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The Eurasian Politician - September 2004
By: Christian Jokinen, 5 September 2004.
For centuries, ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity has been characteristic for several mountainous regions of Eurasia, from the Alps and the Balkans to the Caucasus, Kurdistan, Afghanistan and Kashmir. This is logical because the geography of scattered valleys and mountain slopes has favored small state structures and strong autonomy of each entity. Arable land has been traditionally dear, and private (family) ownership of land has been an important element of strict territoriality. Mountain tracts have heavily relied on trade since nature has not made life too easy. A strong culture of local defense has evolved, usually with gun-ownership being a crucial part of manhood. Mountain landscape has made it possible to successfully defend against superior enemies, thus keeping the state-like entities small, and the value of liberty a crucial element of culture, and keeping together of traditional family units and conservative values of mountain cultures.
These are some characteristics that we can easily identify in the Pyreneans, in Switzerland, in the Carpathians, in Albania, Macedonia, Dagestan and Chechnya, in Svanetia, Kashmir and the North-Western Frontier Province of Pakistan. These are all lands of most entrepreneurial and industrious people, who jealously protect their self-rule, and if needed, to respond an external intrusion with perseverant armed resistance. In times, most of these peoples have been romanticized as the noble mountaineers. Today's discourse, however, has branded most of these regions, with the significant exception of Switzerland, as "eternal powder-kegs", and their inhabitants as troublemakers who constitute a threat to "stability". Yet in Switzerland every man still holds a weapon at home, and the self-rule of each canton has not torn the country apart. Rather, the reverse is true.
Instead of being branded as "terrorists", most of the peoples of the mountain regions would deserve some of the old romanticism again. The mountain cultures are surely not "terroristic" by nature. They have not been invading their neighboring countries, but rather fiercely resisting the conquest of their own land. It is significant that the unique example of local self-rule has made Switzerland a highly successful and peaceful country that has one of the most advanced democracies in the world, a prosperous economy, and no experience of war or serious external invasion for centuries. Is it not equally revealing that there is not a single example of a successful implementation of externally imposed centralized state-rule in any of the mentioned mountain areas? Meanwhile, there are countless examples of horrible bloodshed, genocide, ethnic cleansing, radicalization and repeated humiliating retreats of mighty imperial armies in mountainous "quagmires". Let us remember, for example, the Russians in the Balkans and the Caucasus, the Turks in Yemen, the British and the Soviets in Afghanistan, and today's Indian army in Kashmir.
Sadly, superior military power has at times enabled empires to take over some of these regions. Yet this has never happened without significant loss of life in violent circumstances, and very seldom without repeated persistent uprisings and armed resistance that continues through years and decades. Not even the worst and most inhuman methods, massive terror campaigns against civilian population, and ultimately genocide, have been successful in suppressing resistance permanently, usually only angering the survivors and new generations.
This is exactly what happened in the Caucasus, where Imperial Russia resorted to the strategy of modern, nationalistically motivated ethnic cleansing and genocide in the 18th and 19th century, and from where the methods used by the Russian Empire against Crimean Tatars, Circassians and Chechens was soon exported to other empires, to target Armenians in the south, and Jews in the west (where anti-Semitism had long roots already). Stalin's attempt to wipe out whole nations from the Caucasus in 1944 only served to solidify the insistence of national independence among the Caucasus nations.
When watching today's horror images of the school siege in Beslan, North Ossetia, we have to keep Switzerland in our mind because there is no material or racial imperative that would predestine the Caucasus to remain as a powder-keg while Switzerland succeeds in calm, even though the latter, too, is multiethnic and surrounded by regional great powers which have been mutually hostile and predatory in the past. The failure of Russian "colonial" power in today's North Caucasus is obvious. The insistence of ever harder Russian oppression, and arbitrariness of both various military, paramilitary and secret service installations deployed there, and the private armies of local vassal warlords are direct causes of the worsening Caucasus problem.
