 |
|
| |
|
||||
The Second Chechen War began wholly in September 1999, purportedly on account of attacks by Chechen forces on neighboring Dagestan, and a series of terroristic attacks on residential buildings in Russian cities that caused nearly 300 deaths, which were attributed to Chechen militants. (disputed — see talk page)(See: Russian Apartment Bombings.) After the First Chechen War, Russia evidently didn't consider seriously to recognise the Chechen independence, because the 1999 intervention was prepared and executed according to a well-conceived plan. According to the former Minister of Internal Affairs and Yeltsin loyalist Sergei Stepashin, the plan was prepared for execution in March 1999 but was delayed. Whether the war was planned or then delayed, the Dagestani incursion and the bombings finally gave a pretty good cover to launch the invasion and to reconquer Chechnya.
Outline of conflict
According to Chechen rebel sources (see news links) 250,000 civilians, including 42,000 children, have died by 2004 in this war. For one, the pro-Kremlin administration in Chechnya has admitted more than 200,000 killed civilians. By 2002, in 5 years Russia had reportedly lost in Chechnya as many troops as the Soviet Union did lose in Afganistan in 10 years. Admittedly, since then the losses have only increased. In 2004 it was told that about 25 000 troops had perished and more than 50 000 troops were injured in many ways. In addition to the admitted losses of Chechen civilians, it was also reported that approximately 35 000 ethnic Russian civilians have been killed by Russian forces operating in Chechnya.[1] (http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=409&issue_id=3211&article_id=2369158) Statistically alone, compared to the numbers of the (See Chechnya Demographics), by all standards, the use of terms “Genocide” and “Crimes Against Humanity” to curb this minor nation by the Kremlin are more than justified especially in the regards of the alleged goals of war. The goals are noway comparatible to losses given the other ways to solve the conflict. History
PrologueIn July 1999 the Russian Interior Ministry troops suddenly violated the peace treaty with Chechnya, destroyed a Chechen border post, and on 29th July, captured a road section of 800 meters. Chechens replied by shooting in nights to Russian positions. On 2nd August, 1999, Bahauddin Kebedov and Nadirshah Hachilayev, with their men, tried to return from their exile to the Tsimudin district and the Avar villages of Rikvan, Gagatli and Dacha in Dagestan. However, the returnees met Dagestani security troops, and a clash broke out. The Dagestani authorities, too, confirmed that they clashed with Dagestanis attempting to return, not with Chechens. Moscow, however, immediately seized the opportunity and started creating a myth about "Chechen" incursion to Dagestan. The myth turned into reality, when a mixed group of about one thousand men (mostly Dagestanis but including some 300 Chechens), led by Basayev and Khattab, and invoked by the appeals of Hachilayev and Kebedov as well as the Kremlin propaganda, rushed to the aid of their Dagestani comrades. The decision that Basayev and Khattab had made to intervene in Dagestan was decisively provoked by Russia's cruel bombing of the peaceful Wahhabi villages of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi, which had no part in the clash between the militants of the Kebedov-Hachilayev opposition and the Dagestani nomenclature. The bombing of the villages raised great anger among Dagestanis as well as among the troops of Basayev and Khattab, because the villagers had done no other crime except being pious Muslims. They had been associated with the politically active Islamists, Kebedov and Hachilayev, in propaganda. Besides, there were probably relatives of Khattab's wife among the victims. Basayev explicitly told that he had went to Dagestan, in summer 1999, to liberate the country from Russian imperialism. The Chechen President Maskhadov, however, immediately condemned Basayev's operation, accusing foreign secret services for it. It was then not obvious whether Maskhadov meant Russia or the Arab countries, but Chechens have later referred to the Russian FSB and GRU as well as the agents of Saudi Arabia (maybe rather the agents of the Saudi radical Islamists). Maskhadov tried to get his government's unambiguous condemnation of extremist activity heard, and he even gathered a demonstration of 5'000 people in Djokharkala to protest against Basayev's operation. Maskhadov, like most Chechens, was horrified of Basayev's military operations