I regret to pull such a long excerpt, but Tom Parfitt’s column at the Guardian is very interesting today, and contains a number of personal observations you won’t find in any of the wire reports on the recent tragic events in the Caucasus:

It is some time since strategists in the Kremlin have been pulling
out their hair, wondering how they created the monster which is
Kadyrov. Installed as a fixer who could stamp out the rebels and
rebuild Grozny, he has largely done both things while turning the
republic into his own personal fiefdom. Chechnya, traditionally an
egalitarian society in which no individual is considered above his
peers, is now full of risible billboards of Kadyrov clutching smiling
children like some modern day Enver Hoxha
(”The streets in Grozny are so clean,” say his fans, but the streets
are clean in Belarus and North Korea). Political opposition in
parliament has been extinguished and many potential opponents are no
longer a threat. Kadyrov’s greatest rival, the former battalion
commander and Hero of Russia, Sulim Yamadayev – himself, admittedly, no fluffy democrat – was rubbed out by an assassin in Dubai in March.

Yesterday,
in Estemirova, the most prominent civil society activist still
recording abuses inside Chechnya was exterminated. Others had already
taken fright and backed off. Estemirova kept on with enormous courage,
frequently clashing with Kadyrov, who was incensed by reports of his
alleged savagery: at a tense meeting with representatives of Memorial
early last year, one member of the organisation says Kadyrov clawed
himself and cried, “What can I do to stop you people writing these
things about me?”

What is clear is that Kadyrov’s hardline rule
in Chechnya receives tacit consent from the Kremlin, which signed a
Faustian pact with him to quell insurrection and stop terrorist attacks
reaching the Russian heartland, in exchange for wide autonomy on his
home turf. But there may come a point when Kadyrov becomes just too
embarrassing for a civilised country that is a member of the G8. The
problem now is that he is practically impossible to sack: his
beatification means removal would leave such a gaping power vacuum that
the republic could slip once more into chaos.

That does not mean
the issue should be fudged. If the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev is
serious about solving this murder, the investigation must look hard at
the Kremlin’s own power structures in Chechnya. Meanwhile, the west
must return human rights to the top of its agenda in dealing with
Moscow.

Another Russian mantra of modern times is the idea of
“stabilnost”. Achieving that in Chechnya has ostensibly been the aim of
supporting Kadyrov. But peace in the North Caucasus cannot come at the
price of human freedom. Because, as Estemirova herself knew so well,
stability based on terror and killing is no stability at all.

Last 5 posts by Robert Amsterdam

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• The Obstacle of Pride - November 20th, 2009
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• Yurgens: A Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is no picnic for Russia - November 20th, 2009