What's Chechnya? It's a tiny republic in Russia that's fighting for independence from Russia. Where's Chechnya? It's in the North Caucasus, close to Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
The war in Chechnya is about as old as the United States, yet very few people are aware of it. Very few people have even heard of Chechnya, let alone can place it on a map. And it's not just Americans.
I admire the determination and courage of the Chechens. They have been fighting against the mighty Russian army since the 1770s and even winning frequently. Russia has used all its might to crush the Chechens several times, but every 50 years or so, the Chechens have bounced back from obscurity to score admirable victories against their northern neighbors. Stalin even deported the Chechens to Central Asia, hoping to weaken their nationalism. He failed; the Chechens started returning to Chechnya in the 1960s and within 30 years had cobbled together another resistance movement against Russia -- this time backed by "American dollars, Russian weapons and the Chechen spirit," as one commentator put it.
Chris Kline, a former CNN correspondent and one of the last western journalists to leave Chechnya when the conflict re-ignited in 1999, has recorded and discussed Russian atrocities and the Chechen independence movement. He pointed out that for the Chechens, the war against Russia was not just an issue of independence -- it was an issue of survival. Russian policies of forced assimilation were annihilating Chechen culture and religion. The Chechens were forced to react with force. They fought with honor, avoiding harm to innocent civilians. The Russians, on the other hand, sent in their most gruesome battalions, soldiers who cared more for vodka than human life.
So, what's the Chechen war all about? For the Chechens, it's about independence from a distant, unfriendly ruling state that cares little for the well-being of the Chechens. It's about regaining freedom lost to a once mighty empire. It's also about self-preservation.
In fact, after so many decades of resistance, the war against Russia has become more than just a question of survival for the Chechens. It has become an issue of ancestral pride and living up to the reputation of the Chechen ancestors who fought valiantly against the Russians in the previous centuries. Every Chechen leader has tried to evoke the collective memories of Imam Shamil, who formed the first Chechen kingdom in the early nineteenth century. The leading separatist leader today also calls himself Shamil. Imam Shamil had declared "jihad" against the Russians in 1825 and the Chechens again declared "jihad" in 1994, not because they necessarily because they truly believed it was a "jihad" but because they wanted to follow Shamil's example.
For the Russians, it's a matter of preventing a precedent-setter. Russia is made up of hundreds of republics that could start revolting for independence if the Chechens are allowed to secede. It is also about maintaining Russian monopoly over oil production and transportation in the North Caucasus. The region has large oil reserves, and one of the largest aviation fuel refineries in Russia is in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. The issue at stake is more than just Chechen oil and refineries, though. Chechnya is located northwest of Azerbaijan, which has some of the largest offshore oil and natural gas reserves in the world. Azerbaijani oil and gas need to be transported to either the Persian Gulf or to the Black Sea through Russia. For obvious reasons, Russia wants this pipeline to pass through its territory. The shortest and cheapest route is through Chechnya.
Finally, it is about sheer hatred. The Russians have had historic differences with the peoples of the North Caucasus, including the Chechens, the Ingush and other groups. Ever since the fifteenth century, the Russians have tried to exterminate or "Russianize" all the North Caucasus peoples just because they are not Russians. The Russians aligned themselves with the Cossacks early in the sixteenth century and the Cossacks are in turn historic enemies of the Chechens for a variety of reasons, religion being one of them.
The result of all this is that we have had almost continuous war in Chechnya since the break-up of the Soviet Union. The Chechens declared independence in 1991 soon after Gorbachev's fall and full-fledged hostilities started just a few months later. Except for a brief period of respite between late 1996 and early 1999, thousands upon thousands of civilians have been killed. The Russians have used their most advanced weapons to bring hell to Chechnya and its natives have fought back with just as much ferocity.
