Product Description

Since the end of the Cold War, Chechnya has suffered two full-scale Russian military assaults, and is now in the seventh year of a brutal occupation. The casualties remain largely uncounted, and the fundamental issues at stake are routinely sidestepped in Russia and in the West. In this powerful argument for Chechen self-determination, Tony Wood considers Russo-Chechen relations over the past century and a half, as well as the fate of the region since the fall of the Soviet Union. "The Case for Chechnya" sharply criticizes the role of Western nations in their struggle, and lays bare the weakness - and shamefulness - of the arguments used to deny the Chechens' right to sovereignty.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #743366 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
"A passionate and eloquent case for Chechen statehood, well researched and reasoned. Whatever one thinks of state sovereignty these days, this political project demands serious engagement, and his humanitarian concerns cannot be ignored." - Georgi Derbrguian, author of Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus"

About the Author
Tony Wood is Assistant Editor at New Left Review; his work has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books, among other periodicals.

Customer Reviews

Seminal book - a must read
This book is long over due. Chechnya: The Case for Independence strips away the voices of hyperbole, emotion and rhetoric which have argued for and against this tragic nation. Instead it clearly spells out the cultural, historical and constitional contexts which impelled the Chechen drive for independence in the late eighties and early nineties amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The case for reigniting the Cold War
Tony Wood, Assistant Editor at the New Left Review, has written this book in support of Chechnya's claim to secede from Russia. The Russian government opposes this claim, saying that it would break up Russia, carving a Pan-Caucasian Islamic federation out of Southern Russia, which would strengthen Islamist fundamentalist terrorism.

As a general rule, the United Nations and its member states do not support claims for unilateral secession. International law forbids the unilateral redrawing of boundaries by secession or territorial seizure. It outlaws the recognition of provinces unilaterally declaring independence against the wishes of the federal authorities. There are good reasons for this: empires have always practised divide and rule, and what better way to divide people than to split them into separate statelets?

During most of World War Two, Chechen insurgents under their `Provisional Popular Revolutionary Government' assisted Hitler's invasion by fighting against the Soviet government. Now, as Wood remarks, influential US politicians back the Chechens and their Islamist fundamentalist terrorist leaders. They include well-known supporters of the oppressed - James Woolsey (ex-head of the CIA), Zbigniew Brzezinski (ex-Secretary of State) and Richard Perle (prince of darkness). Wood notes that their `hostility to Russia meant support for Chechen independence'; it appears that the same is true of Trotskyists.

But Wood ignores the fact that the US state has actually used Al-Qaeda terrorists for covert terrorist operations in Chechnya to break up Russia, just as it earlier used Al-Qaeda terrorists in Bosnia and Kosovo to break up Yugoslavia. He fails to mention that the CIA and MI6 trained Chechen terrorists in CIA camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Neither MI6 nor the CIA appears in the index.

Should `solidarising' with Chechnya be a priority for the British working class, as Wood wants? In a world where the USA, with EU support, is itching to start illegal wars against Cuba and Iran and is reigniting old antagonisms against Russia and China, making the case for Chechen secession only adds grist to the warmongers' mill.
We should focus on what we can directly affect, focus on Britain, and on stopping the warmongers here.