Russia Needs to Rethink North Caucasus – OCGG
October 1st, 2004
http://www.oxfordgovernance.org/fileadmin/Publications/SR001.pdf
by Simon Roughneen
Memorial to the victims of Beslan (epa)
No government should negotiate with child-killers. Without getting into any theological or ethical argumentsabout the relative value of one human life over another, shooting and blowing-up schoolchildren is a step beyond the pale, a taboo that defies any attempt at dispassionate afterthought. Russian President Vladimir Putin has legitimate reasons not to negotiate with the architects of Beslan – and has even greater reason to pursue rebels militarily.
However, this does not mean that the Russian president must ignore any openings to alter Russian policy in Chechnya – and the rest of the north Caucasus region. Years of human rights abuses, indiscriminate attacks, and abductions of those suspected of rebel connections, the cherry picking of Presidential candidates by Moscow, flawed elections and the total absence of due process surely allow for some revision of how Russia deals with Chechnya. Perhaps even more so now given that Moscow has military control over most of the republic, bar the mountains, and has air and artillery supremacy over the rest. However, Putin, linking Russia’s conflict with Chechen rebels to the international war on terror, shows no signs of revision of policy. (more…)
Unhappy Prospects for Afghan Security – OCGG
September 1st, 2004
http://www.oxfordgovernance.org/fileadmin/Publications/SB004.pdf
‘The security situation in Afghanistan is volatile, having seriously deteriorated in certain parts of the country. Attacks on national and international forces and on electoral, government and humanitarian workers and their premises in southern Afghanistan have intensified. At the same time, in a disturbing development, several of the most serious acts of violence since the start of the Bonn process took place in the north and west of the country, areas that had been considered low-risk’.
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