Civil Society and Peace-building in the North and South Caucasus ...

Civil Society and Peace-building in the North and South Caucasus
November 16, 2000
Edited transcript by Danielle Lussier
Melissa Carr: I want to welcome you on behalf of the Caspian Studies Program and Women
Waging Peace. Many of you are familiar with the Caspian Studies Program and its seminar
series. From that, you know that we often focus on various conflicts in the Caucasus and efforts
to resolve those conflicts. You may be less familiar with Women Waging Peace, which is a
relatively new initiative at the Kennedy School. It is an important initiative that builds a network of
women working to bring peace in conflict zones all over the world. It helps to bring these women
and their experiences and insights to the table with policymakers, attempting to resolve violent
conflict around the world.
Last year, they had one hundred women from ten different conflict zones here at the Kennedy
School, including ten women from Armenia and Azerbaijan. This year they have added
delegations from Burundi, Mexico, Sri Lanka and Russia. They have also asked members of the
delegations that were here last year to return. Thus, Arzu is here this year from Azerbaijan.
Unfortunately, Arzu’s colleague from Armenia was not able to come this time.
The program at the Kennedy School has a two-week colloquium of coalition building and
research discussions. Women have been sharing stories, sharpening their skills and building
coalitions to go back and continue their very important work.
We are fortunate to have a number of women who are part of the Women Waging Peace
program here today. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we can only have three official
presentations. But, we will introduce all of them, and we encourage you to ask questions of any
of them throughout the discussion.
I will start by introducing each of the women, then introduce each speaker and tell you a little bit
about them before they speak. Fatima Yandieva is to my left; Ida Kuklina is next to her. Then
Arzu Abdullayeva, then Sophia Dobinskaya, and Liubov Vinogradova. They all will be willing to
answer your questions.
We will start with a presentation by Arzu Abdullayeva. Arzu is from Azerbaijan and is from the
Helsinki Citizens Assembly, which is an international network of civic, peace and human rights
initiatives with branches in most countries of Europe. Arzu is not new to the experience of peace
building or to civil society. She and her organization have been active in the Caucasus for quite a
long time. The Helsinki Citizens Assembly opened its offices in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and
Nagorno-Karabagh in 1992 at the height of the conflict. It has been active since.
Arzu Abdullayeva, together with her Armenian colleague, Anna Viundur received an international
prize in 1993 named for Olaf Palma. Their work has been recognized on an international level.
Arzu has been an active member of the peace building community. She herself, before coming to
the Women Waging Peace colloquium, organized an international conference for Helsinki
Citizens Assembly in Baku. Seven hundred people representing 38 countries attended.
Immediately after she finished that event, she jumped on the plane and came here to be part of
the Women Waging Peace colloquium. We are very happy that all of you are here today. We will
start with Arzu, and I will introduce each of you before you speak.
ARZU ABDULLAYEVA: Thank you very much for coming and for expressing interest in our
problems. I was informed that you all know the specifics of our conflict. You know the situation in
our country; that is why you are here. Let me give you some information about our most
important activities in the region.

We try to work on the public level. This is important – and I think you will agree with me –
because non-governmental organizations do not have the ability to declare peace. NGOs are
never involved in the process of signing peace agreements. But, we prepare the public opinion
for peace. It is never possible to have a political decision without working on the public opinion.
Unfortunately, it is not only we who understood this and worked on it.
Why did the conflict start? The conflict started twelve years ago in 1988 in our countries –
between neighbors Armenia and Azerbaijan - because of Nagorno-Karabagh, this small
mountainous place on Azerbaijani territory where Armenian national minorities lived. They had
had a friendship before the beginning of the conflict.
The desire for national minorities to join their mother nation is easy to understand. It is easy to
understand why they raised these sorts of demands. But at the same time, we understand that
there were forces using these human, personal, and collective desires. What was the interest of
the people outside? We could name it the third party. Why was a third party interested in helping
these Armenian minorities living in Azerbaijan to join their territory to Armenia? Why did they
support it? Where could we find the answer so that everything becomes clear? We could divide
these people based on whether they are pursuing good or bad will. Good will people, as most
people are, would try to protect national minorities’ rights. It is a good idea. It is a human issue.
But, bad will people like to use these problems to their own advantage.
