The imminent violent aftermath of the
Beslan hostage-taking
Johanna Nichols
University of California, Berkeley
johanna@berkeley.edu
Oct. 8, 2004
The brutal school siege and
slaughter in Beslan, North Ossetia (Russia) in early September has left
a heavy burden of grief and rage that will not dissipate soon. A
very likely consequence of the incident is large-scale violence by
Ossetians against the Ingush people in mid October, followed by federal
military action against Ingushetia. The likelihood of violence against
Ingush living in North Ossetia has been noted by some Russian officials
and several western commentators. [1] Federal military action not
only against those Ingush but also against all of Ingushetia is a more
dire and also very likely prospect. What happens now is under
Russia's control and will demonstrate Russia's intentions in the
Caucasus. As I have seen no survey that mentions all the relevant
factors, this piece attempts to bring together background information
on Ossetian-Ingush ethnic conflicts and the expansion of the
Russian-Chechen war that is essential to understanding the potential
for violence.
The hostage-takers are generally
assumed to have been led by Chechens and to have included some Ingush
and several other nationalities, and their demands to the Russian
authorities included rapid full Russian military withdrawal from
Chechnya. The chance of gaining this end by means of a terrorist
act was virtually nil, as any participant would have known; but it was
a virtual certainty that the hostage-taking would lead to interethnic
violence against the Ingush, Russian military action against the
Ingush, further demonization of all Chechens, and escalation of Russian
federal violence against Chechen civilians. These are such
predictable and obvious consequences of the Beslan school siege that
they must be assumed to have been among the primary goals of the
organizers.
Background on the Ossetians and the
Ingush
The Ossetians speak a language of
the Iranian branch of Indo-European, a descendant of one of the
dialects of the Scythian rulers of the Iron Age steppe whose
intermediate stage was the early medieval Alanic language. The
Alans ruled a state in the pre-Mongol north Caucasus, in which a
variety of indigenous languages and ethnic identities obtained on the
ground. The original Alanic-speaking area lay to the north and
west of present-day Ossetian territory, and the language spread as the
state flourished.
The Ingush speak a language of
the Nakh branch of the ancient Nakh-Daghestanian language family which
is indigenous to the Caucasus. Ingush is so closely related to
Chechen as to be nearly mutually intelligible, though the national
identities and political aspirations of the two peoples have always
been very different. The linguistic ancestors of the Ingush and
Chechen were in the highlands of their present ranges as of some
millennia ago, and the languages had spread to roughly their modern
ranges at least by the middle ages. Neither Chechen nor Ingush
society had, in traditional times, any form of executive government,
though like all societies of the Caucasus they were firmly ruled by a
traditional code of law.
In the middle ages all three of
Chechen, Ingush, and Ossetian were also spoken on the southern slope of
the Caucasus, in today's highland Georgia, but the expansion of
Georgian in recent centuries replaced Chechen and Ingush there almost
entirely, leaving a large Ossetic-speaking population in South Ossetia
in Georgia and a small indigenous Chechen-speaking enclave in the
Pankisi Gorge of northeastern Georgia. On the north slope of the
Caucasus, Alan, Mongol, Kabardian, and Russian powers ruled in turn in
the lowlands without much impact on the ethnic, linguistic, and
cultural picture in the foothills and slopes of the Caucasus until the
19th century, when Russia undertook to conquer the Caucasus by means of
economic destruction, slaughter, and deportation. The
Circassians, the economic and cultural powerhouse of the western
Caucasus, resisted and were crushed, losing well over half of their
population and most of their land. The Chechens took part in
organized resistance and were crushed, losing nearly half of their
population. The Ingush aspired to political neutrality but were
nonetheless similarly crushed (then as now, Russia did not accurately
distinguish the linguistically similar but politically very distinct
Chechen and Ingush). The Ossetians gave cautious support to
Russia and were largely spared, though they too had some of their best
land expropriated for Cossack and Slavic settlers.
Islam spread to the northern
Caucasus from Azerbaijan via Daghestan in the east, reaching the
Chechens in about the 17th century and the Ingush in the 18th, and from
the Crimean khanate via Circassia in the west. In the early
middle ages there was Christian missionary activity by Georgian clerics
in the central highlands, reaching Ossetians, Ingush, and some highland
Chechens, all of whom added a nominally Christian overlayer to a
polytheistic traditional religion. Islam gained prestige as a
unifying force in the resistance to Russian conquest and took root
among all the indigenous peoples except for the Ossetians, who are now
the only predominantly Christian indigenous group in the north Caucasus.
