Chechnya: The Case for Independence

[Rehmat]

The book, Chechnya: The Case for Independence, written by Tony Wood, a well-known campaigner for the Chechen cause in the UK, aims to lay out a comprehensive case for Chechen independence. Wood argues that they have and in fact that “their right to govern themselves should be the starting point for any discussions” on Chechnya – not a point, as is usually the case, that is barely mentioned or heeded.

At the fall of the Soviet Union, many ex-Soviet states declared independence in the years 1990-91: Lithuania, Armenia, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. However, the subsequent experiences of these states and Chechnya were strikingly different. The rest of them gained independence and UN membership; Chechnya had to face over a decade of war and repression, which have left the people traumatised and the country almost destroyed.

Wood goes onto illustrate how baseless is the argument, put forward by Russia, that if Chechnya succeeded in its secession this would lead to a chain of separatist movements in the rest of Russia. Going through economic, geographic, demographic, Islamic, ethnic and geostrategic considerations, he discounts each one and clearly demonstrates how the “domino effect” was always extremely unlikely. Here Wood mentions the international community for the first time, commenting on its acquiescence and complicity; the West preferred free-market capitalism over democratic prerogatives, and regarded Chechnya as the price for capitalism to flourish in Russia.

Wood also addresses the so-called ‘Islamic threat (terrorism)’ - Since September 2001, it has been the Russian claim that while America is battling a world-wide trend of Islamic terrorism, Russia is battling the Chechen branch of the same problem in the North Caucasus. Since the sixteenth century the main motive for the struggle of the Chechen people has been the aspiration to freedom and the establishment of an independent state; Islam has always been second to these aspirations or used to further the cause of the first.

Wood’s book is a welcome contribution to the literature on Chechnya: well-researched and gripping to the last. Specifically, he argues the case of Chechen independence well and refutes contemporary arguments against it, leaving the reader in no doubt that the issue of Chechen independence should be at the forefront of any debate on the crisis. (Review by Hajira Qureshi, Muslimedia.com)