What is this advantage? It is a bad, dirty political game. At the time when conflict could have
been solved, or we could have discussed it on a civilian level, this third party became involved in
the process and pushed it to develop into a conflict. There was a time when the third party gave
armaments to the sides. Sure, if you have a gun, what will you do with it? You will shoot each
other. The same war model was used against our people.
What are we doing now? We try to explain to people, “Think. Who gains the advantage in this
conflict? Who gets the advantage when we shoot each other?” If you could get an answer, it
would be very easy to understand each other. Mothers lose their sons in the war. A lot of
missing people, invalids, refugees, IDPs [internally displaced persons] - they are simple people
who are the victims. But at the same time, it is an aggressive kind of society. That is why using
these suffering people to escalate a new wave of the conflict is very easy.
We try to explain that there is a war model. Let’s start a peace model. Peace models begin
when there is an interest from the people.
What can we do to achieve the peace? First of all, the mass media was used to create hysteria
and the image of an enemy. We try to abolish this enemy image, and we have achieved this in
our conflict. Sure, there are a few organizations and people on both sides of the conflict who do
not favor the achievement of peace. Even now, they make statements that the conflict can only
be solved through war. I can say frankly, however, that most of the population from both Armenia
and Azerbaijan is ready for peaceful measures to solve the conflict.
We currently have a cease-fire that was achieved in 1994. The situation, as you can imagine, is
not war but not peace. We should do our best to achieve a positive peace. A lot of people are
thinking now that, “I join you in your peace-making activities. I am on your side when you say that
peace measures should come first.” But, the political decision is not ours. It will be made
outside. A politician should do it. We could agree partly because we feel that if only politicians
have the opportunity to make decisions, the result could be far from just. People could continue
their work to sit down and think it out together, as we did to eliminate the enemy image in society.
We have a lot of meetings and a lot of activities. We use the media for explaining the war model
and the peace model. We have a lot of mutual actions. For example, we have gained the trust of
society because we search for missing persons on both sides. Each side helps the other. For
example, in Azerbaijan, we search for missing people from Armenia, and we promote the release
of hostages and prisoners of war. At the same time, my colleagues from Armenia and Nagorno-

Karabagh promote the release of Azerbaijani prisoners of war and hostages. This is how we earn
the trust of society, and they believe in our activities.
What are we doing in our society now? We continue our work to save our very fragile peace,
because unfortunately we build our peace step-by-step, stone by stone. But bad-will politicians
could destroy it. What can we do to prevent it? We just continue our work and our explanations.
We educate people and repeat every time, “Who has the advantage?” And, “Don’t give them the
opportunity to use you against each other. Don’t be the tool of someone who has other interests
in the war.”
I am out of time, but I would be pleased to answer questions.
CARR: Thank you, Arzu. Our next speaker will be Ida Kuklina, who is currently the Secretary of
the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia. She is on the Analytical and Information
Commission and also a member of the Coordination Council. Many of you are familiar with the
work of Ida’s organization. They have been very active in pushing for military reform in Russia:
in the first war in Chechnya, for pushing for the end of the war, and also in the current war in
Chechnya, they have been working to try to end the war, and to try to promote the human rights
of people in Chechnya, and also of the soldiers and the soldiers’ families in Russia.
One of the organization’s most famous efforts, and one of Ida’s own personal most memorable
experiences in peace work was in 1994 when the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia
comprised a delegation of a number of NGOs working for peace and marched on Grozny, trying
to bring about peace and to voice the public opinion opposed to the war in Chechnya.
Ida’s organization, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, has been active for many years
and received an Alternative Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, of which the organization is quite proud.
Ida is going to tell us a little bit about her work and her organization’s efforts to influence policy,
and the environment that they work in in Russia.
IDA KUKLINA: Thank you for coming. It is a great honor for me to speak here. One small note
before I start, there was a very well known peace march. But our evaluation of this action does
not coincide with the word “well known” because we think the peace march created a very tricky
situation. We are suspicious that after this peace march, the Chechen village, Somashki, was
destroyed. So let us not speak about this peace march.
I would like to concentrate on the differences that exist between the first Chechen war and the
second war; I mean the periods 1994-96, and since August 1999. I will try to show how the
situation changed for the Soldiers’ Mothers, because of course we are the most massive
grassroots organization in Russia. We are absolutely independent of the government and any
political structures. Therefore, it is very interesting how an NGO can influence government policy,
and in turn, what the government is doing to fight this influence.
