IT was quite natural for President Vladimir Putin and his government to hail the killing Tuesday of Chechnya’s former President Aslan Maskhadov as a great victory against terrorism. But that is strictly the Russian view. The perception outside is that death sentences for thousands more Chechens and Russians were signed in Maskhadov’s blood.
Maskhadov, Chechnya’s only elected president, was the only rebel leader of any stature who consistently maintained that his country’s agony would end only through negotiation, not violence. And Maskhadov was better qualified than most to make this judgment. He had led the Chechen forces in the successful ouster of Russian troops during the 1994-1996 independence war. A former high-flying senior Russian officer, Maskhadov knew that the victory then had been scored against a disorganized and demoralized soldiery directed by a Yeltsin Kremlin with little idea what to do next. When Maskhadov was elected to succeed the slain President Dudayev, it was of a state that was effectively independent though Moscow had made no formal recognition of the fact.
The arrival of Vladimir Putin as Yeltsin’s prime minister and then successor changed everything. The new Russian leader has from the start made the violent suppression of the Chechen revolt, a symbol of his political virility, his demonstration to the Russian electorate that he is the unflinching strongman for which so many seem to yearn.
The $10-million Russian bounty on Maskhadov’s head therefore represented just how much Putin believed it was worth to destroy the only opponent who recognized that continued fighting would resolve nothing for the Chechen people. The slain leader’s former political rival Shamil Basayev, the mastermind behind the odious Beslan school attack and the Moscow theater siege among other atrocities, is far more the sort of enemy that Putin wants to face. Basayev’s barbarities and his political extremism have revolted ordinary Russians who want him crushed. It now seems inevitable that the contest will go on and Putin will still be able to demonstrate his grit and toughness. Tough guys don’t negotiate.
A week before he died, Maskhadov told a foreign radio reporter that if he had 30 minutes face to face with Putin, the conflict could be ended. He knew of course that no such meeting could take place because the Kremlin had branded him a terrorist and said it would not talk to those so branded. Nevertheless, as long as Maskhadov lived, there was always the chance that some important Russians might reach out to him and explore a peaceful settlement, thus producing the possibility that the conflict could stop.
The Russian people are nothing if not dogged. They understand the grinding agony of a war of attrition far better than the cut and thrust of a blitzkrieg. In the current political climate, Putin need fear no electoral backlash at the continuing cost in Russian blood and coin of his campaign to stamp out Chechen independence. There is now no foreseeable danger of peace.
