Chechnya: The Case for Independence by Tony Wood. Pub: Verso Books, London, UK, 2007. Pp: 199. Pbk: £12.99.
Although the recent assassinations of Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko have failed to draw international condemnation for Russian prime minister Victor Putin, they ought to draw attention to the continuing war in Chechnya. HAJIRA QURESHI of the SCC looks forward to World Chechnya Day.
The assassination of Ahmed Kadyrov, Chechnya's pro-Kremlin president, on May 9 has thrown into chaos president Vladimir Putin's plans for ending the Chechen resistance to Russian imperialism...
The only Russian officer to be charged for war crimes in Chechnya has been acquitted on the basis that he raped and murdered a teenaged girl while suffering from temporary insanity. Colonel Yury Budanov was cleared of all charges against him on December 31.
The indomitable Chechen fighters and their supporters have done it again, catching Vladimir Putin on the hop. On April 14, Adam Deniyev, the second most senior leader of the pro-Kremlin administration in Chechnya, was assassinated by a bomb as he left a television studio.
The Muslims of Ichkeria are facing a long, hard winter as over 250,000 have been forced to flee their homes to avoid Russian military operations and air raids, and many are stranded in the open or with little shelter as the region’s harsh winter weather sets in.
The Ichkerian capital Jauhar-Ghala (called Grozny by the Russians) was effectively under siege again as Crescent went to press. It had been subjected to repeated air and missile attacks in the previous few days, in which hundreds of people had been killed and thousands left homeless
President Aslan Maskhadov of Ichkeria (formerly Chechenya), was greeted with much respect at a conference in Washington DC from August 7-10. The Chechen president had cause to be proud of his people’s valiant struggle against heavy odds.
Aware that their survival depends on unity, the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus have frequently attempted to achieve this goal in the face of persistent threats from Russia as well as other regimes in the region.
The Russians have proved, yet again, that they cannot be trusted. The peace agreement signed between Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Moscow on May 27 and whose details were worked out in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, over several days...
On April 21, Chechen leader Dzokhar Dudayev - a formidable leader with mythical qualities - passed into history as one of the most courageous Muslim leaders of the twentieth century.
