The Chechen-Russian Conflict

Picture Time: Hold your rifles and say cheese

The international media have made a rule regarding the Russia-Chechnya conflict. For the media, only if the Chechens are willing to do something big and bloody in Russia will they get their international spotlight. In the other hand, Human Right Watch groups cant figure out why they receive cold shoulder and a deaf ear from the media when ask to report the crimes committed by Russian soldiers and Pro-Moscow officials in Chechnya.

Since the 15th century, Chechnya has been fighting against foreign domination. Thou, tensions quite down when the natives converted to Islam under the Turkish rule, the blood shed eventually remerge when the Russians came to town in the18th century. During the next two centuries, Chechen rebels took advantage of every Russian war to fight for their own independence. Even Stalin’s brutal policies weren’t strong enough to perish the resistance ideology in this Northern Caucasus region.

However, the international media is not obligated to give seniority to a conflict no matter how much historical background it might have. This fact is well known by the Chechens insurgents who, at the same time, have found the way to exploit the media big and bloody rule. There are two memorable examples worth analyzing: The Moscow theatre hostage crisis (2003) and the Beslan school hostage crisis (2004).

Their first true chance to make the most out of media’s big and bloody rule came on October 23, 2002. That cold night, 40 armed Chechen rebels—almost half of them were women—led by Mosvar Barayev, nephew of a slain Chechen commander, siege the Dubrovka Theater taking 900 hostages. Just as the Budyonnovsk hospital takeover, seven years prior, the rebels threaten to blow up the building if there demands for immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya went unheard. In addition, in order to release children, the rebels demanded to speak to journalists.