Hearts of Darkness

It has gone all but unnoticed in the U.S. but Russia has declared victory in its fight against Chechen rebels. Chechnya had become a byword for a place of chaos and random violence perpetrated by all sides, especially since the first Chechen War of 1994-1996.   But a recent report by the Times of London concerning Russian black operations in the region since the Second Chechen War of 1999 shows a level of brutality by both Russian forces and Chechen rebels that is utterly horrific. The Times reports:

The account is one of a series given to The Sunday Times by two special forces officers who fought the militants in Chechnya over a period of 10 years. Their testimony, the first of its kind to a foreign journalist, provides startling insights into the operation of secret Russian death squads during one of the most brutal conflicts since the second world war.

The men, decorated veterans of more than 40 tours of duty in Chechnya, said not only suspected rebels but also people close to them were systematically tracked, abducted, tortured and killed. Intelligence was often extracted by breaking their limbs with a hammer, administering electric shocks and forcing men to perform sexual acts on each other. The bodies were either buried in unmarked pits or pulverised.

Far from being the work of a few ruthless mavericks, such methods were widely used among special forces, the men said. They were backed by their superiors on the understanding that operations were to be carried out covertly and that any officers who were caught risked prosecution: the Russian government publicly condemns torture and extrajudicial killings and denies that its army committed war crimes in Chechnya.

In one example, a group of Russian commandos searching for female suicide bombers captured three suspects:

The soldiers were responding to a tip-off that the eldest of the three, who was in her forties, had been indoctrinating women to sacrifice themselves in Chechnya’s ferocious war between Islamic militants and the Russians. The others captured with her were her latest recruits. One was barely 15.

“At first the older one denied everything,” said a senior special forces officer last week. “Then we roughed her up and gave her electric shocks. She provided us with good information. Once we were done with her we shot her in the head.

“We disposed of her body in a field. We placed an artillery shell between her legs and one over her chest, added several 200-gram TNT blocks and blew her to smithereens. The trick is to make sure absolutely nothing is left. No body, no proof, no problem.” The technique was known as pulverisation.

The young recruits were taken away by another unit for further interrogation before they, too, were executed.

In another example, one of the interviewees said he had ordered a wounded female sniper to be run over by a tank.

The article is pretty tough reading, with accounts of arms being hacked off, hammers to kneecaps and to fingers, and so on. No to mention the atrocities committed by the Chechens, such as the Beslan school massacre and descriptions of a captured video of a Russian hostage–a young girl–being raped and mutilated. Truly horrifying.

And, as if the fact that the Chechen fighter distributed tapes of them mutilating hostages wasn’t bad enough, the Russian forces at times would tape their own torture and mutilation of the detainees and put those tapes into circulation as a method pf psychological warfare. I was reminded of a quote by the Israeli Military historian Martin van Creveld: “he who fights terrorists for any period of time is likely to become one himself.”  And I ask myself, does this have to be true?

Let’s give the penultimate excerpt to the two special operations soldiers interviews by the Times of London:

“You have to be a certain kind of person to do this job – very strong,” Vladimir said. “Those who carried it out always volunteered. It would not be right to order one of your men to torture someone. It can be morally and psychologically very tough.”

Andrei added: “What mattered most was to carry out this work professionally, not to leave evidence which could be traced back to us. Our bosses knew about such methods but there was a clear understanding that we should cover our tracks. We knew we’d be hung out to dry if we got caught.

“We are not murderers. We are officers engaged in a war against brutal terrorists who will stop at nothing, not even at killing children. They are animals and the only way to deal with them is to destroy them. There is no room for legal niceties in a war like this. Only those who were there can truly understand. I have no regrets. My conscience is clear.”

The last words, if there were any, would have to be those of Mister Kurtz (“The horror! The horror!). But I fear that cycles of violence don’t just suddenly end, like novellas, and that we have not seen the end of this story. In part, that is because violence begets violence and  the level of brutality that has been perpetrated will be long remembered and leave deep scars on all involved.  Moreover, Russia may have declared that the war is over, but the situation is anything but stable:

Kadyrov (the victorious Moscow-backed warlord) has grown so powerful as President of Chechnya that Moscow’s grip on the republic is tenuous at best. The Kremlin has struck a Faustian bargain that allows him to rule unchallenged, provided he expresses loyalty to Russia.

Kadyrov has built Europe’s largest mosque in Grozny, the Chechen capital flattened in the war but which has now been reconstructed with federal funding that he controls. He has also introduced elements of Islamic law, such as requiring women to wear headscarves in public buildings and clamping down on alcohol sales. He advocated polygamy in Chechnya last week, even though it is illegal in Russia.

Kadyrov’s loyalty is also qualified: he repeatedly expresses devotion to Putin as Chechyna’s “saviour” but pushes for increasing independence from Moscow. He wants international status for Grozny’s airport, for instance, allowing Chechnya the right to establish its own customs posts.

He also agitated for the decision to end anti-terrorist operations because it will require central authorities to withdraw troops from Chechnya, making the Kremlin even more dependent on him.

Moscow plays along because while Chechnya is quieter, the rest of the North Caucasus is growing increasingly unstable. Neighbouring Ingushetia has been in turmoil for months, while insurgent attacks have spread to Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Having fought so hard to deny the principle that regional borders could be changed, Russia hastily undid all its work by recognising the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia after last summer’s war with Georgia. Some within the Kremlin now privately acknowledge that this has set an uncomfortable precedent that has fired the ambitions of others in the Caucasus to challenge Russia’s rule.