The conflict since 11^th September 2001

Vladimir Putin used the 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA to side with the international coalition against terrorism and intensified the military escalation in Chechnya, arguing that close links existed between the Chechen guerrillas and Al Qaeda. For him, the Chechen war represented Russian participation in this international combat.

So from 2002 the Chechens went from being labelled "bandits" to being branded "terrorists" and Putin established a tacit agreement with the West, especially with the USA government, in order to clear the way for solving his internal problems with “Chechen terrorism”.

However, Islamic reality in Chechnya tells a different story: The Chechens have always professed a highly tolerant and open Sufi-type Islam. It was not until the first Chechen War that Wahabism (a radical teaching of Islam) burst onto the scene in the republic. Some Chechen rebels accepted money from Saudi Arabia and some Wahabist guerrillas (such as Fatja or Jattab) fought alongside Chechen guerrillas like Basayev. These were the perpetrators of subsequent bloody acts of terrorism that the non-Islamist separatists (like Maskhadov) always condemned.

The “Chechenization” of the conflict

The Russian government considered the war concluded in 2001 and wishes to portray an image of apparent normality in Chechnya. In 2003 a referendum on autonomy took place under the military occupation and with no international observers in which 96% of voters supposedly voted for Chechnya to be recognised as an integral part of Russia. Not long after this the Russian government held presidential elections under the same conditions and the puppet candidate, Akhmad Kadyrov, was elected Chechen President, claiming 81% of the votes. Human rights organisations denounced a new fraud. Meanwhile, Maskhadov’s government continued to operate from the mountains.

This marked the start of the “Chechenization” of the conflict: the forces fighting the Chechen guerrillas were no longer exclusively the Russian soldiers and secret services but also the forces of the new pro-Russian Chechen power, namely the Kadyrovsti.

From this point the main players in the conflict were:

- Kadyrov’s government, imposed by the Kremlin. This highly corrupt government applied the same methods of terror as the Russian army.

- the pro-independence Chechens, hidden in the mountains and with an increasingly radicalised faction. Islamist groups also appeared which went down the route of perpetrating terrorist attacks on Russia: the taking of hostages in Moscow’s Dubrovka theatre and the kidnapping of children in a school in Beslan (Ossetia) are two examples, with tragic consequences in both cases.

Meanwhile, Chechnya’s democratic presidents were assassinated by the Russian army: in 2005 the moderate Aslan Maskhadov was killed. This reduced the chances of a peaceful end to the conflict. He was replaced by vice president Sadulayev, who was assassinated in Argun one year later. Since then the pro-independence Chechens have been led by Dokka Umarov.

The dictatorship of Ramzan Kadyrov

In the spring of 2007, Vladimir Putin made Ramzan Kadyrov the new president of Chechnya. Son of the former Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov (assassinated in an attack by Chechen rebels), Ramzan had become the country's strongman and was a faithful ally of the Kremlin.

Chechnya today is a country undergoing reconstruction (cities re-emerging from the rubble include Grozny and Shali) which portrays an image of stability. However, behind this mirage there is a dictatorship where no political opposition or dissidence is allowed. Kadyrov governs surrounded by a particularly bloody militia, the aforementioned Kadyrovsti, who have been accused of kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians with impunity, creating a climate of terror: “People are more afraid now than during the war. This is like Moscow in the 1930s: people inform against each other and individuals disappear during the night never to return. Nobody trusts anybody anymore. Putin’s masterstroke has been to let Ramzan Kadyrov do his dirty work for him. Now Chechens confront Chechens”. (Zaira, a Chechen woman interviewed by Asne Seierstad in El ángel de Grozni, Ed. Maeva, Madrid, 2008.)