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district guarding the international border with the new states of Transcaucasia—Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and Russia’s old imperial rivals—Turkey and Iran. It is Russia’s route for pipelines from oil fields in the Caspian to its ports on the Black Sea and markets in Europe and the Middle East. And it is Russia’s premier agricultural region, producing almost one quarter of all its annual agricultural output. 2 The North Caucasus is also one of the most densely populated regions of Russia, with a population density ranging from 27.7 people per square kilometer in Karachaevo-Cherkessia to 76.5 people per square kilometer in North Ossetia, in sharp contrast to an average of only 8.4 for the Russian Federation as a whole. This unusually high population density is complicated by the fact that the North Caucasus is the most ethnically diverse region of the Russian Federation, with as many as 40 small ethnic groups spread across its territory. Although Russians are the largest of the ethnic groups, accounting for 67.6% of the total population, they are unevenly spread with non- Russian groups dominating in the east of the region toward the Caspian Sea. In spite of its preeminence as a center of agricultural production, and indeed because of its economic specialization, the North Caucasus region has experienced a severe economic decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The seven mountainous republics of the region have been especially hard hit. Prior to 1991, the North Caucasus had the largest rural population in Russia, with 43% of the total population living in rural areas as compared to 26% for the Federation as a whole. Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan and Karachaevo-Cherkessia had the highest ratios of rural to urban population in the region. 3 In the Soviet period, high rural birth rates and the generally high population density in the region produced a labor surplus in the republics of the North Caucasus. Up until 1991, this surplus was diverted by the local authorities to avoid destabilizing levels of unemployment. In addition to permitting migration from impoverished and over-populated mountainous regions of the North Caucasus to the lowlands and urban centers, local authorities created construction brigades for seasonal work elsewhere in the Russian Federation, and actively encouraged migration to other regions of the USSR. According to the 1989 census, as a result of these initiatives, one in four North Caucasians lived beyond the borders of their national republics. The dissolution of the USSR and the erosion of the command economy in the Russian Federation, however, turned off this safety valve for local authorities in the North Caucasus leaving large numbers of unemployed in rural areas and increasing pressure on land and housing. Because of their asymmetrical population profile and a corresponding low level of industrial development, the economies of the seven North Caucasus republics have been traditionally weak 2 Together with the Rostov Oblast, the North Caucasus Economic Region accounts for 50% of Russia’s vegetable oil, 42% of Russia’s sugar, 33% of Russia’s wool, 25% of Russia’s grain, 20% of Russia’s vegetables, and 15% of Russia’s meat. Krasnodar dominates this agricultural production and is also the major center for food processing, while Rostov is the manufacturing base for agricultural machinery, producing 80% of Russia’s combine harvesters. 3 For example, in 1989, 75% of the Chechen population lived in rural areas, and 70% of the Karachai and Cherkess populations. See Ol’ga Vasil’eva and Timur Muzaev, Severnyi kavkaz v poiskakh regional’noi ideologii, Progress (Moscow, 1994), p.29. Other figures for the North Caucasus were obtained from EPIcenter (the Center for Economic and Political Research) in Moscow. ii
and dependent on subsidies from the center to stave off collapse. 4 Before 1991, 50-70% of the budget revenues of the republics came from direct federal subsidies and centralized bank credits, with Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan being the most heavily subsidized. In the post-Soviet period, the republics’ problems have been compounded by dramatic declines in industrial and agricultural production. In 1992, for example, industrial production fell by 36% in North Ossetia, 30% in Chechnya, and 28% in Dagestan, as opposed to 18.8% for the Russian Federation as a whole. In Chechnya, per capita food production declined by 46% in 1992, in contrast to an average decline of 18% across Russia. In the North Caucasus region in general, industrial production fell by 23% for 1992, and by a further 21.6% in 1993, while the corresponding decline for the rest of the Russian Federation was only 16.2% in 1993. Likewise, average salaries in the North Caucasus declined to one third of the average for Russia, although prices on all commodities rose to the same levels across the Federation. By 1993, as a direct result of economic collapse, 97% of the republican budget of Ingushetia, for example, came from Russian federal government subsidies. These economic difficulties, the high population density, extreme ethnic diversity, and a number of other important factors have combined to turn the North Caucasus region into a maelstrom of ethno-political conflict. Since 1991, a series of often violent disputes have erupted between Ossetians and Ingush; between Kabardinians and Balkars, and Karachais and Cherkess; between Chechens and Laks, Chechens and Avars, Kumyks and Laks, and Lezgins and Azeris in Dagestan; between Cossacks and all of the other ethnic groups; and between Chechens and Russians. These disputes center on the issue of which ethnic group has the ultimate political authority over a certain territory and the people who inhabit it and thus who determines access to the region’s scarce resources of land, housing and jobs. In terms of the potential for widespread violence over these issues, the North Caucasus could be the next Bosnia. As many as 50,000 people may have died so far in the war in Chechnya, almost 600 people were killed in the 1992 conflict between North Ossetia and Ingushetia, several hundred people have been killed in armed clashes in other republics, and hundreds of thousands in the region have been made homeless. In addition, all of the elements that produced conflict in the Balkans are present in the North Caucasus: • the disintegration of a large multi-ethnic Communist state that removed the ideological underpinning from a complex national-territorial administrative structure; • a multi-ethnic mix of people with historic grievances who oppose the administrative border arrangements within the state and the new configuration of international borders; • a faultline between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islam; 4 In contrast to its share of Russian agricultural production, the North Caucasus economic region is responsible for only 7.6% of Russian industrial output. Industry in the region is dominated by mineral and raw material extraction, and the production of oil and gas. Prior to its secession from the Russian Federation in 1991, Chechnya accounted for 50% of the total oil production in the region. Chechnya was also the center of oil-refining in the North Caucasus, with the refinery in Grozny producing 90% of Russia’s aviation engine oil. iii
Page 1 and 2: “RUSSIA’S TINDERBOX” Conflict
Page 3 and 4: PREFACE Background to the Report In
Page 5: “RUSSIA’S TINDERBOX” Conflict
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 and 26: Russia, announced the formation of
Page 27 and 28: as a mediator in inter-ethnic confl
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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