Fundamentally insecure leaders like Israel’s Ariel Sharon and Russia’s Vladimir Putin cannot tolerate threats to their power and authority. They respond to any such challenge with brute force, and that in the long run will be their undoing.

Sharon must surely know by now that his premiership has been a total disaster: Never have Israelis experienced such insecurity or such economic hardship; never have they been further from acceptance in the Arab Middle East, and never has Israel’s reputation in the world been lower. Sharon’s attempt to destroy the Palestinian national movement by force is the cancer at the heart of Israeli society. Putin’s position, too, is fragile. Although he has brought Russia a measure of prosperity in the past two years, his regime has become more and more authoritarian and his brutal war in Chechnya has come home to haunt him, as was demonstrated by last week’s tragic massacre in a Moscow theater.

Neither Sharon nor Putin is yet ready to admit that there can be no military solution to the wars they are waging. Living by the sword, they run the risk of dying by the sword. In the end, they ­ or probably their successors ­ will understand that a settlement has to be political.

There are striking parallels between the two situations. An eyewitness has described Russia’s methods in hunting down Chechen guerrillas: “Ahead of a mopping-up operation, a village will be encircled by tanks, armored vehicles and army trucks. Such raids occur at any time of day or night. Citizens are grabbed, almost at random, and tortured to get from them what information they might have. Heavy weapons are used against residential districts with great loss of innocent lives. Suspects are shot on sight or are dragged away into harsh detention. Homes are destroyed over people’s heads. Food and medical care are extremely scarce. The population is terrorized.”
Is this not an exact description of what is happening in Palestinian cities and villages?

Just as Putin refuses to negotiate with Aslan Maskhadov, the elected president of Chechnya, so Sharon refuses to negotiate with Yasser Arafat, the elected president of the Palestinian Authority. Both dream of finding a quisling who will accept their terms, although it is obvious to every independent observer that no settlement will be reached in the absence of the key players. Maskhadov and Arafat have repeatedly condemned terrorist attacks against civilians, and have declared their willingness to start negotiations without preconditions. But both are held directly responsible for every act of terror!
In another striking parallel, Putin links the Chechen attacks to international “Islamic terrorism” in much the same way as Sharon describes his war on the Palestinians. Both Putin and Sharon demand international tolerance for their crimes, which they seek to justify as part of America’s “war on terror.” Both seek a strategic partnership with the United States, although Israel in this domain is far ahead of Russia since it has an army of advocates at the very heart of America’s decision-making process. Putin and Sharon have something else in common: When their power is challenged they share a contempt for human life.
That is not the end of the similarities. Russian Special Forces used a mysterious gas to overcome the hostage-takers in the Moscow theatre ­ killing well over 100 hostages in the process. Doctors pleaded in vain for information about the gas so as to be able to treat the victims. Does this not remind one of the episode in which the Mossad used a mysterious poison in an attempt to kill the Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Amman, forcing the late King Hussein to plead with the Israelis for the antidote which saved Meshaal’s life?

To end the violence, which claims new victims every day, the international community should put Chechnya and Palestine at the top of its agenda. Such regional conflicts can only be solved politically. But more blood is likely to flow before that happens. Regrettably, the Chechen terrorist attack on Russia has strengthened the hawks in Russia’s army and society just as Palestinian suicide bombers have caused large numbers of Israelis to rally in support of Sharon’s brutal repression.

In hastening to congratulate Putin on the violent end of the Moscow siege, Western leaders like US President George W. Bush and Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair appear to have forgotten that Russians have been killing Chechens for well over 200 years ­ causing the Chechens to resist subjugation as best they can, including with acts of terror. Since the early 19th century, when Chechnya was conquered by the Russian empire, Russia has fought dozens of wars in the North Caucasus.

One early campaign, in 1819-20, was led by General Alexei Yermolov, a commander the Russians consider a hero but whom Chechens remember as a bloodthirsty tyrant. He burned their villages and butchered their mullahs. “I desire,” he used to say, “that the terror of my name should guard our frontiers more potently than fortresses.” When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Chechens blew up his statue and threw it in the river.
Islam became well-established in Chechnya in the 18th century, when most Chechens became members of Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandiya or the Qadiriya. But it was Yermolov’s cruel war which caused the Chechens to fight back under the banner of Islam. For the next 25 years, their leader was the charismatic Imam Shamil, whose resistance to the Russians made him famous across Europe. Karl Marx called him a great patriot. But he was forced to surrender in 1859 and was sent to St. Petersburg where he became a national celebrity. Eventually he made the pilgrimage to Mecca and died in Medina in 1871.

When oil was discovered in Grozny, the Chechen capital, in 1893, the Russians had every reason to want to dominate the rebellious province. To this day, Russia wants to control the Caucasus oil fields and pipeline routes from the Caspian. No doubt this is one important reason for Russia’s Chechen wars.
The 20th century brought the Chechens hardship and suffering. The years of Soviet rule did enormous damage to their society, wiping out their traditions and most Muslim teachers. It was not until 1978 that the first mosque was allowed to reopen in Chechnya. When the Chechens resisted Stalin’s attempts to collectivize agriculture, 14,000 were rounded up in July 1937, shot and dumped in a common grave. During World War II, some Chechens saw the Germans as liberators, joined the German Army and fought the Russians. But once the Germans withdrew, a vengeful Stalin punished the “traitors.” He ordered the entire Chechen population ­ close to half a million people ­ to be deported to the deserts of Kazakhstan. Men, women and children were crammed in trains without any toilets or washing arrangements. Anyone who ventured more than five meters from the trains could be shot. Thousands died on the three-week journey, and at least another 100,000 perished of sickness and hunger in the first two years of the forced exile. Thirteen years later, Khruschev overturned the banishment and allowed the remnants of the Chechens to return home to their mountains. But the exile left deep wounds.
Such is part of the tormented background to the two recent wars which Russia has launched against Chechnya. The first was launched by Boris Yeltsin who sent in an army of 40,000 troops. In three months of fighting, between December 1994 and March 1995, Grozny was reduced to rubble and some 27,000 civilians were killed. The Chechen commander Jokhar Dudayev, a former major-general in the Russian air force, was killed by a Russian rocket in April 1996. But his successor Shamil Busayev retook Grozny, forcing the Russians to conclude a peace agreement in May 1997. Vladimir Putin’s war launched two years ago is still far from over. Both Yeltsin and Putin went to war to boost their own popularity. Certainly, the conflict helped get Yeltsin re-elected president in 1996 and has contributed to Putin’s rise to power.

As the Russians bury their dead following the catastrophic operation to free the Moscow hostages, Putin has already announced tough new policies in Chechnya and a total rejection of negotiations. The war against the “terrorists,” he declared, must be pursued with still greater thoroughness and brutality! This, too, is Sharon’s war cry as he continues his devastation of Palestine, unchecked by Bush.
As the French newspaper Le Monde commented: “If Saddam Hussein is guilty of crimes against humanity for his treatment of the Kurds, so is Vladimir Putin for his treatment of Chechnya.” And so is Sharon for his treatment of the Palestinians.

Patrick Seale, a veteran Middle East analyst, wrote this commentary for The daily Star