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do is to strengthen the efforts of indigenous groups such as the Muslim clergy to mediate in intergroup conflicts and assist the local governments in finding ways to manage the disputes and minimize violence. A number of Western non-governmental organizations such as the Londonbased International Alert and the Conflict Management Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts have already held small conflict management workshops in the region to train local mediators. Absent an evolution in Russian political structures that simultaneously addresses the problems of the contested configuration of existing borders, the identification of state structures with a single ethnic group, the perception among groups that the current political arrangements deny them access to economic resources, and inadequate regional leadership, conflict in the North Caucasus is doomed to continue. 84
APPENDIX 1 The Refugee crisis in the North Caucasus The collapse of the USSR and the outbreak of violent ethno-political conflicts across the whole of the Caucasus have drastically altered the basic demographic profile of the North Caucasus. 153 The number of refugees and “forced migrants” who have both fled from and found refuge within the North Caucasus since 1988 exceeds one million people. 154 This figure includes refugees from the wars in Chechnya, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, North Ossetia and Ingushetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh; and those escaping the ethnically-motivated discrimination and crime, and difficult economic conditions prevalent throughout the Russian Federation and the former Soviet Union. The effects of these conflicts on the population of the North Caucasus are comparable in scale to the effects of the deportations by the Soviet Government in 1943-1944, in which approximately one million North Caucasians were relocated to Central Asia. 155 Before the outbreak of war in Chechnya, the most serious demographic dislocation in the region was associated with the influx of refugees and forced migrants from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, where violent ethnic conflicts assumed a permanent and protracted character from 1991. According to official statistics released by the Migratory Service of the Republic of North Ossetia, for example, approximately 100,000 Ossetians refugees fled to North Ossetia at the beginning of the South Ossetian conflict in January 1991, and 41,300 still remained in North Ossetia in April 1995. 156 A further 256,000 refugees fled from the conflict in Abkhazia into Georgia and the 153 Material for this section is taken from Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Khasan Dzutsev, “The Refugee Problem in the North Caucasus.” An edited and shortened version of this paper has also been published in the June 1995 CMG Bulletin, pp. 42-43. 154 According to the Russian Federation’s legal code, a “Refugee” is a person who has sought refugee in Russia but is not a citizen of the Russian Federation, or is not entitled to apply for citizenship. A “Forced Migrant,” on the other hand, according to the preamble of a February 1993 law, is “a citizen of the Russian Federation who has been forced to leave his or her place of permanent residence in another state or in the Russian Federation, because violence or other forms of persecution have been committed against him or her, or members of his or her family––or because there is a real danger of being subjected to persecution on the basis of race, nationality, religion or language, or because he or she belongs to a certain social group or holds certain political convictions––as a result of hostile campaigns against individual persons or groups of persons, mass disturbances of public order, or other circumstances that significantly infringe on human rights.” See the Russian Federation law On Refugees, and the Russian Federation Law On Forced Migrants, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, No. 54, March 20, 1993, p.4. This means that in accordance with Russian terminology most of the people displaced by ethnic conflicts within the North Caucasus fall under the category of “forced migrants” rather than refugees. 155 Source of figures: Minority Rights Group, The North Caucasus: Minorities at a Crossroads (London, 1994), p.21. 156 This figure includes 34,400 Ossetians officially registered as refugees and 6,900 who have not been granted refugee status by the government and are expected to be repatriated to South Ossetia. See CMG Bulletin, June 1995, p.50. The total figure is equivalent to approximately 5% of the population of South Ossetia, and 6% of the North Ossetian population. 85
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“RUSSIA’S TINDERBOX” Conflict
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PREFACE Background to the Report In
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“RUSSIA’S TINDERBOX” Conflict
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and dependent on subsidies from the
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• Cleavages between Orthodoxy and
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. The Administra
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3. The failure of Russian policy: S
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SECTION I The Structural Legacy of
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Supreme Soviet and a Presidium of t
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Tenglik went so as far as to blocka
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The Soviet government of the Russia
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From 1991, the question of whether
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Russia, announced the formation of
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as a mediator in inter-ethnic confl
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After 1991, Abkhazia’s role as th
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members of the KNK all have a diffe
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SECTION III The Failure of Russia
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absolving the Ministry for National
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This activity has raised expectatio
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1. Yeltsin’s March 1991 Visit to
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The first report recommended that,
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In response to the refusal of the K
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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: Conclusion As the discussion in the
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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