion quite like the Chimp.

[Disturbed]

23. My guess.

What drove them to it? Pure desperation and hate.

[gulliver]

29. They hate Russia for its freedom.

Don't go supporting the terrorists by trying to reason this out. They are just crazy and hate freedom and Christianity. The only thing we can do is launch large-scale, dangerous, expensive wars against some country that has nothing to do with it. Any other response is weak on terrorism. We must be direct and simple-minded. Don't think; just act. That always works.

[walldude]

31. Nice one Gulliver

while there is nothing funny about this situtation I got a good laugh out of your post. :D Amazing the crap people will believe. Terrorists are so terrible they will kill 3000 people just because they hate freedom and Christians. :eyes:
God forbid we try to see what horrible thing would cause someone to devalue life like that, and then maybe try to fix it. You know that might actually stop terrorism. Then what would we do?

[BonjourUSA]

32. What could be our behavior if we'd live the same than the Chechens ?

We don't know the systematic bombing of our city every day and for many years.
we don't known the life in a city in shambles without one building saved.
We don't know the army raid and the disappearance of our parents, friends and neighbors every day and for many years.
We don't know the fight for eating every day and for many years.
We don't know the fear to receive a shell of the artillery random shootings every night and for many years.
We don't know the fear of sicknesses which don't kill anybody anymore, nowhere in the world.
...

Russia decided to eliminate this little republic for economic reasons. And the world is watching this butchery in silence in the name of "war on terrorism", the Chechens have really nothing to lose anymore.

[makhno]

33. Please share with us

Explain this:

Russia decided to eliminate this little republic for economic reasons

I'd really like to hear some facts, since you seem well-informed about the causes of the war and the Russian depredations. Perhaps you would like to tell us about the genocide directed against the Russian population in 1990-1994, the criminal activities of the Dudayev and Maskhadov governments, the influence of Yelstin's corruption on the rationale for the war, its conduct and duration. If possible, please do tie in the children's shared responsibility for any war crimes as justification for their well-deserved punishment.

Please share with us the reasons for your support of terrorism.

[xchrom]

37. 44 out of every 1000 chechens, in the post stalinist era

were disappeared by the government.
chechnya and other mountainous regions in the area were always under assault by the kremlin because they were never truly under their control.
ethinic minorities were gulaged by the thousands and the military used extreme measure on the population to keep them ''under control''.
while terrorism is abhorent -- people don't lose their rational core for no reason at all.
for example -- the guy who is often blamed for being the mastermind of events like this -- when chechnya was a military conflict rather than the chaos it is now -- had his wife and 6 children killed by the russians in armed conflict.

[makhno]

50. Blamed? Basayev brags about that stuff!

This is the guy who started his prolific terrorist career with hijacking a plane back in '91?

[Aidoneus]

54. the plane--late '91?

I forget exactly, maybe the day of President Dudayev's inauguration or just before. I know it was right after the Kremlin first sent invaders into Grozny after post-Soviet liberation, which was to coincide with the inauguration. That was in one of their early, failed, attempts to take away the new freedom Chechens had taken for themselves (the invaders were surrounded by Dudayev's forces at the airport, surrendered, and Yeltsin's regime blinked in the face of their first chance for war). Nobody was hurt by Shamil's attention-grabber (which succeeded). That was after he fought on Yeltsin's side in Moscow streetbattles with the anti-"democratic" hardline Soviet rivals; I wonder how ashamed he feels about that youthful indiscretion.

You say 'brags', and that's more or less true a word to describe the responsibility taken for some matters. That is more important in considering what he hasn't taken responsibility for, which are often given greater prominence.

Like his namesake, Shamil's life is quite fascinating--except the part where he was a computer salesman. That part just doesn't fit.

[Aidoneus]

53. wife & 6 kids.. plus

and in a single event, most of the rest of his family was murdered in what became the waist-deep rubble that used to be their Vedeno house. Six weeks after that, well..

