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On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, andrew herod wrote: > I am not an expert on Chechnya by any stretch of the imagination, but I > suspect that (at least) two things are at play here as to why NATO > isn't condemning Russian activities. > > 1) The West doesn't really have any crucial interests at stake here > (unlike in Yugoslavia). I have doubts about this. While I am not in a position to contribute any substantial evidence I would be inclined to think that the fact that the west is doing nothing suggests that it does have an interest. Maybe the oil wealth in the region is viewed as being better off in the hands of the Russians than anyone else - perhaps so Russia can pay off debts it is accruing? Maybe it is also in the interest of the west to let Russia be seen to be in a position to control the region and able to crush resistance. There is also a problem about how we in the west view the Chechens. We know so little about them i.e. the fighters who are under barrage right now. The popular view is that they are islamic fundamentalists or just Chechen nationalists. This perhaps tends to lessen our sympathies with them. I don't know exactly what to think, being so far away, being in a country where the news media fails to inform, but reading press reports one cannot help but feel that they deserve our support. NATO brutally bombed from 17,000ft but Russia surrounds a city, threatens (or uses) chemical weapons, attacks a people who have had a terrible history of oppression at the hands of the Tsarist, Stalinist and now supposedly 'democratic' Russian state(s). I absolutely opposed NATO's actions and I absolutely oppose Russia's action right now. While there are similarities between the two military campaigns the actual tactics, methods and aims of the Russian offensive appears to be very different. This perhaps makes the argument that because NATO bombed Serbia, Russia now invades Chechnya, irrelevant. We are dealng with different processes. And let's not forget that around 80,000 people died in the 1994 campaign and who knows how many in this campaign? Anyway, seasons greetings. Alistair Alistair Fraser 1st Year MA Student Geography Department Ohio State University [log in to unmask] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%