Waynakh Online

Top Menu

  • Archive Documents
  • Bookshelf
  • Chechen Culture
  • ECHR Cases
  • Gallery
  • Lyrics
  • Mp3
  • Poems
  • Videos

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Chechens
    • Who are the Chechens?
    • Tribal Unions and Clans
    • Religion
    • Famous Chechens
      • Chechen Academicians
      • Chechen Commanders
      • Chechen Litterateures
      • Chechen Musicians
      • Chechen Painters
      • Chechen Politicians
      • Chechen Presidents
      • Chechen Sports Men/Women
      • Names from Chechen History
  • Chechnya
    • Administrative Divisions
    • Maps
    • Geography
    • Constitution
    • Flag, Emblem and Anthem
    • Parliament
    • Presidents
    • Demographics
    • Economy
    • Human Rights Violations
    • Refugees
    • History
  • Chechen Language
    • Chechen Alphabet
    • Fairy Tales in Chechen Language (Mp3)
  • News
  • Articles
  • Interviews
  • Contact
  • Archive Documents
  • Bookshelf
  • Chechen Culture
  • ECHR Cases
  • Gallery
  • Lyrics
  • Mp3
  • Poems
  • Videos

logo

Waynakh Online

  • Home
  • Chechens
    • Who are the Chechens?
    • Tribal Unions and Clans
    • Religion
    • Famous Chechens
      • Chechen Academicians
      • Chechen Commanders
      • Chechen Litterateures
      • Chechen Musicians
      • Chechen Painters
      • Chechen Politicians
      • Chechen Presidents
      • Chechen Sports Men/Women
      • Names from Chechen History
  • Chechnya
    • Administrative Divisions
    • Maps
    • Geography
    • Constitution
    • Flag, Emblem and Anthem
    • Parliament
    • Presidents
    • Demographics
    • Economy
    • Human Rights Violations
    • Refugees
    • History
  • Chechen Language
    • Chechen Alphabet
    • Fairy Tales in Chechen Language (Mp3)
  • News
  • Articles
  • Interviews
  • Contact
News
Home›News›The Chechen Struggle – A Review

The Chechen Struggle – A Review

By admin
February 12, 2011
1431
0
Share:

When historians lookfor a succinct illustration of the hypocrisy of western democracies, they could do worse than turn to page 196 of this book. In March 2001, Ilyas Akhmadov, exiled foreign minister in Chechnya’s [legitimate] government, had a meeting with a top US state department official. He had high hopes. The meeting was in the capital of the world’s most powerful democracy, which had just intervened to save the Kosovo Albanians and the Bosnian Muslims from defeat.

Akhmadov had prepared 16 suggestions that would alleviate his people’s suffering. The official listened to none of them. “He kept checking his watch and ended the meeting at precisely 59 minutes, so he could later tell journalists that it lasted less than an hour,” Akhmadov writes, with devastating simplicity.

I started writing about Chechnya a year after that meeting, and by then the tone of indifference to ordinary Chechens had spread across the globe. Journalists searched for a killer story that would alert the world to the horrors in southern Russia. But no one cared. Vladimir Putin still has a free hand to do anything he wants to suppress the Chechens – human rights groups have listed executions, torture and kidnapping – and the west has done nothing.

The Chechens declared independence from Moscow in 1991 and defeated a Russian attempt to conquer their homeland in 1994-96, before losing a second campaign that started in 1999. Akhmadov’s book minutely details the shattered hopes that followed the Chechens’ initial victory, as euphoria at their astonishing success turned into bickering and violence.

He was friends with Shamil Basayev, a self-confessed [terrorist ??] who went on to organise the Beslan and Moscow hostage tragedies. In an unlikely and short-lived reinvention as a politician, Akhmadov describes how Basayev held meetings with Russian officials about restoring Chechen’s roads. The image of the guerrilla fighter attempting to master construction contracts is an intriguing one, and Basayev genuinely seems to have tried to master the new trade. But, of course, it did not work out.

Akhmadov is a charming and self-deprecating guide through the mess. At one point he passes a Russian checkpoint and shows his Chechen documents. “You’re the first Chechen captain to go through the border post. Every Chechen is a colonel or a general,” he is told.

Basayev, and all the other “generals” who had made their names defeating the mighty Russian army, wanted something more exciting. They turned to radical Islam and launched incursions into Russia, bringing the wrath of Putin down upon them, and extinguishing the nation’s hopes for independence. Akhmadov does not avoid condemning such stupidity from Chechens, or pointing out how they contributed to their own national catastrophe. But he saves much of his bitterness for the west. The desires of the Chechens were meaningless when compared to our own security needs. Akhmadov forcefully argues that, in ignoring the legitimate desires of ordinary people, the democracies undermine the very safety they think they are securing.

