To understand the present developments in
Chechnya, one has to go back to the Afghan war of the 1980s.
Many analysts, including this writer, often tend to use loosely
the expressions "proxy war" and "covert war". Both are low-intensity
conflicts, but with a difference.
A proxy war is an open, but undeclared war fought by a nation
against an adversary by using others as surrogates, in order to reduce or eliminate
casualties of its own nationals.
On the other hand, a covert war is conducted by a nation in such
a manner as to maintain the deniability of its own involvement, by using either its own
nationals or foreign surrogates. The desire to avoid casualties of its own nationals is
not an important motive. Pakistan is waging a covert war against India in Kashmir, though
we call it a proxy war.
The Afghan war was the last major, genuine proxy war of the
present millennium. In the initial stages, it was the US, which used Afghans, Pakistanis
and Muslims from other countries for making the Soviet army bleed without losing American
lives.
As the casualties amongst the non-Muslim Slav soldiers steadily
mounted causing misgivings about the wisdom of the war in the Russian region of the USSR,
Moscow increasingly started replacing the Slav soldiers with Muslims sent from the Central
Asian Republics and the Caucasian region.
Thus, in the closing years of the war, the US and the USSR tried
to undermine each other and promote their national interests and strategic objectives by
making the Muslims the cannon-fodder.
The Muslims, who fought on behalf of the US, came to the
battlefield because of their religious conviction. The US and the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan recruited self-motivated volunteers from radicalised
Islamic parties and trained them in modern forms of guerilla warfare, thereby contributing
to the militarisation of these parties, which has been an important cause of the
destabilisation in many parts of the world today, including in India and Pakistan itself.
The Muslims, who fought on behalf of the USSR, entered the
battlefield not because of religious conviction, but because they had to, as soldiers of
the communist army. They lacked the self-motivation of the Muslims who fought for the US.
In this battle, the self-motivated and religiously-influenced
Muslims, who fought for the US, prevailed over the disinterested and largely
non-practising Muslims of the Soviet and Afghan armies, leading to the withdrawal of the
Soviet troops and the subsequent collapse of the Afghan Government headed by President
Najibullah.
The end of the war saw the Muslims, who fought on the two sides,
beginning to nurse anger and resentment against their former mentors, each for their own
reason. The Muslims, who fought for the US, felt let down by what they perceived as the
sudden loss of US interest in them, after having used them to achieve its objectives
against the USSR. It is this resentment, which should explain their drift into movements
directed against the US and Islamic States allied with the US.
For the Muslim soldiers of the Soviet army, Afghanistan was a
totally new experience. The USSR had kept Islam suppressed, disallowing mosques, banning
public prayers and not allowing pilgrimages to the Islamic holy places in Saudi Arabia and
elsewhere. This suppression of the external manifestations of Islam could not wipe out
their internal faith in their religion.
Their service in Afghanistan, for the first time, exposed many of
them to the Muslims of the non-Communist world, whose religious conviction had an
infectious effect on them. Moreover, even many Slavs, who had grown up in an irreligious
atmosphere, were attracted by Islam and embraced it. Sheikh Al-Hadji Al Aspheron, the
second most important Mulla of Kazakhstan today, is a Slav from Ukraine who embraced Islam
after fighting in Afghanistan. He is, however, a strong critic of Islamic extremism
imported from Pakistan.
Thus, the Muslims, who fought for the US, went to the battlefield
with religious conviction and came back with their conviction further strengthened. On the
other hand, those, who fought for the USSR, went to battle as disciplined, submissive
soldiers of the communist army, but returned home after the war as pious, self-assertive
Muslims.
It is the failure of the security agencies and the political
leadership of the post-1991 Russian Federation to comprehend and come to terms with this
transformation, which is responsible for the difficulties faced by them in Chechnya and
Dagestan. Their problems have been compounded by the fact that the trained Muslims, who
fought on rival sides during the Afghan war, have now joined hands in fighting against
what they regard as their former manipulators, who manipulated them for their own
purposes, unrelated to the interests of Islam.
