Chechnya's Security Brain Drain

Chechnya, how long must this go on? In light of renewed advocacy for survivors of massacre in the Chechnya region of southern Russia from Amnesty, the Center for the Protection of Journalists, and other organizations, the institute for the study of everything should really do a follow-up study on the effects of brain drain on a region's security.

We've heard for a decade about the shift of the most educated and resourced people away from regions suffering economic or political collapse. But what about the self-selection process when progressive, peaceful, as well as cunning intelligent people, refuse careers in security, so that the third-tier candidates make up the ranks of security organizations?

Back in 2006 during my brief stint in Ingushetia, Chechnya, and North Ossetia, I had three talks with Russia's federal security bureau. Each time, young men who appeared to have been clawing their eyes out in their sleep (such were the red scratch marks above their cheeks), asked me some broad and some silly questions.

Their goal was to begin softly, then agitate with surprising questions to see if I slipped and contradicted myself. It's the usual welcome for all foreign aid workers to a region troubled by war and threat for two decades. Why did you come here? Why do you want to help Chechens? How did you meet your driver?  Why do you give cows to farmers? Where do you get these "cows"?

No wonder they find it easier to lob mortars than to build partnerships for peace.

For newcomers to the topic, Russia's point of view is that they want to preserve their union and reduce an 18-year-old insurgency. However, their security forces, both Russian and local Chechen, Ingush, Dagestani, and Ossetian, have proven completely inept at winning the support of the population. To prevent insurgents from blowing up their police post, they tend to hunt the insurgents down by arresting neighbors, friends, and passersby, putting up blast walls around neighborhoods, blocking the flow of traffic and goods, and then, only after all of this, do they sit down and talk to the locals about how to improve their lot. Russians largely want peace and unity, but the government agents focused in the south seem to be obsessed with military counter-insurgency at the cost of democratic development.

For more on the opposition's critique of the Russian government in Chechnya, see this collaborative event led by PEN America. The event included a talk between Tanya Lokshina (Human Rights Watch) and Elena Milashina (Novaya Gazeta), and hosted by Ann Cooper (Committee to Protect Journalists), focusing on assassinated rights worker, Natalia Estimirova.

Props also to Almut Rochowanski for efforts of the Chechnya Advocacy Network. For a look at Dagestan, here's Robert A Horton's study backed by Timo Vogt's photography. And here are some photos from Ingushetia from yours truly.

Photo credit: Daniel J Gerstle (An Ingush women rides past destroyed buildings in Grozny, Chechnya)