By ANNE NIVAT http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/05/opinion/05NIVA.html GROZNY, Russia — To hear Russian officials, what's happening in Chechnya is not a war: it is a phase in an antiterrorism operation that has reached such a point of "normalization" that control was switched last week from the Federal Security Bureau, which handles war operations, to the Interior Ministry. After all, the Russians say, the Chechen people rebuffed the Islamic separatists by voting overwhelmingly in March to remain part of Russia, and they will vote again in October, this time for a Chechen president. Chechens agree — but in their own way. "What's happening in this country is not a war," they say. "It is much worse than a war, with many more civilian casualties." I hear this repeatedly on buses, in markets and during conversations wherever I travel in this tiny, battered republic. For them, the switch to the Interior Ministry is merely cosmetic — the soldiers and checkpoints remain — and the coming election won't be a fair one. But these voices are not being heard in the rest of Russia: the Kremlin has so restricted news coverage of Chechnya that outsiders have little idea what is happening here. (To get into Chechnya, I had to disguise myself as a Chechen woman, wearing a scarf and long skirt, and pray that I wouldn't be questioned closely at checkpoints.) Chechyna intrudes upon Russians' minds only when rebels attack outside the republic — as they did on Friday, when a truck bomb exploded in Mozdok, 35 miles across the border from Chechnya, killing at least 41. Grozny, the Chechen capital, has been a ruin since the Russians invaded the first time, in 1994; the only repaired buildings are the ones housing government offices. Suicide bombings are frequent. Shootings occur nightly, and raids for rebels take place daily. Soldiers are everywhere, and so are members of a militia belonging to the Moscow-appointed head of the local government, Akhmad Kadyrov, who isn't popular but hopes to win the presidential election. Electricity and water services are sporadic; schools aren't in session because there are no teachers. The few jobs available involve working for the Russians, and most Chechens won't take them for fear of being considered collaborators. There is an atmosphere of stalemate: the Russians and the rebels can't negotiate, and neither side can win. For their part, the rebels say the fighting will not end soon. "And we are ready for it," said an aide to a rebel field commander I met in a village in neighboring Ingushetia, used by the rebels as a rear base. "Since we have split up into mini-groups of five, our units are very flexible. We need less than three days to reunite with our commander. So far, the Russians have been very good at pretending things are going well for them. We will do our best to destroy that claim." Among the Russian troops, low morale is rampant. About 100 Russian soldiers die here every month, the government says. "We are here only for the big money they are paying us," Pvt. Andrei Kosnikov, 23, muttered as he examined my car at a checkpoint near Grozny. Near the entrance of his base someone has written: "We are tired of killing the Chechen people for nothing. Our pay is blood money!" The soldiers have also been forced to contend with a new trend, suicide bombings and other attacks committed by young Chechen women. Nineteen women were among the separatists who took 700 people hostage at a Moscow theater in October. "My sister went for her own jihad," explained a 19-year-old girl, conservatively dressed in a headscarf and cloak, whose sibling was a perpetrator of the theater attack. We spoke in the kitchen of a relative's house in the countryside, as her family has lived as nomads since their house in a village southwest of Grozny was dynamited by the Russians in revenge for her sister's actions. "She sought revenge by escaping to paradise," the girl told me. "And I am willing to do the same if nothing changes." Her friend, 21-year-old Tamara, added: "We women are now acting because nobody else is reacting and no one cares about Chechnya." Terrorist acts are signs of desperation, and as the situation in Chechnya stagnates, suicide attacks by young Chechen women, and others, will continue. Lyoma Sharmurzayev, director of Lamaz, a nongovernmental group based in Ingushetia, told me he believed that the only solution was to build up some sort of civic forum, a non-state organization that would seek a way of mediating this conflict that would involve a broad representation of the civil society. So far, he has been unable to convince either the Russian authorities or the rebels to consider it. The Chechens I've talked with are longing for an end to the war, but their sympathies are clearly with the separatists. Although at the start of the fighting in the early 1990's there were Russian supporters here, that support was driven out by hatred as the war dragged on. It seems as if there is not a single family who has not lost someone in the conflict. The Chechens now consider the Russians invaders who are incapable of following the rules of war by making efforts to spare civilians. Is there hope for peace anytime soon in Chechnya? On this trip, at least, I haven't seen any — and for the Chechens, the Russians' claim that a presidential election will put an end to the fighting is as dubious as the war itself. Anne Nivat is author of "Chienne de Guerre: A Woman Reporter Behind the Lines of the War in Chechnya." |