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World guy
Ramzan Kadyrov ended the war in Chechnya
President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov addressed yesterday a message to the parliament and the people of the republic, opening a week of events dedicated to 100 days from the moment of his assumption of office with a keynote speech. This date will be celebrated on July 14th. Ramzan Kadyrov declared the main hot spot of the North Caucasus “the most stable region”, and military operations were completed “finally and irrevocably.” At the same time, experts fear that in the new world that will be built in the republic under the leadership of President Kadyrov, there is hardly a place for the Russian-speaking population.Officials at various levels have made similar statements more than once in recent years, but always with reservations. Yesterday's report was also overshadowed by the fact that last week the police chief of the Oktyabrsky district of Grozny, Saypudi Lorsanov, was killed in a battle with militants. Yet the second Chechen war, which began in the fall of 1999, now has an end date - at least according to Mr. Kadyrov.
In terms of duration, the second Chechen campaign of 1999-2007 turned out to be almost four times longer than the first (1994-1996). The outcome of Russia's eight-year counterterrorism efforts differs from the results of the two-year operation to restore constitutional order. In 1996, Russia was effectively defeated by the separatists and withdrew completely from the republic, agreeing to postpone negotiations on the official status of the territory for five years. An attempt to reproduce a relatively democratic regime in independent Chechnya encountered resistance from numerous field commanders who emerged victorious from the first war: none of them wanted to give up the influence they had gained, and some advocated the introduction of Sharia rule. As a result, elected President Aslan Maskhadov, who was afraid of internal conflict, was unable to oppose anything to the extremists who invaded neighboring Dagestan, which led to the resumption of the war.
Having entered the second war, Russia, albeit not immediately, refused to consider Maskhadov a negotiating partner, but it also did not, as in the first campaign, rely on the pre-war, still Soviet Chechen nomenklatura. Moscow chose as allies some of its former enemies - several moderate separatists who were dissatisfied with Maskhadov's loyalty to Islamic fundamentalists. These new allies of Russia were led by the former separatist mufti of Chechnya , Akhmat Kadyrov, and after his death in a terrorist attack in Grozny on May 9, 2004, by his son Ramzan. Alu Alkhanov, elected president of Chechnya during the political minority of Ramzan Kadyrov, belonged rather to the old nomenklatura. Therefore, his early departure from office in February of this year, although it was perceived by some observers in Moscow and Grozny as a concession to former opponents, turned out to be a completely logical continuation of the course of “Chechenization.” That is, transferring responsibility for what is happening in Chechnya to the new Chechen elite, which has already managed to win over most of yesterday’s militants to its side.
“We have chosen our path - together with Russia , aimed at the prosperity of peoples,” Ramzan Kadyrov emphasized yesterday. This refrain, repeated at every step in Chechnya, is the main symbolic result of the second campaign: the republic has a constitution in force, according to which Chechnya is declared an integral part of the Russian Federation. The slogan also has quite material embodiments. Several large Russian military units are permanently stationed in the republic, which was, of course, unthinkable after the Khasavyurt agreements of 1996. The Russian company Rosneft, through its subsidiary , nominally half owned by the Chechen government, produces about 2 million tons of oil per year there. The budget of Chechnya, with its thoroughly destroyed economy, is filled to a large extent with federal money. In addition, there is still special targeted funding for post-war reconstruction.
The Russian government plans to wind down the federal target program for the restoration of Chechnya, which has been in place for six years, by the end of 2007, as Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov signed a corresponding decree last week: the federal ministers, apparently, also decided that the war is over. In total, about 30 billion rubles were allocated under the program over six years. This is only part of the total amount of federal money invested in Chechnya in recent years: in 2004-2005 alone, the total amount of funding for the target program with the help of budget transfers and extra-budgetary funds reached approximately the same 30 billion rubles. But per year. True, according to Grozny officials, real money did not always reach them and not completely.
Termination of the restoration program only means a change in the controlling authority. Until now, the program was supervised by the Ministry of Economic Development, and the development program for Chechnya for 2008-2011 is written by the Ministry of Regional Development. According to available data, its volume will exceed 66 billion rubles for four years.
“Money can be found, but it is very difficult to spend it wisely and return it with a profit,” the President of Chechnya noted philosophically yesterday. He recalled the clear increase in incomes of the population, successes in clearing and restoring destroyed cities and the massive return of refugees. At the same time, Mr. Kadyrov once again mentioned the need to increase the return on oil sales. Rosneft earns about 20 billion rubles from the export of Chechen hydrocarbons. per year and theoretically should return them to Chechnya in the form of investments in the development of oil production infrastructure. But Grozny, formally owning 49% of the Grozneftegaz company, claims that it does not receive even 5% of these incomes. Oil production accounts for 95% of production in Chechnya: it turns out that the federal center is taking away the main source of livelihood from loyal Chechnya. President Kadyrov, however, noted yesterday that “it is impossible to solve the problem of increasing economic potential and employment of the population by restoring oil production alone.”
Ramzan Kadyrov intends to restore the transit systems of railway and road transport, develop the agro-industrial complex in Chechnya, which, according to him, is in decline even compared to the war year of 2001, and in the future promises to turn the mountainous regions of the republic into a “Caucasian Switzerland” with fashionable ski resorts and mountaineering bases.
It is possible that the residents of “Caucasian Switzerland” will speak exclusively in Chechen: Ramzan Kadyrov supports the idea of introducing teaching in Chechen in primary schools, which will certainly weaken the already precarious position of Russian, which, although named in the constitution as an equal state language, is noticeably falling out of use mainly due to the absence of Russians, most of whom fled Chechnya during the war years.
Just yesterday, the Secretary of the Public Chamber, Academician Evgeny Velikhov, addressed a letter to the Russian Presidential Envoy in the Southern Federal District, Dmitry Kozak, expressing concern about the “lack of practical measures” in solving the problem of the return of the Russian population to Chechnya. According to the academician, the participation of qualified Russian personnel in the restoration and development of the economy would help “spend wisely and return with profit” the money that, as Mr. Kadyrov said, can be found. The academician would like Grozny to regain its status as “one of the centers of Russia’s traditional cultural influence in the North Caucasus.”
The head of the Public Chamber Commission on Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience, ethnologist Valery Tishkov, correctly agreed with his colleague Velikhov in the sense that if the Russian population does not participate in the restoration of Chechnya and especially Grozny, “the Chechen society’s perception of the historical role of Russia and the Russian people in the fate of the republic could radically change." The direction of this change, unfortunately, is also not difficult to predict.
“In the Chechen Republic, interethnic relations do not exist, but there is agreement and mutual understanding,” says Ramzan Kadyrov. “Yes, it’s scary to go back. But if the perpetrators of everything that happened are punished, many will think and return,” former resident of Grozny, teacher Valentina Verolskaya, who has been living “in forced emigration” in Tambov for 13 years, told Vremya Novostey. - But this must be a well-thought-out policy. It would be nice to think about restoring the Terek and Sunzhenskaya Cossack lines.” It is unlikely that Mr. Kadyrov would agree with such a proposal.