Hope Springs From Horror of Chechen War

GROZNY, Russia —  One stroll through the destruction of what were once majestic houses, one glimpse of the sorrowful eyes of the widowed and the wounded, one thought about the billions squandered in wrecking and killing, and there would seem no hope here for peace and reconciliation.

Yet in the cluttered courtyard where yesterday’s combatants are training to be today’s police officers, an atmosphere of camaraderie has swiftly replaced wartime contempt between black-hooded Chechen rebels and a fresh contingent of Russian troops.

“We are celebrating peace together,” proclaims rebel fighter Aslanbek Iliasov, congenially shouldering his Kalashnikov machine gun before hooking the nearest Russian soldier into a comradely embrace. “Isn’t that so, Volodya?”

The lanky, blond Russian smiles shyly and nods.

While the spirit of cooperation sparked by an Aug. 31 peace accord seems incongruous after more than 20 months of horror in this secessionist republic, the Chechen people’s exhaustion and disgust with the bloodshed have induced an unexpected climate of reason.

Spent of anger and hate over their staggering losses in lives and property, people in Chechnya say they are now simply too tired to nurture hostility or a desire for revenge.

Just a month ago, Khasmad Magomirov was shot to death by Russian soldiers at a roadblock as he tried to lead his wife and younger children to safety while the last battle against federal troops was raging in Grozny.

“They killed my father, right before the eyes of his wife and children, and I cannot forgive them for that, at least not now,” says 22-year-old Gulzhana Musayev, the oldest of Magomirov’s eight children, who now helps support the family by selling medicines from a market stand. “But if we want peace to last, I cannot dwell on this. I need to be tolerant and think of all the others who will be spared if the war has really ended.”

The thirst for calm and order is intensified by the approach of winter in this capital city, where 80% of the housing has been destroyed and those still scratching out an existence do so without income, electricity or running water.

In the first weeks of the war unleashed by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin in December 1994, Grozny was transformed from a leafy provincial city into a nightmarish wasteland of charred rubble, splintered trees and fleeing hordes of agonized people. Estimates of the republic’s war dead run as high as 80,000.

As much as half of Grozny’s 400,000 population remains in exile, still skeptical of this latest proclamation of peace or unable to find refuge in order to try to put lives and homes back together.

Slowly, the streets still strewn with the detritus of warfare--broken tank treads laid over scrap piles to serve as makeshift sidewalks--are refilling with cars and pedestrians trickling back to resurrect their lives and learn the fate of their loved ones.

“We just want to know what happened to him,” Maryam Atabiyeva pleads with a patrolling foursome of blue-bereted Russian and Chechen forces, pressing on them a picture and the last known whereabouts of her missing brother.

Outside the five regional command posts now jointly controlled by Chechens and Russians, hundreds of people loiter around the closed gates throughout the day in hopes of learning what steps are in store to solidify the peace pact and make this capital habitable again.

The slow, painful process of recovering trust in the future and in each other has been helped by the dogged involvement of Russian security chief Alexander I. Lebed, who has made half a dozen visits to Chechnya over the past month to first stop the fighting and then patch together the peace agreement.

Lebed’s bold concession that the Russian army could no longer afford the “luxury” of waging war in effect threw in the towel for the wrung-out federal forces, signaling an end to the conflict for many of the battle-weary Chechen people.

“I think Lebed is great. God willing, he should become president of Russia,” says Musayev, who holds Yeltsin responsible for the conflict that killed her father.

The peace brokered by Lebed and Chechen negotiator Aslan Maskhadov, the chief of staff of the rebel forces, got around the most daunting obstacle--Chechnya’s declared independence--by putting off for as long as five years any resolution of this breakaway region’s relationship with Russia.

By then, federal authorities hope, Chechens caught up in the charismatic independence quest of the late separatist leader Gen. Dzhokar M. Dudayev will see the logic in remaining at least nominally tied to Russia, whose territory nearly surrounds them.

In the meantime, Grozny is to be patrolled jointly by Russian and Chechen forces until relations are stable and Moscow’s troops can withdraw.

“Everyone is exhausted. This war has to end, and most people now see that,” says Col. Vladimir Kostenko, Russian spokesman for the joint command that pairs 270 Russian troops with the same number of Chechen fighters to impose law in the city. “I agree with Lebed that there has been fighting long enough. It is high time to stop.”

Russian forces that fought against the Chechens in the Kremlin’s bungled and protracted campaign to prevent Chechnya’s secession have been replaced by troops untainted by involvement in the conflict, Kostenko says.

Both Russian and Chechen participants in the joint patrols say the decision to rotate the Moscow forces has been the key to the latest cease-fire’s success, because the Chechens had previously refused to cooperate with the very enemies with whom they had been fighting.

“We are not considered to be guilty of anything in this conflict,” says a young Russian policeman from the city of Tambov who gave his name only as Sergei, dispatched for patrol duty in the joint command following an initial Aug. 22 cease-fire agreement. “It was very smart of Lebed to bring in fresh faces.”

The Chechen warriors now training with the Russian Interior Ministry troops to fill the role of a local police force say the alliance is one of necessity dictated by war fatigue.

“Everyone is sick of war. We are getting along now because this is the only way it can be,” says Seid Emi Askhabov, a 25-year-old warrior who also took up arms in defense of fellow Muslims in the nearby Caucasus Mountain region of Abkhazia during its 1992-93 battle for independence from Georgia. “It helps that these are not the guilty ones we must work with.”

Many Chechens contend that their culture forbids bearing grudges or holding all Russians responsible for the aggression of their brothers.

“I challenge anyone to find one person in this city who is too angry to accept peace,” says Magomed Atsayev, a member of the recently revived Committee for the Rebuilding of Grozny. “We are a hospitable nation. This tragedy will never be forgotten, but we are ready to carry on with life and work with the Russians.”