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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 January 2000 Issue No. 465 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 January 2000 Issue No. 465
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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 Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Putin pursues past wrongs
By Gamal Nkrumah
It is not an entirely accurate comparison, but let me ask you to contemplate the following plausible scenario: It is 1996; the Russians have been badly beaten in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Their hurried and humiliating retreat notwithstanding, Boris Yeltsin is elected president. Four years later, the Russian electorate is forced to focus on issues of war and the empire, rather than on more pressing social and economic matters. Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov is resoundingly defeated yet again and after suffering another round of bitter defeat in Chechnya, the Russian people seem destined to elect Yeltsin's chosen successor, Vladimir Putin.
Why do I feel compelled to make the comparison between 1996 and 2000? The current military quagmire that Moscow finds itself in is ominously reminiscent of the Chechen crisis of 1996; there are telling signs that the military campaign to pacify Chechnya is not going wholly according to plan and Putin does seem set to win the presidency -- whether the Russian troops pull out of Chechnya or not.
Currently, there are an estimated 40,000 Chechen civilians trapped in the Chechen capital Grozny. The Russian military has officially acknowledged that the campaign is going slower than planned, but point out that the main reason is to reduce casualties and fatalities. Nonetheless, many Russian observers allege that the slow advance into the centre of Grozny is proceeding as it should. The Russians, according to Western reporters, have failed to capture only a few badly-damaged houses, but in fact, the Russians have not made much headway. They are unable to control an entire street -- let alone a neighbourhood. There are nightly pitched battles as Chechen separatists try to break the blockade of Grozny. At last report, the Russians claim to have occupied the city centre, but this could not be independently confirmed. In sum, the Chechen crisis will become a running sore for months to come, regardless of whether Grozny falls.
Part of the problem is the fundamental weakness of the draft-based Russian military. The best-trained troops in Russia are simply not good enough. The Russian military is in dire need of radical reform. Last October, Putin put in an extra $100 million to bolster the country's defense budget; that fell far short of the required sum. Another problem is that there is no consensus among the top-level military as to what is actually needed to strengthen the army. Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, a former commander of Russia's strategic rocket forces, wants highly accurate Topol intercontinental missiles deployed in the Chechen war. Anatoly Kvashnin, the powerful chief of general staff, violently disagrees; he has masterminded the slow advance of the campaign so far.
Until they were resurrected as a deadly serious fighting force, the French Foreign Legion had a bit of a bad name, roaming aimlessly and endlessly in the Sahara's expansive wastelands. The Russian army, trimmed down considerably, is hard pressed to reinvent itself. The old Soviet Red Army had three million men at the time of the collapse of the former Soviet Union. In the early Yeltsin years, it shrank to 420,000. Recent cutbacks have reduced the numbers even further to an estimated 350,000 ground troops. The Russian Army is far from being the modern, well-trained fighting force the Kremlin wants it to be.
Russian troops in Chechnya are estimated to number 100,000 -- three times as many men as were routed by the Chechen separatists in the 1994-96 war. The problem is that 90 per cent of the Russian troops are draftees. The remaining 10 per cent are mainly riot police and anti-terrorist squads who have no experience in fighting against guerrillas and are unfit to operate in the mountainous terrains of Chechnya. On the other hand, the Chechen warriors are battle-hardened guerrilla fighters whose morale is not weakened when Chechen towns fall.
Grozny goes up in flames
(photo: Reuters)Few Russian professional officers can control the so-called Kontraktiki veteran soldiers who now make up the bulk of the Russian army in Chechnya. These contract soldiers are not professional mercenaries, as such; many signed up contracts to serve in Chechnya simply because joining the army was the only way to earn a living. Russia has now been reduced to using its best paratroopers as cannon fodder. Paratroopers are not meant to be bogged down in the trenches. Highly mobile units are, in theory, trained to advance quickly and capture the high ground, get behind enemy lines and cut off escape routes so the infantry can move in and finish the job -- which entails hand-to-hand combat. But there is no Russian infantry to speak of.
Leaving aside the curious fact that the Russian troops have failed to dislodge the 2,000 beseiged Chechen warriors inside Grozny, Chechen separatists have vowed to wage a hit-and-run guerrilla war for years to come -- even if Grozny falls. They have put up a fierce resistance and there is no sign that the Russians are getting any closer to retaking the embattled city. In fact, quite the contrary is taking place. In the past week, Chechen forces have staged surprisingly strong counter-attacks. Three important Russian-controlled Chechen towns came under intense Chechen fire: Argun, west of Grozny; Gudermes, east of the capital; and Shali, to the south. Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov proposed a three-day cease-fire after the Chechen separatists' successful lightening strikes. What is unclear is whether Chechen forces can maintain counterattacks on this scale.
The larger truth is that Moscow traditionally gets bogged down in disastrous wars out of fits of impetuousness. First it was Afghanistan, then Chechnya in 1994-96, and now Chechnya again. Clearly, Moscow simply cannot let Chechnya go its own independent way with unruffled insouciance. Putin says that he is utterly determined to put down Chechen resistance. "I am absolutely convinced we will not be able to solve any economic or social problems if the state disintegrates," he stated recently. "So there is nothing unusual about us now paying such attention to combating terrorism. We must bring it to an end."
I cannot imagine a more patronising statement for a Russian leader to make, especially since economic and social problems beleaguering Russia in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse have little to do with the Chechen crisis. Russia's refusal to accept that the sun has set on its unwieldy and outlying empire is the main reason for the violence in Chechnya. The war being waged in Chechnya is neither one of moral conviction nor of political necessity. Indonesia survived the independence of East Timor. Why can't Russia do without Chechnya?
Moscow's atrocities in the breakaway republic have only emerged blinking into the light after the international media prodded, investigated and made a fuss. Sadly, Moscow finds it difficult to square the message of Chechen independence with keeping the Russian Federation intact. Ominously, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban have recognised Chechen independence and have urged all Muslim nations to do so. Given Moscow's past record in Afghanistan, the announcement bodes ill.
With this foreboding spectre in mind, the anxiety over replaying the disastrous conclusion of the Chechen crisis in 1996 arises and so too does the question of Putin. The moral of this embittered story is that all the talk of Putin's vulnerability -- the linking of his success at the polls to Russian successes on the Chechen war front -- is hogwash. The bare bones of the situation are these: Russian presidential elections are scheduled for 26 March. The powers that be have already decreed that Putin must be made president. His electoral victory is a foregone conclusion.
The problem is that no one will tell us why Putin was chosen or why the Russian political establishment is rallying around him. Key political figures in former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov's All Russia Movement -- including the presidents of the predominantly-Muslim autonomous republics of Tatarstan, Bashkorostan and Ingushetia -- as well as the governor of St Petersburg (Russia's second largest city), have unanimously decided to back Putin's bid for the presidency. Perhaps they believe that Grozny will fall after all.
