A War That is Gone But Not Forgotten
A rare visit to Chechnya shows the cruel aftermath
But Putin needs Kadyrov, whose militia forces—popularly dubbed "Kadyrovtsy"—are proving effective against rebel remnants. Unlike the Russians, the Kadyrovtsy know the territory, they know the language, and, most important, they know the complex, unwritten rules of Chechen society, based on ancient mountain laws and the traditions of eclectic Sufi sects. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Memorial cite another characteristic of the Kadyrovtsy: enthusiasm for Russian methods of rooting out rebel suspects, namely torture, kidnapping, and illegal execution. According to Memorial, between 3,000 and 5,000 people—like Satsita's husband—have "disappeared" in the past six years. Even official government sources put the figure at about 2,700. And although the figures drop every year, they remain alarming in a traumatized society of about a million people. Last year, Memorial—which is able to operate only in 30 percent of Chechen territory—listed 172 kidnappings, with half of those still missing and nine found dead.
Many observers—most notably the slain Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya—have accused Kadyrov of personally promoting these abuses. Two days before her October 7 murder in Moscow, Politkovskaya branded Kadyrov a "heavily armed coward" and the "Stalin of our times." But the Kremlin does not share these qualms, and Putin has bestowed on Kadyrov the country's highest honor, Hero of Russia.
What does cause jitters in Moscow is that the bulk of the estimated 7,000 armed men associated with Kadyrov are themselves former rebel fighters enticed or coerced into switching sides. "Everyone knows the so-called pro-Moscow militias in Chechnya are in fact tribal military formations loyal only to their chiefs," said Moscow-based military affairs specialist Pavel Felgenhauer. "Basically, the rebels in Chechnya have entered a rest period and are getting training under the Russian flag."
Chechen panache. The ambitious Kadyrov, meanwhile, is using that unquestioned power to shed his image as a Kremlin puppet and become something of a national leader. His growing number of admirers, especially youths who grew up with little but war, point to his typically Chechen panache and his ability to say what ordinary people are thinking. He has appealed to the many devoutly Muslim Chechens by calling for women to wear head scarves, for permitting polygamy, and for banning gambling.
A sad irony is that in many ways Chechnya again resembles the legal black hole that characterized de facto independence in the 1990s. And now that corrosion is spreading into Russia proper. In September, another top Chechen leader who switched sides to become a Russian officer, Sulim Yamadayev, was reported in the Russian media to have led a mafia-style armed raid on a meat processing plant located on a valuable piece of real estate in St. Petersburg—more than 1,500 miles from Grozny. In November, another legalized warlord, Movladi Baisarov, was gunned down in central Moscow—resisting arrest, by the official account. With journalist Politkovskaya shot dead and former spy Alexander Litvinenko, another opponent of Putin's actions in Chechnya, fatally poisoned in London, the Chechen-related body trail—regardless of who carried out the killings—seems to be spreading.
Worryingly for Moscow, discontent stretches across the North Caucasus region, a patchwork of tiny ethnic minorities that, like the Chechens, share poverty, Islam, and often histories of chafing at Russian rule. An extensive underground network connects armed bands—sometimes Chechens, sometimes members of other ethnic groups, and sometimes including a handful of al Qaeda-linked foreigners. They attack police, soldiers, and officials while preaching radical Islam as an alternative to Russian rule. The authorities tend to respond with brute force, rarely attempting to address the roots of the unrest, which human-rights organizations list as economic hopelessness, political disenfranchisement, and thirst for revenge against the security forces.
Satsita, like most Chechens, knows exactly how destructive and futile this cycle of conflict can be. A brother-in-law was killed fighting the Russians. A daughter became a suicide bomber after her husband of six weeks was shot by soldiers. Satsita's husband joined the rebels but won amnesty. Now, he has vanished. As tears slide down her cheeks, she says, "I have lost all hope."
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