[BonjourUSA]

38. Two reasons + one.

First, I don't support any form of terrosrism even I think some of them can be explained.
If palestinians live in a very hard environment, the Chechens live in a hell every day.

Look a wold map.

Chenchya is in the wrong place for asking its independency. All the pipes have to cross over this land for being shipped and avoiding free republic of Georgia. Two first reasons : if Russia wants to export its oil and its natural gas it has to be under Chenchen taxes or political decisions.... impossible !

The other reason is histocal and ethnologic : Chechens are muslim (very, very secular muslims) and fight the central power of Moscow for centuries with often successes even under Soviet power.

Moscow wants to win both an economical and a historical struggle.

[makhno]

52. They tried and failed

Chenchen taxes or political decisions.... impossible !

Impossible is correct. Chechen disruptions of critical rail traffic through the region went completely unchecked throughout the independence period, as did numerous crimes against the Russian minority. Dudayev and his cronies showed little ability to establish a viable autonomous state. Unfortunately, there is no indication that the current crop of warlords have much interest in anything but expanding their personal fiefdoms based on the wildly successful Afghan example.

[Djinn]

60. funny you mention Afghanistan

because there is very little evidence there of a desire for a viable state (in our meaning of the word that is) and outside of a small section of Kabul it's complete anarchy - I guess the US should just stay for a couple of hundred years because of that.

It's odd that you seem to expect the Chechens to have established a viable state in a couple of years when most modern nations took considerably longer (including other ex Societ states) - also they didn't have an option to try and establish such as state as they weer merely "semi" autonomous at the time.

[allemand]

36. Traditional vendetta combined with "you love life, we love death" ideology

The "concept" of vendetta means that if a member of my clan is killed by a member of a different clan, it is perfectly justified for me to kill any member of that different clan, even if they had nothing to do with the murder (and that includes children).

The trademark of al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda affiliated groups has always been the cruelty and inhumanity of their actions. "You love life, we love death" as they say themselves. And al-Qaeda has a long history with Chechnya. Four of the 9/11 hijackers originally wanted to fight in Chechnya.

[treepig]

40. who knows?

just like who knows what drove most du'er's favorite president, mr. clinton, to kill 500,00 children?

but thank god he's on our team so it's all OK!

[allemand]

42. Sloppiness in Masha Gessen's article?

M.G.: "The Chechens were not allowed to return home until 1976."

Is that correct? Most articles mention 1957 as the year of return.

"They were allowed to return only in 1957 when Khrushchev was in power in the Kremlin."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/2565049.stm

M.G.: "So by the time of perestroika, virtually all Chechen adults were people born in Siberian exile. No wonder they didn't want to live side by side with the Russians, who had mangled their lives."

So nothing happened between 1957 and 1991? Sounds a little bit simplistic to me.

M.G.: "By the fall of 1994, Chechnya, which had been left to its own devices, had all the trappings of de facto sovereignty."

So everything was in order in the Chechnya of 1994? What about the Russian refugees who were forced to abandon their homes, some say 40.000, some say 200.000?

M.G.: "Immediately after Budyonnovsk, Russia started peace negotiations with the Chechen rebels, making the hospital siege probably the most successful act of terrorism in history."
"They have consistently demanded a the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya—an unattainable goal in the current Russian political climate, but one that may look plausible to the Chechens because it worked after Budyonnovsk."

This is actually the best argument never to give in to the demands of terrorists.

M.G.: "So, what does al-Qaida and international Islamic terrorism have to do with any of this? Probably very little."

Never underestimate al-Qaeda. Bush underestimated them before 9/11. The Indonesian government underestimated them before the Bali bomb. It costs too many lives to underestimate them.

M.G.: "Osama Bin Laden's group generally aims for maximum casualties; the Chechens, at least when they have staged hostage-takings, have not seemed to have that goal."

Read the descriptions of what happened in Beslan. They clearly aimed for maximum casualties.