Ingush-Ossetian tensions
Since the middle ages the ethnic
boundary between Ossetians and Ingush has run along the upper Terek
river. Though there was some intersettlement in the immediate
vicinity of the boundary, for the most part the right upper Terek
drainage was compactly and monoethnically Ingush and the left side
compactly and monoethnically Ossetian. Until the Russian conquest
there was much cultural and economic interaction, most of it
friendly. The city of Vladikavkaz was founded as a Russian fort
on the Terek at the Ingush-Ossetian ethnic border, and until 1944
functioned jointly as capital of North Ossetia and Ingushetia. In
1944 the Ingush and Chechen, along with a few other nationalities of
the north Caucasus including the Muslim minority of the Ossetians, were
deported en masse to Central Asia by the Soviet government, for reasons
that are still not well understood. At least one-third of the
population died or was killed in transit; every family was financially
ruined; all houses and property were looted and burned or given to new
settlers; museums, libraries, schools, archives, and other repositories
were destroyed; the deportees' republics were dissolved. Most of
the deportees were allowed to return beginning in 1957, and versions of
their republics were restored. Ingushetia (then part of a
Chechen-Ingush ASSR) was greatly resized, with most of its central
foothill portion -- the demographic, cultural, and economic heartland
of Ingushetia, with nearly half of its original population, most of its
resources, and its only urban center, the city of Vladikavkaz --
removed to North Ossetia. Though Ingush were barred from legal
residence in this area and discriminated against in employment and
admission to education, many of them nonetheless managed to return and
live there. (Among other things, this meant sacrificing schooling
in Ingush, a fact that has led to relatively rapid language shift to
Russian among Ingush compared to Chechens.) This land was close
to one-quarter of the area of pre-1944 Ingushetia and added about 7% to
North Ossetia.
In 1991 the first post-Soviet
step of the Ingush was to remove themselves from the Chechen-Ingush
republic and petition to become a republic of Russia. A federal
law was passed calling for their "territorial rehabilitation," and
restoration of the Ingush heartland was expected.
By the fall of 1992 Ingushetia
was a republic of Russia, Russia was seeking grounds for military
action against Chechnya and means of sowing disunity in the newly
formed Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus, and there was tension
in North Ossetia over the prospect of the return of Ingush lands and
over difficulties in accommodating South Ossetian refugees from civil
war in Georgia. Local media spread rumors that Ingush were arming
and preparing to take over the land by force, in response to which both
Ossetians and Ingush did arm for self-defense against each other.
Local incidents triggered battles, and federal troops, brought in
ostensibly as peacekeepers, aided Ossetian vigilantes in bringing about
the almost complete ethnic cleansing of Ingush from the area followed
by looting and destruction of most of their houses. Approximately
64,000 Ingush fled to Ingushetia and were registered as refugees
there. The consensus of historians now seems to be that Russia
hoped by this means to provoke Chechnya to attack in defense of the
Ingush, thereby justifying a federal attack on Chechnya. [2] In
the last few years several thousand of the Ingush refugees have managed
to return to rebuild in North Ossetia, despite hindrance from
authorities and occasional violent opposition by vigilantes.
The events of 1992 and the
difficulties of the return have convinced both Ingush and Ossetians
that Ossetians may attack Ingush with impunity and with the expectation
of republic and federal support.
Beslan, where the school siege
occurred, is not in the historically Ingush part of North
Ossetia. Nonetheless, a number of news reports have quoted Beslan
residents and Ossetians from elsewhere in the republic to the effect
that, at the end of the traditional 40-day mourning period (during
which one is not supposed to take up arms), they will take reprisals
against the Ingush living in North Ossetia. Such statements make
clear the deep lack of confidence among Ossetians in either the ability
or the willingness of either the North Ossetian or federal authorities
to bring the perpetrators to justice and guarantee future security, as
well as the readiness of some of them to blame the atrocity on an
entire ethnic group and to make that ethnic group the Ingush. In
part this attitude must have been reinforced by official statements
about the hostage-taking. While statements intended for an
international audience generally ascribe it to international terrorism
and link its organizers to Al Qaeda, those for domestic consumption
have focused on the ethnic identity of the hostage-takers. A
changing set of ethnicities has been cited (beginning before there was
evidence on the question), but always prominently including Ingush and
Chechen.
