Margaret BauerIn response to continued warfare between the Russian military and Chechen militants fighting for independence, freshmen in Washington University’s International Leadership Program sponsored Chechnya Awareness Week this week to make students more conscious of the situation.
Freshman Lawrence Wiseman said “Prisoner of the Mountain,” a movie about Russian soldiers in Chechnya that the group watched as a kick-off for the week, changed his opinion of the Chechens’ struggle.
“It made me reassess what I knew about Chechnya … I had sort of grouped it with extremist groups, but it’s not. It’s literally people fighting for their existence. It’s not just fundamentalists fighting against the government,” Wiseman said.
Landen Romei, another participant in the program, noted that the group has attempted to provide objective information for students.
“This isn’t necessarily a Pro-Chechnya or Pro-Russia event. … It’s just to make people more aware,” Romei said.
Participants in the International Leadership Program, Wiseman and Romei explained, attempt to educate other students about international issues. They chose the crisis in Chechnya because of its obscurity in comparison with other events.
Thus far, 2004 has been a tumultuous year in Chechnya, as violence has continued in the republic with militants becoming more aggressive and resourceful in their campaigns.
In May the Russian-backed leader of Chechnya was killed in a bombing, which took the lives of six others. A prominent warlord took responsibility for the attack, which further undermined the Russian government’s attempts to maintain control of the region.
Throughout August, a series of bombings and attacks in subways created even more instability-but one of the most tragic events of the entire war occurred in September, when armed guerillas took control of a school in Beslan. Over 1000 young children and teachers where held hostage. After bombs were detonated and hostages attempted to flee the scene, militants opened gunfire. Over 300 were killed, roughly half of them children.
History of the conflict
Chechnya, a republic heavily populated by Sunni Muslims, has long strived to maintain its independence from Russia.
The Soviets controlled Chechnya until the fall of the USSR in 1991. Chechens elected Dzhokhar Dudayev as president and he again declared the republic independent. Then Russian president Boris Yeltsin refused to recognize Chechnya as an independent republic and sent troops to the region.
By 1994, the Russians had invaded Chechnya and war continued for roughly two years until Russian troops withdrew after rebels launched a massive offensive attack. Close to 70,000 were killed on both sides.
Chechen rebels entered neighboring Dagestan in 1999, an area that was often considered more stable and sympathetic to Moscow, hoping to aid Islamic fundamentalists in that country. Eventually, Yeltsin sent over 100,000 troops into Chechnya, occupying the capital of Grozny. Rebels were pushed into the mountains surrounding the city and close to 250,000 were left as refugees. Around this time, the United Nations and other groups began to consider investigating potential human rights violations in the region.
Rebels have continued with attacks throughout 2001 and 2002. Officials in Moscow under the government of Vladimir Putin have stepped up efforts to curtail the violence, terrorist acts and sentiments of Islamic extremism, but recent reports show that troops are slated to pull back from the republic.
Still, roughly 70,000 armed forces remain in Chechnya, and the hostage crisis at the school in Beslan points to a precarious situation between the Russian government and Chechen rebels.
“Both groups of people are at fault,” Romei said. “There really is no ‘good guy’ in this. The Russians are still attacking the Chechens and the Chechens are still supposedly promoting terrorism against the Russians.”
One way students in the International Leadership Program plan to take action is through a letter-writing campaign petitioning U.S. policy-makers for peace in Chechnya. The eventwill take place in Mallinckrodt from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today.