In the first Chechen war, the conflict zone was absolutely open for us. The Soldiers’ Mothers
came to Chechnya from both sides. They came from the Federal side to the military units to take
their sons from the military units. There was a mass movement. They also came from the
Chechen side looking for their sons who were prisoners of war, killed or missing. At this time in
Chechnya, there were several hundred Soldiers’ Mothers who were looking for their sons. The
conflict was also open for the media.
Now the situation has changed quite a lot. We had used the openness of the conflict zone to
pursue our goals and interests. Now, with Putin coming to the Kremlin, the Federal authorities
have prepared for us. They closed the conflict zone completely. We now cannot move to the
military units. One of our regional representatives who tried to enter was told, “We will shoot any
moving object if it is moving without our permission.” As a result, we cannot go freely to the
military units from the federal side.

The same is true for the Chechen side. The situation inside the Chechen community also
changed a lot in comparison to the first war. It is too dangerous to go there. And, to where? For
what? Those are the questions.
Nevertheless, we preserved some ties and connections with Chechen women and organizations.
For example, we are still working very closely with the Chechen Committee for Human Rights.
The chairman was at the Baku Conference. The last time we met was in Baku. We made a joint
statement. We paid the expenses of a Chechen woman, Zen Abgashaiva, who was working with
the peacemaking center in Moscow, to go to Nazran to deal with humanitarian questions. So,
there is a connection, but it is a different kind of connection than it was during the first war. It
could have been said that we had connections with all Chechen people - that we could move
freely among them. Now it is not possible. That is one difference.
Another difference is that we mobilized public opinion against the first war. Very seriously. The
government took this factor into consideration. As a result, they prepared public opinion for the
second war. It was done quite correctly, from the point of view of the federal authorities. First of
all, they presented it, not as a Russian or Federal aggression, but rather as Chechen aggression
against Dagestan. Then, there was an explosion in Moscow. We don’t know yet…there have
been no trials. But nevertheless, public opinion began to believe that there was a Chechen crisis.
Though legally, no one can say that the Chechens caused the explosions in various cities in
Russia.
Also, Putin himself immediately declared that if participants in the Yugoslavian peacekeeping
operations were receiving $1000 per month, then Russia should pay its soldiers the same sum
because they were engaging in patriotic work defending their homeland against terrorists.
In the very beginning of the second war, only a few mothers came to us for help. So we had to
change our tactic to mobilize public opinion. We tried to reveal every lie that the military spread
about the conflict. The first involved the human losses. There was a very broad public campaign
in which we proved that they were lying about human losses. Of course, in the first period of the
war, only a few Russian journalists openly declared their anti-war position. Most of the media
was silent. So we used the foreign media so that the Russian media could no longer ignore the
issue and the things we were telling them about the conflict zone.
There were also a lot of mass protests during the first war. There were meetings in Moscow and
Chechnya. Now they have proven to be less effective. The protests in Moscow and the regions
draw too few people. So we think we will use this kind of pressure on the government when we
can be certain of its effectiveness. At the moment, it is not effective.
We used all of our influence in the previous Duma. The composition of the previous Duma was
much better for us than it is now. In 1996 it was not so difficult for us to push through the Duma
our amnesty project for all the participants of the conflict on both the Chechens and the federal
side. We were the very first NGO that protected human rights on both sides of the front line. We
pushed our amnesty project through the Duma, and it was a real achievement because a lot of
Chechen people were not criminals or terrorists.
We also pushed through the Duma some amendments to the military laws including the Law on
Military Service and the Law on Military Courts. We also managed, as unpaid volunteers, to enter
some state structures, which were interesting to participate in, for example, the Board of the
Military Prosecutor and the Presidential Commission of Prisoners of War, the Presidential
Commission on Human Rights, and several others. It was very convenient for us because we
received information, and we had a public forum to express our views.
Before my departure to the US, Putin issued a new decree regarding the Presidential
Commission on Human Rights. Our representative was thrown off this commission. And, instead

of Valentina (last name inaudible), our responsible secretary, the new member of this commission
is the general, the main political commissar of the Ministry of Defense, General Azarov. This
shows the difference between the situation in the first war and the second war.
As for individual complaints, the situation has not changed. We are very effective in solving
individual complaints. Those soldiers’ problems are connected with the problems of conflict. The
matter is that there is no state system of rehabilitation. None of the wounded or disabled receives
any real help from the government. But at least we are trying to involve the regional authorities in
this process to help the disabled soldiers. We are giving legal help in this field, and so on.
