the terrorists at the theater. Across Chechnya, horrified families recognized the faces of their dead daughters and sisters when the news stations aired the footage from the Dubrovka attack.
Rustam's culpability came to light in the months after the Moscow theater siege, when the remaining Ganiyev daughter allegedly sought asylum from the Russian police. In August, Raisa (Reshat) Ganiyeva begged the FSB to provide her a safe haven because Rustam had promised her for one of the four new suicide operations Shamil Basayev was planning. According to the Russian government, she turned herself in of her own volition, but during a meeting with Sophie Shihab of Le Monde, Raisa managed to whisper in the journalist's ear, “They arrested me…”48 The FSB relocated Raisa to a safe house in Khankala, east of Grozny, where she remained under police protection for a year and then disappeared altogether.
COERCION AND REVENGE
From the beginning of the second war in Chechnya, women became increasingly involved in the fight. Even the smallest fighting units had female health-aid workers, whom the men respectfully called “sisters.”49 Slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya met dozens of women in Chechnya ready to embark upon suicide missions for the cause. She chronicled Russian human rights abuses in Chechnya in several of her articles and books, including A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya and A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Politkovskaya painted a picture of a brutal war in which thousands of innocent citizens were tortured, abducted, or killed at the hands of Chechen or federal authorities. Politkovskaya herself was tortured in Chechnya for three days and her children threatened.50 Flown in from the west coast to help negotiate the end of the Dubrovka crisis, she stated that the nineteen women at the siege were “real heroines” to most Chechens, even though they were likely forced into their actions by men. Polish journalist Andrzej Zaucha believed that the women were at Dubrovka of their own free will but that many had very personal motives for being there. Politkovskaya concurred that a major motive for the women was to avenge the deaths of their family members. Abu Walid, a Saudi who was reportedly one of the rebel commanders, told Al Jazeera that the women, particularly the wives of the mujahideen who were martyred, were menaced by Russian soldiers who threatened their honor in their own homes. The women would not accept being humiliated and living under the occupation. They wanted to serve the cause of God and avenge their husbands and sons.51
This desire for revenge and the likelihood of coercion were not mutually exclusive. Many Chechen women were outraged by the war and did lose husbands, sons, and brothers. But Russian behavior toward Chechen women during their mopping-up operations was an additional motivating factor. In Chechen society, men are the head of the household; nearly all issues are decided by them. A Chechen woman lives under the guardianship of her relatives until she marries, when she becomes her husband's responsibility. The woman represents the family's honor, and when an injustice is done to her, it can often be washed off only by spilling blood.52 Traditionally, the wronged family takes revenge only against the individual(s) involved in the original crime or insult. However, with the many years of war and the increased trauma among Chechen civilians, a generalized revenge directed toward all Russians became increasingly acceptable.53 In this extreme situation, all Russians were blamed for the actions of their soldiers.
According to Chechen sources, many of the women were victims of rape, which meant that they could never marry or have children. The prospect was so bleak that many concluded that they might as well die.54 In one documented case, Russian federal forces detained Aset (not her real name) at a checkpoint in June 2003 and accused her of being a suicide bomber. According to relatives, during her interrogation she was chained to a bed and gang-raped every night. When she was released six days later, she was barely able to walk or stand.55 According to one Chechen woman who abandoned her suicide mission at the last minute, if you sacrificed your life in the name of Allah and killed some infidels, you would go straight to heaven regardless of your previous sins.56
Anna Politkovskaya argued that the women in Chechnya were “zombified” by their sorrow and grief. Writing in Moscow's Zhizn magazine, Svetlana Makunina endorsed the commonly held Russian view that the women terrorists had all been turned into zombies. They did not actually want to be involved in suicide attacks. They were drugged, raped, and forced. Another journalist, Maria Zhirkova, explained how difficult it was for anyone to understand the position of Chechen women in society. Rape was such a big issue. If a woman was raped and it was photographed or filmed, she could be blackmailed into doing anything because the rape was a disgrace to her entire family.57
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
