It is hardly surprising that the Chechens have resorted to the crime of suicide bombing. Like the Palestinians, they are beyond desperation. The war between separatists and Russia over the past decade has robbed them of what makes life worth living. Three-quarters of the one million population have lost relatives; two-thirds have had their homes destroyed; over half cannot find any work; hundreds of thousands have fled to the misery of refugee camps over the borders. But unlike the Palestinians, their endless agony is ignored, mainly because the world considers that good relations with Russia are more important. Theirs is a forgotten conflict, springing briefly to international attention only when there is some new atrocity, as happened on Saturday with the suicide bombings at a Moscow rock concert in which 15 people died, including the two female bombers.
It was therefore particularly ironic that, only the day before, Russian President Vladimir Putin had deemed the situation in Chechnya sufficiently stable to announce presidential elections there for Oct. 3 and transfer control for operations from the security forces to the interior ministry. Now, breathing fire and brimstone, he threatens to “dig up the terrorists out of their basements and caves” and destroy them. The language is ominous. It is highly reminiscent of his threat in 1999 to wipe out the rebels “even in their toilets” after a series of bomb blasts, most notably on an apartment block in Moscow, which some 300 dead and which the Russians blamed on the Chechens. That threat resulted in military onslaught against Chechnya that was massive and merciless. Much of the capital Grozny was razed; some 200,000 civilians fled into neighboring Russian republics; and there were persistent accusations from human rights organizations of torture and other abuses by the Russian Army — accusations that began to sound true after the discovery of a mass grave.
It would be catastrophic if the same were to happen again. Any attempt to strike terror into the hearts of the Chechens is bound to fail. All it will do is breed more suicide bombers. Saturday’s barbarity — because that is what it was — was the fifth suicide attack since December. The only way out of the living nightmare is by giving the Chechens hope for the future. Difficult as it will be for the Russians, it means ignoring the atrocities and plowing ahead with the political process — with talks with the elected government of Aslan Maskhadov, whom the Russians ousted and with the elections in October. It means continuing the reconstruction of the country — the rebuilding of Grozny, getting the refugees home and putting life back into the economy. Further repression will only mean more bombs, more innocent Russians civilians being brutally murdered.