I forgot to add that in the new Duma, the situation is much worse for us than in the previous
Duma. We still do not have a stable group of supporters in the strategic committees. There are a
few deputies with whom we work effectively. But still, we need to broaden this support. We have
begun this process, but it is very difficult because the composition of this Duma has changed
politically, and not to our benefit.
A final few words about the military reform. We intensified the public campaign for military reform
because our motto is “non-violence, human rights and the abolishment of conscription slavery.”
So in this war, we use the conflict to show that it is absolutely criminal to send young boys to this
conflict zone to be killed or to become killers. This is a crime. They are not going there by their
own choice; they are going against their own will. There was a very dirty story about how they
changed the law concerning draftees who could be sent to the conflict zone. Our state
demonstrated that they could lie shamelessly. The evil is in the details, as they say.
So we intensified our public campaign for military reform. We set the goal of military reform of the
professional army in 1990 when there was the first forum of Soldiers’ Mothers, which was named
Mothers Against Violence: Which Kind of Army Do We Need? And I think that in the field of
military reform – I do not have the latest news from Russia except that latest Russian anecdote
about the American elections. But Melissa told me that there was a meeting of the Security
Council, and something was announced about military reform.
I think that it is inevitable. It was a lack of political will and a strong military influence that stopped
the military reform. Why are we for a professional army? We think in Russia’s specific condition,
this is the only way that human rights can be protected. When a draftee enters military service,
he has less than no rights, he has negative rights. It is just a remnant of pure slavery. It is
possible to work as an ambulance – and we are working as an ambulance, solving the individual
cases – but it is not possible to change the situation toward better human rights without military
reform. So that was another main direction of public campaigning in the second Chechen War.
I am sure that I did not discuss everything, but thank you very much for listening.
CARR: Thank you, Ida, for sharing the work of your organization. Our next speaker, Fatima
Yandieva, is the coordinator of the Fund for Repressed Peoples and Civilians in the Northern
Caucasus. Her organization is one of the first nongovernmental organizations that was formed in
the Caucasus; it began in 1992-93. Its initial goal was to protect the rights and freedom of the
people who were deported by Stalin. But as we all know, events in the Caucasus and particularly
in Chechnya took a turn for the worse, and so her organization became very involved in
protecting human rights, particularly in Chechnya.
As the focal point for the Fund in the North Caucasus, Fatima has monitored the situation and
conducted field assessments and reviews, and written about the situation, particularly in
Chechnya and Ingushetia. Fatima herself was recently in Grozny and will tell us some of her
recent observations and impressions of the situation on the ground.
FATIMA YANDIEVA: I think it will be interesting for you to know about the latest events in
Chechnya – about the war in Chechnya. It is hidden from the rest of the world because it is not

eally covered in the national or international media. Though we are very realistic – we know that
it is a very small problem for the rest of the world. If it is covered in the national media, it is onesided
coverage.
There are different reasons for this. It is a hard place for everyone to access – not only for
reporters and journalists, but also for humanitarian workers and other people who would like to go
to see what is going on there and to offer help.
I was in Grozny a couple of days before my departure to the US. It is a very distressing picture to
see the city and Chechnya in general. During the first war, I remember when we were entering
the city center of Grozny. There was a huge sign on the concrete wall near the entrance into the
tunnel. It was very visible; it said, “Welcome to Hell.” This time, when I was able to get into
Grozny after the heavy military actions, I saw underneath the other graffiti a sign that said,
“Welcome to Hell, Part II.” I think this is a very eloquent sign of what is going on in Grozny and in
Chechnya.
This is a situation which is, I think, very bad for all sides who are to some extent involved in this
matter – I mean the civilian population, the military and those Chechen fighters who were mostly
forced to take up arms and fight back.
Grozny, which was once a very nice city, has become a grave for very nice buildings, and a grave
for thousands of residents of the city. This picture has become even worse at this point. The city
reminds me of the pictures on TV of the European cities of the 1940s which had been devastated
by World War II. The city looks as if it is deserted, but then you can see that life is still warm
there. I could see that in the so-called Center of Grozny where there is a central market. We call
it the Central Market; it is a small functioning market. About 30,000-50,000 people who never got
out still live in the city.
We can see people who are carrying cans with water – a sign that shows the level of their lives.
