COMMENTARY
by Gordon Hahn
The U.S. mainstream media (MSM) continues to treat the Caucasus Emirate (CE) mujahedin as a virtual sideshow when it comes to covering violence in Russia’s North Caucasus. The MSM failed to print even one article focused on the jihadi terrorist network during the first two years of the CE’s existence. The first and only such article appeared in the Washington Post on October 30, 2009; the CE was founded in late October 2007.
The
two most recent examples of the MSM’s denial in the Caucasus are “Behind the
Kremlin’s Reach,” The Economist, January 30 – February 5 2010 and Ellen Barry, “Political Uncertainty
Grips a Russian Republic,” New York Times, 31 January 2010. The Economist’s single nod to the CE
mujahedin’s terrorism was substantial by U.S. MSM standards: “(T)he transfer of
power in Dagestan, a Muslim republic in the north Caucasus, has been
accompanied by murder, explosions and civil strife. The region has seen a surge
in home-grown Islamic fundamentalism, increasing lawlessness among the police
and security services and feuding between local clans. On January 6th a suicide
bomber drove into a police station, killing six officers. Last summer the
republic's interior minister was assassinated.” This description leaves it unclear whether it is the police,
security services, clans, or jihadists that have committed these terrorist
attacks. Both the authorities and
the jihadists have stated the CE mujahedin were behind these attacks.
The
Economist proceeds to try to answer the question why Russia’s Republic of
Tatarstan has been stable, while the North Caucasus, and in particular, the
Republic of Dagestan is not. It
explains Tatarstan’s stability by Russia’s successful integration of the region
over the centuries since its conquest in 1552 and the strong and deft political
leadership of Tatarstan’s president Minitimer Shaimiev. It attributes Dagestan’s instability to
Russia’s relatively recent colonization of the region in the late 19th century, its failure to fully assimilate the Dagestanis, its “reliance on force
and repression” and “neo-colonial methods deployed by Russia in Chechnya” since
the first post-Soviet Russo-Chechen war.
This
account, like all U.S. MSM accounts of the situation in the North Caucasus and
jihadi terrorism in Russia, never mentions the illegal and threatening pre-war
actions taken by the Chechen seperatists as contributing to the rise of
terrorist violence in Chechnya and the North Caucasus. Chechnya’s declaration of independence
in 1991 is the only non-Russian action mentioned. Therefore, The Economist omits the following
pre-war events: the Chechens’ 1991 illegal seizure of power, its illegal arming
of tens of thousands of citizens and creation of an ad hoc army, President
Dzhokar Dudaev’s threats to attack Russian nuclear power plants and create an
army of one million “mujahedin,” field commander Shamil Basaev’s April 1994 trip to
Osama bin Laden’s Khost training complex, and much else. Moreover, the Caucasus traditions of
militarism and blood revenge, Islam, and its jihadist radicalization at the
behest of natives and foreign jihadists are all ignored.
The
NYT article takes the same approach, lumping together jihadi violence and
inter-clan violence and blaming it all on Moscow and its ally in the region,
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
This is the same approach used by the CSIS study that the article quotes
and was taken to task by the present author. (See) There are four mentions of words
related to the jihadists. “Islamic
fundamentalism” appears twice, “fundamentalists” and “militants” appear once
each. Only two of these references are directly connected with violence, and a third reads like a complement:
“’There is no other kind of order,’ Mr. Baev said. ‘Only the fundamentalists
can present themselves as honest men’.”
(For analyses of the over 2,000 casualties inflicted on Russian state
agents and civilians over the last two years by the CE mujahedin see Gordon M.
Hahn, “The Caucasus Emirate’s New Groove: The 2009 Summer Offensive,” Islam,
Islaimism, and Politics in Eurasia Report, No. 2, 20 November 2009; Gordon M.
Hahn, “The Caucasus Emirate’s ‘Year of the
Offensive’ in Figures: Data and Analysis on the Caucasus Emirate’s Terrorist
Activity in 2009,”
Islam, Islamism, and Politics in Eurasia Report, No. 7, January 18,
2010; and Gordon M. Hahn, “Comparing the Level of
Caucasus Emirate Terrorist Activity in 2008 and 2009,” Islam, Islamism,
and Politics in Eurasia Report, No. 8, February 5, 2010.)
The fundamental problem with such articles is they present only half the truth, and what is left out is more important than what is emphasized. Although they sometimes briefly mention the Caucasus jihadists, they use politically correct euphemisms in doing so. Again, the U.S. MSM has produced one article focusing exclusively on the mujahedin of the Caucasus Emirate – a phrase that still has not appeared in any of the articles in which they refer to the jihad – well over two years since the CE’s creation. An organization that has declared jihad on the U.S., Great Britain, Israel, Russia, and all countries fighting Muslims anywhere around the globe, has aligned itself with Osama bin Laden, and recently discussed Islamic justifications for the use of WMD against ‘infidels’ is apparently not ‘news fit to print’.
