THE CHECHEN CRISIS: A RUSSIAN LIBERAL'S PERSPECTIVE

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It is tragic and ironic that Russia, the successor to the USSR, a country which supported the Palestine Liberation Organization even during the time of its most barbaric actions directed against Jews and Israel -- when the PLO's suicide bombers and snipers killed Israeli women and children andOlympic athletes -- has now become the victim of that same sort of terrorism.In their technique and psychology, the persons who blew up apartment houses in Moscow, Buinaksk, and Volgodonsk are carbon copies of the PLO's BlackSeptember and Hamas terrorists. They are outcasts of various nationalities: Japanese and Latin Americans were employed by the PLO, while a Karachai and a Tatar, allegedly operating under Chechen command, are the principalsuspects in the Moscow bombings.The terrorists' relations with Chechnya's president Aslan Maskhadov and thegovernment of Chechnya are not entirely clear, but here too there are similarities with Yasir Arafat and the PLO. Arafat somewhat distancedhimself from extreme terrorist groups, although how sincere he was in this and the degree to which they acted without Arafat's knowledge and consent,no one can say. He overtly "understood" and "sympathized with" Palestinian killers who horrified and sickened the whole world (although not Soviet officialdom). Maskhadov's connection to terrorists is almost certainly weaker than Arafat's. Nevertheless, Maskhadov considers Shamil Basaev, the militant commander who led the recent incursion of Chechen guerillas intoDagestan, if not the Moscow bombers, one of "his own" and even a hero, albeit a straying one. For Maskhadov to put a stop to Basaev's "exploits"is more difficult than for Arafat to curb Hamas.The Chechen and Palestinian terrorists not only share common traits, they are linked. They form a single network, nourished by the ideology ofmilitant Islamic fundamentalism, just as an earlier terrorist network was nourished by the ideology of "revolution" and "national liberation." People like Khattab are international "warriors of Allah," who turn up today in Afghanistan, tomorrow in Chechnya and Dagestan, and perhaps the day after inLebanon.But the Fundamentalist International cannot accomplish anything in isolation, any more than the Marxist International could. The seeds ofterror take root and grow only if the field is fertile. And this leads us to the most significant similarity between Palestinian-Hamas terror and Chechen-Wahhabi terror. Both are symptoms of the same dreadful disease.Khattabs and bin Ladens are like microbes -- they are always around, and always ready to invade a weakened organism susceptible to the disease ofterrorism. But what made the Palestinians in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and the Chechens in the 1990s √- two historically very different peoples -- so prone to terrorist infection? I believe that it is their feeling of being the victims of colossal injustice, aggravated by almost universalunemployment and hopelessness. This led to hatred of the world at large and a readiness to disregard the laws of God and man in expresssing theirdefiance. When such feelings are shared by the majority of a people, then a small percent -- maybe only half a percent -- will inevitably progress from words to deeds, from cursing to murders. And inevitably the Khattabs andbin Ladens will rush to join them, attracted to these passions like flies to honey.The "honorable" and "respectable" world, the wealthy, cultured and strong nations, sincerely appalled by Hitler's genocide of the Jews -- some of whom had been denied admittance as refugees by democratic countries -- sought to atone for their guilt by transferring half of Palestine to the Jews at the expense of the Palestinians who were in no way responsible for Hitler's gas chambers. No one thought to ask the Palestinians about this. No one cared about their opinion. No one listened to their arguments. Unlike the Jews,the Palestinians had no world-famous writers, musicians or scientists, no extraordinary history. Their leaders lacked the sophistication needed torebut Zionist propaganda. Arabs tried armed resistance, but they lacked the military strength to defeat Israel's army. The more they fought, the more they lost. The more they lost, the more hopeless the situation of the Palestinians became, spurring them to more desperate and savage resistance.The result was to make them even more outcasts and pariahs in the eyes of the civilized world, which associated the word "Palestinian" with the murderof Israeli women and children, evoking a mixture of loathing and fear.Palestinians were trapped in a vicious circle with Israelis. Each Israeli victory provoked a new round of Arab terrorism which failed to improve the Palestinians' situation in any way and only further blackened their reputation.The Chechens have absolutely similar feelings of having been treated unjustly, of being abandoned by the world, of hopelessness and despair.Palestinians cannot understand for what sin their land was taken from them, why the civilized world decided to expiate its guilt before the Jews attheir expense, and why no one sympathizes with their plight. Chechens cannot understand why the Chechen people, having fought against Russia formore than two centuries in order to preserve their freedom, having suffered the horror of mass deportation in 1944, are not entitled to theirindependence only because Chechnya was categorized by the Soviet Union as an Autonomous Republic, and not as a Union Republic like Belarus, which afterthe collapse of the USSR was granted its independence without a struggle andprobably against the wishes of a significant part of the population.Chechens, moreover, cannot understand why the West, so proud of its morality and enlightenment, reacted so strongly to Serbian crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo, while it has watched Russian atrocities in Chechnya with Olympiandetachment. Chechens cannot understand why -- after the 1994-96 war with Russia ended and Chechnya had achieved de facto independence √ the world either ignored or showed open