And it is very scary when, at the end of the day, the city falls into complete darkness because
there is no electricity or water, and gas supplies are occasional and only in some places. You
can see many people who are carrying wood for heat. Around the city, especially on the
highway, Rostov-(inaudible), I saw the forests which had been devastated by all of the cutting. It
is a sign of the contemporary life in Chechnya.
But one of the most distressing aspects of life in Grozny was also the darkness of the sky. It was
a sunny autumn day two weeks ago, when I was there, and the sky looked very gloomy. It is
because of the more than 30 oil wells which are burning constantly. Nobody cares about this. I
think this can have very negative ecological consequences. And even today, it is really hard to
breathe in Chechnya. When you get a little bit out of the city, you can see from a distance that
the city is covered by this dark smoke.
Unfortunately, I don’t know why, but my feeling is that nobody really cares about anything. The
government, which is operating now and collaborating with the Federal Government, appears to
be enthusiastic about improving the situation. But for the ordinary people, it is really hard to
understand and to believe that somebody really cares about them and what the situation is in
Chechnya.
I should say that a sign of the war is also obvious when you see numerous checkpoints. It took
me four hours to pass sixty kilometers from the border of Ingushetia to Grozny. Normally, it takes
40 minutes. I counted the checkpoints; there were about 15 of them in this 60 kilometers. Every
time you are stopped, your identification cards are checked, and you are interrogated.
Interrogation is applied especially to men, young men, of course, because the Federal troops
consider every Chechen male a potential fighter. There is a very high degree of suspicion
towards the whole male population.

There is some help provided to the people living in Chechnya, though very few organizations are
able to work for a variety of reasons. It is not a secure place. But the UN is operating its
programs through implementing partners and such organizations as IRC, Danish Refugee
Council, People in Need (from the Czech Republic) and Polish Organization. They are physically
staying in Chechnya and carrying on their courageous work, which I think should be noted since it
is very hard today. Most of them are operating in neighboring Ingushetia.
Where are the people who once lived in the highly populated republic? They went everywhere.
Chechen people, Russian people and other people inhabiting Chechnya went to Russian cities
like Moscow; they went abroad. About 200,000 are displaced in neighboring Ingushetia. They
live mostly in the refugee camps. Many also live in the private sector.
When we talk to each other and think of what can be done, I think nobody knows. It is a really
complicated situation there. Nobody knows how to solve it. I know that all parties are really
unhappy. Nobody wants to fight. When you ask soldiers, they tell you that they are really
unhappy to be there. At first they were motivated to come because they were promised that they
would be paid. But they were not. It is just another deceit of the government; they were
promised and then they received nothing.
The same is true with all other people. They say, “We don’t have a place to go.” When they go
to the cities in Russia, they are not welcome in most of them. Who needs additional problems? If
they go to Moscow – many people pin their hopes on Moscow for several reasons. One very
strong reason is that people hope to give their children an education. Moscow is a center of
education, and people want to go there. But in Moscow, there is strong discrimination towards
Caucasian people on a daily basis.
Others are simply hiding, because they don’t want to have problems at the checkpoints. They
stay somewhere: in their homes, in the refugee camps. I heard rumors recently that the IDPs in
the refugee camps were sharing their fears that the Federals promised to conducts “cleansings,”
a normal process in the refugee camps. Maybe there are those who fought or who took part very
actively during the military events. But some of them never took up guns, yet they are under the
same suspicion. This also speaks to the atmosphere – that people suffer not only from being
traumatized by the campaigns because of the material losses, personal losses, and losses of
family members, but also because of the very unsafe and insecure state of their world. It is very
disquieting. It is not a pleasant state for the people.
People often say that during the day, it is the time when the Federal troops are the masters of
everything. At night, they say that the Chechens are ruling. So this is the shift, and the so-called
pot where people are boiling. This is the atmosphere and the humanitarian picture of the life in
Chechnya.
CARR: Thank you Fatima for sharing some of your recent observations. It only serves to
illustrate more the need for civil society organizations and other governmental and international
organizations to come together to build peace. This is something I think we all recognize as a big
need.
At this time, we would like to open the conversation for people to ask questions. As I mentioned
earlier, Sofia Dubinskaya who is from the organization Integration of Regional Mass Media is
here, as is Liubov Vinogradova who is from the Russian Research Center for Human Rights. So,
if people have questions specifically in those spheres, Liubov and Sofia are also ready to answer
your questions.
