Originally posted by Chinghis
[email protected] 1 2005, 04:39 PM
Russia had invaded the Caucaus region awhile back, claiming Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia among others. I'm not too sure though that Chechnya was ever a separate country. However, the succestionists are part of the radical Wahabi sect of Islam, and i believe they are angry at Russia's secular society. Howver, that still does not give Russia the right to kill 200,000 Chechens (a conservative estimate, some accounts add 100,000) many of these killed may be fighters, but out of a population of 1 million, its likely that 75% are civilians. Compared to the 45% civilian casualty rate among the Palestinians. Russia has further used the "Global War on Terrorism" to crack down on the Chechan people more, and Bush & Friends are just happy with it so long that Russia isn't killing Christians.
Actually Chechnya was a small independant nation in the days of Tsar Nicholas. It was the Tsar of Russia who originally invaded Chechnya with his cossack regiments. The Chechens were defeated and launched a separatist movement during the Tsar's time but it was brutally crushed. During the days of the soviet union many independance movements took place the most prominent being under Stalin where the Chechen resistance was brutally crushed again when they fought for independance. During Boris Yeltsin's rule, the Chechens rose up again for full autonomy however this time they inflicted heavy casualties on the Russian forces. The Russian troops were then forced to withdraw from Chechnya but refused to recognize it as an independant state and regarded it as a part of the Russian federation. Then came Putin who advocated a tough stance against Chechnya and re-occupied it and later killed the leader of the Chechen movement Arslan Maskhadov who also led the Chechen's in the earlier campaign resulting in Russia's defeat.
It was after the assasination that the islamic fundamentalists took over control of the movement. The Chechen struggle for freedom has basically existed since the Tsar's days even before the emergence of islamic fundamentalist movements. therefore in my opinion equating the struggle itself with islamic fundamentalism is incorrect.