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The ethnic identification of politics in the North Caucasus is the result of more than the centrality of the Führer Prinzip in the political culture. It is in part a consequence of the fact that the interest-based political parties in Moscow have failed to organize themselves in the regions since 1991. With the exception of the rump Communist Party, the Agrarian Party and Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party, parties have remained the cliques of the Moscow elite with few grass roots organizations or regional representatives. In June 1995, for example, only six parties had officially registered with Kabardino-Balkaria’s Ministry of Justice: the Agrarian Party of Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Democratic Party, the Party for Russian Unity and Accord (PRES), the Adygei People’s Party, and the Consolidation Party. Of these six, only the Agrarian party and the Communists, who had combined their ranks, had any significant membership with approximately 5,000 members. The other parties had virtually no republican membership, with PRES and the Consolidation Party having around 120 members each, and the Democratic Party was thought to have disbanded entirely. 31 In addition to the marked absence of interest-based political parties, the North Caucasus has no common regional administrative structures. In the Soviet period, as illustrated by the division of the Circassians in the 1930s, the government was eager to eliminate any potential power base among its constituent national groups that could challenge its rule. In the case of the North Caucasus, the creation of common institutions and the encouragement of regional integration among republics with a tradition of opposition to Moscow were obviously not in the USSR’s best interests. Likewise, the government of the Russian Federation has not created any coherent political structures to bind the region together. As a result, politics in the North Caucasus has tended to become parochial national politics. Would-be political leaders must concentrate on the exploitation of the most salient issues in the region—the conflicting aspirations of the individual national groups—to build a power base. The result has been a succession of movements and associations that have sprung up around selfappointed national leaders. These movements purport to represent all the ‘ethnic interests’ of the group, and seek to change the political balance within the republics in the group’s favor. 32 Some of these movements have relatively benign goals, such as pursuing national cultural, political and economic development within the existing framework of their respective republics. In Dagestan, for example, the Imam Shamil National Front was created in 1991 to promote Avar interests in areas like Northern Dagestan where Avar populations live alongside Kumyks, Chechens and Russians. The National Front claims to be in favor of a sovereign and unified Dagestan rather than a specific national homeland for the Avars or a ‘Dagestan for Avars.’ It has also presented itself Ingushetia. Since his election as President of Ingushetia in February 1993, he has often become the voice of nationalities who have not been acknowledged by regional political groups. Abdulatipov, an ethnic Avar from Dagestan, is the highest-ranking “North Caucasian” at the federal level. As such, he has been the initiator of a number of Moscow-based efforts to promote regional integration. 31 See Gazeta Yuga, July 14, 1995, cited in FBIS, July 19, 1995, p.50. 32 See Vasil’eva and Muzaev, pp.7-10. 12
as a mediator in inter-ethnic conflicts in the republic, such as the conflict between the Chechens and the Laks in fall 1992 and between the Kumyks and Laks in the summer of 1993. Likewise, the Lak national movement, Kazi-Kumukh, which emerged from an earlier Lak national front, Tsubarz, seeks to promote the national culture and identity of the Lak population concentrated in the Novolaksky district of Dagestan while retaining the unity of the republic as the common state of all ‘Dagestanis.’ Other movements, however, such as the Lezgin national movement Sadval (“Unity”) in Dagestan, or the Kabardinian (Congress of the Kabardinian People), Balkar (National Council of the Balkar People), Karachai (All-national Council of Karachai Peoples), and Cherkess (Congress of Abazin and Cherkess Peoples) national movements, seek territorial change in addition to nationalcultural development. In the case of Sadval, the goal is the unification of traditional Lezgin territories and populations separated since 1991 by the new international border between the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan. The other movements seek the division of their respective dual republics into individual national units, while still other movements, like the Ingush party Niiskho and the Peoples Council of Ingushetia compete for the same national constituency. 