Inteligencia y Seguridad Frente Externo En Profundidad Economia y Finanzas Transparencia
  En Parrilla Medio Ambiente Sociedad High Tech Contacto
Inteligencia y Seguridad  
 
05/04/2006 | Eye on Eurasia: Perils of Chechenization

UPI

Russia's drive to "Chechenize" the war in the Caucasus could backfire badly on it.

 

Those in the Russian Federation who believe that "Chechenization" will resolve the conflict in that north Caucasus republic in a way Moscow wants should remember what happened when the United States pushed "Vietnamization" of the war in Indochina a generation ago, according to a leading Russian analyst of ethnic conflicts.

At the end of the 1960s, Sergei Marakedonov writes in an article posted on the Politcom.ru portal, advisors to U.S. President Richard Nixon concluded that the best way to extricate the United States from what had become a quagmire was to hand over ever more military and political functions to the South Vietnamese.

But that policy, which came to be known as "Vietnamization," Markedonov notes did not work as intended because it represented a transfer of power from "firm American hands into the less firm hands of 'the friends of freedom' from South Vietnam. And how this history ended, we all know very well".

Finding loyalists among other groups is "always one of the most important tasks of the regional policy of any state," the Moscow analyst writes, but it is also one that many governments fail to carry out successfully, largely given the difficulty of identifying and using "collaborationists."

For a collaborationist to be useful, Markedonov continues, he should be someone who has "broken with his own milieu and for whom there is 'no way back' under any circumstances." If that is not the case, the analyst says, there is always the danger that he will turn on those who support him.

Moreover, and as a guarantee against that happening, a collaborationist must have betrayed and been shown to have betrayed his own people. But of course, Markedonov continues, anyone willing to betray his own will not find it that difficult to betray others especially if they are viewed as outsiders.

And Markedonov adds, a collaborationist "must not become an independent player" -- an inevitable risk given the need of those who use him to provide him with enough room to demonstrate his power but one that is all the greater when questions of the control of territory are on the table.

Over the last 15 years, the Russian government repeatedly has sought such collaborationists in Chechnya both to limit its own exposure to violence and to stabilize the situation. But given Moscow's fundamental ignorance of Chechen society, Markedonov adds, it has constantly transformed those it hoped it could use into its own opponents.

Now, the same thing is happening with Ramzan Kadyrov, he continues, and there is every chance that Kadyrov will soon become someone like Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka, "who no longer considers the opinion of his supposed 'masters' and who has created what are in fact his own rules of the game. ... Only with a Caucasus coloration."

Kadyrov's recent demands for ever more autonomy certainly seem to support the thrust of Markedonov's argument. And a story in Monday's "Nezavisimaya Gazeta -- Regiony" newspaper about the latest demands from Grozny could spark a new debate about the Kremlin's Chechenization policy.

According to that report, the Grozny authorities now want the complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. This idea, first put forward by the late Akhmad Kadyrov, was advanced at a Moscow press conference by Dukvakha Abudrakhmanov, the chairman of Chechnya's National Assembly.

He said that except for border guards, all federal forces now in Chechnya should be withdrawn without any problems and replaced by the republic's own interior ministry and security forces which are controlled by Kadyrov. "The remaining [Russian Federation] forces are not needed," Abdurakhmanov said in conclusion.

Ramzan Kadyrov has not yet advanced this argument, at least in public, but Abdurakhmanov's statement is certainly consistent with what Kadyrov has been saying in recent weeks. And consequently, it is no surprise that two senior Russian commanders told "Nezavisia Gazeta-Regiony" that they were against this step.

Col. Gen. Arkadiy Yedelev, who heads the operations staff of Russian army's regional counter-terrorist operation, said it was at a minimum "premature." And Interior Ministry Col.Gen. Nikolai Rogozhkin said that such a withdrawal was not "possible" given the situation on the ground.

Consequently, even if Markedonov's analysis and the latest Chechen statements do not lead to a full-dress debate about Chechenization and its consequences, these developments by themselves, the Moscow paper said, guarantee that arguments about the draft accord will now "break out with new force."

(Paul Goble teaches at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia.)

UPI (Estados Unidos)

 



Otras Notas del Autor
fecha
Título
03/03/2017|
05/09/2013|
08/08/2013|
07/06/2013|
12/03/2013|
03/03/2013|
23/01/2013|
22/11/2012|
10/11/2012|
10/11/2012|
28/08/2012|
08/08/2012|
23/02/2012|
23/02/2012|
23/02/2012|
19/02/2012|
19/02/2012|
19/02/2012|
06/11/2011|
06/11/2011|
01/11/2011|
28/10/2011|
28/10/2011|
30/09/2011|
08/09/2011|
08/09/2011|
07/09/2011|
07/09/2011|
23/08/2011|
23/08/2011|
19/08/2011|
29/07/2011|
04/07/2011|
04/07/2011|
17/06/2011|
17/06/2011|
17/06/2011|
17/06/2011|
19/05/2011|
19/05/2011|
05/05/2011|
05/05/2011|
25/04/2011|
25/04/2011|
23/04/2011|
23/04/2011|
15/03/2011|
08/03/2011|
24/02/2011|
10/02/2011|
23/01/2011|
21/10/2010|
19/08/2010|
19/08/2010|
29/11/2009|
29/11/2009|
28/11/2009|
28/11/2009|
22/11/2009|
22/11/2009|
03/10/2009|
03/10/2009|
17/09/2009|
09/09/2009|
08/09/2009|
02/09/2009|
28/08/2009|
28/08/2009|
22/07/2009|
22/07/2009|
13/02/2007|
13/02/2007|
02/11/2006|
24/05/2006|
02/03/2006|
02/03/2006|

ver + notas
 
Center for the Study of the Presidency
Freedom House