BACKGROUND:This development calls to mind the policy of the Tsarist General Yermolov, who came to Chechnya and the North Caucasus following his war on Napoleon in the first decade of the nineteenth century. In 1817, he built the Grozny fortress, from “terror” in Russian, in order to “terrorize” Chechens, and cut and burnt down forests because they were hideouts for Chechen fighters. If that was a huge loss by that era’s terms, the environmental situation in Chechnya is catastrophic in modern times, given the qualities and quantities of weaponry used in the present Russian war. Russia’s second war in Chechnya is entering its seventh year, and its effect on the environment is coming close to a real catastrophe. It might in fact eliminate the romantic picture of the Chechen environment which was described with fascination in Russian literature. Experts consider that 30 percent of Chechnya’s land is “contaminated” and 40 percent “does not meet environmental conditions for life” as a result of Russia’s war on Chechnya since 1994. Some of the gravest risks facing Chechens are radiation and petroleum oil leaks into the ground and the resulting pollution of soil and water, which naturally affects people. Since 1994, 20,000 tons of oil pollutants leaked into Chechnya’s ground, which is significantly more than the level allowed in normal cases. As a result, 40 percent of agricultural land in Chechnya is polluted to the extent that it is no longer arable. In addition, 1.5-2 million tons of those pollutants have leaked into the ground water, which mostly flows into the two main rivers, Sunzha and Terek, that in turn flow into the Caspian sea, which warns of a regional, if not an international, disaster. Almost 300,000 tons of toxic waste flows into the Caspian sea from Chechnya. The problem of oil spills is a direct result of Russian bombardment of plants and refineries. The environmental problem was compounded by corruption through approximately 15,000 makeshift refineries, most of which are based on illegal trafficking in oil. There are numerous reports about the involvement of the Russian military in this trafficking. In 2002, there were reports of 500-600 million tons of oil illegally refined in makeshift refineries, compared to 700 million tons of legally refined oil that year. In addition to all the problems related to this practice, it poses serious health issues for those working in the oil industry in this primitive form. On the other hand, Russian forces have destroyed facilities with “sources of ionizing irradiation”, and the radiation in Chechnya has made it a “restricted radioactive area”. Numbers indicate that radiation in some Chechen areas such as Chiri-Yurt, Shali, Vedeno, Gudermes, Argun and Grozny are ten times over normal levels. As a result of the bombardment of chemical plants, Grozny alone is showing more pollution with cesium-137, uranium and cobalt-60 radiation (which is harmful to people’s health) than other areas. It should be noted that rates of radioactive pollution are larger in areas with intensified fighting since 1999, which clearly shows that the types of weapons used by Russian forces against Chechens play a role in this pollution.

IMPLICATIONS: The Organization for Threatened Peoples has demanded that the International Atomic Energy Agency conduct an investigation about radioactive waste in Chechnya. The organization claims that it possesses hard evidence that Moscow has buried radioactive radium waste near Argun and that it uses a toxic waste dump, called Radon, to bury radioactive radium waste near Grozny. Environmental pollution in Chechnya poses a threat to the ecological balance in the region. The survival of certain species of plants and animals depends on their ability to prevail over external factors by adapting to them. Therefore, if a certain species is faced with adverse circumstances and as a result its population decreased, at least a number of that population will survive by adapting to the new environment, and consequently breed again and resume its place in nature. The ecological balance in Chechnya is at risk because even with the war coming to an end, the Chechen environment will need a long time to recuperate, which will undoubtedly affect people and their life in terms of basic activities like eating, drinking and normal life. The same effect may endanger the possibilities of flora and fauna to adapt to the new environmental conditions. It is not difficult to understand the cause of the growing environmental problem in Chechnya, mainly relating to the weapons Russian forces use in their war against the call for independence in Chechnya. Indeed, it is a fact that the regions with the greatest environmental damage are the ones that were bombarded and attacked more than the others.

CONCLUSIONS:Chechens are facing an environmental catastrophe that calls for an international effort to prevent the damage to the environmental from devastating society, or at least help Chechnya cut its losses. A calamity of this size cannot be handled by one country, i.e. Russia, even if it was willing to do so. The impact of the Russian war does not pose a risk to Chechnya alone, but also the wider societal and political stability in the North Caucasus for years to come. This means that the international community should be concerned with this environmental disaster not simply because of its human ramifications, but because it is a matter of politics and interests. However, the first implications of this situation is an additional powerful reason for Russia to end its brutal war in Chechnya, which would remove the first and primary reason for the disaster. If that does not happen, the places that Russian authors like Tolstoy, Pushkin and Lermontov wrote about will be no more.

AUTHOR’S BIO:Murad Batal Al-Shishani is a Jordanian-Chechen writer who holds an M.A degree in Political Science, specializing in Islamic Movements in Chechnya. He is author of the book “Islamic Movement in Chechnya and the Chechen-Russian Conflict 1990-2000”, Amman 2001 (in Arabic).