Right now, the Kremlin is looking for a solution from increased centralism and "verticalization", while it would probably be in the best interest of the War on Terror, Russia and the rest of the world if the region would be granted increased autonomy, allowing the local population to run their own affairs in a system similar to that of Switzerland. The only way of bringing about stability in such a region is to increase the legitimacy and local acceptance of power and the rule of law, which can only be achieved by "cantons" with maximal autonomy. At every step of horrendous violence and arbitrary tyranny, Russia is pushing the Caucasus further, making the people insist on full sovereignty, as autonomy and the tyranny by a local vassal dependent on Russian troops ceases to be credible, let alone trusted or accepted.
In the early 1990s, the situation was still different. During the de facto independence of Chechnya under President Dzhokhar Dudayev, a secular nationalist, Chechnya was secular and West-oriented, strongly rejecting Islamic extremism. While Islamism arrived in the Russian-ruled Dagestan and in Uzbekistan, ruled by the heavy-handed President Islam Karimov, as early as in 1991-1992, in Chechnya this only became possible when the Russian troops assassinated Dudayev in April 1996. While Wahhabi radicals began operating in Chechnya in late 1995, it took them more than three years to gain enough power to threaten the power of secular Chechen nationalists, in large part due to Russia's insistence that the radical Shamil Basayev be appointed Prime Minister of Chechnya under the government of secular President Aslan Maskhadov. Basayev later became a fundamentalist sponsored by Arab extremists.
Throughout the 1990's, Russia was not fighting terrorists, gangsters or radical Islamists in the Caucasus. Moscow's main concern was always separatism: the desire by long-oppressed nations to achieve or regain their freedom, as had been done by many nations, including their neighbor Georgia, when the Soviet Union collapsed. (When the former "Soviet Socialist Republics" were granted independence, the same was not granted to those republics with the "Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic" status, although there.) What scared Russia was not global Islamist terrorism, as from the 1980s onwards that had been perceived as a force working in Moscow's interest in the Islamic world, as it concentrated in an anti-American and anti-Israeli ideology. Despite the common misconception of religious fanatics fighting Communists in Afghanistan, the Soviets had not been fought by radical Islamists – who concentrated in agitation and financing, and preferred to focus on the Middle East – but by nationalist Sufis and Islamic conservatives of the Afghan mountains, people similar to the Chechens in their national aspirations.
Therefore, for a long period, Russia saw the internationalism of the radical Islamists as a force they could exploit to undermine the nation-building project of the Chechen independence movement. Russia did little to stop the spread of externally imported radical Islamism in the Caucasus, and was even arming several gangs, preparing them for armed rebellion against secular Chechen nationalists. Groups of armed troublemakers that Russian secret services supplied with arms were even released from Russian prisons to lead rebellions against Chechen and Georgian governments. Russia did nothing to prevent their useful pawns to run trade on drugs and arms, contract killing, kidnapping and other forms of organized crime. The most notorious parts of the Chechen mafia were always on the Russian side since it allowed them to maintain their business in Russian cities and even abroad. Nothing of the kind is possible for the isolated and outgunned Chechen independence movement's guerrillas.
Moreover, the Russian army in Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Javakhetia, Karabagh and all the North Caucasus became directly involved in the thoroughly criminal, ruthless and arbitrary law-of-gun in the region. These forces consist of separate troops and installations of the Military, the FSB, the GRU, the Ministry of Interior, as well as more irregular troops such as Cossack regiments, "volunteer" paramilitaries from places such as Transnistria, Abkhazia and Karabagh, cadres of Russian ultranationalist organizations, and of course the private armies of those local warlords who have a deal or a business relationship with Moscow. All of them started running arbitrary kidnapping and selling beaten and murdered youths back to their relatives for ransom. Thousands of civilians, including children of all ages have been murdered in this way, and dozens of mass graves have been discovered, filled with the victims of the Russian occupation forces.
Russian military bases became centers of international crime. The Russian-occupied gangster statelets in the territories of other internationally recognized countries, such as Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Karabagh (with its occupied surroundings), became also dummies for all kinds of unofficial business and rogue operations that the official Kremlin could not be involved in. Therefore, these areas – rather than the areas outside of the control of Russian forces – became sources of constant instability. There are plausible reports of supplies for arms and safe havens for international terrorists by these gangster statelets.
