BY NATASHA ROTSTEIN, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Chechens have long struggled for their independence from Russia.

Some of Russia's 100 nationalities were granted their own ethnic enclave with varying formal federal rights in Soviet times. Smaller nationalities were not granted such recognition. Relations between the central government calling for far-reaching autonomy and subordinate jurisdictions became a political issue in the 1990s. These demands were satisfied by concessions over regional autonomy and tax privileges in almost all cases and The Federation Treaty was signed by everyone except Chechnya and Tatarstan.

Thus, Russian forces entered Chechnya in December 1994 in the hope of recapturing the breakaway southern republic. They failed. The war lasted two years, until Aug. 31, 1996. Official Russian statistics put the number of dead soldiers at 5,500, while the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia estimates that 14,000 soldiers died during the war. Statistics for Chechen losses vary too. Some estimates indicate 100,000 people. Mostly civilians died during the first war, while other statistics put that number at 50,000.

The second Chechen War broke out in September 1999 when Russian military forces began bombing within Chechnya and sent in ground troops soon after. According to numbers released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Aug. 10, 2005, roughly 3,450 Russian Army soldiers have been killed in action since 1999. The Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia estimates that some 11,000 servicemen have been killed, with another 25,000 wounded since 1999. It is estimated that roughly 250,000 Chechen civilians died between 1994 and 2003.

According to a statement submitted to the United Nations in February of 2006 by the Society for Threatened Peoples, a non-governmental organization based in Germany: "The second war in the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation has played an integral role in the rollback of human rights in Vladimir Putin's Russia and has affected its political trajectory, helping to strengthen those in favor of authoritarianism."

The society stated that the war has led to a rise in terrorism not only in Chechnya, but in the neighboring republics as well. The organization documented examples of human rights abuses, including masked security forces kidnapping fathers and sons, and stripping a young man to his underwear, beating him and throwing him on flames.

"The civilian population of Chechnya lives in constant fear," the report stated.

According to reports issued by the Human Rights Watch, Chechnya has become a dangerous place for civilians.

"We have also found compelling evidence of at least three sets of massacres, in which Russian forces summarily executed at least 122 unarmed civilians, many of them women and the elderly. Russian forces have looted Chechen homes with abandon, raped women, and arrested hundreds of civilians - men, women and children - on suspicion of aiding rebel fighters," one report says.

But Chechens are not always victims of violence at the hands of Russians.

Chechen men and women took 900 hostages at a crowded House of Culture of the State Ball-Bearing Plant Number 1, a Moscow theater, on Oct. 23, 2002. In the early morning of October 26, Russia's Special Forces stormed the building from the roof and from all entrances after pumping an aerosol anesthetic into the theater. As a result, 33 terrorists and 128 hostages died in the raid or in the days that followed.

Two years later, on Sept. 1, 2004, armed terrorists, most of whom were Chechen, took over a school in Beslan, in North Ossetia . Roughly 1,200 school children at School Number One were held hostage. A shooting broke out between the terrorists and Russian security forces on the third day. As a result, 344 civilians, 186 of them children, were killed. Shamil Basayev, a Chechen, took responsibility for the attack.

There are currently 25,000 federal forces from Russia in Chechnya, but the federal government would like to send 5,000 additional troops to the area.

The situation in Checnya still appears to be dangerous, but improving too.

The Interior Ministry of Chechnya presented a service and combat report for 2005, which stated that the number of acts of terrorism decreased from 214 in 2004 to 95 in 2005. Chechnya's police forces also reported that 79 acts of terrorism were solved in 2005, up from 59 in 2004.

At the same time, the Chechen Interior Ministry's data indicates that 121 of its personnel were killed in 2005 and 283 wounded. A year earlier, in 2004, only 117 personnel were killed and 190 wounded. The federal personnel casualty rate remains high, at 19 to 20 people per month.

June 2006

28-Jun-06 | 1:54 PM
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Filed under: Chechnya, Feature Stories



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