M.G.: "Al-Qaida explicitly targets Westerners; the Chechens, on the other hand, explicitly exclude Westerners from their list of targets;"

Not true. Al-Qaeda

"Kidnapping in the region is common and Westerners are particularly vulnerable: four Western hostages including three Britons were murdered in Chechnya in December 1998 and a Dutch aid worker was kidnapped in Dagestan in August 2002 (released in April 2004)."
http://www.britishembassy.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1046455386001

And some news just in:
"Chechen warlord targets Britain
Chechen militants, led by Shamil Basayev, targeted Blair for assassination during the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002 - a plot that could also have killed the Queen, Prince Charles and his sons William and Harry, The Sunday Express said quoting security sources."
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/003200409061550.htm

M.G.: "Russian intelligence has produced little or no evidence that al-Qaida is present in Chechnya."

What...?
Never heard o f Omar Ibn al-Khattab?
Never heard of Abu al-Walid al-Ghamdi?
Never heard of the Pankisi Gorge?
Never heard of Saif al Islam el Masry, now in U.S. custody?
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-riebling102402.asp

M.G.: "On the other hand, it would be surprising if al Qaida had no presence in Chechnya at all."

Oh. Didn't she just question the "evidence that al-Quaida is present in Chechnya"? Or is this just a loophole in the face of overwhelming evidence?

Link to Martha Gessen's article:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2106287

[JanMichael]

46. Probably the leveling, razing, of Grozny followed by years of iron fisted

...occupation?

[makhno]

51. I hope...

...you do realize that Grozny was a predominantly Russian city?

[xchrom]

55. aren't you at all suspicious of this population?

don't you think that at least a certain portion of that population is there to keep the chechen people in check?
the place is CHECHNEYA after all.
your supprt for one the historically most oppressive governments{post stalinist as well as pre} isn't logical.
the russians treated the chechens horribly -- when the chechens treat them horribly back -- you whine. it's really to be expected isn't it when you deprive a group of their humanity for so long?
reduse them through a series of events to something less than human watch out for the fall out.

[Aidoneus]

56. the claim is false, anyway

Signifigantly, sure, but not predominantly. That then brings into question why the Russian army destroyed it, if that was true then they were just "killing their own people"--that sort of thing recently got Saddam in trouble with the Empire, remember. Many of the ethnic-Russians inside Chechnya in fact fought with Basayev after they saw how what their "mother nation" actually cared for them, in addition to deserters at many periods from the invaders' army (it is speculated that there were Russian fighters holding the kids in Beslan, in addition to the Ossetians & Ingushes that made up the squad). The city was and is predominantly Chechen, though the foothills & mountain areas mean more to them than the plains. It could be said that those ethnic Russians who lived who lived in the city suffered most from the first invasion, for they did not have the same deeply extended contacts in the Chechen nation that those who had lived there for generations had; they were killed and tortured by their "liberators", had their houses destroyed and no village in the foothills to escape to when hell became unbearable.

As for the presence..

The ethnic-Russians had indeed as you said been moved in there to keep the population in line, at various points. First, the town "Grozny" itself was forced initially as a military base by the occupying army, later growing into the capital after it was realized that Shatoi or Vedeno just couldn't make it as a metropolis..

Then when the Chechen-Ingush nations were deported in '44, along with half the other N.Cauc. nations (under conditions that I have already outlined in thorough detail to the Makhnovist--an anarchist apparently on the side of State terrorism? interesting concept, but I admire at least that he seems to really know his shit on this, though still believing in certain claims of misinformation from sources he should otherwise consider his enemy.. I may be wrong on that exact claim, I have yet to see him actually defend the crimes of the invaders, though he mimics some of the arguments and justifications as those who do, therefore I am unsure and open to correction), ethnic Russians and people from collaborating Caucasus nations were moved into "Grozny Province". When the "punished peoples" were so graciously allowed back from Kazakhstan by Khruschev, there was naturally tension due to the people who had been moved in to their emptied homes. Later when the oil industry was developed, further colonization was employed to have it under ethnic-Russian control.

This was thus the case of the population up to the period of indendence.

There are several other mistaken claims made by our friend here, not all of which I can address at this time.

