The Russian military forces' invasion of the small Muslim majority republic of Chechnya since September has made nearly a quarter million Chechens refugees and Moscow seems determined to smother the de facto independence won by the Chechens in the 1994-96 war with Moscow. When the Russians mustered a large invasion force and swept into Chechnya's border villages in September, Prime Minister Putin's new government gave the world the impression that it was a limited _ scale military operation for creating a buffer zone in Chechnya for the Russian military establishment and that a full scale military occupation of the whole of Chechnya was not on Moscow's agenda. But as the Russian military machine has rained death and destruction on Chechnya and won victory in battles, gobbling up a third of Chechnya, it seems obvious that Moscow wants to seize all of it and drive out a large segment of its population in a bid to liquidate the Chechen pro-independence leadership of President Arslan Maskhadov. The initial Russian strategy in invading Chechnya had been to sweep through the undefended rural areas, mercilessly bomb the urban areas with jet bombers and artillery and then seize the towns and cities, including the capital, Grozny.

The Muslim leadership in Chechnya had been rebuilding the country's economy which was devastated in 1996 by the Russian armed forces in a failed bid to smother the freedom urge of the brave Chechens. Chechnya's economic revival was being achieved despite Moscow's unfriendliness and the Russian government's covert and overt measures to undermine Chechnya's de facto independence. Without identifying those responsible for the bomb blasts in a residential area of Moscow six weeks ago, the Russian government heaped the blame on the Chechen leadership and accused it of abetting the seizure of a few villages of Dagestan by armed fighters from the Chechen border. Instead of invading Chechnya with thousands of Russian troops, hundreds of tanks and many scores of warplanes, the rulers in Moscow could have sought negotiations with the Chechen leaders. According to newspaper reports, a few thousand dark-looking Caucasians in Moscow were deported following the bomb blasts. Do not such heavy-handed actions by the Moscow government revive memories of the gory purges during the Stalinist era? These acts tarnish the image of the Russian leadership which professes faith in democracy, human rights and justice.

The swiftness with which many Christian countries rushed to aid the 800,000-plus East Timorese Christians to break away from Muslim-majority Indonesia should open the eyes of the Muslim World to the stark realities of the global scenario under the domination of the West and its allies.
Is not the Russian design to create a buffer zone Unconfirmed reports show that several thousand Chechen civilians have been killed in the Russian invasion since September 5. for itself in Chechnya similar to Israel's security zone in Muslim majority Lebanon? Does it not smack of the hammer-and-tongs style of the 19th century European colonial powers? The world cannot forget the fact that during the Second World War, the Stalin regime uprooted nearly four million Muslims from their hearths and homes and dumped them in the inhospitable tracts of Central Asia and Siberia.

The horrendous human tragedy that has befallen thousands of innocent Chechen civilians in their villages and towns, which have been mercilessly bombed by the Russian military forces, calls for the earliest humanitarian measures by the UNHCR. The UN should force Russia to allow the UN's relief teams to move into the war-devastated parts of Chechnya for rescue and relief missions. It is a matter of shame that the OIC has done nothing to alleviate the gruesome plight of the Chechen Muslims now being bloodied by the Russian military machine.

The UNHCR can at least send survey teams to the border of , Chechnya and the neighbouring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia where more than a quarter million Chechen refugees have sought refuge from Russian terror and bombing.

Many among the Chechen refugees are the tragedy-stricken families who suffered in the 1994-96 war and had been courageously rebuilding their broken lives and homes when the Russian juggernaut began blasting them again. The Muslim President of the beleaguered Chechen republic, Arslan Maskhadov, has been appealing to Moscow for peace talks and urged the NATO to press Russia to opt for talks but the arrogance of power in Moscow is so gross that the Russian.
The swiftness with which many Christian countries rushed to aid the 800,000-plus East Timorese Christians to break away from Muslim-majority Indonesia should open the eyes of the Muslim World to the stark realities of the global scenario under the domination of the West and its allies.
Rulers seem determined to bludgeon the Chechens into servile submission and avenge the humiliation of 1996.

The Russians call a Chechen freedom fighter, Shamil Basayev, a terrorist because he calls for independence for Chechnya and Dagestan which comprised an independent Muslim state in the 19th century. Russia's military adventures, such as the current one in Chechnya, will continue to weaken the anaemic Rus sian economy which has been kept afloat largely by the huge largesse from the West. All kudos must go to the brave Chechen Muslims for the incredible heroism they have shown in resisting the armed might of the Russians.

