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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 28 Oct. - 3 Nov. 1999 Issue No. 453
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Study Special Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Silence as usual
By Salama Ahmed Salama
For several reasons, reactions to the massacres and brutalities committed by the Russians in Chechnya have been restricted to verbal condemnation. An indifferent shrug, a world leader's statement in Helsinki exhorting the Russians to seek a peaceful resolution to the dispute: these summed up American and Western European reactions to the Chechnyan tragedy. The UN secretary-general already seems to have forgotten the statements he made only a few weeks ago, endorsing the principle of humanitarian intervention in international disputes and ethnic conflicts. The Islamic and Arab countries have resorted to silence as usual, cowering before the threats and hints to keep out of harm's way. No Arab or Islamic country even protested the mass murders and acts of genocide committed by the Russian troops, who have been made desperate by their own domestic situation.
Ironically, it was the US secretary of state, apparently acting as the guardian of Arab and Muslim interests, who deplored the Russian atrocities against civilians in Grozny when the Russians dropped missiles on the town's central marketplace, killing about 200 men, women and children before alleging that Chechnyan Islamist terrorists were responsible for the carnage. The West and the international community would have done well to apply the standards that justified the intervention of foreign troops in Kosovo and East Timor, thereby forcing Russia to settle its dispute with Chechnya, especially that this is the second Chechnyan uprising against Moscow in five years. Russia, however, which possesses a well-stocked arsenal of nuclear weapons, sees itself not as Yugoslavia or Indonesia, but as one of the world's two superpowers. And the sad truth is that with their long beards and Muslim names, the Chechnyan rebels have found little sympathy forthcoming from the West.
Analysts attribute this disinterest to the West's certainty that, whatever the outcome of the war, Western Europe will not suffer in economic or human terms. No refugees will flood across the borders. The case was different in the Balkans, where the US moved NATO forces into Kosovo, and certainly unlike Indonesia where Australian troops were sent into East Timor. Nuclear might has given Russia immunity, just as it has allowed Israel to escape the condemnations of the international community.
We live in a world order where standards are grossly distorted. Powerful nations escape the penalty for crimes they committed against humanity. As Russia stands on the verge of economic and political bankruptcy, its ability to wage this war shows that it enjoys the implicit support of the US and Western Europe, which are pumping its coffers full of loans and donations so that it can continue massacring the Chechnyans in a bloodbath it describes as a domestic dispute. For this reason, Yeltsin and Prime Minister Putin were not affected by the international reaction to the massacre; Yeltsin considers the crackdown on Chechnya an unhoped-for opportunity to win back the confidence of his citizens. It will also allow him to carry out his plan to nominate Putin as his successor in a few months, and to preempt the communists' bid to return to power.
What seems evident today, however, is that the Russians are unlikely to break the Chechnyan resistance. When the Chechnyans are planting bombs on the streets of Moscow again in a few weeks or months, Yeltsin will have not have to look far beyond his borders in search of a Bin Laden or a global Islamist conspiracy. The truth is much closer to home.
