Chechnya: Yes, It’s an Internal Matter : Washington needs to hope for a quick and humane end to this ugly little conflict

The wars of 19th-Century imperial Russia go on. In the northern Caucasus, Russian tanks and troops are besieging tiny, mountainous Chechnya, home to perhaps 1.2 million Sunni Muslims who speak their own language, cherish their own culture, and--despite frightful oppression in the past--keep alive a fierce determination to be independent of Moscow.

That hope is probably not realizable. It’s the fate of the Chechens to have settled a thousand years ago in an area that proved to be rich in oil. That oil and the pipelines that have been built to carry it to market make Chechnya an economic plum that no Russian government would be prepared willingly to give up. Further, no Russian government would likely agree to accept Chechenya’s independence out of a well-justified fear that the precedent could inspire half a dozen other non-Russian areas to similarly demand separation from the federation.

Despite this, President Boris N. Yeltsin has come under strong domestic criticism for his handling of the crisis. And Friday, after nearly a week of fighting, he was faced with the threat from one of his generals of a mutiny in the field. At this remove it’s hard to say whether the showdown precipitated by the 1991 declaration of independence by the local Chechen leader, Dzokhar Dudayev, could have been handled with greater finesse and effectiveness. Yeltsin has given the Chechen rebels a deadline for surrendering that expires today. But the evident reluctance of at least some of the Russian army to continue fighting raises questions about what Yeltsin could do if his deadline is ignored.

Meanwhile, Moscow has turned up the volume on its propaganda war against Chechenya. Chechens are one among many distinct ethnic groups visibly identified with the crime wave that has been running all but out of control across Russia since communism’s collapse. Now the government has issued a catalogue of felonies attributing to Chechens terrorism, hostage-taking, hijacking, swindling and counterfeiting. At the same time the government has tried to assure concerned Muslim states that there’s nothing anti-Islamic in its effort to quash the rebellion.

Washington’s line has been to say almost nothing about the Chechnya conflict, referring to it as an internal matter. In this case it won’t criticize Moscow nor will it--as it certainly would have in earlier years--praise the fight for self-determination by a valiant small people. Unhappily, in light of the geopolitical stakes involved and especially the U.S. interest in keeping Russia stable and Yeltsin in office, Washington is probably right. About the best that can be hoped for now is a quick and humane end to this ugly little conflict.