CONFLICT IN CHECHNYA

March 2003
		The struggle for independence in Chechnya, now more than ten years old, has claimed thousands of lives and stunted economic growth in the small republic. What drives the conflict? Thomas de Waal, a journalist who has written extensively on Russia and the Caucasus, answers your questions on the complex situation. Mr. de Waal is editor of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting's weekly Caucasus Reporting Service, which carries regular reports from Chechnya and can be found at www.iwpr.net.

Online NewsHour Special Report: Conflict in Chechnya Forum Introduction Why is Russia not letting Chechnya go since others were let out of the old Soviet Union? Do you feel that the Russian government's main interest in Chechnya has been the oil line that runs through the territory? If the Cold War is supposedly over, why does the American Press so play up the unrealistically anti-Russian angle of "the Chechens are (supposedly) freedom fighters, and the Russians are oppressors"? Are there any lessons to be learned from the struggle in Chechnya in terms of urban warfare and the particular challenge it presents? Do you see any chance for a future potential political settlement between Moscow and separatist Chechen leaders?	Tony from Lagos, Nigeria asked a question echoed by three other viewers: Why is Russia not letting Chechnya go since others were let out of the old Soviet Union? Thomas de Waal responds: Dear Tony: I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding about the ideas of "independence" or "letting Chechnya go." I don't think that's really an option and I don't really think that that is what this war is about. Chechnya tried to be independent from Russia twice, from 1991-4 and 1997-9. Both attempts were pretty disastrous, albeit in the hardest of circumstances. Both times Chechens kept on using the Russian ruble as their currency, traveling freely to and from the rest of Russia, watching Russian television and so on. In the first period of "independence," the Chechen soccer team even carried on playing in the Russian league. So I think the Chechen independence movement was more about asserting Chechens' wish for greater dignity and rights after years of being second-class citizens -- for the mass of the population; and greater economic autonomy -- for businessmen and mafia. Chechnya was never going to be like Lithuania or even Georgia. Nowadays, of course, eight years of warfare and destruction by the Russian military have alienated Chechens much more from rule by Moscow. But they have also reduced the republic to ruins, making the idea of Chechnya becoming independent even more fantastic. As far as Russia is concerned, it is hard to see it "letting go" an area right in the heart of the North Caucasus, its most troubled borderland, which has been a haven in the past to hundreds of Islamic extremists from the Middle East and elsewhere. So the only way out seems to be for the Chechens to get some kind of international security guarantees, but no independence (rather like what the Kosovo Albanians have) and for the Russians to be able to make both their internal and external borders safe from infiltration by militants.