QUESTION: Addressing all of the speakers, is there any dialog that has started about long-term
political settlements in these areas of conflicts? That is, what ultimately could happen to
Nagorno-Karabagh or to Chechnya?

ABDULLAYEVA: We have a dialog, and I am proud to say that we have a dialog on both sides
at a non-governmental level. At the same time, we have a dialog between the NGOs and the
official structures and the international organizations. For a long time, international organizations
involved in the dispute between the two sides did not recognize public diplomacy and
nongovernmental organizations’ opportunities in dialog and peace building. But I am proud to say
that about two weeks ago, the OSCE, one of the important international organizations involved in
the conflict resolution, made a decision to work with NGOs, human rights protection
organizations, and organizations involved in peace building. But we started our dialog before.
We sent our proposals and projects and programs to all international organizations who were
interested in the dispute, and to our government.
KUKLINA: We have a one-sided dialog with the government, if you could call it a dialog. At the
beginning of the second war, we sent Putin a letter asking, “What is going on? What is the legal
status of this war?” He was silent. Then in the media, several terms were used to describe the
second war, including, “anti-terrorist actions” or “the fight against international terrorism.” But,
there was still no legal status of the war.
Then we asked him about human rights violations. We noted that draftees should not be sent to
the conflict zone involuntarily. Okay, he cancelled one decree, and the other one, which says,
“After six months, the soldier has no right to refuse to go to the war.” Can you call that a dialog?
This is the dialog between the state and the NGO.
But inside the society there is a lot of dialog. I am a member of the permanent acting conference
on the stabilization of the situation in the Northern Caucasus. There is a lot of dialog and many
proposals. At one time, we favored a proposal to begin negotiations with Maskhadov, to satisfy
him with a dignified retirement, and to start a new phase of the political process from this point.
The Chechen people submitted this proposal, and we liked it. But now the situation has changed
again.
We also have a dialog with the international structures: the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe, the OSCE and so on. But they are tied up with their mandates and all of their
intergovernmental policies. For example, we proposed to Mary Robinson that since no one
knows what to do about Chechnya, a multilateral commission on Chechnya should be organized.
This multilateral commission would include Russian and international NGOs, international
structures, federal authorities and so on. It was my impression that our commissioner on human
rights liked this idea, but then she thought, “How could I organize such a thing? There is no
possibility. There is no mechanism.” She is limited by her mandate and by UN procedures.
That is the kind of dialog we have inside society.
QUESTION: Do any of your organizations have informal contact with responsive leaders or
commanders in the military with whom you could have some reasonable dialog, and then try to
use the interests of the military in reform to push some of these things forward, or, perhaps, to
find ways of opening or making more transparent the war itself?
KUKLINA: Thank you for your question, because I forgot to discuss this. Yes. In February we
had the Second International Congress of Soldiers’ Mothers for Life and Freedom. We worked
out eleven resolutions, which we sent to all the state authorities concerned, and first of all to the
military. For the first time in the eleven-year life of our organization, we received a very detailed
answer from the Chief of Staff, signed by Kvashmil. It is a very interesting document, and we are
very grateful to the Chief of Staff for writing such a document. But it is so typical of the general
position of the military – they didn’t take responsibility for anything. They say, “We are acting on
orders. We are the military; we have to act on orders. So nothing is our fault. We are acting
according to the laws.”

In listing the laws that they must follow, he mentioned a lot of secret documents. And we are
grateful, because our next step will be to send him questions, “What kind of documents are these
secret documents?” If they are concerned with human rights, these documents should be known
to society. We are very grateful to the Chief of Staff for deciding to begin an official dialog with
us.
There is also the so-called Coordination Council, which consists of the military and the Soldiers’
Mothers organizations. In the Second World War, they activated their efforts to strengthen their
so-called Twin Committees. It is the organization of soldiers’ parents who are acting under the
aegis of the Minister of Defense. They are trying to strengthen this group of organizations. What
they are doing, for example, is spreading a lot of propaganda in Krasnaya Zvezda, the official
newspaper. They are also giving humanitarian aid and opening a very narrow path into the
military units in Chechnya to deliver humanitarian aid and to give to each soldier his part of
envelopes of sweets or other items.
We are not doing such things, though our regional committee sometimes uses the humanitarian
aid to penetrate the military units. But it is another thing. In Moscow, we don’t deal with such
kinds of humanitarian actions. But we are members of this Coordination Council, because we
prefer to keep our hands in everything and to know all the information. I think in general they
failed with the strengthening of these committees. On the other hand, there is a state program of
military–patriotic education in schools. That is a strategic step on the part of the government.
