NationStates Jolt Archive

Beslan, the september 11 of Russia.

"The siege claimed 336 lives, the spokesman of the North Ossetian president told the Interfax agency.
Lev Dzugayev said 323 people had died during the hostage crisis itself, while another 13 passed away in hospitals afterwards.
The death toll included 157 children; 107 bodies are yet to be identified.
The toll does not include the 31 hostage-takers killed.(...)"
(Source: english.aljazeera.net september 9.)


"Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said Chechen separatist commander Shamil Basayev directed the hostage-taking raid in southern Russia's Beslan last week.
"I know for certain, that Shamil Basayev directly managed this operation," Lavrov said in an interview with Aljazeera on Friday. He did not, however, provide evidence."
(...)
"Basayev has been involved in or has claimed responsibility for hostage raids and other attacks outside Chechnya during a decade of war and chaos in the region, including a 1995 attack on a hospital in Dagestan and a well-coordinated assault targeting police in Ingushetia - sandwiched between Chechnya and North Ossetia - in June. "
(Source: english.aljazeera.net september 11.)

Chechnya has rich grounds, but the people are plucked by their current government.
It's this sentence that forms the dilemma. The solution to the Chechen rebel problem would be simple: just give them their country. This however is not only simple, but also shallow.
Firstly, Russia will lose a potential source of income. Potential because Russia has not yet fully succeeded in mining the recources, due to rebel acts. (I'm not really sure of that, so I can't prove that right now...)
Secondly, if Russia will give in, another province will probably follow, maybe kidnap a school or two, and so on and so on, until russia only has the least productive provinces left, possibly scattered all over the place.
If he doesn't give in, terrorist action will get worse.
I wouldn't want to be Putin right now.
What in earth can you do???

I think the only thing putin can do is continue what he is already doing, refusing to negotiate with terrorist groups, otherwise it will open up a landslide of other groups who believe that terrorism will get them what they want.

I think Russia should just grant Chechnya their independence; people deserve their freedom.

Should Iraq and Afghanistan get their freedom too?

Give them some sort of administrative devolution. Nothing too legislative, just some sort of Duma to make them feel special.

Kill the terrorists.

Kill the terrorists.
uhm... who are you talking to?
the russians?
because (to stay on topic) to the chechens the russians are 'terrorists'. They invaded what they believe to be their land, raped their women and killed their people. (and, of course, vice-versa).
So, who's the bad guy now? Dont' you think that there isn't a simple solution to this or else it would've already occurred to someone else over there?
it's nice talking about 'terrorists' and 'the bad guy' (going in the same direction as the 'axis of evil'). did you ever think about the fact that they are people just like you and me who have family too? What do you want to do with their families? 'kill the terrorists'?
if you're so much smarter than all the russian and chechen diplomats, why don't you go over there and talk to them, they might need your help.

The incident just proves what George Clooney said years ago: "The Russians couldn't find snow in the middle of fucking winter."

Giving up the last of the USSR would be the best solution as anything else the Russians do ends up in violence.

Beslan, the september 11 of Russia.

"The siege claimed 336 lives, the spokesman of the North Ossetian president told the Interfax agency.
Lev Dzugayev said 323 people had died during the hostage crisis itself, while another 13 passed away in hospitals afterwards.
The death toll included 157 children; 107 bodies are yet to be identified.
The toll does not include the 31 hostage-takers killed.(...)"
(Source: english.aljazeera.net september 9.)


"Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said Chechen separatist commander Shamil Basayev directed the hostage-taking raid in southern Russia's Beslan last week.
"I know for certain, that Shamil Basayev directly managed this operation," Lavrov said in an interview with Aljazeera on Friday. He did not, however, provide evidence."
(...)
"Basayev has been involved in or has claimed responsibility for hostage raids and other attacks outside Chechnya during a decade of war and chaos in the region, including a 1995 attack on a hospital in Dagestan and a well-coordinated assault targeting police in Ingushetia - sandwiched between Chechnya and North Ossetia - in June. "
(Source: english.aljazeera.net september 11.)

Chechnya has rich grounds, but the people are plucked by their current government.
It's this sentence that forms the dilemma. The solution to the Chechen rebel problem would be simple: just give them their country. This however is not only simple, but also shallow.
Firstly, Russia will lose a potential source of income. Potential because Russia has not yet fully succeeded in mining the recources, due to rebel acts. (I'm not really sure of that, so I can't prove that right now...)
Secondly, if Russia will give in, another province will probably follow, maybe kidnap a school or two, and so on and so on, until russia only has the least productive provinces left, possibly scattered all over the place.
If he doesn't give in, terrorist action will get worse.
I wouldn't want to be Putin right now.
What in earth can you do???
You make the gross and incomrrect assumption that EVERYONE in Chechnya wants to be independant. Giving in to the thugs would endanger the good people of Chechnya.