contempt for Chechnya, impoverished and physically shattered by the war. Chechens also cannot understand whyeveryone is so quick to assert that murders and kidnappings in Chechnya demonstrate the Chechen government's impotence and make it impossible tohave any dealings with Chechnya while the murders occurring in relatively well off Russia elicit no such reactions.Chechens do not rank among the world's advanced peoples √- the average Chechen is perhaps rather crude and provincial. Lecturing Chechens on thehistory of international law makes as much sense as lecturing Palestinians on the history of the Jews and Zionism. Chechens simply know that theoutside world is indifferent to their fate, their rights, and their survival, that Chechens are treated as pariahs, and that no one except binLaden will give them a farthing. The problem is that when a whole people begins to think in this way, a few fanatics are always ready to embark on a campaign of violence and terrorism.These observations are not meant in any way to justify the atrocities committed by Palestinian and Chechen terrorists; they simply describe theconditions which lead to the disease of terrorism. Its implication, however, is that Palestinian, Chechen, or other brands of terrorism, cannotbe truly cured without changing the basic conditions which have caused the acceptance of terrorism to become deeply rooted in the minds of peoples who feel they have been driven into a corner and hunted down like beasts.Terrorists among a people can and must be pursued and exterminated, but until the underlying causes of terrorism are eliminated, new assassins willreplace them. Once a people has been driven to the edge, extremists will come forward, enthralled by thoughts of "heroic" acts, blood vengeance, andsuicide, who are ready and willing to follow in the footsteps of fallen warriors. And there will be enough of them to make life unbearable for therest of us.Israelis have had more reason to refuse to compromise in their negotiationswith the Palestinians than we Russians have in our negotiations with the Chechens. The Chechens want only independence and our recognition of theirindependence. The Palestinians wanted to destroy the state of Israel and to rid it of all Jews. And the land which they wanted to cleanse of Jews is "the promised land" to which by a seeming miracle Jews were able to return after the horror of the Holocaust, fulfilling a 2,000-year-old dream.Chechnya is a small province, located at the margin of the Russian state, never completely subdued, populated by a nation alien to and disliked by the Russian people, and moreover, a province whose formal incorporation into theempire has brought Russia nothing but trouble.In the end, Israel came to understand that the Palestinians could not be ignored and suppressed forever. Palestinians, after all, are human beings, and however difficult it may be to make the necessary compromises, establishing peace with them lies within the realm of possibility. Enormous difficulties have had to be overcome, and the fruits of this understanding are only now slowly ripening. For Yitzhak Rabin to shake the hand of Arafat, stained with the blood of innocent Jewish women and children, was psychologically extremely difficult. It required great courage, and it cost Rabin his life (at the hands of a Jew, not a Palestinian). And for Arafat this handshake was also a painful, dangerous, and maybe even repugnant experience. But most Jews and Arabs now realize that reconciliation is the only path to peace. There is no alternative.Russia is in a similar situation with respect to Chechnya. The terrorists responsible for the bombs in Moscow and Buinaksk should be tracked down and executed. But our government, by senselessly and unconscionably having driven the Chechen people into a corner and still continuing to bait them, must share the guilt for the explosions that cost the lives of hundreds ofour compatriots. Maybe it was Maskhadov's endless waiting for the telephone to ring and inform him when President Eltsin -- always so ready to meet with American and German leaders -- would deign to receive him, or maybe it was our government's ill-advised arrest in Moscow of Maskhadov's representative who had come to discuss joint action against terrorism and similar subjects,that finally convinced Chechens that nothing good could be expected from Russia and provoked a few fanatics to begin a campaign of slaughter. A disease breaks out when pathogens reach a specific level. Nothing is observable while they remain below the critical point, but as soon as it is breached, there is an explosive transition to a new phase. If we want healing for ourselves and the Chechens, then we have to learn what the Jewslearned -- that nothing is accomplished if you simply answer terror with counterterror. We have to recognize that to drive Chechens further into acorner is dangerous, as well as morally reprehensible -- the trials the Chechens have suffered entitle them to depart the Russian Federation in peace. We have to sit down and talk with Maskhadov. An accepted, viable Chechen state is as necessary now for Russia as for Chechnya. And in the end, recognition of Chechnya's independence is inevitable. To realize and accept all this demands greater courage from Russia's leaders than starting another war with Chechnya. After all, neither they nor their children will be called upon to fight in this war, and if it is lost, they can readily find an appropriate scapegoat. But taking a stand in oppositionto enflamed public and establishment opinion could ruin their careers.People like Rabin and Barak, who have looked death in the face, who have shown by their deeds that they are prepared to give their lives for theircountry, are capable of such courageous acts. In our situation, one man -- Alexander Lebed -- who can be accused of many things but not ofcowardice, showed himself willing to take such a risk. So far as I know, however, neither our president nor our prime minister, despite the fact that he is a former KGB officer, have ever risked their lives for our country.And it seems very unlikely that they will find the courage now to seek a realistic peace.