In the first phase of the Russian invasion, more than 50,000 Russian troops, with over a thousand tanks and armoured vehicles, swept into the Naursky and Chechen President's call Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov appealed to the West to suspend all financial assistance to Moscow for the duration of Russia's military operation against the republic. The Chechen President said that he was willing to hold peace negotiations with Russia, but only when Moscow ordered a suspension of its air assault and pulled all federal troops out of the republic. "In the last war, the West turned away from us and pretended not to see what the Russians were doing," Maskhadov said in reference to the 1994-96 Chechen war that killed 80,000 people and left the republic with de facto independence.

"Now we are asking for only one thing. The most important thing is that the West does not finance this war for Russia. The rest, we can take care of ourselves," Maskhadov said. "Whoever supports Russia will also be left humiliated. We are only asking for the West's moral support,"
he added. During the last war, the IMF was accused of financing Russia's military operation in Chechnya. The IMF has agreed to lend Russia some four billion dollars.

Maskhadov said that more than 2,000 Chechen civilians had been killed and an equal number wounded since Russia launched its air and artillery assault on September 5. "I never wanted a war, having known what war is," said Maskhadov, lamenting that Russian President Boris Yeltsin had failed to meet him to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the conflict before ordering a start to a new Chechen offensive. "All of my peaceful initiatives were rejected," Maskhadov said. "So if the other side rejects my initiative, then my conscience is clean before my people. Now all that is left is to wage war,"
he said. Sholkovsky regions of Northern Chechnya, subjecting the big towns and Grozny to massive aerial bombardment. Moscow then announced that it no longer recognised the elected Parliament of Chechnya. The Russian army, it seems, moved another column into Chechnya from neighbouring Ingushetia and overran the town of Bamut, 30km. southwest of the Chechen capital of Grozny. The invading Russian forces destroyed many of the industries in Chechnya, including an oil refinery.

Russian jets continued bombing scores of civilian targets, forcing another 100,000 Chechens to flee to the neighbouring areas of Ingushetia and Dagestan. The Chechen Parliament was elected in 1997 after the rout of the Russian military force. Prime Minister Putin says he does not now recognise the 1997 Chechen Parliament which supported the independence of Chechnya. He says he recognises the previous Parliament which has Moscow's old lackeys in it. The attack on Chechnya is being masterminded by Russian Defence Minister, Igor Sergeyev, who wants to avenge the defeat of the Russian army at the hands of the Chechen freedom fighters in 1996. The new Russian Prime Minister Putin The Russians call a Chechen freedom fighter, Shamil Basayev, a terrorist because he calls for independence for Chechnya and Dagestan which comprised an independent Muslim state in the 19th century.

also wants Chechnya's independence bid to be ruthlessly crushed. This will bolster his image in the eyes of President Boris Yeltsin and the hardline elements in the Russian army and politics. The 1997 Chechen Parliament was elected in a free vote which was internationally monitored. Chechen President Maskhadov was elected in 1997. The Putin regime is mobilising the Russian lackeys in the pre-1997 Chechen Parliament to form a government after Grozny is seized by the Russian troops. Moscow has been financing and feeding the pro-Moscow members of the pre-1997 ousted Chechen Parliament. Its speaker is Alt Alavdino who has lived in Moscow as a Russian protégé. The President of Inguishetia, Ruslan Aushev, deplored Russia's invasion of Chechnya and said the legitimate authority in Chechnya is the elected President Maskhadov.

The United States has been critical of the Russian military operations in Chechnya in a bid to grab it and liquidate the elected Presidency there. Washington has urged negotiations between Moscow and Chechnya. State Department spokesman, James Rubin, told newsmen in Washington on Oct.2 that these hostilities would damage Russians own interests and It is a matter of shame that the OIC has done nothing to alleviate the gruesome plight of the Chechen Muslims now being bloodied by the Russian military machine.

Threaten stability in the entire northern Caucasus region. Apparently, the Russian military column first swept into Ingushetia to bomb and attack the Chechen border positions. Hundreds of fleeing Chechen refugees were killed in Russian bombing.
The plight of the impoverished Chechen refugees _ old men, women and children _ in poor Ingushetia is deplorable. The local people are doing their best to help them but their own resources are scanty. The Chechen refugees are living in tents, in buses, in railway stations, in schools and in the open spaces. Some local Muslims have sheltered the Chechen Muslims in their own homes, sharing their own food with them. The Russian planes bomb them from time to time. The Chechen leaders say innocent civilians have died in the merciless Russian air raids.
Moscow has been putting out false reports most of the time about its military operations against the Chechens. On October 1, the Russian government said there had been no invasion of Chechnya but at that very moment thousands of Russian troops and tanks had surged into Chechnya. To soften world opinion, Moscow gave the world the lollipop that it would create only a buffer zone in the seized parts of Chechnya; now the grab of the whole of Chechnya is Moscow's goal. The government of Ingushetia has banned the sale of liquor in the republic. This is because of the Russian troops' love of Vodka and other liquors. President Boris Yeltsin has praised his new Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, for his resolute action against the Chechens. Moscow has ignored calls from Germany, Italy and France for a dialogue with the Chechen leadership.