“The lack of a principled assessment in the west contributed to the radicalisation of the Chechen resistance… The radicalisation didn’t happen in a day and it didn’t happen in a vacuum. We didn’t ask for money or weapons, we only asked for an adequate assessment of what was happening and we never got that,” he writes.

This is not a book to take on holiday. It is choked full of details that even a specialist might find a bit baffling. But when historians write about the war on terror, Akhmadov will come out of it a lot better than a lot of western politicians will.

Oliver Bullough
12.02.2010 – The Guardian

*Oliver Bullough was a Reuters Moscow correspondent, and is now Caucasus Editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

TagsIlyas AkhmadovOliver Bullough
Previous Article

Spanish Foundation Searches for Volunteer Host Families

Next Article

Magomed Khazbiev has been Poisoned

Share:

Related articles More from author

  • Interviews

    Ilyas Akhmadov: “Time will Fix Everything!”

    February 9, 2011
    By admin
  • News

    Young Russians Demand Akhmadov’s Extradition

    January 29, 2011
    By admin
  • News

    Russia Angry at the United States because of Akhmadov’s Book

    January 23, 2011
    By admin
  • Famous Chechens

    Ilyas Khamzatovich Akhmadov

    May 18, 2008
    By admin
  • News

    Puppet Regime has not Paid Workers

    October 30, 2010
    By admin
  • News

    Latvians Want to Keep Avenue of Dudaev

    October 19, 2009
    By admin

Leave a reply

  • News

    Bulgarian Court Releases Chechen Refugee

  • News

    Landsbergis: “Russia is an Empire”

  • News

    Polish Court Refuses to Release Chechen Asylum Seeker

Our Website in Other Languages

                        

Latest Comments

  • Akiva Weinberger
    on
    July 7, 2024
    Can you provide an English translation please?

    Ghalghay kegiy nax – Loam

  • irsana
    on
    June 24, 2024
    @KAY Chechens don't exactly have tribes, only clans. Most clans nowadays belong to Tukkhums ('Tribal' Unions), ...

    Tribal Unions and Clans

  • Galnish
    on
    February 26, 2024
    No, we haven't always been muslims. The majority of our ancestors were pagans. The literature even ...

    Religion

  • Jorden
    on
    February 10, 2024
    Wow your from Bosnia and you support the real Chechens may Allah bless you I am ...

    Gakayev, The Enemy Kadyrov Needs

  • Vladan
    on
    January 6, 2024
    Do you know what is excettly size of Ickheria in constitution when they peoclaimed independence? ...

    Geography

Find us on Facebook

Categories

Archives

Search

https://youtu.be/LRtf8UENmp8
https://youtu.be/0yiOJCJWZjU
https://youtu.be/o5oU3dXxgSU
https://youtu.be/iDCpqn62bVQ
https://youtu.be/eBaatZVQpQw
https://youtu.be/Ukk7OkjTlOk
https://youtu.be/rBzKuDNnidM
https://youtu.be/4OON0mwLMfM
https://youtu.be/A7YLIm2YC-Y
https://youtu.be/oiymVOUdIxk

Our Partners

Chechenpress
Khaaman
Ichkeria Culture Center in Austria
Qaanuoyn Dosh
World Chechnya Day
Justice for Medet Önlü

Honorary Consulate of the ChRI in Turkey

We are at Instagram

Waynakh Online

Independent Chechen website that publishes news, articles, interviews, historical documents, literary works, photographs, music and videos.


                        

Last Publications

  • May 24, 2024

    The Naked King

  • March 16, 2020

    Prime Minister Zakayev’s Book Presented in London

  • February 3, 2020

    European Parliament Hosts a Conference Dedicated to Chechnya

  • October 19, 2019

    Akhmed Zakayev’s Book Presented in the House of Commons

  • August 11, 2019

    Subjugate or Exterminate!

Most commented

  • Articles

    Gakayev, The Enemy Kadyrov Needs

    By admin
    August 31, 2012
    11
  • Gallery

    Gallery of Abed Arslan

    By admin
    September 14, 2009
    10
  • Articles

    Sex Slavery and Death Await Women Seized by Kadyrov’s Bandits

    By admin
    August 16, 2011
    8
  • Famous Chechens

    Shamil Salmanovich Basayev

    By admin
    May 18, 2008
    6
  • Home
  • Contact
2000-2022 © Waynakh Online | Powered by Chechen Media