ABDULLAYEVA: We have experience with dialog with our military structures, too. Within our
organization, the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, we have a commission that acts like the Soldiers’
Mothers. They have started cooperating with Russian Soldiers’ Mothers.
Sometimes very funny stories come from these structures. For example, even two years after the
cease-fire, they didn’t make a statement about army mobilization. Young people were in the army
for five or six years. Because it was so difficult psychologically, many deserted. We raised this
question and sent a letter to the staff in the Ministry of Defense. We asked them what had
happened and why, when there haven’t been battles and there is a cease-fire, was the rule still in
place.
Do you know what answer we received? They called us and asked for a private meeting. They
said, “Please, raise this question in front of our boss, the Minister of Defense. It is a very
appropriate question, but we cannot raise it ourselves. Please, if possible, organize a mass
mailing of letters to the Minister.” It was clear that they were afraid of losing their jobs. We did it,
and since that time, we have had very good relations with the military. Sometimes we receive
some cowardly questions. They are very useful for us and useful for them. They want to solve a
problem, but they cannot do it themselves.
For us, the ratification of the Geneva Convention was very important. It didn’t work at first in our
country. First we raised the question of signing and ratifying it in both of our countries. The
Soldiers’ Mothers organization from the Armenian side heard us, and we had joint activity
together.
We were interested in the treatment of the prisoners of war and the hostages. According to the
Geneva Convention, hostages are not allowed, so they should be released without conditions.
But the treatment of prisoners of war on both sides was unfortunately very cruel. We raised the
question of passing domestic laws in accordance with the Geneva Convention. People violating
these laws should be arrested. We succeeded in this.
QUESTION: I have a couple of questions. One, you talked about public opinion in this war
versus the last one. I was wondering, as we watched this war begin at the same time as Putin
was coming to power, it seemed like support of Putin and support of the war were very much tied
together. I wonder if that is still true? As Putin’s approval ratings are still pretty high, is there any

chance that the approval rating of the war has declined? In other words, people are more and
more against the war? If that is true, if there is any effect of the mass media – Berezovsky,
Gusinsky – being anti-Putin now, whereas Berezovsky was supporting Putin before? Or if NGOs
can have an effect on public opinion?
That is kind of a big question, but the second question was, do you work at all with the women in
Afghanistan now considering the history of your organization?
KUKLINA: I will begin with the second question. The history of the Union of Soldiers’ Mothers
Committees of Russia is not connected with the Afghan war. It is a new kind of grassroots NGO,
created without any intellectual support, without any ideological preparations. It is a grassroots
organization that began in the peak of Perestroika when a lot of NGOs were emerging. And the
Soldiers’ Mothers were among them. In the beginning, I think one could not call it human rights
because they had a very definite task to return the students [from military activity in order to finish
their university education]. At that time, all students had to go into the army for two years after
their first year of education. After being in the army for two years, they could return to their
educational institutions. The Mothers wanted no interruption in their sons’ education. That was
their first task.
They returned almost 200,000 students to their auditoria at that time. Then, as the committee
developed further, the Mothers created a human rights wing in their organization. The Soldiers’
Mothers movement is not monolithic; it consists of various organizations. Some of them are
political, some are pro-military; all of them are Soldiers’ Mothers. There is a strong human rights
wing of the movement.
Regarding the first question about public opinion, I think it is the Russian fate always to choose
between bad and bad. Worse and worse. The support of Putin was to a certain extent the
expression of the unacceptability of the Yeltsin regime. At least to a certain extent. I am sure of
it. Then there was a qualified action by the government to prepare public opinion for the war. I
already talked about this. I think the human rights organizations are also to blame. We were not
prepared for such a course of events. In the first Chechen war, we were trying to prevent it,
though we had no experience in such actions there. This war was absolutely unexpected for us -
not only for us, but for all the human rights movements in Russia.
The public also failed to understand what was going on. The evaluation of events takes time.
After two or three months, we understood that the public opinion had changed in relation to the
events. The flow of mothers increased from day to day, especially the mothers of draftees. None
of the mothers wanted to send her son to the army because they were afraid they would be sent
to Chechnya.
But in other aspects, of course our society is divided. There are not clear indicators that public
opinion is changing. But I think in the anti-war sphere, there are some very significant changes.