33 The fact that politics is largely confined to national politics and that no regional structures exist has produced a political vacuum in the North Caucasus. One organization, the Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus—in Russian the Konfederatsiya narodov Kavkaza (hereafter KNK)—has tried to fill this vacuum and seize the political initiative for the region. Its political platform has been the sum of the individual national grievances against Moscow. Its goal has been to replace the republican governments with a supra-state structure and to secede from the Russian Federation. Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus (KNK): 34 The KNK is a strictly independent political operator that claims to speak on behalf of all the non-Russian peoples of the North Caucasus. It brings together national representatives from Abkhazia, Adygeia, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, North and South Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan, and representatives of key groups that do not have their own territory, such as the Shapsugs of Krasnodar Krai and the Meskhetian Turks. However, with the notable exceptions of the governments of Abkhazia and Chechnya which have sought to exploit the organization in their conflicts with Georgia and the Russian Federation, the KNK has not won the 33 This information is from interviews with leaders of the North Caucasian national movements conducted by Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov since 1991. 34 This section is based on Fiona Hill and Pamela Jewett, “Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus,” in Report on Ethnic Conflict in the Russian Federation and Transcaucasia, Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (John F. Kennedy School of Government, July 1993), pp.108-111; with supplementary research by Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Khasan Dzutsev in Dagestan and North Ossetia, and Larisa Khaperskaya in Rostov-on-Don (Courtesy of the Conflict Management Group Network on Ethnological Monitoring and Early Warning Network). See also Ol’ga Vasil’eva and Timur Muzaev, Severnyi Kavkaz v poiskakh regional’noi ideologii, pp.13-18. 13
Page 1 and 2: “RUSSIA’S TINDERBOX” Conflict
Page 3 and 4: PREFACE Background to the Report In
Page 5 and 6: “RUSSIA’S TINDERBOX” Conflict
Page 7 and 8: and dependent on subsidies from the
Page 9 and 10: • Cleavages between Orthodoxy and
Page 11 and 12: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. The Administra
Page 13 and 14: 3. The failure of Russian policy: S
Page 15 and 16: SECTION I The Structural Legacy of
Page 17 and 18: Supreme Soviet and a Presidium of t
Page 19 and 20: Tenglik went so as far as to blocka
Page 21 and 22: The Soviet government of the Russia
Page 23 and 24: From 1991, the question of whether
Page 25: Russia, announced the formation of
Page 29 and 30: After 1991, Abkhazia’s role as th
Page 31 and 32: members of the KNK all have a diffe
Page 33 and 34: SECTION III The Failure of Russia
Page 35 and 36: absolving the Ministry for National
Page 37 and 38: This activity has raised expectatio
Page 39 and 40: 1. Yeltsin’s March 1991 Visit to
Page 41 and 42: The first report recommended that,
Page 43 and 44: In response to the refusal of the K
Page 45 and 46: SECTION IV Territorial Disputes in
Page 47 and 48: inflammatory rhetoric, others have
Page 49 and 50: government, the expectation was tha
Page 51 and 52: 2. The secession of Chechnya from R
Page 53 and 54: epeated ultimatums to the Ingush to
Page 55 and 56: The refugee issue and the status of
Page 57 and 58: Government interventions have been
Page 59 and 60: Another territorial dispute in Dage
Page 61 and 62: To protect their group rights in th
Page 63 and 64: 1991 the referendum on statehood wa
Page 65 and 66: a dual Cherkess-Abazin federal repu
Page 67 and 68: The Krai’s ethnic composition is,
Page 69 and 70: Other Circassian peoples and the KN
Page 71 and 72: The Revival of the Cossacks in the
Page 73 and 74: the region. These meetings and of i
Page 75 and 76: The Cossacks are now perceived by t
Page 77 and 78:
in Kazakhstan. The 1991 Law on the
Page 79 and 80:
Chechnya was operating; 122 and a h
Page 81 and 82:
As modern civil society ceased to f
Page 83 and 84:
emergency session of the Checheno-I
Page 85 and 86:
Soviet weaponry, including tanks an
Page 87 and 88:
consisted of the most radical facti
Page 89 and 90:
In 1992-1993, the opposition’s re
Page 91 and 92:
In the North Caucasian republics, t
Page 93 and 94:
Moscow. Since Budennovsk, the knowl
Page 95 and 96:
The War in Chechnya and Implication
Page 97 and 98:
Conclusion As the discussion in the
Page 99 and 100:
APPENDIX 1 The Refugee crisis in th
Page 101 and 102:
was reversed in the late 1980s. 162
Page 103 and 104:
and the already high levels of unem
Page 105 and 106:
APPENDIX 2 The Islamic Factor in th
Page 107 and 108:
incorporating their principle figur
Page 109 and 110:
Since the war in Chechnya, and give
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