The Chechen conflict is not a recent issue. It has been a problem for quite a long time due to many underlying causes and reasons. The Chechen rebels call it a "war of liberation". They say that Chechnya has never voluntarily joined the Russian Federation and has only been conquered by military force. For them the 1994-6 war fought with Moscow and the latest campaign to crush Chechnya's struggle for independence, which began in the autumn of 1999, prove that the Russians only consider the language of war as means of solving the conflict.On the other hand, the Russia President Vladimir Putin calls the conflict an "anti-terrorist operation".
He claims that the Chechens use terrorist tactics to attack Russian soldiers and they have to be crushed. In this paper, I will try to discuss the conflict itself, emphasizing on background history and developments. Furthermore, I will argue about the underlying causes of the conflict and what pushed both sides to such a bloody war.In addition, I will try to propose an institutional solution to the problem and argue whether institutions can settle the dispute between the Russian government and the Chechen rebels.
We will see how those institutions might work in the Chechen context. The conflict: The Chechens are indigenous people of the North Caucasus. They speak a distinct Caucasic language, which is neither Slavic, nor is it Turkic, but is closely related to the language of neighboring Ingush. The Chechens and their ancestors have lived in their North Caucasus homeland for several thousand years.
All of their territory has been overrun for long periods by the Iranian Alans in the 9-12th centuries, by the Golden Horde in the 13th-15th centuries, and then by the Russian Empire, which in a competition for domination of the North Caucasus that began in the 16th century, finally out dominated its Ottoman and Persian rivals. The Chechens have traditionally been fiercely independent and democratic mountaineers. Their Muslim religion plays an important role in Chechen society, even though the ancient clan structure of Chechen social and political life still persists, as do blood feuds and other traditional customs.The area of Chechnya is approximately 6,000 square miles. Its western border with the Ingush Republic has still not been settled.
Georgia, now an independent state, lies over the mountains to the south. Dagestan, a Republic of the Russian Federation, is to the east and north, and the Stavropol Krai and the North Ossetin Republic lie to the northwest. Moreover The Chechens have been primarily herdsmen and farmers. According to the 1989 census, 70% of all Chechens still lived in rural areas.
The rich oilfields surrounding Grozny have been exploited since 1893. Although recent petroleum production is declining (in 1992 slightly exceeding 3. 5 million tons), Grozny has remained a major center of refining (about 6. 5 million tons of petroleum in 1992) and of petrochemical production. It is a hub for rail and road transport, as well as for important oil and gas pipelines (there is speculation that Russia's interest in controlling the pipeline for Caspian oil may have been a major factor in the decision to send the Russian army into Chechnya.
Employment in Grozny's oil industry attracted many Russians -- the city's population grew from 97,000 (68,000 Russians) in 1926 to 397,000 (210,000 Russians) in 1989. The Russian Constitution (Article 65) lists the Chechen Republic as a part of the Russian Federation. However, in 1990 a secession movement began to gain force, and on November 2, 1991, Chechnya proclaimed its independence. On March 17, 1992, a constitution was adopted, which defined the Chechen Republic as an independent, secular state governed by a president and a parliament.
On December 11, Russian troops invaded Chechnya from the north, the east, and the west. The first two months of the war in Chechnya was reported in detail by television and the press, both in Russia and abroad, even though coverage fell off sharply when the Russian troops occupied Grozny's Presidential Palace. Despite forecasts of a quick victory, Russian troops made slow progress in advancing on Grozny, held up by unarmed civilian protesters as well as by Chechen troops and a lack of supplies and soldiers.The Chechen forces were made up of the National Guard and other regular army units, including many soldiers with Afghan war experience, the volunteer militia, subject also to central command and discipline, in which a great proportion of Chechen males participate, some on a part-time basis, and "the avengers," individuals or small groups, whose relatives have been killed, and who, acting on their own, seek blood vengeance in accordance with Chechen custom.
The Chechens' weapons, which included some artillery and armor and plentiful supplies of sophisticated anti-tank weapons, Kalashnikov automatic rifles, ammunition, and grenades, are Russian in origin. They were handed over to them in 1991, seized during raids on Russian arms depots in 1992, or bought at various times from corrupt Russian officers and other arms dealers. The Chechens lack American Stingers or equivalent Russian anti-aircraft weapons, which left them vulnerable to Russian helicopter gun ships.Russian air raids and artillery fire were employed, in accordance with traditional Russian military doctrine and practice, to prepare the way for ground offensives against their positions.
