RUSSIA'S TINDERBOX - Belfer Center for Science and International ...

In response to the refusal of the KNK to participate, the Congress presented itself as the
KNK’s “democratic” alternative. Yet, its establishment was not accompanied by any larger political
strategy and no concerted effort was made to create a broad social base of support for the Congress
in the region. The Ministry was very much the initiator of the conference and most of the
movements that were represented in the Congress either were affiliated with small national groups or
were amorphous organizations with democratic orientation but no political influence. 64
There were nonetheless some positive results from the conference in Piatigorsk. A North
Caucasus Economic Association was created to promote the economic development of the region
and a series of “round-tables” were established to bring together representatives of the political
forces in the region and the federal government. The round-tables, in turn, encouraged the formation
of Consultative Councils in the regional parliaments which became a forum for all the political
parties in an individual republic. Thus an institution to promote continuous dialogue between the
ruling elite and the opposition national movements was established. 65 This represented a very small
step toward promoting cooperation with the new political forces in the North Caucasus.
The most recent of Moscow’s efforts at organization-building is the International Congress
of Highlanders (in Russian the Mezhdunarodnyi Kongress Gortsev) which looks even further afield
than the Russian Federation in its activities. 66 This organization, like the Association of Peoples of
the Caucasus, was also created at the initiative of Ramazan Abdulatipov and held its founding
Congress in Dagestan in July 1994. The International Congress seeks to tap in on increased
interest in the North Caucasus from international companies and Western analysts in order to attract
foreign investment to the region. The coordinating council and the secretariat of the Congress are all
housed in the Analytical Center of the Council of Federation, which is staffed by a group of
Moscow-based analysts headed by Abdulatipov. 67
Apart from creating this succession of weak organizations, the Russian government has done
little to address the persistence of conflict in the North Caucasus. Since the March 1993 decree on
creating Cossack military structures, the only other concrete government action has been the
intervention in Chechnya. An August 1995 press report sums up the Russian government’s approach
toward the region: when representatives of the administrations of all the republics, krais and oblasts
of the North Caucasus met in Moscow in August 1995 to establish an extensive program for the
64 See Larisa Khaperskaya, “Analysis of the Ethno-Political Situation in the North Caucasus,” in CMG Bulletin,
May 1994, pp. 20-25; and Vasil’eva and Muzaev, p.17.
65 For a discussion of the conference in Piatigorsk see Vasil’eva and Muzaev, p. 48.
66 The Congress initially referred to itself in official correspondence in English as the “International Congress of
Mountaineers”––“Mountaineers” being the usual English term for Gortsy. But the coordinating council changed
the name to the “International Congress of Highlanders” in the summer of 1995 after some of the international
groups it hoped to attract to its events noted that the English name evoked the image of a gathering of mountain
climbers (alpinisty in Russian) rather than of North Caucasian peoples.
67 Information from the Analytical Center of the Council of the Federation.
29