Chechnya

[Rodion Romanovich]

Just curious about what people think of the conflict in Chechnya, and what other conflicts they think the Chechnya conflict is comparable to. A few suggestions:
- Indochina wars - trying to prevent an ideology and political movement from spreading, by attacking the latest faction to adopt the political ideology
- North Ireland - fighting an independence movement that is considered terrorists by some, freedom fighters by others. There are motives for independence, but also a few motives for preventing separation
- the Basque - as North Ireland, adding that many of the Basque separatist movements also have communist ideologies which the local population doesn't support
- Iraq - a war to secure oil industry, covered in political motives

Some figures on death tolls in these conflicts:
- Chechnya - 7,500 Russian military, 4,000 Chechen combatants, and no less than 35,000 civilians—a minimum total of 46,500 dead. Others have cited figures in the range 80,000 to 100,000
- French Indochina war - French 94,581 dead, 78,127 wounded, 40,000 captured. Vietnamese: 300,000+ dead, 500,000+ wounded, 100,000 captured
- Vietnam War - south Vietnamese 230,000 dead, 300,000 wounded, U.S. 58,246 dead, 153,490 wounded. VC 1,100,000 dead, 600,000 wounded. Other: 6,612 dead, 17,600 wounded. Civilian dead (total Vietnamese): 900,000–4,000,000.
- North Ireland - 1318 combattants, 80 civilians, 40,000 people injured.
- the Basque - by ETA: around 900 dead by terrorist attacks, and dozens of kidnappings. More than 500 ETA militants held in prison in Spain and France.
- Gulf war - US 378 dead, 1,000 wounded. Iraq 250,000 dead, 75,000 wounded.
- Iraq war - Total deaths/wounded (all Iraqis) Johns Hopkins: 392,979 - 942,636 dead, 1,296,830 wounded. War-related & criminal violence deaths (all Iraqis) Iraq Health Minister: 100,000-150,000. War-related & criminal violence deaths (civilians) Iraq Body Count-english language media only: 56102-61816. None of these figures count the casualties of the at least 100,000 US hired mercenaries.

My questions are:
1. which conflicts do you think the Chechnya conflict is comparable to in terms of motives?
2. which conflicts do you think the Chechnya conflict is comparable to in death tolls and suffering for civilians?
3. can the Chechnyan combattants be classified as terrorists, or should they be called freedom fighters?
4. are the Russian actions in Chechnya war crimes?
5. should countries with democratic constitutions be proud over seeing democratic countries being guilty of worse civilian massdeath and atrocies than a country that is in western media depicted as a dictatorship? What errors are present in our constitutions to repeatedly allow PMs and Presidents who wish to carry out such actions to win, while more peaceful candidates are ridiculed? Do we have a culture that makes people who have peaceful solutions look weak and violent loose cannons look cool? Or is it the fact that we have two-party systems and the constitutional crises that follow upon that? How can we solve the two-party system problem before it causes more massdeath?
6. what do you think should be done in Chechnya instead of what is done today?
7. could we (western world) also learn something from the answers we give to question no. 6 above?

[cegorach]

[QUOTE=LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix]

1. which conflicts do you think the Chechnya conflict is comparable to in terms of motives?

Kosovo or the Irish independence war in 1919-22.

2. which conflicts do you think the Chechnya conflict is comparable to in death tolls and suffering for civilians?

Bosnia, I think, but rather more brutal.

3. can the Chechnyan combattants be classified as terrorists, or should they be called freedom fighters?

Combatants, but there are the Basayev's followers who used terrorism. The desperate measures employed by desperate men.

4. are the Russian actions in Chechnya war crimes?

Overall yes.

5. should countries with democratic constitutions be proud over seeing democratic countries being guilty of worse civilian massdeath and atrocies than a country that is in western media depicted as a dictatorship? What errors are present in our constitutions to repeatedly allow PMs and Presidents who wish to carry out such actions to win, while more peaceful candidates are ridiculed? Do we have a culture that makes people who have peaceful solutions look weak and violent loose cannons look cool? Or is it the fact that we have two-party systems and the constitutional crises that follow upon that? How can we solve the two-party system problem before it causes more massdeath?

That is strictly political question addressing other issues so I treat it as off-topic and will not answer it.

6. what do you think should be done in Chechnya instead of what is done today?

Talking with the nationalist/independence faction of the rebells would be the best solution. Some sort of autonomy with a government which can be credited with some respect and support of the local population would lead to better future, but here it probably it is too late already - Maskhadov is dead and the men who raplaced him cannot controll the fighters so well, besides he was the democratically elected president of Chechenya and they are not anymore.
The terrorist factions will grow in strenghts, though disorganised for now.
Chechens will swell the ranks of mercenary community further, but it is a question of time before a new generation disgusted with the current situation will start fighting.
Right now we have a band of collaborators led by a real thug Kadyrov ( he is a criminal - a real one) who use Russian federal support and a local police force consisting of often forrmer guerillas blackmailed to join them - 'the Kadyrovcy' are currently the most hated men in that country.

Since the Russian governemtn never really meant any form of compromise they were left only one option - pacification, but it is short time solution.

7. could we (western world) also learn something from the answers we give to question no. 6 above?

Never treat everyone opposing you as a scum to be eradicated - but we already know that.
Never target civilins without hesitation - but we already know that.

In other words - unlikely -to a democratic society with strong respect to human life the war in Chehcenya is everything we do not accept

[Grey_Fox]

- North Ireland - 1318 combattants, 80 civilians, 40,000 people injured.
- Gulf war - US 378 dead, 1,000 wounded. Iraq 250,000 dead, 75,000 wounded.

Those two sets of figures are way off.

In Northern Ireland there are 1855 dead civilians to date.

Wikipedia has an accurate account of casualties, for all it's other faults.

As for the Iraqi Army casualties in the First Gulf War, no way in hell were 1/4 of a million soldiers killed, since there were only 250,000 Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait in the first place. Sure they initially started with 500,000, but over half of those deserted even before the air campaign began.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I actually came from wikipedia, the very source you were recommending Yes, on second thought the two examples you pointed out do seem inaccurata. However the remaining should be pretty ok.

[Grey_Fox]

I meant for the Northern Ireland casualties, to which I specifically linked.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ok, I made the mistake of checking this wiki page instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_I...ubles.E2.80.9D

[IrishArmenian]

Chechnya is a very odd case as the people do not have any real claim to their land. They, like the Azerbajainis (no offense to any of you), are Tatar descendants who were relocated to prevent their baiting of Russia into a full-blown war that the Ottomans could not handle.
The thing that bothers me so much though is that the Chechens are willing to hold a school full of children hostage and shoot them. That really hurts their image as "Freedom Fighters". They have really shifted to terrorists in my mind.
Remember, one man's freedom fighters are another man's terrorists.