Initially, their use was relatively restrained. As Chechen resistance stiffened, however, the bombing and shelling of Grozny and of other population centers (including some in Ingushetia), as well as of military and industrial targets, escalated.Frederick Cuny, in his article Killing Chechnya, describes the Russians' tactics: "To put the intensity of firing in perspective, the highest level of firing recorded in Sarajevo was 3,500 heavy detonations per day. In Grozny in early February, a colleague of mine counted 4,000 detonations per hour. Only in early March did the Russians diminish their shelling and adopt a strategy of starving out the local population. " (The New York Review, April 6, 1995).
An all-out Russian assault on Grozny was launched on December 31, but it failed to achieve its main objective, the taking of the President's Palace. Russian armor and troops found themselves trapped in the city streets, leading to fierce battles and heavy casualties --many Russian soldiers were trapped in armored personnel carriers and incinerated. It was not until January 19, after more than a month of hard fighting and the total destruction of central Grozny that Russian troops were able to occupy the President's Palace.After another three weeks of combat, the Russian command claimed that it controlled the city of Grozny, but its control was still tenuous and was contested nightly by Chechen snipers and patrols. In mid-February, a brief respite was arranged, after which the war resumed. On Monday, February 13, in Ingushetia, MVD Colonel General Anatoly Kulikov, commander of Russian forces in Chechnya, and Russian army commander General Anatoly Kvashnin met with Dudaev's chief of staff, Colonel Aslan Maskhadov, and agreed on a heavy weapons cease-fire.
In further meetings, on February 15 and 17, the two parties negotiated a 48-hour total cease-fire permitting an exchange of prisoners, recovery and burial of the bodies of dead Russian and Chechen soldiers, as well as the first delivery of humanitarian aid to Grozny by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on February 18. Unfortunately, hopes that this limited truce might become a starting point for a settlement of the conflict were dashed when talks were broken off. Chechen forces regrouped to the east of Grozny around the towns of Gudermes, Argun, and Shali, and also in the hills to the south of Grozny.Until mid-March, fighting was sporadic, with Russian forces slowly consolidating their positions, sometimes by negotiating agreements with local Chechen authorities, sometimes by air and ground attacks on Chechen positions. On March 20, Russian forces began a new offensive to take Shali and Argun.
Heavy bombing, strafing, and shelling of Chechen positions in and around the towns were followed up by tank and infantry attacks. Even if the Russians' offensive succeeded, however, Cuny (in the article cited above and written on March 9) noted that at some point "the Russians must turn south ... nd confront the Chechen forces massed in the south.
Undoubtedly, the Russians can inflict major damage on the Chechens. The question for Yeltsin is how far he is prepared to go ... to win, the Russians will have to force half a million or more people into the mountains, cut off their food supplies, and starve them into submission.
" However, what happened was exactly what Cuny predicted. Millions of Chechens fled to the neighboring countries in order to escape from the fierce fighting inside and outside the cities.Both sides were using all types of weaponry available so that to undermine the other sides' military capabilities. On January 11, Sergey Kovalev issued proposals for a ceasefire and a peacemaking effort in Chechnya. Kovalev has repeatedly stressed that negotiations must include General Dudaev's representatives, since they alone have authority with Chechen combatants.
Ceasefire was agreed but, unfortunately, not for a very long time. Just four years later the Russian army entered Chechnya again. Fighting broke out in August 1999, in the Russian area of Dagestan, as guerrilla forces infiltrated from neighboring Chechnya.Following months of clashes and tension in the border area of the semi-independent state of Chechnya and the Russian Republic of Dagestan, rebels seized control of several villages and battled Russian troops. Approximately 2,000 self-proclaimed Islamic rebels battled the growing numbers of Russian troops.