YANDIEVA: At the beginning of this second campaign, Putin was the initiator and the author of
the war. I think the Russian society had certain hopes for the young promising leader who had
touched their nationalist feelings. He aroused the dignity of the Russian people who had been
doubting it. And, the society was sick and tired of Yeltsin who had become incapable of
governing the whole country. The fact that the Chechens were presented as scapegoats before
the beginning of the second campaign also played a big role.
The Russian society was really deceived. They were unaware of what they were doing. I think
most of them, average Russian people, didn’t know what was happening there, and what the real
issues were. They didn’t care. They were told that all of their problems and the instability in the
country were linked to the Chechens as an ethnic group.

But later on people began to realize – as the losses of soldiers mounted and the campaign lasted
for months and months with only coffins and no results. What are the results? Nothing has
changed for the better. That is why I think there is a shift, a so-called declination, in accepting
Putin as strong, popular leader of the country. But I think he played a good game; all the cards
were in his hands at that moment. He used them in the best way.
KUKLINA: I think there is a process of elite consolidation. Gusinsky, Berezovsky, maybe they
will be thrown out. There is a purification of the elite around Putin. I think this process could be
called the consolidation and purification of our elite, which is absolutely estranged from society.
QUESTION: I have a question for Fatima. I would like to ask you to describe what the feelings
are now within the Chechen society about the future and about the possible settlement of the
conflict. I am asking because in 1995 I had a feeling that people there were kind of happy with
the agreement; that there would be a five year period before the legal status of Chechnya would
be decided. Yet, within this period, another war was started. I am not sure whether this was
necessary. What were the real reasons? What was the situation in Chechnya before the start of
the military operations, and how is the situation now? What do people in Chechnya want now?
What would be next after the end of the military operations?
YANDIEVA: I asked many people whether they really wanted this autonomy or independence,
and whether they wanted to separate from Russia. I could hardly find anybody who said, “Yes,
we want to be a separate country.” I think that the price that they paid was so high, that for them,
the only dream is to come to peace and stability. It doesn’t matter to them whether it is within
Russia or outside of it. Normal people want to have a normal life.
After the end of the first war, there were elections when Maskhadov was elected by the majority
of the Chechen population. At that time, there was an agreement between Yeltsin and the
Chechen side. Chechnya was given a kind of autonomy, some autonomous status. The
elections were internationally recognized as fair and democratic, including by the Russians.
People’s hopes were raised by that event. At that time, they thought that peace and stability
would come, and they would be able to create a new state, and everything would proceed in a
civilized way.
Unfortunately, we know what happened between these two wars. Most people connect the
events which happened before the second war with the weakness of Maskhadov who was not
able to be a strong leader. Maybe he was too weak, and the opposition was too strong for him.
We saw the results: kidnappings, robberies and total destruction of all norms of civil society, and
the remnants of what once could have been called a society.
But even with the rise of this whole range of events, I remember in 1991-1994 when Dudayev
came to power with these radical nationalists and proclaimed independence. Who asked the
people about this? Did a referendum take place there? There was nothing of the kind. This was
the decision of a politically active group of the leadership of Chechnya. The fate of the Chechens
was a toy in the hands of the politicians on both sides. We can see that the Chechen leaders
were not interested in bringing the country to stability. And the Russians, up to now, have not
been interested in resolving the problem. The fact that they are dealing with Kadyrov and
Gantamirov is an eloquent confirmation of this, I think.
I don’t know if I answered your question or not. It is hard for the people. They dream that they
will have a stable and peaceful life. People are tired of wars and conflicts.
CARR: Thank you. I want to reiterate the theme that you brought up at the end, Fatima. It is
something I have heard from Arzu, from Ida and from all of the women from the region that these
women represent, and also from the other regions participating in the Women Waging Peace
Conference. It is that most of the people in most of the regions where these horrible conflicts are
going on, don’t see that as their future. Violent conflict is not what they are looking for. They are

looking for peace and economic security, development and forward progress. I think, hopefully
knowing that and women like the women who we have here before us, and men who do similar
types of work, trying to advocate the needs of the people, and trying to advocate for progress in
these various societies, hopefully will bring that about. I am personally very grateful to all of you
for coming, and I have enjoyed interacting with you and learning from you. I am inspired by the
work that each of you do. I think this was a good discussion and a good opportunity for everyone
to hear a little bit more about your work.