on Russian soil, and the Chechen government was strictly critical against Basayev, making all possible efforts to distinguish from his dangerous activities against the Russian Federation. The InterventionDuring the initial months of the war, Russia made effective use of air power instead of immediately rushing in massive numbers of ground troops. The Russians thus avoided the first war's extremely high casualties. Russian forces later resorted to heavy carpet bombing and ballistic missile strikes against Grozny and other major cities. Though corridors were made for civilians to exit the cities when the attacks occurred, Russians sometimes blocked their escape. Some Western countries have criticized the heavy-handedness of the Russian military in dealing with the rebels. Both Chechen militants and Russian troops, militia ,and security services (whose number of 80,000-100,000 has remained basically constant since 2000), as well as the mostly Chechen-staffed paramilitary forces by Russia-backed Ramsan Kadyrov ("Kadyrovcy") have been and continue to be charged with substantiated claims of abductions, torture, rape, murder, looting, smuggling, and embezzlement. In March 2002, the leader of the Fundamentalist Islamic rebel operations, Amir Khattab, was killed. Amir Abu al-Walid replaced him. In December 2002, a Russian court tried Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov on war crime charges. He was accused of raping and strangling Elza Kungayeva, an 18-year-old Chechen woman whom Budanov claims was a rebel sniper. In a controversial decision, he was initially found not guilty by reason of insanity on December 31 2002 and committed to a psychiatric hospital for further evaluation and treatment. Later this decision was overturned. He is currently serving a ten year sentence in Ulyanovsk Oblast. Some Chechen militant leaders have repeatedly found refuge in various Western countries, to the great protest of Russia. Despite public statements by Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials insisting that the war is over, the Chechen forces led by Aslan Maskhadov and Islamist militants led by Shamil Basayev continue to wage a guerilla-style war against Russian troops and the pro-Russian administration in Chechnya. Many have attributed the Beslan school hostage crisis(in which at least 344 civilians died when Chechen terrorists attacked a Russian school), and several other terrorist attacks on Russia, to Russia's role in the ongoing conflict. Russia has been accused of human rights abuses since the conflict began, and the European Court of Human Rights agreed to hear civilian cases brought by Chechens against Russia for the first time, in October 2004 .
How the existent war turned publicly non-existent
Since then, in the same vocabulary, the partisan-styled phase of the second Chechen war has been called not a true war at all but sporadic attempts instead. While effectively blocking out news of war inspired by no news, no war logics while the war goes on undercover producing other traces of war beeing seen on the streets; neonazis and skinheads, abuses on foreigners and the dark due to the war traumas of the endless war, a political shift to totalitarianism justified publically only by this militarily non-existent but politically very existent 5 year's war. Prospects of warfare in the cricis
The fact is that either the military or civilian losses haven't made any effect on the Russian politics regarding Chechnya and therefore, most likely, they won't make either in the future until the losses amount over the news blockage by numbers or just somehow unpredictibly mediawise or societywise. Nevertheless, Russia is purposely made to stand enormous losses by the information warfare, that is the extensive blockage and filtration of the military news, while the reported wide-scale human rights abuses continue without interruption in order to break-up the resistance on the spot. (disputed — see talk page) The citizens' common access to the onfield facts of war is prohibited, but anyway the rumours are spreading, so reportedly the majority of conscipts try their best to avoid military service, and finally only some 10% of the young men of the age annually end in the army. See alsoExternal links
es:Segunda guerra chechena fr:Seconde guerre de Tchétchénie ja:第二次チェチェン紛争 fi:Toinen Tšetšenian sota de:Zweiter Tschetschenienkrieg
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright 2008 WordIQ.com - Privacy Policy
::
Terms of Use
:: Contact Us
:: About Us This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Second Chechen War". |