West's Media Aid Rebels

A tear-jerking war of words against Russia has been unleashed by foreign journalists who are in league with Chechen terrorists.


From all directions, propagandists from Chechen gangs are waging a well-coordinated, full-scale disinformation attack. Not only is it being waged inside Russia, but throughout the world as well - with Europe and the United States seeing the worst of it. These Chechen-born and Western-spread rumors - systematically worming their way into Russian media - are meant to discredit the Russian military, prompt Russian citizens to mistrust military commanders and incite hostility toward the troops. The most insidious aspect of this media campaign is how it reveals the Western media's drive at gaining control of the opinions of world society.


The West's leading radio and TV stations give airtime to nobody but Chechen separatists who distort events in the North Caucasus. It is sad to notice how some of the Russian media periodically get mixed up in this campaign, too.


What you are most likely to see and hear on these outlets is the same kind of propaganda you are liable to hear within Chechnya itself - things like "witness accounts" about the "monstrous deeds" of "Russian soldiers marauding around" and about the soldiers "disproportionate use of force."


Such information serves two purposes: to encourage the ever-thinning rebel gangs to keep fighting and to weaken the morale of the federal forces who are fighting against them. This is the kind of misinformation fed to foreign viewers and readers. Why is it happening? Why does prejudice flourish in so many Western media reports, both on the developing situation in Chechnya and on what will come after it - what they call the humanitarian problem? The humanitarian problem, in the Western version, would deal with providing support to refugees who were forced to leave Chechnya for the neighboring republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia.


Why do so many foreign correspondents reporting from the North Caucasus use unverified facts in their dispatches - which afterward become the stuff of official statements issued by Western governments and organizations? These reports reveal an anti-Russian bias - never are they impartial and balanced.


The Western media have never condemned directly - and it is doubtful they ever will - the Chechen "freedom fighters" for their own attacks on civilians. These media have never protested against tormenting of the hostages held captive by rebels. These media never discuss how Chechen terrorists take metal-cutting shears and hack off the fingers of soldiers, and sometimes even children whom they hold hostage. The corps of Western correspondents has never denounced the Chechen gang leaders for using their own people as a human shield against attack.


Western journalists explain themselves by saying they are made to work exclusively with Chechen soldiers or "refugees," while completely ignoring events among the federal troops. This amounts to nothing but a specific political assignment: to highlight the conflict from a distinctly anti-Russian angle. The Western media and their governmental circles exploit the so-called "humanitarian" problem with just as much energy. We hear their reports that humanitarian support provided by the Russian federal center is not delivered to those who left Chechnya and now sit in camps. In fact, Russians provided 95 percent of the support for these displaced people, whereas contributions from the fretting international community amounted to 5 percent.


It should be added that the region has already been visited by 10 delegations from various international and regional organizations, and these inspections revealed no need for substantial increase in aid from the international community.


It is likely that the whole "humanitarian catastrophe" was given such airplay not to help these displaced people, but to heat the air around the situation, provoking discontent both among the displaced peoples and world society as a whole.


The primary aim of distributing such tendentious information, like the Western media are doing, is obviously to provide moral support for separatists, terrorists and religious extremists operating in Chechnya. Concerning the strategic aims of this propaganda, their authors seem to have set more radical goals: to infuse Russia with a guilt complex for its righteous attempts to counteract these forces; incite religious hatred in the North Caucasus and cause a clash between the Russians and the Moslems; and, finally, to separate Chechnya from Russia, starting a step-by-step disintegration of our country to ensure Russia's isolation.


The war of words being waged in Chechnya and beyond will likely require more efficient counter-measures from not only Moscow. Achieving victory will be easy if we react more adequately to the information war that has been unleashed - with strong elements of Western support - by the Chechens. We must take drastic and concrete measures against the Western press corps, elements of which engage in subversive activities both in Chechnya and its neighboring republics.


Such an approach would be absolutely consistent with the norms undertaken by any country trying to restore common social order and ensure stability in its own territories. These Western circles should consider one more important fact: If they ceased to preserve the aggression mill in Chechnya with their moral and propagandist backing of Chechen soldiers, then Russia might need less time to establish stability and peace in the republic.


Vladmir Kozin is a senior adviser in the Foreign Ministry's European cooperation department. This comment originally appeared in Nezavisimaya Gazeta. The views it expresses are not necessarily those of the Foreign Ministry.