Death of a Dissident - Alex Goldfarb [38]
That very month, as the rebel government struggled to assume control of the restive guerrilla movement, Sasha Litvinenko went on a raid in Moscow. In a strange twist of fate, that raid would threaten to undermine the fragile Chechen peace accord.
The fragility of the peace had a lot to do with the absence of one man: the late Dzhokhar Dudayev, the only leader, in Zakayev’s view, who could unite the warring factions and personalities of the Chechen resistance.
Zakayev first met him in early 1990, when Dudayev was an air force general stationed in Tartu, Estonia. He was the only ethnic Chechen to reach such a high rank in the Soviet military. Initially Zakayev was suspicious of the smooth forty-six-year-old officer with an immaculately groomed, pointed moustache and ridiculous Soviet army cap. To become a general, one had to be 100 percent loyal to the Communist Party. A nonethnic Russian also had to be totally assimilated and married to an ethnic Russian. Dudayev was all of these things. He could barely speak Chechen. But when Zakayev heard him address a conference about the rebirth of the Chechen nation, he was overwhelmed. Here was a man, he saw, who could lead their people to freedom. As an actor, Zakayev appreciated Dudayev’s charisma. Perhaps it was the influence of Estonia, one of the most rebellious Soviet republics. Estonians revered Dudayev for ignoring orders from Moscow to shut down Estonian TV during massive anti-Soviet disturbances.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Dudayev returned to Chechnya, became active in politics, and was quickly elected president. He proclaimed independence in November 1991. Zakayev watched from a distance until one day in November 1994, when Dudayev called to offer him a cabinet position as minister of culture.
One month later, the first Chechen War began.
As with many wars, it started as a result of a miscalculation on both sides. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Chechens were under the impression that they would be free, like other Soviet republics. These expectations were reinforced by the Kremlin’s decision to apportion state property. The Red Army, as it left Chechnya, transferred all its possessions to the Dudayev government—tanks, guns, aircraft, weapons, and ammunition. It was a decision the army would later regret.
But Chechnya was not a full republic of the USSR, like Estonia and Georgia. It was just one of eighty-six provinces of the Russian Federation, and an autonomous ethnic region. In Moscow’s view, it was not entitled to full sovereignty. The Chechens protested and declared independence unilaterally, as did Tatarstan, another predominantly Muslim region, landlocked in the center of Russia. In February 1994, President Yeltsin went to Tatarstan and signed a treaty on the mutual delegation of powers with its strong-man president, Mintimer Shaimiyev. For all intents and purposes, Shaimiyev was granted control of local affairs in his nation of 3.7 million, leaving to Moscow the regulation of defense, currency, federal law, and collection of federal taxes, among other things.
The Chechens expected similar treatment, and probably would have been willing to give up their formal independence if they could otherwise manage their own affairs. But Moscow offered no negotiations. As a mountainous nation of only 1.1 million, Chechnya seemed insignificant in comparison to Tatarstan. Talks were delayed and postponed. By mid-1994, the mood in Moscow was