Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2003, pages 35, 93

European Press Review

Moscow Theater Hostage Crisis Turns World Attention to Chechnya

By Lucy Jones

“Country held hostage,” “War bursts on Moscow,” “World War,” shouted the headlines in Moscow on Oct. 25 as commandos held at least 700 civilians captive in a Moscow theater and demanded Russia withdraws its troops from Chechnya. As the Oct. 25 Moscow Times observed, the crisis was “perhaps the most crucial test” of Vladimir Putin’s presidency, especially since his political career owes much to his tough stance on the Chechen conflict.

Spain’s El País on the same day bemoaned the “alarming pattern” in the “massive use of terror against innocent civilians to settle or air the most disparate conflicts and grievances, real or imagined.” Still, the editorial conceded, the commandos already had achieved their main objective, which was to bring the world’s attention to the situation in Chechnya. “The desperate action shows the frustration caused by an unresolved conflict, with hundreds of thousands of victims, which Putin has not ended either with arms or diplomacy. Every month, dozens of Russian soldiers and Chechen rebels fall, [and] innocent civilians are subjected to all manner of atrocities by troops from a nominally democratic state.”

Le Monde of France declared on Oct. 25: “Taking hostages is terrorism. The cause hardly matters; the method is ignoble.” Nevertheless, the editorial had no patience for Putin, whom it accused of “pursuing a very political goal: benefiting from the passive complicity of Western governments with regards to the dirty war which he has waged in Chechnya.” Le Monde continued: “Islamic radicalism would not have prospered in Chechnya if…Putin had chosen to negotiate. He preferred war—and not just any war, a war of systematic prosecution of the civilian population; a war where torture is generalized.…The condemnation of terrorism loses its moral force if, as [here], it masks the denial of the reality of a national conflict, as in Chechnya.”

Some newspapers noted that there have been signs in recent weeks of increased radicalization among the Chechens. In a video released in September, rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov was seen “wearing the paraphernalia of a militant Islamist, including epaulets with verses from the Qur’an in Arabic script,” rather than his usual combat fatigues. Nevertheless, the UK’s Independent pointed out Oct. 25, religion was a small part of the Chechens’ motivation: “It was the ferocity of the Russian occupation, not links between the rebels and al-Qaeda or Islamic sympathizers abroad, that sustained the rebellion. Villagers would often say they detested the rebel commanders, who they often saw as little more than bandits, but that the Russians had left them no choice but to fight.”

“Does [Putin] want to be another General de Gaulle, who gave up Algeria to save France? Or another Stalin, who solved the nationalities question by means of deportation, of the Chechens among others?” asked Izvestia on Oct. 26. The Financial Times on the same day also cited de Gaulle as a potential precedent for the Chechen situation: “Mr. Putin is clearly not going to let Chechnya go, as General de Gaulle did with Algeria—certainly not under duress. But he may eventually have to consider political concessions, and his new Western friends would do well to press him in that direction. Otherwise, Russia’s savage war of peace with the Chechens is set to continue.”

Arrest of Chechen Adviser Politics or Law?

The European press urged Denmark and the EU to do their utmost to prevent the handing over to Russia of Akhmed Zakayev, a top aid to Chechnya’s separatist President Aslan Maskhadov. Zakayev was arrested while attending a congress of Chechens in Copenhagen in October. “Handing him over to Moscow would smack more of low politics than of an act of justice,” said Switzerland’s Tribune de Genève on Oct. 31. Russian judicial decisions, it alleged, “are tainted by a blatant bias against ethnic minorities like the Chechens,” and the hostage drama in Moscow “is unlikely to have done much to change this state of affairs.”

The same day, Switzerland’s Le Temps described Moscow’s charges as “very dubious,” saying Zakayev is “known for his moderate views.” The paper urged Denmark and the European Union to “do their utmost to prevent the handing over to Moscow of a man regarded by all diplomats as a valuable interlocutor.” If the Chechens see their more reasonable leaders “abandoned by the democratic West in a cowardly fashion,” Le Temps argued, “they will draw the obvious lesson that negotiations are pointless.”

Russian Muslims, Orthodox Christians Clash Over Mosque

Russia’s Orthodox and Muslim communities are in dispute over the planned construction of a mosque in Sergiyev Posad, home to the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra, one of the country’s most famous monasteries, and a focus for Orthodox worship, reported Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Oct. 23. Orthodox organizations have campaigned against the building of the new mosque. The dispute escalated further when the Union of Orthodox Citizens reiterated its opposition to plans for the Islamic shrine on the grounds that Orthodoxy was being subjected to a policy of segregation in the Muslim-dominated republic of Tatarstan.

France Praised for Diplomacy In Iraq Standoff

France’s role in drafting the Security Council resolution allowing U.N. weapons inspectors to re-enter Iraq was widely praised in Europe. “The draft on the table,” said the Nov. 8 Le Monde, “is the result of a prolonged diplomatic battle, led mainly by France, to secure respect for certain principles.”

Said Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung the same day: “Mr. Bush wanted the U.N. Security Council to allow the automatic recourse to force if Iraq failed to comply with the weapons inspectors. But Paris said ‘no.’ An important issue was at stake. And France played its role. There has been an important change in the United States’ position.”

The German paper praised “the astute diplomacy of the French” for “managing to salvage what there was to be salvaged,” and expressed the hope that America’s need for allies, “if only as providers of staging posts for its forces,” may prevent it from going it alone against Iraq or anywhere else. “The United Nations,” it stated, “still provides the best framework in which to develop and implement alternatives to an American empire.” For this, however, the paper added, “a clever France is not enough.” It “will take weighty players like Germany to keep America sitting at the table for the long term,” the paper concluded.

Former French PM Criticized For Remarks on Turkey, EU

Austria’s Der Standard on Nov. 11 criticized former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who now chairs the Convention on the Future of Europe, for speaking out against Turkey’s accession to the EU. The paper agrees that “now is not the right time” for talks with Turkey about the start of accession negotiations. “The acceptance of another big country struggling with enormous economic problems is currently simply not feasible,” it said, but criticized what it called “the astonishingly clumsy way” in which the former French president expressed his view. “He has done the EU as a whole a disservice,” the newspaper added. Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel of the same day agreed, saying Giscard d’Estaing “should have known better.”

France Seeks Muslim Figurehead

A controversial initiative by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to create a representative authority for the Muslim religion in France, similar to those representing other major faiths, was examined by Le Monde on Oct. 23. Establishing such a body, argues Sarkozy, would be a way of responding to the “equating of Islam, Islamism, fundamentalism, extremism, terrorism and totalitarianism.” While Le Monde agreed that “There is a crying need for a representative authority,” it added that “there has only been a large minority of Muslims in France for 30 years, and they don’t have a common history.” Islam, Le Monde concluded, “can’t be asked to rise up, overnight, to the same level as other religions” who have been organized in France for much longer.

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.