Хаос на Кавказе
Saint-Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance
English Language Department
Chair 1
“The Chaos In the Caucasus”
Written by Nebesoff I.,
453. gr.
Checked by Kirillova O.G.
Saint-Petersburg,
2002.
Contents.
Contents. 2
Introduction. 3
Chapter 1. History of terrorism. 4
Chapter 2. Clash, or conspiracy? 5
Chapter 3. Enter the Wahhabis 6
Chapter 4. Geopolicy. 8
Chapter 5. Economy. 9
Conclusion 12
Introduction.
You see, nowadays the Caucasus problem is one of the sharpest and most
important for our country. Chechnya and Dagestan are not only oil, but the
source of destability and terrorism.
After last autumn events in the United States even Americans and
Europeans understood that war in Checnya is not only Russia’s internal
business, and this war, which we have been leading for several years
already is not only the wish of the Russian Government and oligarchs to
take ‘their piece of pie’ from the Caucasus oil. The world community has
finally recognised that threat of world-wide terrorism is not a myth, and
this battle has to be led by forces of all countries, which want to live
undisturbed.
In this work I am trying to show the roots of Islam movement and the
history of confrontation in Chechnya. Another aim of this paper is to show
links between Chechnya and world Islamic terrorism, and to show how these
links work. Only when we recognise that terrorism is the ‘world-wide web’,
civilized world would be able to unite against this, maybe, the greatest
evil on the Earth, and, probably, one of the biggest world problems in the
new century.
And the last aim was to show how the Chechen war is affecting the
Russian economy, and what losses we have had since this war started
Chapter 1. History of terrorism.
At least until recently, the main enemy of Islamic terrorism seemed to
be the United States. However diverse and quarrelsome its practitioners,
they knew what they hated most: the global policeman whom they accused of
propping up Israel, starving the Iraqis and undermining the Muslim way of
life with an insidiously attractive culture.
Anti-Americanism, after all, has been a common thread in a series of
spectacular acts of violence over the past decade. They include the bombing
of the World Trade Centre in New York in February 1993; the explosion that
killed 19 American soldiers at a base in Saudi Arabia in June 1996; and the
deadly blasts at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August
1998.
In many of the more recent attacks it has suffered, the United States
has discerned the hand of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-bom coordinator of an
international network of militant Muslims. In February last year, he and
his sympathisers in Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh issued a statement
declaring that "to kill the Americans and their allies-civilian and
military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it."
Now, it might appear, Russia's turn has come to do battle on a new
front in this many-sided conflict. The Russian government has blamed
terrorists from the country's Muslim south for a series of bomb blasts in
Moscow and other cities which have claimed over 300 lives. And it has
launched a broadening land and air attack against the mainly Muslim
republic of Chechnya, where the terrorists are alleged to originate.
In their more strident moments, officials and newspaper columnists in
Moscow say that Russia is in the forefront of a fight between "civilisation
and barbarism" and is therefore entitled to western understanding. "We face
a common enemy, international terrorism,"
Whereas western countries have chided Russia (mildly) for its military
operation against Chechnya, Iran has been much more supportive. Kamal
Kharrazi, Iran's foreign minister, has promised "effective collaboration"
with the Kremlin against what he has described as terrorists bent on
destabilising Russia. Russia, for its part, has thanked Iran for using its
chairmanship of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to present the
Russian case.
Perhaps because of Russia's friendship with certain parts of the
Muslim world, Mr Putin has firmly rejected the view that the "bandits"
Russia is now fighting could properly be described as Islamic. "They are
international terrorists, most of them mercenaries, who cover themselves in
religious slogans," he insists.
But ordinary Muslims in the Moscow street — whether they are of
Caucasian origin, or from the Tatar or Bashkir nations based in central
Russia — fear a general backlash. "Politicians and the mass media are
equating us, the Muslim faithful, with armed groups," complains Ravil
Gainutdin, Russia's senior mufti. Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the
Russian Orthodox church, has been urging his flock not to blame their i8m
Muslim compatriots for the recent violence. "Russian Christians and Muslims
traditionally live in peace," he has reminded them.
Chapter 2. Clash, or conspiracy?
But even if Russia's southern war is not yet a "clash of
civilisations", might it soon become one? And if so, would that bring
Russia closer to the West, or push it farther away?
Islam is certainly one element in the crisis looming on Russia's
southern rim, but it is by no means the only one. The latest flare-up began
in August in the wild border country between Chechnya — which has been
virtually independent since Russian troops were forced out, after two years
of brutal war, in 1996 — and Dagestan, a ramshackle, multiethnic republic
where a pro-Russian government has been steadily losing control.
Many people in Russia did not need any evidence; the government's
allegations simply confirmed the anti-Chechen, and generally anti-
Caucasian, prejudice they already harboured. Other Russians take a more
cynical view. They believe the bomb attacks are somehow related to the
power struggle raging in Moscow as the "courtiers" of Ex-President Yeltsin
try to cling to their power and privilege in the face of looming electoral
defeat.
Such incidents are grist to the mill of Moscow's conspiracy theorists.
Some believe that the bombs were indeed the work of Chechen extremists, but
insist that the fighting in the south is mainly the result of Russian
provocation; some say it is the other way round. Whatever the truth, the
crisis has certainly played into the hands of the most hardline elements in
Russia's leadership. But there are also signs that people from outside
Russia have been stirring the pot.
Mark Galeotti, a British lecturer on Russia's armed forces, says there
is evidence that Mr bin Laden, while not the instigator of the urban
bombing campaign, has offered financial help to its perpetrators. And
fighters under the influence of Mr bin Laden have certainly been active in
Chechnya and Dagestan — though their presence is probably not the main
reason why war is raging now.
With or without some mischief-making by dark forces in Moscow, Russia
would have a problem in the northern Caucasus. Hostility between Russians
and Chechens goes back to the north Caucasian wars of the i9th century,
when the tsar's forces took more than 50 years to bring the Chechens under
control. As well as strong family loyal-ries, part of the glue that held
the Chechens and other north Caucasian people together was Sufism, the
mystical strand of Islam.
The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 promised to liberate all the subject
peoples of the sariat empire. As civil war loomed, Lenin and Stalin made a
cynical bid for Muslim support by promising the creation of semi-
independent Islamic states in Russia and central Asia, saying: "All you
whose mosques and houses of prayer have been destroyed, whose beliefs and
customs have been flouted by the tsars and the oppressors of Russia — from
now on your beliefs and customs, your national and cultural institutions
are free and inviolable."
The reality of Soviet rule was, of course, very different. Periods of
repression alternated with periods of relative toleration, but prechens
(along with seven other ethnic groups) were deported en masse to Kazakhstan
as part of Stalin's policy of punishing "untrustworthy" ethnic groups. But
Chechen culture, in particular, proved remarkably hard to destroy.
By the i98os, there were estimated to be 50m Soviet citizens of Muslim
ancestry. For most of them, Soviet rule had had a powerful secularising
effect. Out of cultural habit, many still circumcised their baby boys and
buried their dead according to Muslim custom. But the closure of all but a
handful of mosques, and the virtual end of religious education, meant that
knowledge of Islam had nearly evaporated.
Among the few places in the Soviet Union where Islam remained fairly
strong was the northern Caucasus. The Sufi tradition was well able to
survive in semi-clan-destine conditions. Even without mosques, the Chechens
were able to go on venerating the memory of their local sheikhs and
performing traditional dances and chants.
Chapter 3. Enter the Wahhabis
Страницы: 1, 2
