Law
and order were nonexistent in the republic, so smuggling became a prime income
producer. The Moscow police told me this actually benefited the larger economy
because without Chechen organized crime, the economy would have been totally
under the control of corrupt government officials and would have ground to
a halt. Besides commercial goods like cars, the Mafia also trafficked in
narcotics and kidnapped foreigners for ransom.
Kidnapping
Although there was money to be made in oil and the transportation of products
to the Black Sea, the Russians had not allowed these industries to be open to
young entrepreneurs who were Chechen. Hostage-taking became a source of income
and could almost be considered a cottage industry in Chechnya.
A young mental health worker from Chechnya whom I met in Moscow had been in an
apartment with a group that included agency workers from outside the country.
The door suddenly slammed open, and masked men with guns rushed in. Her first
thought was that this was a training exercise, and it took a few minutes before
she appreciated the seriousness of the situation. The men took several of the
outsiders to hold for ransom. At the time I talked to her, they had not been
returned and she was suffering from a post-traumatic reaction.
The taking of hostages at the theater in Moscow to put pressure for freedom on
the government is a continuation of this kind of guerrilla warfare. Our trauma
team has been invited to train Chechnya mental health workers and teachers, but
because of the danger of hostage-taking we would not be allowed into the republic.
Instead the trainees would come to us in Ingushetia.
The failure of the Russian army
During the war in the mid-1990s, the Russians sent in troops who were poorly
trained, poorly led and in many cases not as well armed as the Chechens. When
the Communists pulled out after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, they
left a significant number of weapons. When the warlords and the Mafia took over,
they were able to arm their troops well. Some weapons such as anti-tank rockets
were sophisticated and devastated parts of the Russian army. They bought some
of their arms from the Russian soldiers fighting them, who used the money to
buy vodka.
The military tactics used by the Chechens, like those in Afghanistan, bewildered
the Russians. Out of frustration, some of the Russian troops engaged in atrocities
that turned Chechens who would have supported the government against them.
A Chechen psychiatrist we worked with reported that many of his clients had been
victims of Russian torture. This failure of the Russian army also had a negative
effect on the troops. One of the problems our informants in Moscow talked about
was the number of post-traumatic stress reactions the returning Russian soldiers
were suffering.
On Oct. 1, 1999, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia officially declared
war on Chechnya. Russia wants to re-establish its control over the Caucasus even
if it has to kill every Chechen. A large part of the population, 200,000 people,
have fled the fighting and gone to Ingushetia.
The ordinary Chechen citizen is caught between two forces that show little evidence
of backing off. Both sides are blind to the needs of the other, with Russia being
blinder than the Chechens. As a result, freedom fighters/terrorists are likely
to plague Russia for some time to come.
