Western advice on how Russia might resolve conflict in Chechnya has been condescending and simplistic, writes Seamus Martin
In the aftermath of the Beslan massacre the kidnappers who took schoolchildren hostage have got off far more lightly than President Vladimir Putin of Russia. His proposed constitutional reforms have, with justification, drawn fire from all quarters, but when Mr Hu Jintao of the Chinese Communist Party this week dismissed western-style democracy as a "blind alley" hardly an international eyelid was batted.
Expressions of sympathy for the unfortunate Ossetes, the people of Iranian origin who form the majority in Beslan, were extremely rare. Pundits, it would appear, are above that sort of thing. Fierce criticism of Shamil Basaev, the warlord believed to have been responsible for the attack, was seldom expressed.
One British reporter referred simply to Mr Putin's reaping of the whirlwind. The implicit message was that Russia's actions in Chechnya justified attacks on children. Another commentator forfeited all credibility by writing of the Chechnyans (sic) and their homeland in the Caucases (sic). An "expert" commenting on TV was unable correctly to pronounce the names "Putin" and "Grozny".
Earlier another pundit suggested Mr Putin's activities were motivated by an anti-Muslim animus defined in the term "the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim". This point was made at a time when Mr Putin's appointee as head of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, Akhmad-Hadji Kadyrov, was not only a Muslim but had served as chief mufti until 1999. When, on May 9th, Mr Kadyrov became a dead Muslim in an attack claimed by Shamil Basaev, Mr Putin was visibly shaken.
Denials of foreign involvement in the Chechen crisis are also spurious. In August 1999 Shamil Basayev staged an armed incursion from Chechnya into the neighbouring region of Dagestan. Included among Basayev's militants was a Saudi warrior called Khattab and a group describing themselves as Wahhabites, members of the ultra-puritan Muslim sect originating in Saudi Arabia.
A month later more than 280 people died in Russia when the apartment buildings in which they slept were destroyed by expertly planted bombs. I asked Mr Putin, then prime minister, who he felt was responsible. He not only laid the blame on Chechen separatists but indicated very clearly that military intervention was on the way.
The stage was set for the second Chechen war in which Russian forces, not now encumbered by raw conscripts, terrorised the Chechen population. The first conflict, initiated by the Yeltsin administration in 1994, had ended in 1996 in a compromise between Gen Alexander Lebed on the Russian side and Aslan Maskhadov for the separatists.
Maskhadov was elected president of an autonomous Chechen republic in January 1997 in a genuine poll monitored by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). A former Soviet army colonel, Maskhadov was no saint. He had, for example, taken part in the notorious attack on Lithuanian independence activists in January 1991.
In Chechnya his military expertise allied to the high motivation of his fighters had proved too much for his former officer-colleagues who were dependent on raw and highly reluctant conscripts.
But good soldiers do not necessarily make good presidents, and Maskhadov's term at the helm of the civil administration was disastrous.
Rival clans set up their own fiefdoms. Kidnapping of westerners was rampant. Many of them, including three British hostages, were beheaded. Then, early in 1999, Maskhadov introduced Sharia law.
The apartment bombings and developments in Chechnya such as public executions under Sharia law, corruption, increased hostage-taking and mistreatment of those Russians who remained, took their toll on liberal public opinion in metropolitan Russia and abroad. Those who were vociferous in opposing the first Chechen war, and there were very many of them, quickly lost their appetite for opposition.
So where does Russia go from here? Western security advice has generally been condescending and simplistic. Some experts have even scoffed at their Russian counterparts, though they have been quieter in their criticism after a week in which a man dressed as Batman arrived on Queen Elizabeth's balcony at Buckingham Palace and protesters invaded the chamber of the House of Commons.
Current western political advice to Mr Putin is to reach a negotiated settlement in Chechnya, but he might find this difficult to achieve even if he wanted to. Chechen society is deeply divided on the basis of teips, a system of allegiances to extended family groups. Some strongly support Moscow. Others are separatists. Many have simply descended into banditry.
No one suggests negotiating with Shamil Basayev. He has little support among ordinary Chechens, and his actions in the past have been unconscionable. Aslan Maskhadov for all his more moderate reputation was unable to deliver peace in the first instance, and there is little likelihood that he can do so now.
Seamus Martin is a former Moscow correspondent of The Irish Times