Fire in the Caucasus

By John Kohan/Moscow

Boris Yeltsin may be slow to make decisions, but when he does, watch out. For three years, he has tolerated a secessionist movement in Chechnya, an oil- rich, predominantly Muslim enclave of 1.1 million people in Russia's North Caucasus region. Rather than take direct steps to resolve the impasse with Chechen president Jokhar Dudayev, who champions breaking away, the Kremlin has waged a proxy war against him by giving covert military and financial support to Dudayev's pro-Moscow opponents.

Yeltsin's fiction of noninvolvement vanished last week. The causes: a botched coup and POWS in danger. A coalition of anti-Dudayev forces had rolled into Chechnya's capital of Grozny in late November only to be repelled by Dudayev loyalists, who claim to have destroyed 20 tanks and killed 350 people in the fighting. They also captured 120 Russian soldiers among the rebels and paraded them on television. Back in Russia, the families of the prisoners identified their kin as members of a Russian army unit. Yeltsin could no longer afford to dissemble. Until then, Moscow had always insisted it was providing only political backing for Dudayev's opponents. The Russian President issued all the warring Chechens a 48-hour ultimatum to lay down their weapons or face military intervention.

When the deadline passed at 6 a.m. Thursday without any action from Dudayev, Russian troops began massing on the borders of the mountainous, land-locked region. Meanwhile, Dudayev's opponents sent sophisticated jet fighters -- planes that could never have been procured or even operated without Russian help -- to bomb military bases and the airport in Grozny. To show that Yeltsin really meant business, 30 Antonov An-12 transport planes with soldiers and armor were deployed in the neighboring ethnic republic of North Ossetia.

Then, with his fist clenched in the air, the Russian President suddenly softened the bellicose rhetoric. The Kremlin announced that Yeltsin had not actually signed an order imposing a state of emergency in Chechnya. Instead, he offered all Chechens a limited amnesty if they voluntarily handed in their weapons by Dec. 15. Hopes for a settlement focused on a parliamentary delegation that met with Dudayev in Grozny and returned to Moscow with two of the imprisoned Russians.

Yeltsin has a good deal riding on a speedy resolution of the power struggle in Grozny. It is a test of his authority and political will to hold together a Russian federation of 89 ethnic republics and regions in danger of splitting apart just as the Soviet Union did in 1991. Dudayev's campaign for independence is only the most flagrant example of a growing regional revolt against the central government over issues of local sovereignty and tax policy.

Still, the Kremlin could not have chosen a more treacherous spot to defend its federalist principles than Chechnya, a traditional, clan-structured society that still avidly pursues blood vendettas. Historically, the Chechens have preferred to retreat to the hills in guerrilla bands rather than submit to Moscow. Thus, last week, when Yeltsin mobilized his forces against their ethnic republic, many anti-Dudayev groups set aside their differences last week to back the Chechen president. As women and children abandoned Grozny for fortress-like farm houses in the countryside, scores of volunteers streamed into the capital to prepare for possible invasion. Hundreds of independence supporters gathered in front of the presidency building for a national prayer vigil, their open hands held reverently in the air, Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders. Warned Aslan Moskhadov, chief of the Chechen general staff: "The North Caucasus will become another Afghanistan for Russia."

If Russian forces move into Chechnya, violence could easily spill into the neighboring republics of the North Caucasian region, a volatile melting pot of ethnic groups that share Chechen suspicions of Kremlin intentions. Even the city of Moscow could be drawn into the struggle, if Dudayev and his supporters carry out oft-repeated threats to wage a terrorist war on the streets of the Russian capital. Not taking any chances, Moscow police were put on heightened alert last week.

Yeltsin is a high-risk gambler who likes to talk tough rather than negotiate, but he was clearly having second thoughts about taking on the fiercely independent Chechens. From Czarist-era conflicts down to Afghanistan, the historical precedents for waging a successful armed struggle in the restive regions on Russia's southern rim are not encouraging. As Yeltsin well knows, governments and armies more stable than Russia's today have been brought to their knees when minor wars on the periphery grew to shake the center of power.

With reporting by Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow