History of Chechnya - Second Chechen War and Its Consequences

Second Chechen War and Its Consequences

In August 1999 renegade Chechen and Arab commanders led a large group of militants into Dagestan. Headed by Shamil Basayev and Amir Khattab (who were opposed vehemently by the government in Grozny, from which they had broken off allegiance), the insurgents fought Russian forces in Dagestan for a week before being driven back into Chechnya proper. On September 9, 1999, Chechens were blamed for the bombing of an apartment complex in Moscow and several other explosions in Russia.

These events were viewed by Russia's new prime minister Vladimir Putin as a violation of the Khasav-Yurt Accord by the Chechen side. Thus, on October 1, 1999, Russian troops entered Chechenya. However, according to then-interior minister Sergei Stepashin, the invasion of Chechnya would have occurred even if these events had not occurred:

"The decision to invade Chechnya was made in March 1999... I was prepared for an active intervention. We were planning to be on the north side of the Terek River by August–September This would happen regardless to the bombings in Moscow... Putin did not discover anything new. You can ask him about this. He was the director of FSB at this time and had all information".

Much better trained and prepared than in the first war, by December all of the northern steppe regions were conquered, and Grozny was encircled, which finally surrendered in early February 2000. By late spring all of the lowland, and most of the mountainous territory was successfully re-claimed by the federal forces.

After several years of military administration, in 2002, a local government was formed by Russian-allied Chechens headed by Akhmad Kadyrov. In 2003, referendum on constitution and presidential election were held. However, it was widely criticized, and in some cases, the vote recorded was not only vastly more than the actual population living there, but the majority of "voters" were Russian soldiers and dead Chechens (who of course were "loyal" pro-Russians, according to the results).

The Chechen separatists initially resisted fiercely, and several high-profile battles resulted in their victories such as the Battle of Hill 776 and Zhani-Vedeno ambush. Nonetheless the success in establishing a Russian-allied Chechen militia and the actions of Russian Special Forces meant that in 2002 Putin announced that the war was officially over.

However the Insurgency continued, and has spread to neghbouring regions with high profile clashes such as the Battle of Nalchik and the Beslan School siege. After Beslan, there was a 4-5 year drought of major attacks by Chechens outside of Chechnya. According to some, this was due to an element of embarrassment and guilt on the part of the Chechen rebels over the deaths of children in Beslan.

The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center caused a disaster for the Chechens, as much of the West went from passive sympathy to hostility as Russia was able to brand Chechen separatism as Islamist. As Amjad Jaimoukha puts it,

The al-Qaeda attacks on the US on 11 September 2001 resulted in a major setback to the Chechen cause and robbed the Chechens of the small modicum of sympathy they had had in the West. Russia played its cards right and quickly associated Chechen legitimate struggle for independence with Muslim extremism.

The raid on Beslan had, in fact, more to do with the Ingush involved than the Chechens, but was highly symbolic for both. The Ossetes and Ingush had (and have) a conflict over ownership of the Prigorodny District, which hit high points during the 1944 genocide, and the ethnic cleansing of Ingush by Ossetes (the Ossetes getting assistance from the Russian military) in 1992-3. At the time of the raid, there were still over 40000 Ingush refugees in tent camps in Ingushetia and Chechnya. The Beslan school itself had been used against the Ingush- in 1992 the gym was used as a pen to round up Ingush for expulsion and/or massacre by the Ossetes. For the Chechens, the motive was revenge for the destruction of their homes and, indeed families: Beslan was the site from which missiles were launched at Chechnya. A large fraction (overwhelming majority) of the people involved in the hostage taking raid also direct victims of Russian abuse, including many who were victimized as children and/or, in the case of Khaula Nazirov, had their children ironically murdered by Russian troops during a raid of a school.

Once, however, it was broadcast that there were large amounts of children killed by a group that included Chechens, the Chechens were struck with a large amount of shame. One spokesman for the Chechen cause stated that "Such a bigger blow could not be dealt upon us... People around the world will think that Chechens are monsters if they could attack children". He went on to state that the Russians had killed far more children, including in schools during their war in Chechnya, and that this had been deliberately ignored by the rest of the world. Nonetheless, largely for this reason, attacks ceased until 2008.

Both the federal and separatist armies have been widely criticized by human rights groups such as Amnesty International for alleged war crimes committed during the two Chechen wars, including accusations on both sides of rape, torture, looting, and the murder of civilians.

The Russian military has been repeatedly reported to have used vacuum bombs and bombed white-flag bearing civilian vessels (see the Katyr-Yurt Massacre) by international charity groups.

Dozens of mass graves (created by the Russian side) containing hundreds of corpses have been uncovered since the beginning of the Chechen wars in 1994. As of June 2008, there were 57 registered locations of mass graves in Chechnya. According to Amnesty International, thousands may be buried in unmarked graves including up to 5,000 civilians who disappeared since the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999. In 2008, the largest mass grave found to date was uncovered in Grozny, containing some 800 bodies from the First Chechen War in 1995. Russia's general policy to the Chechen mass graves is to not exhume them.

The two wars have left millions of people living in poverty, up to half a million refugees (particularly ethnic Russians), and most of the infrastructure destroyed. Kadyrov claims that since then Northern Chechnya and Grozny have been rebuilt. These claims have been refuted by most other sources (such as Tony Wood), who note that most of the revenue has gone to the construction of Kadyrov's private mansion for his clan and his expensive birthday celebration. In a CNN interview, Kadyrov once compared the Chechen people to a pet lion cub, stating that "... will either learn to be obedient or it will kill me".

Recent events have suggested that Russia could come into conflict with even Kadyrov. Recently Ramzan Kadyrov has also made statements seeming to support broad autonomy, criticizing Russian attempts to make a "North Caucasus" district inviting back separatist leader Akhmad Zakayev, and very warm (and somewhat disturbing for Russia even) support for Abkhaz independence. Conversely, when Kadyrov started a campaign in October 2010 to crack down on bridenapping, the Russian press responded with criticism claiming that he was trying to use it to seize more autonomy. Furthermore, Putin's current policy for internal division of the Russian Federation is not at all pleasing for advocates of self-determination (or, for Kadyrov, the retainment of his personal power): it advocates "enlargement of regions of Russia". Sergei Mironov stated on March 30, 2002 that "89 federation subjects is too much, but larger regional units are easier to manage" and that the goal was to merge them into 7 federal districts. Gradually, over time, ethnic republics were to be abolished to accomplish this goal of integration.