[makhno]

59. I have a feeling you know better

In 1989, the population of Chechnya's capital, Grozny, was 397,000. Of these, 210,000 were Russians and 121,000 Chechens.

http://www.therussiajournal.com/index.htm?obj=1031

I seriously doubt that the Russian military conducted an assessment of the potential casualties in a full-scale armor, artillery and aviation assault on Grozny. Given that Grachev was publicly making preposterous statements about the war being over in a week and the disastrous cost of the winter operations that followed, there really could not have been much planning for minimizing casualties, let alone civilian ones.

Looking past the initial assault, would you deny the incessant attacks against the remaining Russian population in the post-1996 period, a population that by then had been reduced to small groups of elderly and the dispossessed?

Your claims are typical of the distortions that have plagued the debate on the war in both mainstream and dissident sources.

[Aidoneus]

63. that's '89, and your own source notes the change that came shortly

A lot had changed between '89 and '95, not just in ChRI. Russian minorities in the Baltics or Central Asia weren't so loved either, but they didn't bomb Riga flat. Well, they ordered General Dudayev to do that, but he told them to fuck off and went home instead.

To the best of my knowledge and memory, the populations in the capital were about even by the indepedence declaration in late '91, 3:2 Chechen:Russian by the start of the war, at least 3-4:1 by the end of it, though by the end of it there was hardly anybody there aside from the resistance out in force and 20,000 surrounded occupyers.

Curious math -- 210 + 121 =/= 397.. :shrug: There are some Nogai up in the north, but I strangely never had figures for them. I'm sure they're out there somewhere, but I can't recall coming across a figure before. It also doesn't say whether the Cossack communities are counted as 'Russian'. They had mostly lived in the capital and in the immediate Terek area.

Your link says that at least 100,000 had left before the war broke out. That would be, say, following the proportions, about 80% from Grozny then, not counting the thousands murdered by their "rescuers" by the time it had all ended. This sounds about right compared with what I had known previously, more for the economic situation than anything. Ethnic Russians inside the place were more effected by the economy and the war, due to the lack of extended family ties to rely on in hard times.

As for the first assaults, you're definitely right. The initial column of light infantry and exposed armour wasn't actually supposed to be ripped to pieces according to official dogma, so that was apparently the extent of the inebriated planning up to then. Once the war party realized what happened, "fuck it--bomb everything, kill everyone" was the new plan without much other thought to it. They just didn't learn from the failed attempts to storm the place before.

What happened to the Russians left there after '96 was awful. Heavily armed traumatized people make for a bad combination. The fact of professional trouble-making was at work in the process should also be considered. I mean, the worst of the worst just happened to be the crowd backed by the Russians in the middle period, for example Arbi Barayev (whose cowardice nearly got Gelayev royally fucked on at least one occasion).

[makhno]

57. Chechnya for Chechens?

Slogans of that kind are usually a good indicator that all's not well with a society.

Historical grievances notwithstanding, terrorism is not acceptable. I find it appalling that so many here find it trivial to morally justify the most inhuman behavior. In some blind eyes perhaps, victims never turn into monsters.

[JanMichael]

58. Still got razed, people were still oppressed.

I'm not justifying anything, just pointing out some recent barbarism.

As to the ethnic make up of Grozny? Yes ethnic Russians were there, many remain, but the fact is that Russia didn't accept Dudayev's terms and conflict followed. Plus, unless I'm mis-taken, a good number of the ethnic Russians left the center city and were outside of the missile barrages.

Once again, no value judgement from me, I'm not saying that Chechnya should have accepted the Russian Federation terms of "Independance" or declined, which they (Or I should say certain factions did) did.

[makhno]

62. Quite the contrary

Lots of Russians remained in downtown Grozny. Lots were killed.

No value judgement from me either - the situation could've been resolved in '93-94 with concessions on both sides and perhaps a different political atmosphere in Russia. It didn't happen and so now we're stuck with war and terrorism with no end in sight. As it is, I'm merely trying to correct the kinds of misconceptions that creep up every time the Chechen issue is brought up.