From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/8/2005 3:35 PM
        TRANSITIONS ONLINE: Chechnya: In Need of a Pilot, not Pilate
by TOL
5 December 2005     

Is the "Chechenization" of Chechnya truly good for Chechnya and for Russia?

In the past eight days, there have been three major votes in former Soviet states. In one – a constitutional referendum in Armenia – the president received 93 percent support. In another – a presidential vote in Kazakhstan – a man who has already been president for 15 years has won the kind of support (91 percent) freely gained only in truly exceptional instances, such as the Georgia's post-revolution presidential elections. In the third – a parliamentary vote – overwhelming support was given to men who, as it happened, generally already had powerful seats in various levels of government. In all three, the official turnout was very healthy. In all cases, observers reported quiet voting.

So, since normal in these parts means fraud, there is some substance in claiming that the parliamentary elections in Chechnya on 27 November were a sign of normality.

But more important than the substance of the phrase is the hollowness of calling anything in Chechnya "normal" – and President Vladimir Putin would like us to think life in Chechnya is becoming more normal. But, at best, it is becoming "normalized" in the Soviet sense, the hard-line "normalization" imposed in renegade states like Czechoslovakia after the Soviet invasion of 1968.

PUTIN AS PILOT

The modern version of that normalization is "Chechenization," the notion that Chechnya should be run by tough Chechen sympathizers, rather than Russian military rulers, and that some of the military or law-and-order burden should be carried by Chechen authorities. Also intrinsic in Chechenization is the belief that having a Chechen face on a Russian regime will increase the regime's popular legitimacy.

This policy has arguments in its favor. Though not independent, Chechens should at least have a sense that statehood is being nurtured. Though ultimate power of course remains with the Kremlin, Chechenization gives Chechens some power and responsibility. The existence of a Chechen parliament is, in that context, another sign that some degree of sovereignty is possible. And, though real legislative power remains in Moscow, the parliament will at least have some degree of responsibility. Moreover, a truly Chechen administration raises the possibility of teaching Chechens some of the technocratic skills that they were deprived of in the Soviet era: unlike other Soviet nationalities, the Chechens were systematically kept out of public office until late in the Soviet era, a policy that contributed to the calamity when Chechnya enjoyed de facto independence between 1996 and 1999.

But such arguments are being mugged by reality. The result, as a group of human-rights groups, including the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, puts it in 62-page report on the parliamentary elections, is that “there are two Chechnyas today. In the first one, the life of a human being means nothing.… In the other, life has normalized. Houses and bridges are being built, fields cultivated, and representatives of federal and security services with active support of the population successfully combat the remaining contracted foreign fighters and local bandits. It does not matter much that this Chechnya, constructed by Kremlin propagandists, exists only in the virtual space. The important thing is: many people in and outside Russia believe (or pretend to believe) in this Chechnya.”

PUTIN AS PILATE?

Why does Chechenization seem not to be working?

One reason is the scale of the challenge implicit in Chechenization, which is to build peace in the midst of war.

Another lies in its implementation. The policy assumes that Chechen leaders will busy themselves with the task of building Chechen society. That has not happened. Instead, there has been the pro-Moscow Chechen version of the lack of discipline, violence, and crime that has typified the Russian army's performance. The process became known as “Kadyrovization,” but unfortunately it did not end with the assassination of President Akhmad Kadyrov in May 2004. It persists in the form of his even more violent son, Ramzan, the first deputy prime minister.

But a third possible reason goes to the heart of the purpose of Chechenization. The real purpose is open to question. One interpretation is that the aim is truly progressive, an attempt – in effect – to build peace among the rubble by "capacity building," nurturing a Chechen political and technocratic elite to run Chechnya and building up their legitimacy by investing heavily in re-building Chechnya. Put another way, that interpretation assumes that what is underway is a Chechenization of a quasi-peace.

Another possible interpretation is that Russia is merely Chechenizing the war, with pro-Moscow Chechens being given greater responsibility to establish control. In practice, Russia's policy is to try and downgrade the Chechen resistance so that what was a war becomes a law-and-order problem to be dealt with by the local authorities. In principle, that can be interpreted, depending on the deposit of skepticism left by Putin's six years in power, either as a policy to strengthen Moscow's Chechen friends by giving them more power – or as a way for the Kremlin to gradually wash its hands of the problem.

But for Putin to wash his hands would not only be to act like Pilate, it would also be absurd. Moscow is such an intrinsic part of the problem that any attempt to end the war requires Moscow to play a very central role.

Unfortunately, Putin long ago closed off the best and most logical role that the Kremlin could play – to enter peace talks – and now, following the death in early 2005 of Chechnya's interwar president, Aslan Maskhadov, Putin has no obvious Chechen leader to talk to. The more pressing question now should be whether, by stepping back, Russia is in fact encouraging another, unequivocally negative form of Chechenization: the destabilization of the North Caucasus.

THE CAUCASUS WITHOUT A PILOT

The danger of destabilization was made frighteningly clear by the slaughter in Beslan in September 2004. Since then, there may have been no sharp lurch into inter-ethnic violence, but there has been a steady undermining of the region, with numerous attacks on officials and symbols of authority and, in turn, widespread human-rights abuses of "suspects." (The role such abuses may play in radicalizing opposition was detailed in a Guardian report published last week.)

None of this can, of course, be good for Russia. But one explanation at least offers Russia some consolation: weakened in Chechnya, the Chechen rebels may be seeking to light a fire elsewhere. For the Russian military, this is a positive interpretation since it suggests that they have at least been successful in downgrading the military capacity of the rebels. In this interpretation, this instability is the by-product (hopefully temporary rather than persistent) of a war that Russia is winning.

But there may be another logic at work. Russia's policy of Chechenization effectively pits Chechens against Chechens and Chechen rebels against a proto-Chechen state. That may not matter to those for whom the war has chiefly become a form of livelihood. But this Chechenization may simply encourage those who view Russia as the primary enemy to take war outside Chechnya and into other parts of Russia. For the Russian political elite, this should be a worry: instead of ring-fencing the war in Chechnya and reducing it to an internecine struggle, Chechenization might instead be spawning more problems. And the further the conflict goes from its specific roots – as a Chechen demand for greater power and a clash between a now destroyed Chechen quasi-independent state and the Russian state – the more likely it is that the ideologies involved in the struggle will become more general and transnational. In other words, Chechenization may encourage pan-Islamic, pan-regional anti-Russian sentiment.

Chechenization may be proving itself unfit for the challenge of establishing peace and it may also be failing as a containment policy. But, at the same time, peace talks are not on the cards and the years of unfortunate experience with the alternative to Chechenization – direct Russian military rule – suggest that Moscow is likely to stick with its current policy. The question, then, is how to make Chechenization better.

One way is obvious: to choose different Chechens to "win" elections and Chechenize Chechnya. And, indeed, the problem of implementation – and who implements Chechenization – may be the main problem with the policy. He may not be president, but Ramzan Kadyrov is seen as the power behind the presidency and a man who is expected quickly to assume the presidency when next year he passes 30, the minimum age for the post. He is already a man with too much power and a man too brutal to serve Russia or Chechnya well. He and his men should be removed. Unfortunately, in Putin's eyes, he is a "Hero of Russia."
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