Dagestan:
A Trip Report
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Chechnya has
had a violent relationship with the Russian Federation, and before that with
the Soviet Union, ruled from Moscow. With the breakup of the Soviet Union at
the end of 1991, the Chechen Muslims sought independence from the Federation
that they had been forced to join a century earlier in Tsarist times. This
desire for independence, coupled with a willingness to fight, led to the
Russian war with the Chechen Republic. After about 80,000 deaths in the war,
a truce was called, putting the political and military conflict on hold. In
essence, it gave the Chechens de facto independence from Moscow. During the
war, the Chechens took the conflict to Moscow, blowing up one of the stations
in its famous metro system. At the same time the Russians were destroying the
Chechen capital of Grozny. The truce
brokered in 1996 has been an uneasy one. With no one really running the
Russian government and with the army in its weakened, demoralized state, the
Chechens apparently saw an opportunity to fulfill a desire to create a
'Greater Chechnya' in the Northern Caucasus. One belief is that they wanted
to take over only the southern half of Dagestan below Makhachkala. The
northern part is quite different geographically and is a coastal plain that
is semiarid to arid. The southern part contains both mountains (like
Chechnya) and a coastal plain bordering on the oil- and sturgeon-rich Caspian
Sea. Eventually,
the second Chechen war will end — possibly before the Russian Presidential
election in June 2000. However, there is a high probablility that a guerrilla
war will continue afterwards.
I was invited
to visit Dagestan by a Russian environmentalist and colleague, Dr. Igor Zonn
in Moscow, and a biological scientist, Dr. Zalibekov in Makhachkala. The
purpose was to discuss the potential for the development of scientific
research activities related to the Caspian Sea and fluctuations in its level.
We were also there to review the situation of Caspian sturgeon poaching, much
of which was being carried out along the Dagestani coast. During the
visit, we traveled by car along the Caspian's coastal plain and the
foothills. We started in Makhachkala in the center of the coast and ended in
Derbent a couple of hours to the south and near the international border with
Azerbaijan. I was
accompanied by the deputy director of an institute devoted to biological
research in the region and especially in the sea. I have traveled the whole
world over and have stayed in some pretty dismal places. The first night in
Dagestan equaled at the least the worst place I had stayed in over a
three-decade period. It was the remnants of a half-built resort right on the
Caspian near the town of Kaspisk. Construction on this resort facility came
to a halt with the collapse of the Soviet Union some years earlier. Along the
route we saw some touristic sites (for example, a natural profile of Pushkin
on the side of a mountain) and the remnants of some vineyards, largely
unattended and in disrepair. We also visited a working vineyard centered on
an expansive historic underground wine storage site. Each place we visited,
people expressed interest in more interactions with Americans and Europeans
for the purpose of commerce. While there may have been a desire among
Dagestanis for independence from the Russian Federation, given the constant
threat (now conflict) of Chechen origin, no attempt was made to seek that
independence. Russia provided protection for Dagestan from the Chechens, much
as an alliance with Russia would do for Turkmenistan in any potential
conflict with Uzbekistan. Some Chechen factions had demanded that the two
republics merge into one large Islamic republic, independent of Moscow's
control. Interestingly,
along the roadside that paralleled the Caspian coastline, several people were
selling gasoline in small containers to drivers passing by. The gasoline was
cheaper than that sold in the official or private gas stations because it had
been smuggled across the mountainous border with Chechnya. It was sold openly
but on the black market. It appeared that the Dagestani police apparently
chose to look the other way rather than confront the illegal cross-border
traders. During the
visit I had heard talk of a free Dagestan. But, the reality is that the
region is too unstable for independence. With landlocked Chechnya as a
neighbor and such breakaway quasi-independent, ethnically based republics
such as Ingushetia and Nagorno-Karabak and Ostia nearby, it was better to
stick with the Russian Federation (as if the Federation would let them out!). Dagestan is
poor. It is on the Caspian Sea and therefore has value to its covetous
landlocked neighbor. Hence, the rebel attack on Dagestan from its neighbor's
territory, obviously with the implicit backing of the Chechen government.