The Russian government reinforced the 17,000 soldiers already in the region and carried out air strikes against the rebels. The local population did not flock to the rebel banner, allowing the Russian forces the opportunity to take the initiative and drive the rebels out of Dagestan and back into Chechnya.After driving the rebels from Dagestan, Russian forces pursued the rebels into Chechnya with the intent of ending the separatist republic's existence. To this end, a ruthless military push toward the Chechen capital of Grozny began. Learning from the 1994-1996 war, the Russians made extensive and heavy use of long-distance weaponry. Chechen cities and villages were leveled by intense Russian air attacks and artillery bombardment, designed to maximize rebel losses while minimizing Russian casualties.
Russia now claims control of Grozny, but rebel units and snipers still fight on inside the city as the war turns to the countryside. The war now is moving into a rural guerrilla conflict. Russian losses continue to grow as they pursue the Chechen forces into the mountainous regions to the south. Also, areas that Russia claims are pacified periodically erupt in hit and run ambushes of Russian troops. The war does not appear to have an end in sight.
But is the use of military force the only possible way to settle the conflict?Is it not there a more peaceful and reliable solution to it? Proposed solution: In order to propose a solution to the problem, which does not involve a use of combat airplanes and heavy artillery, we need to look at the causes of the present-day conflict and what were the reasons behind it. If we look at the different actors in the conflict, supporting the two sides, we can see that there are quite a lot of different causes of why it broke out. Different people have different opinions about it, which could create a bit of an uncertainty when we need to look for a solution for it.According to Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected Chechen president in January 1997 in a ballot recognized by Russia and the international community, the former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's reluctance to sign an inter-state treaty with the Chechen Republic Ichkeria in 1997 generated "legal uncertainty" over Chechnya's status. He said that the Russian authorities were behind the August 1999 Chechen incursion into Dagestan and the bombings of residential buildings in three Russian cities that the Kremlin subsequently adduced as part of its rationale for launching a renewed military incursion into Chechnya.
He said that Russia's attempts to pacify Chechnya by means of a referendum on a new constitution and the installation of a new "puppet" leader will only fuel resistance, even though the Chechen people are worn down after four years of endless war. Moreover, he mentioned that the Russian leaders have "painted themselves into a corner" in Chechnya and that only a "third force" in the form of a third country or an influential international organization can stop the war.Maskhadov recalled that his foreign minister, Ilyas Akhmadov, has proposed the concept of "conditional independence" for Chechnya. However, people who support the other side of the conflict, namely Russia, have a completely different opinion about it. Nikolay Danilevsky, author of the famous book, Russia and Europe has written: "There has hardly been a Russian enterprise that has provoked such general indignation and complaint in Europe than our war in the Caucasus [the region that embraces Chechnya]..
.No matter how much effort our commentators expend in trying to show the recent affair as a great victory for the general course of human civilization, nothing helps. Europe does not like the fact that Russia has taken to this war...
The Europeans never take into account the fact that these Caucasian mountain-dwellers, by their fanatic religion and their way of life, by their habits, and by the very character of the land they inhabit -- are kidnappers and robbers, who can never and will never leave their neighbors in peace. Warriors without fear and rebuke, they are "lords" of freedom, and that is all!Russia, under threat of being labeled as a persecutor and oppressor of freedom is told, 'Endure the million or so warriors that have nested in the cruel crevices of the Caucasian mountains, who impede all peaceful settlements for hundreds of miles around. And while we wait for the inevitable Caucasian alliance with the first chance enemy who is ready to attack us, we are told to control ourselves... ".
Principally, the Russian government and agencies all support the idea that Chechnya has always been part of Russia and the rebels have no rights to claim it as their own country.Independence of Chechnya has not even been discussed and is considered out of the question because Russians feel it as part of their own territory, leaving no room for negotiation and considering it an internal conflict instead of an external one. Moreover, international observers and organizations feel that Russian claims over the Chechen territory are more a result of economic interests than political ones. Chechnya does not have such significant amount of oil reserves like, for instance Iraq, but quite a few oil and gas pipelines cross the country.If, according to Russian government, the rebels gain control of those pipelines, many oil companies, mainly Russian, will suffer severe economic losses. Those pipelines are vital for Russian economic interests and could not be left in the hands of a "bunch of kidnappers and robbers".
But then how could both sides compromise and put an end to the endless conflict, which has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people? The solution must be peaceful, involving an institutional framework.