ARTICLES IN QUESTION:
The
Economist
January
30-February 5, 2010
Russia and its regions
Beyond the Kremlin's reach
Tatarstan is stable, but the republics of the north Caucasus are aflame. Why?
MINTIMER SHAIMIEV has ruled Tatarstan, a large Muslim republic in the heart of
Russia, for two decades with a soft voice and a tight fist. He survived the
disintegration of the Soviet empire in the 1990s and the centralisation of
power in the 2000s. He pursued his own economic and political strategy, keeping
Tatarstan firmly within Russia's borders but out of the Kremlin's reach. He is
no more a democrat or an altruist than Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin,
but on his watch Tatarstan held together better and suffered fewer economic
shocks than much of Russia.
On January 22nd the 73-year-old survivor said he would step down once his fourth
term expires in two months' time. Officially, the president of Tatarstan is
appointed and removed by the Kremlin, like any other regional governor in
Russia. Yet few doubt that Mr Shaimiev chose both the timing of his resignation
and the identity of his successor. When the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev,
suggested Rustam Minnikhanov, the prime minister of Tatarstan and chairman of its oil
company Tatneft, as
the next Tatar president, he was voicing Mr Shaimiev's wish as much as his own.
In contrast, the transfer of power in Dagestan, a Muslim republic in the north
Caucasus, has been accompanied by murder, explosions and civil strife. The
region has seen a surge in home-grown Islamic fundamentalism, increasing
lawlessness among the police and security services and feuding between local
clans. On January 6th a suicide bomber drove into a police station, killing six
officers. Last summer the republic's interior minister was assassinated. During
mayoral elections in the town of Derbent last October, police clashed with
voters and a third of polling stations failed to open (the result was
considered beyond the pale even by a Dagestani court, which annulled the
result). Mr Medvedev is expected to appoint a new president for Dagestan in
February, but this is unlikely to turn the republic into a peace-loving and
lawful place.
One explanation for the differences between Tatarstan and Dagestan lies in
their contrasting histories. After being conquered by Ivan the Terrible in the
16th century, Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, was successfully integrated into
the Russian empire. The republic has been at peace ever since. After the Soviet
collapse in 1991, Mr Shaimiev made full but cautious use of Boris Yeltsin's
offer to "take as much sovereignty as you can swallow." Mr Shaimiev's
skill and Mr Yeltsin's belief in federalism as the only plausible model for
post-imperial Russia prevented the further disintegration of the country and
kept Tatarstan on an even keel.
The north Caucasus, on the other hand, was colonised by Russia only in the
second half of the 19th century, and was never fully assimilated. Russia's
reliance on force and repression to pacify the region steadily undermined the
legitimacy of its rule. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chechnya
demanded full independence. Almost 20 years and two brutal wars later, the
republic finds itself ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, a Kremlin-backed strongman with
his own small army and a great deal of autonomy.
The neo-colonial methods deployed by Russia in Chechnya have helped spread
violence throughout the region. Neither Dagestan, to the east, nor Ingushetia,
to Chechnya's west, claimed independence after 1991, but both are in a state
resembling civil war. Desperate to regain a semblance of control over the north
Caucasus, the Kremlin recently appointed Alexander Khloponin, an ambitious
former businessman and governor of a Siberian region, as an envoy to the newly
formed administrative district of the north Caucasus. The appointment was made
by Mr Medvedev, but Mr Khloponin will also answer to Mr Putin.
Mr Khloponin has a reputation as an efficient manager. But creating new layers
of bureaucracy is unlikely to curb the violence. The pervasive corruption of
the state and the lawlessness of the police restrict the ability of the Kremlin
to influence much beyond the appointment of governors or envoys.
During his time as president, Mr Putin consolidated a great deal of power in
his hands. Yet despite their differences, both Tatarstan and the north Caucasus
testify to the limits of the Kremlin's writ. Regions with strong local leaders,
like Mr Shaimiev, do relatively well despite the Kremlin's interference,
whereas problematic regions often see their difficulties aggravated because of
it. Mr Putin's centralisation of power has made Russia more autocratic but it
has not made it better governed.
New York Times
January 31, 2010Political Uncertainty Grips a Russian Republic
ELLEN BARRY
MAKHACHKALA, Russia Last week here in the capital of the southern republic of Dagestan, the wind whipped uncollected garbage in every direction and tens of thousands of citizens lost heat, electricity and water.
The traffic police, fearful of another suicide bombing, sealed off the neighborhood before holding their routine troop reviews. The vice speaker of Dagestan's parliament narrowly escaped an attack with automatic weapon fire from a passing car.
In other words, nothing out of the ordinary.
