Tough choice for Yeltsin
What are the Russian troops and tanks, now tightening the noose on Chechnya's capital of Grozny, going to do now that President Boris Yeltsin's ultimatum to the rebellious republic to lay down arms has passed its deadline unheeded? Even the man in the Kremlin does not look quite ready to answer that question.
Yeltsin sent his troops there on Dec. 11 to show that he meant business and is determined to keep Chechnya within the folds of Mother Russia. However, his indecisiveness has since left the world guessing.
Russia watchers in the West have said that military leaders in Moscow are trying to persuade the president, who is also supreme commander of the Russian armed forces, that going further into Grozny would be a fatal step for the Russians. They foresee a prolonged bloodbath and brutality as unavoidable if that happened. And this would only remind the world's leaders, who are now on the brink of a "Cold Peace" situation in facing Yeltsin, that -- in terms of humanitarian principles -- Moscow's present leaders are not much different from those who ordered the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Such an impression would be difficult to avoid although Moscow could argue that the present case is different because it has the legal right to crush a putsch inside Russia's own borders.
Yeltsin himself, the first democratically-elected Russian leader, seems to be in no position to accept the comparison. In the present "Cold Peace" situation Yeltsin wants to continue to be known as a wise statesman in his dealings with the West.
This is not going to be easy, considering the fact that Chechnya's President Dzokhar Dudayev remained defiant up to last night. And he is backed by his people who appear ready to fight the Russians to the last soldier. If the Chechens are as determined as their president, they could quite possibly manage to bog Russian troops down in a bloody quagmire in Chechnya. Apparently they are convinced that in that kind of situation it would be the Russians who would be the first to bleed to death.
Although the people in Chechnya are predominantly Moslems, religious motivations do not seem to be the source of their fighting spirit. The Chechens, who lived under the Russian's communist yoke for the good part of a century, look in no position to wage a jihad (holy war) due, perhaps, to the low degree of religious sentiments among the young people. The only burning power among them is anti-Russian feelings. This sentiment might just prove strong enough to aid them in facing Russian tanks.
In any case, some military leaders in Moscow seem to believe that if the troops should attack Grozny they would find hell there. And if that happens the dangerous possibility is that military support for Yeltsin in Moscow will erode.
The challenge facing Yeltsin is a tough one. The question to which he must find an answer, and soon, is how to keep Chechnya a part of Russia without bloodshed.