Whoever carried out Monday’s deadly suicide bombing attack on the Nazran police headquarters in the Russian province of Ingushetia left a clear message amidst the carnage and debris of the assault. More than 20 people died and over 130 were maimed. That message is, whatever the Kremlin claims, all is very far from peaceful in the Russian-ruled Caucasus.
This indeed is the latest in a string of attacks being blamed on extremists throughout the region. Daghestan’s interior minister was gunned down at a wedding in June, and a week later Ingushetia’s Moscow-appointed leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was injured in an attack. Yevkurov has blamed the West for sponsoring terrorist attacks in order to undermine Russia’s return to superpower status. Such an accusation seems very wide off the mark since Washington and the rest of NATO need Moscow’s support in Afghanistan. Also in simplistic Western analyses, extremists in the Caucasus are generally seen as little different from the Taleban and Al-Qaeda.
This is, however, very far from the case. Since its 19th century conquest of the Caucasus, Russian rule has often been harsh. The suppression of the latest Chechen insurgency demonstrated just how brutal and uncompromising Moscow’s tactics could be. Its military was prepared to turn the Chechen capital Grozny into another ravaged Stalingrad in order to defeat the rebels. Now uneasy peace reigns under the rule of Ramzan Kadyrov, a son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, assassinated in May 2004. Dissident elements are kept in line by the president’s private army, the Kadyrovtsy, whose ruthless behavior including torture and murder, have reportedly shocked even some local Russian commanders.
Yet it appears that the Kremlin considers human rights’ abuses a small price to pay for keeping the lid on regional unrest. It is happy to play local warlords off against each other and turn a blind eye to their conduct as long as they support Russian policy. The problem is that this no-holds barred repression is now having exactly the reverse effect. Ordinary people in Ingushetia, Daghestan, North Ossetia, Karachayevo-Cherkessiya, Kabardino-Balkariya and Dygeya, to say nothing of Chechnya, have become disgusted with the way that the Russian police and military or their local satraps act with wanton violence toward anyone suspected of supporting the rebels — this month a Chechen farmer accused of allowing rebels to seize a sheep was shot dead on the spot.
In such a world in which common humanity, let alone the rule of law, is totally lacking, it is hardly surprising that once moderate opinion is becoming radicalized and tacit, if not open, support for the rebels is growing. Yet even a Caucasus-wide insurgency is doomed to failure, not least because individual rebel warlords are unlikely to work together to defeat Russian military might. There is no single outstanding leader like the legendary Shamyl. Therefore, unless Moscow is prepared to address local concerns and talk to its Muslim citizens, a bloody, expensive and ultimately inconclusive struggle lies ahead in which many innocents will suffer.
