Wartime rape is a relatively common device used against the women of the other side. However, unlike cases in Darfur, Sierra Leone, and Bosnia, the experience of rape in Chechnya occurred in two very different ways: one, young women were raped by Russian soldiers during detention and as part of the campaign to ethnically cleanse certain areas, and two, women were kidnapped and raped by Chechen fighters. These same-side rapes were occasionally videotaped to make it impossible for the victims to return to their families. Under this kind of pressure, martyrdom seemed like a blessing.58
Women sent off for marriage to a neighboring village occasionally found themselves kidnapped and raped. Often the interlocutors (matchmakers) were compensated for making the arrangements. Instead of going to their weddings, the women were funneled into the Chechen jihadi network. Aset (Asya) Gishnurkayeva left her village of Naur to get married. When she got off the bus in Achkhoy-Martan, she was kidnapped and molested by Chechen men. It turned out that her mother had sold her to the jihadis. Aset ended up at the Dubrovka. When confronted by police afterward, her mother insisted that Aset was still alive somewhere in the Middle East, her whereabouts unknown. She refused to acknowledge that her daughter was killed at the Dubrovka even when shown photos from the attack.59
Russian authorities have also alleged that the girls were under the influence of drugs. It suits the Russian government to say that drugs, brainwashing, and blackmail are involved. To blame societal dynamics in Chechnya is easier than facing up to the role played by Russian soldiers in radicalizing Chechen women. The authorities do not want people to conclude that the situation in Chechnya is so desperate and the living circumstances so awful that women are driven to suicide and murder. So the Russian media regaled readers with stories of drugged and coerced zombies and implied that responsibility for their condition rested entirely on the Chechens themselves and on radical groups like Al Qaeda.
The claims perpetuated in Russian propaganda are refuted by stories of Russian soldiers laughing as they charge Chechen fathers 300 rubles (about $20) not to rape their daughters. According to the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, 85 percent of the women raped in Chechnya were raped by soldiers or police officers and 15 percent of the attackers were Chechens.60 In Chechnya, rape constitutes “normal conduct” and many of the cases never go to court due to the cultural norms or fear of retribution from the Russian authorities. The human rights violations fall under Russian policies of bespredel (without limits or boundaries)—committing atrocities and acting with impunity. The concept originated in Moscow's world of organized crime and was exported to Chechnya; thus soldiers could do anything to Chechens with impunity.61
While the situation for women in Chechnya was dire, the truth about how women become involved in suicide operations remains murky. Certainly, Russian actions have played a significant role in traumatizing women and incentivizing them to seek revenge. However, a black-and-white interpretation is complicated by reports that several of the women who participated in the Dubrovka siege were “sold” to the resistance to become suicide bombers—as we have seen in the case of Fatima and Khadizhat Ganiyeva. Several of the women were the sisters (not the widows) of well-known jihadis who had been paid as much as $1,500 per sister to deliver shahidat. The families of four of the women (Aset, Raina, Ayman, and Koku) reported that their daughters had been kidnapped and trained to kill against their will.
It is difficult to know for sure. Whatever the truth—whether these women chose their fate willingly or were pushed into participation—the attack against the theater was very much a family affair. The terrorists in the room comprised sisters, aunts, uncles, husbands, cousins, and wives. Thirty-two of the terrorists carried their real passports (which were later used to identify them) and several of the attackers were related to one another.
There is no doubt that recruiters routinely target young women who have lost someone during the war, like a close male relative. As a result of the stress from the war, women are highly impressionable and readily convinced to carry out a suicide mission. The organization instills an intense hatred of Russians for causing the death of her loved ones. The outside world is cast in terms of good and evil and an intense religious indoctrination follows.
Not all of the girls are religious. Most of them have grown up in secular environments, wearing miniskirts, listening to rock and roll, and watching American movies. But the recruiters deliberately misinterpret the Qur'an to persuade their recruits to become martyrs. Most of the girls have grown up in large families and are told that as shahidat they are the only hope for the families' future and their actions will save the whole clan. The girls' new comrades promise to make sure that their families will be taken care of financially, and promise the girls' families thousands of dollars for their daughters' sacrifice. The girls are placed in a closed environment in which they know no one. The psychological process involves bolstering the girls' self-image while simultaneously cutting it down. So while the women train to be fighters, they are also made to do the men's laundry and cook for them. Some of the girls think that life in the rebel camp will be full of adventure. No longer mere village girls frightened by life, they will be transformed into fighters and future heroines respected by their comrades and celebrated by their communities.
Although not all of the Chechen female bombers fit this profile, the majority were younger than thirty. While not all had lost relatives in the fighting against Russian troops or in the brutal purges of Chechen civilians by Russian security services, many had suffered during the mopping-up operations. Not all of them were raped, tortured, or humiliated by the Russian military, but all could tell tales of degradation under the occupation.62 Starting with the Second Chechen War, a new culture arose in which the norms of Chechen society and expectations of what women could contribute changed irrevocably. Many girls are convinced that a martyrdom operation is their best option. Recruiters now know that they cannot force the girls to do anything. A coerced bomber is considered “vocationally unsuitable and would blow the operation at any moment.” In the end the girls go to their deaths voluntarily.
TERROR AND COUNTER-TERROR
After the siege at the House of Culture, then Deputy Internal Affairs Minister Vladimir Vasilyev pledged publicly to cleanse not only Moscow, but all of Russia of Chechen “filth.” The hostage-takers' families bore the brunt of Russia's response. The relatives of the women terrorists were persecuted, kidnapped, and killed. The Russian authorities also destroyed the houses of all of the terrorists they could identify from the Dubrovka. In retaliation for the attack against the Ganiyevs' house, the homes of four Russian families in Assinovskaya were burned down three days later. Asya's home, too, was blown up by the Chechen administration and the Russian security services in retaliation for her participation in the siege. That December, the FSB killed Movsar Barayev's brother Adlan.
In April 2009, London's Sunday Times ran a story in which Russian special forces admitted to torturing Chechen women, then shooting them in the head. They disposed of their bodies in a nearby field, placing an artillery shell between their legs and on their chests. The soldiers added 200-gram TNT bricks and blew them to smithereens in a technique called “pulverization.” Another woman, an alleged sniper, was tied to the ground as soldiers rolled a tank over her body.
That same month the Russian government declared the war in Chechnya over. However, the violence by Russian forces against Chechen women only funnels them into suicide bombing operations. Violence from within the Chechen community exacerbates this dynamic. There might be a short hiatus, but the underlying fault-lines of the conflict still exist and a new generation os Chechens is being raised in a culture of martyrdom and hate. This makes the Russian infrastructure especially vulnerable to future attacks, ans the March 2010 Moscow subway bombings demonstrated. The Russians can officially declare the war is over, but until such time as the address the problem of Chechen