U.S. ruling-class figures are lending tacit support to this crackdown by the Kremlin, as they have in the past, even as they express nervousness about the instability that threatens to engulf the entire region.
The Yeltsin regime has been conducting air strikes against the Chechen population, ostensibly to crush guerrilla forces they claim organized raids into neighboring Dagestan, to the east of Chechnya. Russian forces have pounded villages in Dagestan as well. Rebel soldiers fighting for the independence of Dagestan captured six villages there and killed 14 Russian troops in the first weeks of September. Since fighting broke out in August, at least 230 Russian soldiers have been killed and 875 wounded.
In recent days 60,000 Chechens have fled into the Russian republic of Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya to the west, to escape the bombardment. Chechen officials reported 384 people have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded.
"From the first day of the bombing, carried out under the pretext of attacking terrorists, villages and settlements have been hit by air strikes," said Chechen deputy prime minister Kazbek Makhashev. "In one district, the bombs hit a school and eight people were killed."
The Yeltsin regime announced September 22 it would seal Chechnya's border with Dagestan, and rapidly amassed 30,000 troops along with tanks and other heavy equipment in the area. Russian officials deny a ground invasion is imminent, but say they will press ahead relentlessly with the air raids.
Russian warplanes have bombed and fired rockets on Chechnya's oil refineries, communications systems, industrial facilities, a television station, and the airport in Grozny. The Kremlin is asserting "certain parallels" between its assault on Chechnya and the U.S.-NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia earlier this year. Moscow boasts about "high-precision bombs" while hitting civilian areas. The Russian air force is flying up to 60 bombing missions a day.
At the same time, Moscow has ignored the Chechen government's call for negotiations to halt bombing. Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov's request for an urgent meeting with Yeltsin was dismissed. "We have more than once showed the readiness for political dialogue," said Makhashev.
Chechnya's infrastructure suffered major damage from bombing during 1994–96, when the Yeltsin regime dispatched an invasion force of 30,000 Russian troops to crush the independence movement there. An estimated 80,000 people died in the war. In the years since the Chechen fighters defeated and humiliated the Russian military, the republic has governed its own affairs. But Moscow refuses to recognize Chechnya's independence.
To justify their military onslaught, Russian government officials are attempting to blame "Islamic militants" for the series of explosions in Moscow that killed more than 300 people, although no one claimed responsibility for the blasts. "The main threat is coming from Chechnya" asserted Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, as he announced a crackdown on Chechens and other Muslim immigrants from the Caucasus region. Cops began conducting sweeping search operations September 14 in people's homes, at Moscow's airports, railway stations, and markets. The Russian interior minister announced September 17 that 11,000 people had been detained for questioning.
Recently the Yeltsin regime stepped up its anti-Muslim campaign, claiming the rebel fighters are linked with "international terrorism" and Saudi businessman Osama bin Laden. Last year Washington accused bin Laden of being the mastermind behind the Aug. 7, 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salam, Tanzania. Two weeks later U.S. warships deployed in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea fired 79 cruise missiles on Afghanistan and Sudan.
The White House claimed these bombings were launched in "self-defense" against an "international terrorist network" organized by bin Laden. Earlier this year the New York Times admitted that "no known evidence implicates" bin Laden in the embassy bombings.
The Clinton administration in the past has backed Moscow's military actions in the Caucasus, but expressed concern about mounting outrage among workers and peasants. "Any resumption of general hostilities," said White House spokesman Joseph Lockhart, "would be a threat to the stability of the region."
"If the [Russian] military could really pinpoint terrorist nests, the editors of the New York Times opined, "this bombing could really be worth the effort."
Meanwhile, Moscow's anti-Islamic crusade and the attempt to suppress independence struggles in the Caucasus have only exacerbated tensions in the region from Georgia and Armenia to Kyrgyzstan.
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