Terrorism by Victims

The Russian leadership, having suddenly fallen in love with all manner of forums for fighting terrorism, finds itself in a difficult position. Having actively participated in all of them, Moscow has tried to convince the world of one simple thought: "Russia and Russians are victims of terrorism." What terrorism? There's no question: Chechen, of course.


Didn't we have Budyonnovsk, then Kizlyar? Aren't trolleybuses in Moscow and trains all over Russia exploding? Will anyone dare deny that we have terrorism?


Moscow unexpectedly discovered that no one intends to deny this fact. But the world does not intend to approach it with what Moscow considers the "necessary" attention.


It didn't do so in Halifax, when during the Budyonnovsk tragedy the Russian president shook his fists and swore before the entire world to crush Shamil Basayev and his cronies. The world's leaders were silent, though they did express sympathy for Russians. They were silent again, in Sharm el-Sheik on March 13, but without the signs of sympathy.


The events of January were too fresh, when it wasn't clear what disturbed the world more: Raduyev's band in Kizlyar or the cruelty of Mikhail Barsukov and Anatoly Kulikov in Pervomaiskoye. And the recent attempts of Russian ministers to focus attention of the forum participants in Paris on "terrorism in Chechnya" did not win the desired effect.


Obviously, leaders don't want to openly place their Russian colleagues in a difficult position; they merely let them have their say, while diplomatically remaining silent. But they send signals to the effect that the nature of terrorism is so diverse that it's useless to combat it. But how can one compare the American aircraft blasted out of the sky over Lockerbie and Long Island and the explosion in Atlanta with an explosion on a Moscow trolleybus? How can one treat as equal the ambitions of madmen or a group of Moslem extremists with fighters ready to blow up trolleybuses, taking vengeance for their burned villages and murdered relatives?


Let's call these two types of terrorism "generalized terrorism" and "terrorism by victims." The essence of the latter is that it is bred and constantly nurtured by the endless pogroms of Russian troops in Chechen villages, by the significantly greater number of victims among the peaceful population than among the fighters.


The world's leaders are also silent because they do not really approve of the insistence with which the Russian leadership conducts its "special course" in relation to regimes that support "general terrorism." They don't understand those signs of attention, bordering on sympathy, that Moscow pays to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, who occasionally threatens to repeat his seizure of Kuwait. And what about Moscow's reckless striving at all costs to squeeze the promised billion dollars out of an atomic energy station in Iran, thus providing the Iranians with weapons they want? Moscow blithely closes its eyes to the far-from-peaceful politics of Tehran in the region. And the Sudan, where Russian military missionaries go now and then? And Libya?


Such an approach by Moscow to the problem of terrorism is gradually splitting the incipient "new world order," creating a pole of gravity in today's structure of international relations. The opposite pole will probably become Washington, which recently declared a campaign not only against the terrorists themselves but against governments that sponsor them. Most Western democracies find themselves between these two poles. On the one hand, the latter hardly approve of Moscow's magnanimity toward Middle East regimes. On the other hand, they hasten to distance themselves from the decisiveness of Clinton to punish Iran and Libya, albeit through economic measures.


As the present crisis over terrorism policy shows, Moscow's approach which gives top priority to economic and commercial gain in its dealings with "dubious regimes" is by no means alien to the majority of Western democracies. Of course, each follows this approach to a varying degree. Paris is much more obvious, London and Bonn are much less so.


This is clearly all related to the large-scale European presence in Iran and Libya as well as to their desire to avoid a terrorist war in the Old World similar to what has developed with the New. But nevertheless, the negative European reaction to Clinton's initiatives is probably an emotional response to what appears at first glance to be "U.S. interference in European foreign policy," "American bullying," "Clinton's pre-election games," etc.


But putting aside these initial emotions, the fact is that Clinton has not infringed on the sovereignty of any third country. He has just restricted U.S. firms and financial institutions from working with foreign partners on a black list. That's all.


But he has also, in a brutal form, raised an issue which is fated to be crucial in the "new world order": is it right to fight a war with terrorism on all fronts and using all legal methods relying on international solidarity, whatever the economic cost? Or else to pretend to make war, forming an anti-terrorism alliance in word only (as at Sharm el-Sheik) but keeping the battle limited to only a few terrorist groups, leaving untouched the basic infrastructure of world terrorism which is based on a few states in the third world?


Maybe Europe will come up with some third way of pushing us deeper into this mess, a way that is different from both Russia (which, while its troops in Chechnya sow the seeds of terrorism on a daily basis, still appeals for sympathy to the world community and gives top priority to commercial gain in its relations with radical regimes) and the United States, which is trying to wage an uncompromising global economic war on entire states but which occasionally lacks adequate proof of their involvement in any particular terrorist outrage.





Alexander Shumilin is the Middle Eastern bureau chief for Novoye Vremya. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.