Erm...you forget one important bit of history.

In 1996, Chechnya was given autonomy under a peace deal brokered by General Lebed, and the Russian forces withdrew. In 1999, Chechen forces invaded Dagestan, declaring a greater islamic republic. Dagestan promptly requested assistance from Federal forces. The apartment block bombings in Moscow took the limelight, but a cross-border conflict had already been started.

Give them their country? They had it for a grand total of 3 years before attacking a neighbour. Even now the Ossetians want revenge, and are said to be kidnapping Ingushetians. Russian dominance is the only thing preventing a Balkans-style ethnic war consuming the region. And if Russia leaves the place to its fate and the war kicks off, who is going to do the peace-keeping? UN soldiers from Bangladesh? Or, perhaps the UN will ask Russia, seeing as the region is on its doorstep? Here we come full circle.

The situation there is an evil, but the lesser of two evils, Russia is doing the world a favour keeping the lid on the place.

These people are terrorists, no denying it. When you rush a school and kill children then you are a terrorists. And if you want to "grant" them their indepdence and have peace talks you got another thing comming, no terrorist can be talked with, peace is something they don't understand. They kill for the fun of it.

Putin should bring the once great army of Russia back up and speak to them in the only language they understand, violence.

Russia has every right to hold up its empire. To say that it dosn't is the same as telling America that its land is now Native Ameircan land. Its stupid.

It's almost enough to wish for the days of the USSR, where all these terrorists would have been shipped to Siberia, along with anyone they ever met.

Russia should threaten to bomb the hell out of chechnia unless the people turn in the terrorists in their midst. If they fail to do so, the bombs start dropping. Only after the region is a smoking ruin should it be granted independance.

In my mind its only a matter of days before the people are screaming for change and they:

1. Become a Facist state, basically same thing as the USSR but with more money, less cold war, less freedoms, and more saftey.
or
2. Become the USSR again, doing better than now.

Either one is good, but I'd rather see 1. Communism dosn't exactly work.

But were not talking about communism. I just want to see how this is handled and what happens. Is this Europes wake up call? America has been trying to tell em for about 3 years now.

What is the UN's position on the "situation"?

Russia should threaten to bomb the hell out of chechnia unless the people turn in the terrorists in their midst. If they fail to do so, the bombs start dropping. Only after the region is a smoking ruin should it be granted independance.
They've done similar things before (not totally flattened the whole area, but in some places), and it hasn't exactly worked that well. There's pictures of parts of Grozny that were totally destroyed.

Putin should bring the once great army of Russia back up and speak to them in the only language they understand, violence.

why don't you guys try to get to know the whole story before judging.
russia already did do that. didn't work though. read the post on what happened after chechen was granted autonomy.
*now* what are they supposed to do?
h-bombs?
there are, after all, innocent people who live in both countries, did you ever think about that?
(just like in america not everyone supports what bush does)

You make the gross and incomrrect assumption that EVERYONE in Chechnya wants to be independant.(...)
Not really... But once Chechnya is independent, isn't EVERYONE there independent?
And could you maybe next time, snip the part where your position is based upon?

What is the UN's position on the "situation"?
UN, NGOs and Donors Start Strategic Planning for 2005
On 31 August in Moscow representatives of UN agencies NGOs, Donors and the Russian Government held the first session of a workshop aimed at strategic planning of the humanitarian action in Chechnya and neighbouring republics of the North Caucasus for 2005. The workshop is part of the Consolidated Appeals Process and is designed as a forum at which all stakeholders can discuss in detail all strategic planning aspects of the ongoing humanitarian operation for the next year, set goals and determine priorities in all the sectors of humanitarian response to the needs of vulnerable populations in the region. The second part of the workshop is to be held in the North Caucasus in September and will be aimed at working out a Common Humanitarian Action Plan that will form the basis for the 2005 Consolidated Appeal for Chechnya and neighbouring republics.
(Source: www.ocha.ru)

"The government has yet to formalize a position on this issue." :p

Im wondering, why couldnt Russia do both?

By that, I mean, grant Chechnya thier independance, but at the same time, get even harder on terrorism?

Promise them a swift and terrible death.

Use the velvet glove and grant them what they want...

