War Languages Wars in Chechnya

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War LanguagesWars in Chechnya

• Vesa Matteo Piludu

University of Helsinki Department of Art Research
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Chechnya
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Chechnya
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The Caucasian Wars 18171864

• Wars in Chechnya and Dagestan
• Resistence led by Ghazi Mollah, Gamzat-bek and
  Hadji Murad Imam Shamil
• The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin referred to
  the war in his poem The Prisoner of the Caucasus
  (1821)
• Leo Tolstoy gained much of his knowledge and
  experience of war for his book War and Peace from
  these encounters
• He wrote the short novel Hadji Murat 1896-1904,
  published after his death

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Franz Roubaud (1856-1928). Surrender of Shamil
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Stalins deportations

• In 1944, more than 1 million Chechens, Ingush,
  and several other North Caucasian peoples were
  deported to Siberia

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1991 - 1993

• Dzhokhar Dudayev declaration of independence of
  Chechen-Ingush territories (1991)
• the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic split in
  two in June 1992
• The newly-created republic of Ingushetia joined
  the Russian Federation
• Chechnya declared full independence from Moscow
  in 1993 as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
• Confusion in 1993-4 unofficial civil war between
  supporters of Dudayev and opposition, Russia
  entered in the conflict

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The First Chechen War 1994 - 1996

• From December 1994 to August 1996
• On December 11, 1994, Russian forces launched a
  ground attack towards Grozny
• Deputy Minister of Defense Gen. Boris Gromov
  stated
• It will be a bloodbath, another Afghanistan
• More than 800 professional soldiers and officers
  refused to take part in the operation
• Boris Yeltsin's Propaganda easy blitzkrieg war

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Battle of Grozny 1994-1995

• heaviest bombing campaign in Europe since Dresden
• 35,000 civilians killed, including 5.000 children
• vast majority of killed were ethnic Russians
• Mikhail Gorbachev disgraceful, bloody
  adventure
• A hard guerrilla begun on the mountains
• Chechnya's Chief Mufti Akhmad Kadyrov's called a
  jihad
• Presence of radical Islamic groups
• The separatist begun to took hostages

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Budyonnovsk hospitals facts

• June 1995
• The separatist islamic group Abkhaz Battalion of
  Shamil Basayev (batlle name Emir Abdallah Shamil
  Abu-Idris, killed in 2006) took more than 1,500
  hostages in southern Russia in the Budyonnovsk
  hospital
• about 120-160 Russian civilians died before the
  ceasefire signed after by Basayev and Russian
  Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin

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Opposition to the war

• Relevance of media
• Demoralization of the Russian forces
• successful campaign on Grozny by by Aslan
  Maskhadov
• opposition of the Russian public to the conflict
  led Boris Yeltsin's government to declare a
  ceasefire in 2006,
• Humanitarian disaster 80.000 killed

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Chechen Republic of Ichkeriathe internal
struggles (1997-1999)

• Unofficial independence
• President Aslan Maskhadov
• Corruption reconstruction founds divided between
  warlords
• Kidnapping as source of income
• Political divisions Chechen National Guard
  versus Islamist groups
• Maskhadov versus Basayev

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The background to the second war

• The Chechnya-based Islamic International Brigade
  of Shamil Basayev and Ibn al-Khattab (killed in
  2002) invaded the neighboring Russian republic of
  Dagestan, in 1999, in support of the Shura of
  Dagestan separatist rebels
• Terrorist bombing in various cities of Russia,
  including Moscow were connected with Chechen
  terrorists three hundred Russian civilians died
• killed. The only person who claimed
  responsibility for bombings was an anonymous
  caller who said he belongs to a group called the
  Liberation army of Dagestan. However, the Russian
  government blamed Chechen separatists for the
  attack
• Two theories warlords theory and conspiracy
  theory

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Second Chechen War (1999-2009)

• Putin era
• First air bombing
• On 1th October 1999 land war begun
• Siege of Grozny 1999-2000
• Akhmad Kadyrov, at first a supported of Dudayev,
  changed side in the second war and became the
  head of the pro-Moskow goverment and became
  Presindent of the Chechen Repubblic in 2003
• He has been killed in 2004 in Grozny
• His son Ramzan Kadyrov, whose militia has been
  accused of any kind of atrocity, became the real
  ruler in 2005
• In 2007 he has been nominated President, with the
  support of Putin

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The Nord-Ost Theatre massacre

• Chechen rebel forces seized the Nord-Ost theatre
  in Moscow in April 2002
• Anna Politovskaya was trying to open a
  negotiation
• Russian forces refused to negotiate and gassed
  the entire building, killing one hundred and
  thirty of the Russian hostages and all the
  terrorist

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Beslan school

• A group of terrorist, supporters of Basayev, took
  more than 1000 people in hostage in a school in
  North Ossetia
• Russian security forces stormed the building
  using tanks and rockets
• Chaotic gun battle
• 334 hostage killed, 186 children

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A violent pacification or a

• All the prominent separatist were killed,
  including al-Kattab (2002) Maskhadov (2005) and
  Basayev (2006)
• Maskhadov was killed just after he issued a call
  for a ceasefire in 2005
• In 2007, the International Helsinki Federation
  for Human Rights published the report Amnestied
  People as Targets for Persecution in Chechnya,
  about several rebels who have been amnestied and
  subsequently abducted, tortured and killed
• In April 2009, Russia officially ended its
  counter-terrorism operation and pulled out the
  bulk of its army
• Violence are still present in the neighbouring
  republics
• In the two wars died 150.000 200.000 civilians

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Media under control

• Control of the national and local TV
• The access of journalist in on Chechnya was
  limited
• Censorship
• Intimidation
• Assassinations of jounalists
• Supian Ependiyev (killed in 1999)
• Roddy Scott (killed in 2002)
• Adlan Khasanov (killed in 2004)
• Ramzan Mezhidov (killed in 1999)
• Anna Politkovskaya (assassinated in 2006)

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Ramzan Kadyrov

• Separatist
• Leader of a militia supported by Russia's FSB
  state security service, the Kadyrovites
• Prime Minister
• President
• Nominated Hero of Russia
• Accused of several violation of human rights and
  killing political opponents
• Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the head of the Moscow
  Helsinki Group organisation, stated "Kadyrov is
  to blame for kidnappings of many innocent people.
  Their bodies were found later with signs of
  torture.

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The bloodline in 2009

• On January 13 former Kadyrov bodyguard Umar
  Israilov was assassinated in Vienna. He was
  cooperating with the The New York Times,
  extensively detailing abuses committed by Kadyrov
  and his associates
• On January 19 was shot the advocate Stanislav
  Markov, working for tortured people in Chechnya.
  With him was also killed the young journalist
  Anastasija Baburova
• Kadyrov is fighting rebels in Ingushetia after
  the car-bomb attack on President Yunus-bek
  Yevkurov in June 22
• Kadyrov is exending his power and influence on
  the other repubblics
• On July 15 Memorials Natalia Estemirova, who
  investigated the alleged abuses by
  government-backed militias in Chechnya, was
  assasinated
• An assassination attempt on Kadyrov was averted
  on October 23