UW-Madison's Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian studies along with members of the UW-Madison faculty conducted a teach-in on Chechnya Wednesday evening, in hopes of shedding some light on the region's troubled relationship with Russia.
The teach-in was organized in response to the Sept. 3 school hostage massacre in Beslan, in which more than 335 children, parents and teachers were killed.
The focus of the teach-in, however, was not intended to be on the Beslan killings or any other single terrorist-related incident, but rather the motives behind the acts of both Chechens and Russians and their sentiments toward whether a resolution is imminent.
\The idea for the program was generated by our overwhelming response toward Beslan, but we need to acknowledge geopolitical and historical reasons why the conflict arose in the first place,"" said Jennifer Tishler, assistant director of CREECA.
The Chechen malcontent with Russia has been evident since World War II, but has surged in the last decade primarily in response to the violent acts of the Russian military in denying Chechnya its independence, according to HumanRightsWatch.org.
Initially, the reasons Russia began waging war on Chechnya were strictly territorial, according to UW-Madison professor of geography Robert Kaiser. They have begun to shift, however, to a more global argument that stems from the Russian sentiment that Chechens' desire for independence has caused them to become a nation of terrorists that needs to be dealt with forcefully.
""The Kremlin's reasons for going to war were those in defense of the homeland, of preserving Mother Russia,"" he said. ""The war is now justified as a war against Chechen terrorism and especially now, in the wake of 9/11, the reasons continue to shift toward an anti-terrorist rationale.""
Theodore Gerber, UW-Madison associate professor of sociology, has conducted extensive research concerning Russian public opinion on the Chechen-Russian conflict and presented the audience with results of several surveys concerning the Russian war sentiment.
""The Russian desire to intensify military action in order to annihilate Chechen fighters decreased from 39 percent in October 2001 to 28 percent in July of this year, and in the survey concerning Russian feelings evoked by the war, anger at Chechens surprisingly came in fourth at 15 and 14 percent in October 2001 and July, respectively,"" he said.
Despite these figures, violence in the region is by no means over, according to Uli Schamiloglu, UW-Madison professor of Turkic and Central Eurasian studies.
""The 40-day period during which the Russians mourn the deaths of those lost in Beslan will be over on Oct. 13,"" he said. ""We can probably look forward to more violent acts to come.\