Pressure has been rising steadily in Dagestan, where clan wars intersect with a growing Islamic fundamentalism and a deepening sense of public alienation. All those threats factor into a question the Kremlin has to answer in the coming days: Who, in the labyrinth of Dagestani politics, will bring peace if he is named president?
Ten years ago, Vladimir V. Putin, then Russia's president, cemented his hold on Russian politics by showing he could bring the Caucasus to heel. The mechanism was force; after a second war against Chechnya's separatists, he installed a strongman, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, as president and granted him the power to crush internal opposition. But a year of rising violence in the region has made it clear that Moscow's control is more tenuous than it seemed.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in Dagestan, where militants have stepped up their attacks while clan groupings have fought, sometimes murderously, over the republic's resources.
"With Chechnya, the main headache is a strong leader who is not controllable, but at least he is in charge," said Pavel K. Baev, a senior researcher at the International Peace Research Institute, which is based in Oslo. "In Dagestan, the problem is that there is a loss of control that is moving toward violence of another kind, which is stronger and stronger, and spiced with Islamic fundamentalism."
"There is no other kind of order," Mr. Baev said. "Only the fundamentalists can present themselves as honest men."
Dagestan, one of the most heavily subsidized of Russia's regions, should be able to support itself. It has oil and gas reserves, like neighboring Azerbaijan, and once lucrative vineyards and fisheries. The sandy coastline itself, stretching 250 miles along the Caspian Sea, should be a moneymaker in a beach-starved colossus like Russia.
But the beaches around Makhachkala (pronounced ma-HACH-ka-la), a city of 466,000, offer a primer in what has gone wrong. Tycoons have chopped up much of the coast for private mansions, and local residents complain that the public beaches that remain are too dirty and ill kept to enjoy. As for tourists, Makhachkala's mayor, Said D. Amirov who now uses a wheelchair as a result of an assassination attempt put it this way: "You can't develop tourism when you have a murder every day."
There has always been competition for power in Dagestan, which is cobbled together out of more than 30 ethnic groups, but with the Soviet collapse it turned violent. The first time an official was assassinated, in 1992, people were so outraged that thousands demonstrated to demand that the killers be punished. Over the next decade, though, killings of officials, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists and police officers became commonplace.
In a republic of 2.5 million people roughly the population of Brooklyn armored cars and bodyguards have become so standard that Magomed-Rasul M. Omarov did a double take recently when he noticed the agriculture minister walking down the street without a security detail. It was a sight he had not seen for years.
"He looks like a white crow," said Mr. Omarov, who works as press secretary for the mufti of Dagestan, whose deputy died from a gunshot to the head last May.
"People have no hope in law enforcement or in other protection or in justice anymore," he said. "If one case was brought to justice, you could say there was some hope."
It falls to Dmitri A. Medvedev, Russia's president, to try to calm the waters. The first term of Dagestan's president, Mukhu G. Aliyev, ends on Feb. 20. At the time of his appointment, Mr. Aliyev raised great hopes in a populace furious over corruption; a longtime Communist Party figure, he was known for steadfastly refusing bribes and lived, famously, in a modest three-room apartment.
But four years later, Mr. Aliyev's critics say he has been too weak to control the factions beneath him. It is clear that the calm of his early presidency is gone. Three hundred people died in violent attacks in Dagestan in 2009 more than in either the nearby republics of Ingushetia or Chechnya and the number of attacks were more than double the 2008 figure, according to statistics compiled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Everybody understands that his time is ending," said Marko Shakhbanov, editor in chief of Novoye Delo, a newspaper that has been critical of Mr. Aliyev's government. "He is a good person, but a good person is not a profession."
Mr. Medvedev could reappoint Mr. Aliyev, 69, or choose a new face like Magomed I. Abdullayev, 48, a deputy prime minister who, like Mr. Medvedev, studied and lectured at the law department of St. Petersburg University. Uncertainty over the question has gripped Makhachkala since mid-November, and some complain that it fueled a spike in violence in December and January.
Mr. Medvedev "is making decisions on several governors, but this is one of the most complicated of all," Mr. Baev, the researcher, said. "In Moscow, they cannot pay much attention to the fact that it's destabilizing, it's eroding, it's getting worse. They don't know what to do."
The stakes are great, he said, because public disgust over corruption is driving young people to embrace fundamentalism.
Zaipul S. Osmanov, who works in a Makhachkala employment center, said he has watched in bafflement as his neighbor's sons children he has known since they were born disappeared into "the forest," as people here refer to underground militant networks. The oldest disappeared for a year. Mr. Osmanov heard he was studying abroad, and when he returned, "the second brother was infected."
The first was killed in July, and his brother in October Mr. Osmanov did not know how, but he said he assumed that they were killed in a suicide operation or a police raid. His neighbor has two surviving sons, still in their teens, but Mr. Osmanov expects to hear the same news about them before too long.
"I don't think they have a way to retreat," he said. "There is no way back from the forest."
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