The result: The continuing threats to US nationals and interests
in different parts of the world from angry Muslims of Afghan war vintage and to the unity
and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation from the ex-Muslim soldiers of the
Soviet army and their supporters from the ranks of those, who fought against them in
Afghanistan, but who have now become their fellow-jihadists.
An exclusively military approach to the threats without removing
the causes of the anger and resentment can control the external manifestations of the
anger for a while, but will not restore stability, peace and harmony.
By adopting such an approach, Russia has brought upon itself a
fight with no finish. It may capture Grozny, the capital, at tremendous human cost, but
that is unlikely to be the end of its troubles.
In dealing with violence caused by religious and ethnic emotions
and anger, even the most powerful gun has its limitations and may ultimately prove
hazardous to the user himself, unless effective counter-terrorism is blended with a
sympathetic and sophisticated political approach.
In the past, any counter-terrorism or counter-insurgency method
could pass muster with the outside world having little idea of the harshness of it, but
today, with the whole world in the drawing-room of everyone having access to TV, the
methods are subject to instant scrutiny and judgement. Moscow cannot use against the
Chechens and Dagestanis the same harshness that Stalin used against them and the Tartars
and expect to get away with it.
Russia has thus far failed to separate the external (support from
Pakistani organisations and the Taliban) from the internal aspects and to deal firmly with
the external, but with greater sensitivity and sophistication with the internal.
While the unduly harsh methods used by Russia are thus unwise and
could prove counter-productive, there is nothing but sheer hypocrisy in the condemnation
of the Russian methods by the US and other NATO powers.
The US bombed Libya because a couple of Americans were killed in
an explosion in a West Berlin discotheque; attacked Iraq because of an alleged plot by the
Iraqi intelligence to kill the former US President, Mr.George Bush, during a visit to
Kuwait after laying down office in 1993; bombed alleged terrorist training camps in Afghan
territory after the explosions outside the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania without any
regard to civilian lives; tested new weapons such as uranium-tipped bullets and disrupted
power and water supply to the civilian population of Yugoslavia through the use of
graphite bombs in order to break their morale and preserve the credibility of the NATO as
an interventionist force; declared the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen of Pakistan as an
international terrorist organisation only after it had kidnapped an American tourist in
Kashmir in 1995 and even today has refrained from similarly declaring the Lashkar-e-Toiba
because it has not attacked American lives and property.
Through such actions, the US has repeatedly shown that the lives
of its own nationals are more precious to it than those of other nationals and that any
means are good means for protecting its citizens from terrorist violence without regard to
human rights. But, where only the lives of other nationals are involved, Washington
suddenly remembers human rights and international humanitarian laws and self-righteously
sermonises to them on their human rights obligations.
And, now, it has been trying to do business as usual with the
military regime in Pakistan despite the role of the Pakistani military and intelligence
establishment in encouraging the Pakistan-based terrorist organisations to go to the
assistance of the extremist groups in Chechnya and Dagestan.
What moral authority the US has to condemn Russia for what it is
doing in a part of its own territory to protect its territorial integrity and the lives of
its innocent citizens from the depredations of the terrorists?
The Russian experience has an important lesson for India. Despite
the Russian President, Mr.Yeltsin's fulminations and nuclear-rattling against the US, it
is doubtful for how long Russia can resist the US pressure because of its pathetic
dependence on the US-controlled IMF for keeping its economy going.
India has thus far been able to take an independent line despite
US pressure on issues of concern to us such as nuclear weaponisation, Kashmir etc because
of our freeing ourselves from dependence on the IMF through good economic management. If
we mess up the economy and thereby become dependent on the IMF again, we will lose
whatever independence in decision-making that we have built up for ourselves and will be
powerless to resist similar US interventions in our internal affairs. The economic
deterrence is more important than the nuclear deterrence.
B.RAMAN
(11-12-99)
