Putin should not ape Bush

[Gość: Tomasz]

Putin should not ape Bush

Chechnya needs a careful response

Terrorism crisis - Observer special

Leader
Sunday October 27, 2002
The Observer

The bloody conclusion of the Moscow hostage crisis vividly
illustrates the difficulties confronting those guiding the war on
terrorism. President Vladimir Putin was presented with a group
of hostage-takers who seized hundreds of theatregoers. They
then killed three, and set a deadline to kill more. Few would
disagree that Putin had to order the storming of the building.

The consequence of that robust decision was always going to
be brutal: the efforts of the assaulting forces to incapacitate the
hostage-takers with gas led to the death of more than 100
hostages. Nevertheless, hundreds more were saved. Among the
dead, shot by Russian forces, was the leader of the Chechen
terrorists, Movsar Barayev, and 33 accomplices.

Now the reckoning must begin. Although Putin may have won
this latest round in Russia's war with the Chechen rebels, and at
high civilian cost, nothing has changed to ameliorate the wider
conflict between Russians and Chechens, which has been
marked by atrocities on both sides. If anything, the events of the
last week have simply demonstrated that Putin's struggle in
Chechnya, far from bringing that insurgency closer to an end,
has instead exacerbated the potential for terrorist violence to be
visited on Russians.

The temptation now for Putin must be to further extend his
campaign in Chechnya. He should be strongly discouraged. It
would be a fatal error that would pile tragedy on tragedy,
continuing in the same mistaken path that Russia has pursued
for almost decade. Yet with America seeking support for its own
war on Iraq, it seems certain that Russia will not be deterred
and, in the short term, will ape the US position of attacking
terrorists wherever it finds them, a high-risk strategy which has
given a green light to states with security issues from Israel to
India to forswear negotiations with terrorists.

Putin's lethal conundrum is the same as that posed by
post-Soviet Afghanistan. The Soviet departure there created the
conditions for a virtual and terrorist state. Few doubt that an
unconditional Russian withdrawal from Chechnya would result in
a similar black hole of lawlessness. Yet Putin's military policies
are also visibly failing. The world has averted its gaze from
Chechnya for far too long - as it averted its gaze from
Afghanistan. It can be ignored no longer.