Russia was viewed as militarily weak, following its defeat in the first
Russo-Chechen war in 1994-96. It was also viewed as hesitant to use its
weakened military establishment. One can only assume that the Chechens saw
Southern Dagestan as a 'sitting duck'. They took aim, crossed the border,
captured 2 Dagestani towns. . . and then all hell broke loose. My Russian
colleague and I were there at the time of the invasion, one of the last
political crises of the 20th century or, for that matter, of the second
millennium. We were not in the mountain towns that had been captured.
However, we were but tens of kilometers away. In just one day the signs of
response to the invasion were evident and growing. Russian troops were at the
airport in Machachkala. They were increasingly visible in the streets. People
were abuzz about the Chechen invasion. They wondered what Moscow's response
would be. After all, the Russians had essentially been defeated in Chechnya a
few years earlier. There was talk that the Russian leaders would not fight
the Chechens, other than to seek to contain and, if possible, remove the
rebels from Dagestani territory. The Chechens
and the rest of the world (probably including many Russians) were surprised
by the Russian military response. The Russian leaders were reacting not just
to the invasion but also to the several terrorist attacks that had also
occurred in Moscow. Unknown terrorists (more correctly mass murderers) — but
likely Chechens — detonated explosives that destroyed several apartment
building blocks within the metropolitan area, leaving more that 300 dead and
hundreds more wounded. These attacks were part of what, in military jargon is
referred to as 'countervalue attacks'. Such attacks are designed to
demoralize the civilian population by selecting civilian targets to destroy
instead of focusing on military targets. The Chechen
rebel strategy backfired. The attacks raised the ire of the Russian
population. The sporadic terrorist attacks in Moscow provided an issue on
which various political and ideological factions in Russia could agree . . .
take on the Chechen terrorists directly. The NATO strategy in Serbia with
regard to the Kosovo crisis provided the Russian military and government with
a way out. Wanting in the worst way to avoid troop casualties and the popular
opposition to them, they had suffered in the earlier war with the Chechens,
Russian generals decided to bomb from the air various alleged terrorist sites
in Dagestan as well as other strategic targets, in order to cripple the
rebels, their supply routes, and to cripple the Chechen economy that
supported them. Regardless of
how one views the history of Russia's presence in the North Caucasus, it
appears that most foreign governments chose, at least initially, to back the
Russians. They did so mostly by not getting involved or by not condemning the
Russian effort (except on technical treaty grounds with regard to
NATO-Russian Federation agreements). Pleas from the Chechen president to the
international community for disaster relief and for help from other countries
apparently fell on deaf ears. Tens of thousands of Chechen refugees fled into
neighboring Ingushetia, a Russian Republic with little in the way of
resources to help them. The Chechen
attack on a defenseless, economically depressed, ethnically diverse Dagestan
was a bad strategic choice, especially under the banner carried by Chechens
labeled as terrorists. Taking the war to Moscow was a guerrilla tactic that
failed. The bombings did not help their cause. It exposed the fact that the
Chechens did not understand the Russians any more than the Russians
understood the Chechens. As a result, the Chechens gambled with their
country's quasi-independent status in favor of territorial expansion into
southern Dagestan . . . and they lost. Now Chechnya faces being re-absorbed
back into the Russian Federation or, worse than that, destruction. Shortly
after my visit in August 1999 the Russians gained control of the flatlands in
Chechnya, the northern part of the country, north of the Terek River. It
appeared then that, with a smell of possible victory in the air, the Russian
military would soon move across the Terek ... and it did. Today, a few
months later, Chechnya's capital city of Grozny is encircled by Russian
troops. Air attacks on the city have been relentless. Hundred of thousands of
refugees have fled the country. The international humanitarian community has
become more vocal, opposing Russia's indiscriminate scorched earth policy and
its failure to distinguish between military and civilian targets. Even
governments that had been silent have begun to challenge Russia's military
tactics, but not to the extent of pressuring Russia to end the campaign
against Chechnya. I would guess
that the history books will recall the mess in the Northern Caucasus as the
fallout of an erroneous Chechen guerilla (if not government) strategy to (a)
seek territorial expansion and (b) to terrorize Russian leaders by
indiscriminately bombing Russian apartment houses and subway stations.
Whatever hostile reaction that befalls the Russian Federation as a result of
its activities, the Chechen blunder will most likely spell an end to its
brief period of independence. For more information on crisis in Dagestan,
visit:
(All photos appear courtesy of the BBC Online Network News) |
