Chechen refugees prompt sympathy

  • 2001-06-07
  • Geoffrey Vasiliauskas
VILNIUS - Last week, the Baltic News Service reported that another group of Chechen refugees, this time 16 in all, jumped off the train to Kaliningrad at the Vilnius train station and asked border officials there for political asylum. Although this was the largest single group of Chechens so far to seek asylum in Lithuania, the phenomenon is by no means uncommon.

Lithuania has an orphanage for Chechen children who have managed to escape their homeland, and Vilnius University has had a small Chechen student body for several years now.

Beyond that, Vilnius is the site of a Chechen information center, located just across the street from Cathedral Square, the city's heart, and the old offices of Sajudis, the public organization that won Lithuanian independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. Tellingly, the name of the Chechen center in Lithuanian is "atstovybe," which means both "office" and "embassy."

Lithuania has been careful to stay out of the debate over the Russo-Chechen war although Lithuanian public sentiment tends to support Chechen aspirations and self-determination. In the first round of hostilities in the Chechen Republic, Russian media outlets carried stories of Baltic snipers and freedom fighters coming to the aid of the guerrilla armies there.

Although these reports were never substantiated they did leave a lasting impression on Russian - and Lithuanian - public opinion. By equating the struggle in Chechnya with that of the Baltic states, Russian propaganda unwittingly helped the opposing side. The Baltic states won independence from Russia, and nothing succeeds like success itself.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported in February 2001 that in an interview with the Russian newspaper Obshchaya gazeta Russian Maj. Gen. Vladimir Dudnik made this comparison openly, equating the Chechen struggle to the battle waged by Baltic partisans against the Soviet Union.

"The Baltic region was conquered only in 1956," Dudnik said in the interview, although in reality Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian partisans continued to resist the U.S.S.R. well into the 1960s and 1970s.

Paul Goble, the director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, commented on Dudnik's remarks, writing "By drawing an analogy with the Baltic countries, Dudnik is implicitly warning Russian officials not to assume that victories on the battlefield or the arrest of Chechen leaders will end the Chechen yearning for freedom and independence. Such victories will only buy the Russian authorities a little time until the Chechens are able to resume their challenge to Moscow."

A few days later, in an interview with the Lithuanian daily Respublika on a visit to Brussels, Lithuanian armed forces Brig. Gen. Jonas Kronkaitis revealed that Lithuanian military specialists were studying the guerrilla warfare techniques of Chechen partisans for application on any future Lithuanian battlefield.

"But Lithuanians are not Muslims, and we have a very different view on life," Kronkaitis told the newspaper.

Commander Kronkaitis forgot in the heat of battle in Brussels that Islam is one of Lithuania's nine official religions, with a rich history going back to the arrival of Tartars in the late 14th century.

Even so, his statement pointed to a geopolitical reality Lithuania and the other Baltic states can't forget, and one that is shared by Chechens, Tuvans and peoples across Eurasia.

Lithuania and Chechnya have more in common. Despite Russian propaganda calling the Chechens bandits engaged in drug running, terrorism and exporting radical Islamism, the Chechen struggle remains one of national self-determination. Like Lithuania, Chechnya was occupied by czarist Russia. Chechens were deported en masse by Stalin in cattle cars bound for colder climes.

The public in Poland, Lithuania and other countries affected by Russian imperialism have not been able to forget the latest victims in Chechnya, and international human rights obligations mean the latest refugees knocking at the door have to be let in whether they carry Chechen, Russian or no passports at all.

The latest group of asylum seekers was sent to Pabrade, Lithuania, to be housed in the foreigners registration center there. Of the 56 people at the center seeking asylum or refugee status, 53 are Chechens.