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EDITORIAL: Hostages to Putin's rigid policy

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  • EDITORIAL: Hostages to Putin's rigid policy

    EDITORIAL: Hostages to Putin's rigid policy

    Daily Times, Pakistan
    Sept 5 2004

    The gory images and footage coming out of the Middle School 1
    in Beslan, North Ossetia, are deeply disturbing. They compel the
    international community, especially the powerful countries of the
    West, to look at where Russia might be headed under President Vladimir
    Putin. Consider.

    There is trouble all round in the Caucasus. While the conflict
    was initially confined to Chechnya, it has now spilled over into
    Ingushetia, parts of Daghestan and North Ossetia. The epicentre
    of this trouble lies in the policies pursued by the Kremlin under
    Mr Putin. Under Mr Boris Yeltsin Russia tried to extricate itself
    from Chechnya in August 1996 through a deal clinched by Alexander
    Lebed, Russia's former security chief. However, after the Russian
    withdrawal from Chechnya, no sustained effort was made by Moscow to
    pursue the issue politically. The situation was further complicated by
    violent events like the Moscow apartment bombings which the Kremlin
    laid at the door of Chechen separatists. Mr Putin himself rode to
    power on an agenda that, among other things, promised an end to the
    Chechen problem in favour of the Russian Federation. In other words,
    Mr Putin told his Russian voters that he would effectively put down
    the separatists and bring Chechnya to heel.

    This approach since early 2000 has guided Moscow's Chechnya policy.
    Mr Putin unleashed his army once again on the Chechens. In the last
    four years Russian troops have committed hair-raising atrocities in
    the region by attempting to kill off all able-bodied Chechen males.
    While the West feebly objected to these violations initially, after
    the events of September 11, 2001 Mr Putin got a virtual carte blanche
    to put down the Chechens on the basis of his fallacious argument that
    they were all linked with the international Islamist movement. The
    Russian outrages have been well recorded by Amnesty International
    and Human Rights Watch, among other organisations, as well as by
    independent analysts within Russia. The frequency with which Chechen
    widows have been mounting attacks on Russian targets also testifies
    to the male genocide in the region by the Russian army and the level
    of despondency felt by the Chechens.

    The irony is that while Mr Putin tells the international community
    that his fight against the Chechens is part of the world's war on
    terror and seeks international understanding for his actions there,
    he, nonetheless, does not want the international community to mediate
    the conflict because he considers it to be Russia's "internal"
    problem. The recent incident in Ossetia is essentially linked to
    Chechnya. Mr Putin's policies have caused such despair and sense
    of outrage in the region that there appears nothing left for the
    Chechens and Ingushetians except to give their own lives in order to
    take Russian lives. On both sides, innocent people continue to die.
    This is shameful and it has to come to an end.

    Mr Putin has generally shown himself to be carrying the mantle of the
    Tsars. Further south, he has picked up a row with Georgia in South
    Ossetia because the Russian population in that region wants to break
    away from Georgia and join North Ossetia. Mr Putin has also tried his
    best since the mid-1990s to bring the Central Asia republics back into
    a security arrangement with Moscow. He has supported Armenia against
    Azerbaijan and has generally shown himself to be a tough, impassive
    leader whose training as a KGB agent gives him a steely resolve to deal
    with difficult issues with determination. But this misguided toughness
    without the ability to make political compromises has now increasingly
    resulted in tragedies, both in Russia and Chechnya. Russia's Chechnya
    problem requires immediate international response and mediation,
    preferably under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The world cannot
    allow children, whether Chechen or Russian, to be held hostage to
    the violence that has resulted from Moscow's foolish policies. *
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