The Chechen War Minister Mahomed Khambiev, said in Grozny that the Chechens would continue to defend their country against the Russian invasion.Moscow maintains that Chechnya is part of Russia and the Russian troops have a right to quash the anti-Moscow forces in Chechnya.
The Muslims of Chechnya trace their ties with Islam to the time of Caliph Omar (640 AD) when Arab missionaries spread Islam in the Caucasus. The people of the Caucasus have no racial links with the white Russians.

Unconfirmed reports show that several thousand Chechen civilians have been killed in the Russian invasion since September 5. The Russian aerial bombing of Chechen refugees fleeing in trucks has been merciless, causing large casualties. Moscow has not allowed UN relief agencies to move into the Chechen refugees camps. The Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, told the Western foreign ministers in Brussels on October 1 that they should `understand' the reasons for Moscow's military operations in Chechnya.

Whatever be the attitude of the governments of Muslim countries vis-a-vis the Russian invasion of Chechnya, let the Muslim Ummah unite in pledging our solidarity with our Chechen brothers and sisters and pray to God for their well-being and victory in every Friday congregational prayer until the enemy's guns have been silenced and peace returns to Chechnya.

Background:
By and large, the Muslims of Chechnya are resolute in their Islamic faith. The ruthless and godless Soviet rulers, between 1917 and 1991, failed in their efforts to subvert the faith of the Chechen Muslims in Islam. The Muslims of Chechnya trace their ties with Islam to the time of Caliph Omar (640 AD) when Arab missionaries spread Islam in the Caucasus. The people of the Caucasus have no racial links with the white Russians. During the Caliphate of the second Caliph Omar in Madina, a number of Arab missionaries, such as Seraqa bin Omar and Suleman bin Rabia Albahili and others, worked for Islam in what is now Chechnya and its neighbouring areas. Some of them were buried in what is now Dagestan. In the 8th century A.D. many Arab families settled in this region and inter-married with the Chechen Muslims. For centuries, the Arabic and Turkic languages were widely spoken right upto the time of the Soviet occupation.

The Mongol hordes and later on the Ottoman Turks ruled parts of the Caucasus. In some parts Persian was also spoken. The Russians, under Peter the Great, tried to overrun the Caucasus and Central Asia, won some initial victories but could not maintain their colonial hold over the region for long (l686 A.D.). But the Czarist regimes in Russia continued to play the Great Game in Central Asia. They encountered stiff opposition from the Muslims. In 1781, a Muslim leader in the Caucasus, Sheikh Mansoor was captured by the Russians and jailed in St. Petersburg where he died in Russian captivity. The Caucasus Muslims then waged guerrilla warfare against the Russian Czars led by a religious scholar, Ghazi Mohammed.

He was martyred in 1832 but Hamza Beg led the fight against the Czars. Two years later on his death, the freedom fight of the Muslims in the Caucasus was led by a courageous Muslim leader, Sheikh Shamyl whose name is venerated even today in Chechnya and Dagestan. For 25 years, he waged a holy war (Jihad) against the Czarist rulers and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Russians in 1844, capturing thousands of Russians as POWs and a huge quantity of Russian military hardware. Later on, the Russians waged a "holy war" against Shaikh Shamyl, and, after ten years, he was captured by the Russians and taken to Russia from where he was allowed to go for Haj. He died in Arabia after the Haj in 1871. His son Sheikh Kamil continued the Muslim struggle but by 1880 the Russians gained control over the Caucasus, installing their puppet Emirs. In 1920, after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the first World War and the Communist revolution in Russia in 1917, Moscow used massive military force to conquer most of the Caucasus, imposed Russian language and set up tiny states subservient to Moscow with handpicked pro-Moscow Communist rulers in Dagestan, Chechnya and other nearby areas having a large Muslim population. In the Second World War, many Muslims in Chechnya supported Hitler's Germany because of their hatred for Stalin's Communist rule. Stalin crushed the Chechens and sent thousands to Siberia and other inhospitable areas as punishment. In 1955 Khrushchev allowed them to return to Chechnya. In 1992, the Chechens declared their independence on the collapse of the USSR.

The horrendous human tragedy that has befallen thousands of innocent Chechen civilians in their villages and towns, which have been mercilessly bombed by the Russian military forces, calls for the earliest humanitarian measures by the UNHCR.