-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: Stec's Commie-Pinko List [mailto:commie@polbox.com]
Sendt: 10. november 1999 17:05
Til: List Member
Emne: RUSSIAN ESCALATES WAR WITH CHECHNYA
Stec's Commie-Pinko List - http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/7078
THE PEOPLE
NOVEMBER 1999
VOL. 109 NO. 8
RUSSIAN ESCALATES WAR WITH CHECHNYA
BY DIANE SECOR
A recent rash of apartment building bombings in Moscow and
other Russian cities left close to 300 innocent people dead and
created widespread panic. Chechen separatists were reported to
be behind these attacks. Russia has responded with its own
brand of terrorism, slaughtering and injuring hundreds of
Chechen civilians in air raids on "suspected guerrilla bases
and support facilities," according to an Associated Press
report circulated on Oct. 4. According to THE WASHINGTON POST
of Oct. 5, however, more than military targets were hit by the
Russian military. That report stated that "Russian air
attacks...destroyed oil depots, power stations, roads and
bridges, as well as farmhouses and cornfields" in Chechnya, and
created over 100,000 refugees.
The stated goal of Russia is to create a "safety zone" to keep
Chechen insurgents out of Dagestan, which borders Chechnya to
the west and the Caspian Sea to the east. However, Russian
strategy almost certainly aims at crushing all Chechen
resistance and restoring Russian domination over that semi-
independent region. This entails a much greater risk of a
wider, prolonged war as Russia tries to stop Islamic insurgents
in Chechnya and Dagestan from banding together to establish a
larger and decidedly more independent state. A successful union
of Chechnya with Dagestan would push Russia entirely out of the
Caucasus region, where the former Soviet Union once held sway,
and dramatically reduce Russia's direct access to the Caspian
Sea.
The stakes in the present conflict are much greater than in the
1994 - 1996 Russian-Chechen war because Dagestan is crucial as
Russia's primary link to the Caspian Sea. As reported by the
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS on Aug. 14 and Aug. 22, Dagestan holds
the key to Russia's "biggest economic prize in the region,
access to westward routes for the Caspian Sea oil. The pipeline
taking the Azerbaijan oil to the Western markets can bypass
Chechnya, but it cannot bypass Dagestan." Furthermore,
"Dagestan commands 70 percent of Russia's shoreline to the oil-
producing Caspian Sea and its only all-weather Caspian port at
Makhachkala."
A glance at a map of the area tells the story. Before 1991, the
Caspian Sea was virtually a Soviet lake. Only the southern
coast of that vast inland sea was bordered by a foreign
country. Today, Russia controls only the northwestern coast,
and were it to lose Dagestan its Caspian coast would be reduced
to a stretch of 200 miles or less.
It is not only the Russians who will fight to use Dagestan to
control a greater share of Caspian Sea oil. An old arch foe of
Russia from the 1979 - 1989 Soviet war in Afghanistan, Osama
bin Laden, also has designs on Dagestan for the same reasons.
His organization is reported to be bankrolling and arming the
MUJAHEDEEN rebels fighting to establish an independent nation
consisting of Dagestan and Chechnya.
On Sept. 10, the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS quoted a consultant with
the Pinkerton Global Intelligence Services as saying that bin
Laden's multimillion-dollar network "has been 'actively
soliciting funds' through a clandestine e-mail network to
finance the insurgents in Dagestan." This bin Laden-led network
has also recruited and trained guerrillas from "Islamic
terrorist" groups throughout the world. It is bin Laden, of
course, who was charged with masterminding last year's bombings
of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
Russia undoubtedly is alarmed that the bin Laden network has
the necessary connections to "smuggle [guerrillas] into
Chechnya through the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan,"
where the oil pipelines are situated. But Russia also has been
wary of any U.S. encroachment on Russia's historical "spheres
of influence" in the Caucasus region. Aware of its strategic
value and abundance of oil resources, Azerbaijan has skillfully
played off one against the other. Earlier this year Azerbaijan
went so far as to offer the use of its territory for U.S. and
Turkish military bases. This is a threat that Russia cannot
ignore even if it never comes to fruition. Any escalation of
U.S.-Azerbaijan military cooperation would give the United
States a significant advantage throughout the Caspian Sea
region.
The Russian state and the Yeltsin regime obviously don't want
to lose Dagestan and just as obviously want to regain control
over Chechnya. Given the country's internal economic and
political problems, however, its ability to effectively resist,
much less prevent, further losses in the region is
problematical.
The tragedy, however, has nothing to do with the failures and
frustrations of the Russian state, those of the country's
emerging criminal capitalist class, or with the petty
nationalist ambitions now afoot in Chechnya and other
"breakaway" splinters and parcels of real estate scattered here
and there over what remains of the former domains of the one-
time "czar of all the Russias." The tragedy is that the Russian
working class is confused and in total disarray--seemingly as
helpless as the songwriter's "kitten up a tree." It is in no
better position to assert itself than is the working class of
the United States.
The worst legacy of the Soviet Union, perhaps, was its utter
failure to instill the Russian working class with
classconsciousness and to train it to take the initiative to
organize its strength and to defend itself in times of crisis
such as these. Russia's working class has already paid a heavy
price for that failure, and unless it finds its bearings soon
it may have an even heavier price to pay as the "new world
order" of international chaos, anarchy and violence continues
to unfold.
______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, write to commiepinko-unsubscribe@listbot.com
Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 13 2000 - 15:17:36 MET