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?	Jessica Varat from Wellesley, Massachusetts asks: Dear Mr. de Waal: Do you feel that the Russian government's main interest in Chechnya has been the oil line that runs through the territory? This has been proposed by various commentators on the situation, but I wonder how this argument would still hold up based on the new pipe line that has been constructed to bypass Chechnya. Thank you for your time! Thomas de Waal responds: Dear Jessica: As you say, the pipeline from the Caspian Sea now loops round Chechnya and it is no longer a major oil centre. Its refineries used to make Chechnya one of the major centres of the oil industry and Soviet days and the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline gave it added importance. There is still a kind of backyard oil industry in Chechnya, produced in what the locals call "mini-refineries," primitive extraction units that give out bad quality oil (very damaging to health and the environment by the way) and earn locals and corrupt soldiers useful cash. But that it is not a major strategic factor. In researching the chapters of my book on the causes of the first Chechen war in 1994, I was struck by how no one talked about oil. Russian politics is a very short-sighted business and I think the war mostly had to do with internal Kremlin politics and the desire of the hawks around President Boris Yeltsin to have him win a "small victorious war" and boost his popularity ratings.