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Young Chechens buoy hard boyz
At least twice a month, bands of haggard Chechen guerrillas hunker down at the edge of this dusty farming hamlet and rendezvous with young quartermasters like the doe-eyed cop from nearby Shali. If the fighters want beef, the Shali cop persuades a local farmer to give up one of his cows. If a militant needs a wounded leg treated or even amputated, the cop arranges it. If they need grenade launchers, he can get his hands on some. "God willing, as long as we are alive, we will help them," the cop says softly, ringed by several friends who nod in agreement. He asked for anonymity to safeguard himself and his family. "Russians killed eight people in my family, including my father. As long as Russia is here in Chechnya, we will fight the Russians."In recent years the separatist insurgency has been buoyed by Arab and Central Asian Muslim mercenaries and by millions of dollars in funding from Islamic fundamentalist organizations. Just as important, however, have been young Chechens like the Shali cop. Adrift in the misery of war and often driven by the urge to avenge a loved oneâs death, they help feed and clothe rebels, and in many cases join up. Further derailing the Kremlinâs efforts to stabilize Chechnya have been the scores of reports of torture, abductions and extrajudicial executions allegedly committed by Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces against Chechen civilians. Rarely investigated, such atrocities have stoked resentment among Chechens and, in some cases, stirred Chechen youth to help the rebel cause, said Imran Ezhiev, an activist with the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a human-rights group in the Caucasus region. However, in recent years, separatist forces have grown far less cohesive. Many remain allied with Aslan Maskhadov, Chechnyaâs president during its de facto independence between 1996 and 1999. Others follow Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who embraced Islamic fundamentalism in the late 1990s and claims responsibility for organizing many of the suicide bombing attacks that have terrorized Moscow and southern Russia in the past two years. A Chechen interviewed in a secluded farmhouse just outside Chechnya who asked for anonymity said he began fighting alongside separatists in 1999, the beginning of Russiaâs second attempt to quell the rebellion. The wiry Chechen explained that he answers "only to our president, Aslan Maskhadov." Now 23, the Chechen was 14 when Russian troops stormed into his familyâs house in the village of Noviye Atagi and took away his father. The fatherâs body was found in the village a week later. Too young to fight, the 14-year-old helped rebels get food and clothes for two years before becoming a fighter in 1999. Since then, he has fought alongside seven other guerrillas--none of them over 30--in a gang that moves between mountain villages and the dense woods at the foot of the Caucasus range. Occasionally, as they did two weeks ago, they engage in a firefight with Russian troops. "We were going through the forest, and then they saw us and we saw them," the guerrilla said. "We both opened fire at each other. We donât know how many Russians we killed. We were the first to leave . . . because there was only eight of us and many Russians." For many fighters, the tour of duty is much briefer. They join, leave, then rejoin. Another 23-year-old Chechen spent two uneventful weeks with guerrillas in 2001 before his parents appeared at the rebel base and persuaded him to leave. In an interview in his native Serzhen-Yurt, the Chechen said his only brush with danger came when, working sentry duty, he nearly fired at a group of fellow Arab, Tajik and Afghan fighters who did not know the password. A week later, Russian troops arrested him and kept him in a pit for four days, he said. "I was beaten the whole time, and at the end of the fourth day, they told me, `This is the last day of your life.â" He said Russian authorities released him after his family paid an $1,800 ransom. Now a construction worker in Serzhen-Yurt, the Chechen called it a "great shame for me" that his family paid the ransom. "I am just waiting for the day that the majority of Chechens begins fighting the Russians. When they do, I will join them." Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-06-13 |
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