The scope of the intended
violence appears to be greater than the half-dozen or so Ingush who may
have been among the hostage-takers and greater than the approximately
400 Ossetians victims of the shootout after the hostage-taking.
None of the other ethnic groups who are believed to have been
represented among the hostage-takers are being targeted for violent
reprisals.
In traditional Ossetian law, as in the law codes of
all indigenous north Caucasian societies, a capital crime (such as
murder) was punished by a death sentence carried out by the victim's
family against the criminal or his closest surviving male relative.
When done in accordance with law, this triggered no return
vengeance. Journalists reporting on ethnic tensions after Beslan
sometimes mention the tradition of blood vengeance, but mass reprisal
against an ethnic group is not part of the code of vengeance. The
Beslan siege was a crime against humanity and not in the purview of
traditional civil law.
To summarize, Ossetian collective
vengeance against Ingush for the Beslan hostage-taking is made likely
by prior tensions over the return of Ingush land, official statements
associating the hostage-taking with entire ethnic groups, the existence
of vigilante or paramilitary groups, and -- probably most important --
the expectation of impunity for attacks on Ingush. In part it is
opportunistic, promoted by vigilantes who are not among the bereaved of
Beslan. Importantly, there is no ancient hatred between Ingush and
Ossetians; the enmity is recent, created by state policy both Soviet
and Russian, and increased perhaps to the point of no return by the
school siege.
Russian military designs on Ingushetia
Recognizing the likelihood of
Ossetian-Ingush violence, several Russian officials have said that it
will not be tolerated, and Russian president Putin himself has said
that anyone using the hostage-taking as grounds for violence will be
regarded as an accomplice of the terrorists.[3] Such language
will not defuse violence where there is an expectation of impunity, but
it could be used to justify military intervention in case of
violence. The 1992 history suggests that federal "peacekeepers"
can be counted on to take the Ossetian side against the Ingush, and
events of the last two years suggest that a military response to
interethnic violence would affect not just the Ingush living in North
Ossetia but Ingushetia itself.
From time to time since the
Russian-Chechen wars began in 1994, Russian forces have made attempts
to extend the war to Ingushetia, frequently announcing that Chechen
commanders are sheltering there and occasionally shelling or bombing
Ingush towns near the Chechnya-Ingushetia border. If the first
Russian-Chechen war was fought over Chechnya's independence, the second
one has had more the character of a turf war between local civilian
organized crime and military organized crime for control of the hostage
trade and the smuggling of oil, both of which had fallen into local
hands at the end of the first war and are now firmly in the hands of
the military and security services. In addition, the war serves
the military by generating promotions at a high rate and it serves
organized crime and advocates of a return to a police state by training
many Russian young men in the brutalities of murder, rape, and torture.
[4] Under the Russian military and security services the rate of
abduction and disappearance of Chechen civilians has greatly increased
over what obtained under local criminals in the interwar period, and
now exceeds the execution rate during the peak of Stalin's purges;[5]
the number of Russian servicemen who have gained experience at murder,
rape, and torture and then returned to civilian society must be
approaching two million;[6] the population of Chechnya is perhaps half
what it was in 1994, the consequence of refugee flight, war deaths, and
disappearances; and sources of ransom money in Chechnya have mostly
been bled dry. In the first years of the war Ruslan Aushev, then
president of Ingushetia, was able to keep Russian military atrocities
out of Ingushetia, but since he was forced out and replaced in 2002
abductions and disappearances of civilians at the hands of federal
death squads have begun to occur in Ingushetia, starting with residents
of refugee camps but soon extending to Ingush, and the rate now exceeds
that in Chechnya.[7] Federal authorities have forcibly closed
down all camps for refugees from the war and curtailed the work of aid
organizations serving them, and the danger posed by the death squads
has forced some aid organizations to withdraw entirely, all of which
reduces the number of independent and international observers present
in Ingushetia. Shortly before the Beslan hostage-taking, internet
connections in Ingushetia were shut down, and they apparently remain
shut down. Since the hostage-taking, Russian forces have resumed
shelling western Chechen towns (close to Ingushetia) and shelled a
military academy in Ingushetia. Taken together, these things seem
to indicate preparation for military action.
Expansion of Russia's war to
Ingushetia would make little military sense, but is consistent with the
non-military goals that appear to be driving the war. Large-scale
movement of Russian troops into Ingushetia would ordinarily cause
international concern, but interethnic violence in North Ossetia would
enable them to move into Ingushetia ostensibly as peacekeepers and
border guards. Once there, they are unlikely to leave.
