Moscow is learning that Chechen nationalist aspirations are here to stay, writes Ahmed Reda At least 95 people were killed and dozens more were injured in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, one of Chechnya's neighbours, on 21 June when 200 armed rebels launched simultaneous attacks on 20 Russian and local installations in the country. Authorities said the coordinated raids, in which Ingushetia's acting interior minister, Abukar Kostoyev, and his deputy were killed, were carried out by a mix of local and Chechen fighters led by an Ingush commander. They attacked border guard installations, interior ministry buildings and ambushed security vehicles which responded to the raids. According to a pro-Chechen website, Ingush rebels claimed responsibility for the attacks against what they referred to as "Russian occupation forces and the puppet militia". The rebels claimed to have collaborated with mobile Chechen forces and have vowed to carry out more such operations. Statements on the website suggest that Ingushetia has formed an effective resistance force in collaboration with Chechen rebels. According to officials, the attackers included Ingush and Russians as well as Chechens, and the leader was identified as Magomed Yevloyev, an Ingush who fought alongside rebels in Chechnya. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who arrived in Ingushetia within hours of the attack, said the guerrillas must be caught and "destroyed". Ingushetia, a republic with a predominantly Muslim population, abuts Chechnya's western border and its history, culture and language are closely linked with those of Chechnya. Tens of thousands of Chechen refugees fled to Ingushetia and were housed in camps run by foreign donor countries during the Chechen conflict. Last year the Russian government started closing the camps and sending the refugees "home", often under threat of violence or prosecution. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, human rights abuses, which previously occurred almost exclusively in Chechnya, were increasingly spreading across the border into Ingushetia. These include killings and kidnappings by Russian and Chechen security forces. A recent report by Amnesty International also accused the international community, and the United Nations in particular, of being soft on Moscow and of producing only "muted" criticism of abuses in Chechnya since the terrorist attacks in the US in September 2001. While the report also criticised Chechen separatist rebels for human rights abuses and for targeting policemen and government officials, the majority of its findings focused on Russian troops and the Moscow-backed local militia run by Ramzan Kadyrov, son of Chechnya's murdered president. "Russian federal and security forces continue to perpetrate human rights violations such as extra judicial executions, 'disappearances', arbitrary detentions, ill- treatment and torture, including rape, with impunity," the report said. It added that women have increasingly been targeted -- a number of women described to Amnesty International's representatives how they were tortured, subjected to electric shocks and raped while in detention. Amnesty also claimed to have received "credible and consistent reports" of secret unofficial detention centres known as filtration camps, one of which is in Grozny, the Chechen capital. The raid by the guerrillas highlighted the difficulty with Putin's plan to declare the Chechen conflict finally over and unilaterally impose a political settlement on the region. Amnesty's report depicted what Putin calls his "normalisation" programme as having failed, insisting that the situation in Chechnya was "far from normal" and spilling over into Ingushetia. For nearly a decade, rebel fighters in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya have sustained a guerrilla insurgency against Russian air and land forces. Their ability to strike at the heart of Russian policy in Chechnya was underscored by the assassination of Chechnya's pro-Moscow president, Akhmad Kadyrov, in Grozny on 9 May. The Kremlin's strategy to eradicate grassroots support for the separatists by rebuilding Chechnya's economy and political structure from scratch has failed to bear fruit. The millions of dollars poured into the reconstruction of Chechnya by the Kremlin have either been stolen or misappropriated, and the assassination of President Kadyrov crippled the Kremlin's hopes for a political path to peace. Many Chechens remain allied with Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, who was Chechnya's president during its de facto independence between 1996 and 1999. Others pledged allegiance to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who embraced Islamic fundamentalism in the late 1990s and claims responsibility for organising many of the suicide bombing attacks that have terrorised Moscow and southern Russia in the past two years. During the last decade, Chechen rebels have resorted to a variety of operations, including the taking of hostages. In 1995 Chechen rebels led by Shamil Basayev seized a hospital in Budennovsk, a town in southern Russia, taking more than one thousand people hostage; as many as 150 were killed and 200 injured in the ensuing violence. In October 2002, 700 people were taken hostage in a Moscow theater by about 40 Chechen rebels; almost 150 hostages died in the end due to a narcotic gas used by the Russian troops. The conflict is still raging with no signs of a breakthrough as Russia still views the Chechen rebels as mere terrorists and refuses to engage in any kind of negotiations with them. On the other hand, Chechen rebels declare their belief in what they call a just cause and demand genuine negotiations with the government of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov that was elected in 1997.
