Sochi closes on a day of infamy

Imagine that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wanted to erect a monument to Japanese World War II veterans in Pearl Harbor — and to do so on Dec. 7, the anniversary of the attack. What the Russians are doing with the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics — which began on Feb. 7 and will come to a close on Feb. 23 — is not all that different.

From the point of view of climate and locale, the resort city of Sochi, where Europe’s largest mountains slope to a subtropical seaside, was a good choice, but in Russia, history always trumps climate and location.

As the Russian empire expanded southward in the 18th century, it clashed with the peoples of the North Caucasus. Isolated clashes coalesced into all-out war in the middle of the 19th century. The peoples of the North Caucasus — Chechens, Ingush and Dagestanis being the largest groups — were led by the Dagestani Imam Shamil, who was both an inspiring religious leader and a brilliant strategist. Ultimately, the Russians overwhelmed Shamil and his guerrilla armies with superior manpower and firepower. When captured, Shamil was treated with honor and respect. The killing stopped, but the war never ended.

The peoples of the North Caucasus had a brief period of independence between the fall of the Russian empire in 1917 and the imposition of Soviet power in 1923. They then became citizens of the USSR but were never trusted — especially by Josef Stalin, who, as a Georgian, was from those parts himself. During World War II, accusing them of collaborating with the Nazi invaders, Stalin ordered the entire Chechen and Ingush nations — numbering about 500,000 — to be herded into cattle cars and exiled to Kazakhstan. So many (almost a third) died en route and in the initial years of exile that Stalin’s action has been termed attempted genocide. That action was carried out by another Georgian, Stalin’s head of the secret police, Lavrenty Beria, who devised a clever stratagem: The roundup and deportation took place on Feb. 23, the official holiday of the Soviet armed forces — not unlike Veteran’s Day in the U.S. This made it easy to get people to gather in squares and other public places.

In fact, the peoples of the North Caucasus fought bravely and well during World War II. Some did go over to the Nazis, but so did plenty of Russians, enough to form an entire army under the command of Nazi collaborator Gen. Andrey Vlasov. For people from a warrior culture (especially the Chechens), being accused of treachery in war — and rounded up on a day celebrating warriors — added insult to the injury of violent exile. For them, Feb. 23, 1944, the day this occurred, is a day that lives in infamy.

The closing ceremony of the Sochi Olympics will take place on Feb. 23 — exactly 70 years after the deportation. Is it possible that no one in charge of planning the games noticed this? Is this the careless unconsciousness of the victors? Or is it a deliberate and brutal message saying, “Not only are we going to hold the games on land we seized from your ancestors, but we will hold the concluding ceremony on the very date we exiled your nations.”

The importance of the games’ location has not been lost on the leader of Russia’s Islamist insurgents, Doku Umarov, who has called the games “demonic dances on the bones of our ancestors” and has called for “maximum force” to be used to prevent that sacrilege. The media refer to Umarov as Russia’s Osama bin Laden, and the U.S. State Department has offered a reward of up to $5 million for his capture. The Russians may have forgotten or ignored the significance of the date, but Umarov will have done neither. (And if the still unconfirmed rumors of Umarov’s death are correct, then his followers, few though they may be, will recall the meaning of the date and act accordingly.)

It is exceedingly difficult to predict terrorist behavior because it is by nature secretive, irrational and opportunistic. After the recent train-station and bus bombings in the city of Volgograd just before the games, the attacks have broken off, and an eerie calm has set in. There will likely be no further incidents during the games themselves, but this may be because — and let me pose a frightening hypothetical — Umarov may be training his eye on the grand finale, the closing ceremony on Feb. 23. The operative notion here is that all’s bad that ends bad.

If such a scenario were to come to pass, Russian President Vladimir Putin would be disgraced with the world’s attention on him. Strongmen can never afford to look weak or ridiculous, and a successful attack during the concluding ceremony could accomplish both. Putin would lose face, prestige and power.

A seriously weakened Putin would embolden his domestic rivals and the now flagging opposition. It could even put some iron into former president and current Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, a person the U.S. and Europe has always found modern and thus more attractive than the Soviet-retro Putin. The Islamist insurgents would be inspired to escalate their attacks. A cornered Putin fighting for his political life in an increasingly chaotic Russia is not a heartening prospect to contemplate.

The Western media seem to think gay rights will be the main issue at the Sochi Olympics. I hope they are right. But from where I stand, the games look more likely to be defined by grievance and vengeance, power and terror.