Several voices in the military and in the Kremlin have called for a
forcible merger of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Though this is
opposed even by Moscow's hand-picked presidents of the two republics,
many in the Caucasus fear that bringing it about is one of the goals of
an expanded military presence.
To summarize, a consequence of
Ossetian-Ingush ethnic violence is likely to be a full extension of the
Russian-Chechen war to Ingushetia. The work of death squads has
already begun there. Extension of the war to Ingushetia is
desirable to the military and organized crime and was among the
foreseeably near-certain outcomes of the Beslan siege.
Conclusions
The 40-day mourning period for the massacred
innocents of Beslan ends on October 13. At this point, the
Russian authorities have little time and much work if they are to
remove the expectation of impunity for Ossetian attacks on Ingush,
counteract the tendency to lay the blame for an atrocity on an entire
ethnic group, and defuse violent collective vengeance. What they do in
the next days will tell us whether or not the Kremlin wishes to see
peace among Russia's constituent ethnicities and whether it wishes to
contain or to expand Russian-Chechen war. To fail to prevent
further violence will be to help make the Beslan atrocity a success on
its own terms.
Notes
[1] See e.g. Charles Gurin, 'Aushev and others warn of
possible Ossetian-Ingush conflict', Eurasian Daily Monitor 1:95
(Jamestown Foundation;
<http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=401&issue_id=3088&article_id=2368604
>; Bryon MacWilliams, 'North Ossetian conflict began in the
Kremlin,' Moscow Times, Oct. 6, 2004.
[2] See e.g. John B. Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of
a Separatist Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 173-8 and
Human Rights Watch, The Ingush-Ossetian Conflict in the Prigorodnyj
Region (New York, 1996) for this event. The latter source
emphasizes that many North Ossetians risked their own lives to save the
lives of their Ingush neighbors, and that fighting was
disproportionately initiated and carried out by out-of-area
paramilitaries.
[3] Quoted in Gurin, op. cit.
[4] For more on the character of the war see Anna Politkovskaya,
A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya (University of Chicago
Press, 2003), especially 161ff.; Rajan Menon, 'Russia's quagmire: On
ending the standoff in Chechnya' (Boston Review, Aug. 21, 2004); the
Jamestown Foundation's Chechnya Weekly
<http://www.jamestown.org/publications_view.php?publication_id=1
>, e.g. 5:8 (February 25, 2004) and Zaindi Choltaev, 'Surkov and the
search for enemies', Chechnya Weekly 5:36 (Oct. 6, 2004); Timur Aliev,
'Basayev eludes Russian capture', Institute for War and Peace
Reporting, Oct. 6, 2004 <
www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/cau/cau_200410_256_2_eng.txt >.
It is not a war between a Russian side and a Chechen "rebel"
side. The parties are: the Russian military and security
services; Islamist warlords who, while offering military resistance,
cooperate with the Russian security services in organizing some aspects
of hostage-taking and are spared Russian attack because they fulfill
the important goal of justifying Russian military intervention;
non-Islamist fighters, who generally do not prey on civilians but
rarely come to their aid; Chechen organized criminals, who are involved
in hostage-taking and in oil smuggling; and the civilian population,
who do not fight but are victims of the Russian services and the
Islamists, and some of whom buy reprieve by becoming informers.
[5] S. A. Gannushkina, O polozhenii zhitelej Chechni v Rossijskoj
Federacii ijun' 2003 - maj 2004.
http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/caucas1/index.htm, June 26, 2004;
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Medical Foundation for the
Care of Victims of Torture, and Memorial. The Situation in Chechnya and
Ingushetia Deteriorates. New Evidence of Enforced Disappearances, Rape,
Torture, and Extrajudicial Executions. ibid., Apr. 8, 2004;
Memorial, Poxischenija, ischeznovenija za god 2003 v chechenskoj
respublike, ibid., Feb. 27, 2004; Aleksandr Cherkasov, Kniga chisel.
Kniga utrat. Kniga strashnogo suda. Demografija, poteri
naselenija i migracionnye potoki v zone vooruzhennogo konflikta v
Chechenskoj Respublike, ibid., Feb. 26, 2004 and also polit.ru, Feb.
19, 2004.
[6] In late 2002 sociologist and former Kremlin advisor on
nationalities Emil Payin estimated their numbers at 1.5 million.
[7] See Nick Paton Walsh, 'A second Chechnya,' Guardian, June 18,
2004, and sources in note 5.