If they, or anyone else resorts to the same tactics, use the Iron Fist, and crush them mercilessly.

They have already got independence once and messed it up. (Velvet glove)
That's why they're a part of Russia again. (A fist, not really Iron though)

Im wondering, why couldnt Russia do both?

By that, I mean, grant Chechnya thier independance, but at the same <time, get even harder on terrorism?
.
You could ask the same question to Israel though. Russia would argue. We withdrawl in 1996 from Checheny.
There was a deal between Moscow and Grosny. It left the status open for five years (in that sense it mirrored the Oslo treaty between Israel and the palestinians). But what happened. Arab (especially wahabites) got more and more power in Checheny. One important terrorists leader for example is Chattab - a Jordanian. There are certain Arab factions which were also present in Afghanistan who are now also present in Chechnya. Those groups invested a lot of money in the region and have support. And their aim goes beyond Chechenya. They want to split away the North Caucasian republics of Dagestan and Inguschetia from Russia. And those groups launched attacks from Chechenya on neighbouring republics, demanding ransom and attacking Russian facilities. In 1999 they even invaded parts of Dagestan. Shortly afterwards a series of terrorist attacks took place in Moscow. After those events - that would be the Russian position - Russia had a right to defend itself against the terrorists. And since the Chechen leadership was not fighting terrorism but in fact had even connections to terrorism it had to fight it in order to increase its security. There is no Chechen partner for peace - that is the position of Moscow. However it is conducting a policy of Chechenisation. It tries to buy ought rebells. The Kadyrov administration - Kadyrov belonged to the rebels in the first war 1994-96 however switched sides in the second war (since 1999)- was installed via an "election" as new chechen president. He was partly successfull in forcing and convincing rebells to switch sides. Those groups of the new chechen security foces are playing already some role in the security policy of Moscow. The aim of Moscow is to push for this in orer to get a chechnisation of the conflict. This policy was called "political solution". It had a serious backlash when Kadyrow was killed on May 9, 2004 during a ceremony commemorating the victory in the "Great Patriotic war (1941-45) against Germany. That war was a desaster for the Chechens. They hoped to get rid of the Soviets and rebelled against them. In 1944 the Soviets took revenge. The Chechens were moved to Central Asia as punishment. Around 500000 died during this campaign of ethnic cleansing. It was not up until the end of the 1950s they were allowed to return by Chrustchev.
The conflict between Russians and Chechens is very old. It dates back up until the 19 th century. It is not that easy to solve. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians anb the Kashmir dispute aren´t easy as well.
It is a break-line conflict - or to quote Huntington a conflict on the break-lines of two civilisations: a clash of civilisations. And it is very difficult - if at all possible - to solve such a conflict. The same was the case for the balkanic conflicts.

Would a wall help?

You know, I hate problems without solutions, and at the moment terrorists are such a problem. Will the 21st century in historybooks be known as the century of terrorists, when the world was in the grasp of individual extremist actions?
Chechen terrorists could kidnap any school in the world next, or any other public facility. I don't want to frighten everybody but it would certainly make sense, because if Russia doesn't want to listen to them, they'll focus on the rest of the world, anywhere... Russia might not listen to a small province, but surely they'll have to listen to the world.
The chance you're in one such building is very small ofcourse but still.
Or maybe this point of view is exaggerated and dramatical. (I certainly hope so!)

-Edit: maybe I should change the name of the thread to The World's dilemma... :(

Would a wall help?:(
It would help Israel for shure. But it won´t give absolute security either. We could of course ban any immigration from "problematic countries" though.

You know, I hate problems without solutions, and at the moment terrorists are such a problem. Will the 21st century in historybooks be known as the century of terrorists, when the world was in the grasp of individual extremist actions?
Chechen terrorists could kidnap any school in the world next, or any other public facility. I don't want to frighten everybody but it would certainly make sense, because if Russia doesn't want to listen to them, they'll focus on the rest of the world, anywhere... Russia might not listen to a small province, but surely they'll have to listen to the world.
The chance you're in one such building is very small ofcourse but still.
Or maybe this point of view is exaggerated and dramatical. (I certainly hope so!)
Well, I think there are countries who are more threatened: like Israel, Russia and India.
Though others are threatened as well. We, Europe, belong to the area of an abstract danger. It is possible and likely that we face terrorists attacks from time to time. And it is inevitable. We may able to reduce the numbers - if we work closer together with our police and security services - and if needed with the US and its military. But we won´t get absolute security. We are going to need to life with some terrorism.
And the 21 rst century is and is going to be the century of terrorism.