Putin has claimed that Chechnya is not responsible for this week's Moscow airport bombing. But the volatile region is still under the microscope.
By Ross Bonander,
Page 1: Chechnya: 5 Things Men Should Know
Chechnya: 5 Things Men Should Know The republic of Chechnya, no bigger than the state of Connecticut, occupies just 0.1% of Russia's total land mass. Its people represent just 0.77% percent of the country's population. Yet Chechnya somehow manages to be the cause of a disproportionate amount of headaches at the Kremlin.
The most recent headache could well stem from the January 24th bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport. Though Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that Chechen rebels are not responsible for the attack, Russia's most volatile region is still under the microscope. The story is changing by the minute, but if it turns out that Chechens -- or "freedom fighters" from one of its Northern Caucasus neighbors, Ingushetia and Dagestan -- are involved, it will be only the latest terrorist act committed in the name of independence by a people whose history includes the assassination of journalists and chatty ex-KGB agents, deadly apartment bombings, and disastrous hostage takings.
If Chechnya's such a problem, then why doesn't Moscow just cut her loose? Unfortunately for the republic (and its neighbors), it is a major part of Russia's North Caucasus economic region -- rich in oil, coal and natural gas.
As the dust settles at Domodedovo, we present five things men should know about Chechnya.
1- Chechnya's leader is alleged to have a private prison at his home
The first thing men should know about Chechnya is that rebellion against the government might earn you a trip to the president's compound. This might sound fantastic, but the compound is alleged to feature a private prison where, according to Human Rights Watch, dissidents and others are tortured and/or killed.
Chechnya is led by the youthful Ramzan Kadyrov, a pro-Moscow president in his mid-30s who, as a teenager, fought alongside his father with rebel forces against Russian troops in the first Chechen war in the 1990s. By the time of the second war, in 1999, both father and son had traded allegiances, allowing for the ultimate ascension of Ramzan's father to the first presidency of the pro-Moscow Chechen Republic. Ramzan himself assumed the office in 2007 despite, or perhaps on account of, allegations of his widespread involvement in the bloody suppression of any hint of rebellion in the region over the prior decade.
Though life is believed to be growing more stable in Chechnya, the region is still regarded by some to be among the most repressive societies in the world, on par with the likes ofNorth Korea.
2- Chechnya rebels whenever Mother Russia appears unstable
The modern history of Chechen rebellion against Mother Russia is one of opportunism, of striking while the iron is hot and the government in Moscow is in a state of chaos or instability. Rebellious attempts to break free and achieve self-rule in one form or another occurred during the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the bloody Russian Civil War, World War II, and in the first and second Chechen wars waged since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, to name just a few. Arguably the only rebellion to enjoy even a modicum of success was the declaration of the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus in 1917, which lasted long enough (until 1920) for the Bolshevik Red Army to reach the region and stomp out any hopes at sovereignty.
There are three more things men should know about Chechnya next...
Page 2: 5 Things Men Should Know About Chechnya
3- Chechnya's geography gives us the word "Caucasian"
Another thing men should know about Chechnya is that its geography amid the Caucasus Mountains lent itself to the racial identifier "Caucasian" despite the fact that its origins are dubious and that it has been fully discredited.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, this association was first made by the German anthropologist Johann Blumenbach in 1795, who extracted the term "Caucasian" and applied it to the white race because he believed the region was that race's ancestral homeland.
4- Stalin committed genocide on Chechnya during World War II
The rebellious nature of the people of Chechnya has proven costly over the years, as it has generally been met with an iron-fisted response and resulted in the deaths of freedom fighters and innocents equally. Perhaps never was this so horrifically the case than in the wake of the Nazi retreat from Russia following the tide-turning battle of Stalingrad.
In February of 1944, Stalin, convinced that the people of Chechnya had collaborated with the German army, sought to teach them a lesson in Stalinist cruelty and ordered the deportation of over 386,000 native Chechen peoples to Siberian gulags. This act, which resulted in the deaths of at least one in three deportees, was finally declared in 2004 as an act of genocide by the European Parliament.
5- At one point, only the Taliban recognized Chechnya's separatist government
The last thing men should know about Chechnya concerns the shaky Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the region's come-and-go separatist government.
Formed in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of its leaders have, over the years, operated under the protection of asylum in Europe and the United States, largely because it has struggled mightily to earn loyalty from within its own borders and acceptance at the international level. Legitimacy for any newly formed rebel government comes from official recognition by other governments and governmental bodies around the world, and in this regard the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria has run into major hurdles. At one point, the only other government in the world that formally recognized its existence was Afghanistan's Taliban -- hardly the glowing stamp of approval to make Moscow reconsider its hard-line historical stance against Chechen autonomy.
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