Now the lawlessness and arbitrary terror that Russian imperial rule has sown have turned against the Russian society. Moscow's policy in the Caucasus has not only criminalized the borderlands of the empire, and brought the rogue methods of war-zone policing to the streets of Russian cities. It has also attracted the international Islamist terrorists to the North Caucasus. The phantoms that Russian propaganda once created out of the strictly patriotic local nationalists who wished nothing more than self-determination are real now. Thanks to Russian policy, the moderate separatists have lost control over much of the Caucasus, to various armed formations: some operating with Moscow's mandate, others with claimed cause of Islam or resistance to Russian rule, and third ones as local protection guards against the terror of the two first. Needless to say, it is the inhabitants of the region who suffer most, while there is nobody to bring justice to them for the unspeakable crimes committed by those with superior firepower and no restraint other than their armed adversary.
In this situation, there is absolutely nothing to be won with even harsher oppression and the various forms of horrible revenge that Russian troops usually lay upon Muslim civilians after every incident of guerrilla raid (typically killing a dozen boys for each slain Russian). When President Putin vows to get stricter in anti-terrorist security measures, he actually means continuing the same he has been doing so far. For the suffering populations of the North Caucasus, frightening them with even harsher oppression does not really work, as the living conditions could hardly get worse. There is nothing to take away from them any more. Every ordinary Chechen knows already that they are totally in the arbitrary mercy of the various armed forces that do not follow international war crimes conventions, and in this kind of a situation it is not surprising that so many young men and also women prefer to face the enemy with a gun rather than wait to be slaughtered like lambs. Experiences so far of what Russia could offer as a carrot do not promise anything but a reign of terror. At the end of this tunnel, many see only the abyss of full-scale genocide.
After the disastrous failure in Chechnya, Russia tried to impose similar rule of security agencies in the other North Caucasian republics, too. The successful Ingush President Ruslan Aushev, who was respected by both sides, sincerely loyal to Moscow, and often helped to bring about sensible an humane solutions to local incidents, was replaced with an FSB hardliner, Murat Zyazikov, with disastrous consequences for the security situation in the republic. The security troops all over the North Caucasus started to use the same methods of "mopping-up" and hunting for young men and boys from village to village that have kept Chechnya in the state of constant terror. By doing so, and terrorizing the population from Dagestan to Karachay and the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, Russia greatly contributed to the spreading of the jihad call of radical Islamists by driving Caucasian Muslims into the hands of anyone, including Islamist radicals, willing to help them fight Moscow, resulting in the rise of armed resistance movements in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Karachay-Cherkessia. Further distribution of mopping-up and terror will only serve to radicalize even the relatively Russified populations of the plains. A recent discovery of an ethnic Nogai cell of radical Islamists is the latest example of this.
Furthermore, while equating Chechen independence struggle with terrorism, Russia is arming and mobilizing new paramilitary and irregular troops for armed provocations against neighboring Georgia in South Ossetia and Abkhazia – some of the armed bands used for this purpose being criminals released from the prisons of the North Caucasus. This policy has the obvious aim of frightening the West out of the oil-rich Azerbaijan, Georgia and the rest of South Caucasus. But if Russia succeeds in this, it will only mean that the South Caucasus, where democracy has finally taken root, will sink back into chaos and the same kind of terror that today prevails in all of the Russian-controlled North Caucasus. This is not something that the world can afford to happen.
As Russia seems incapable of revising its policies, it remains as an obligation of the West to try to persuade Russia to realize that its best interests do not lie in the territorial expansionism and imperial "dividing and ruling" of the past. It is deeply alarming to hear President Putin vow that the reason of the recent terror attacks was "the sign of weakness caused by the split of the Soviet Union", with the added note that "weak peoples are beaten ". This shows a fundamental incapability to recognize what the real causes and consequences behind Russia's problems are. The West should be fully committed to protecting of the sovereignty of the South Caucasian states, as the aspirations to re-incorporate them in the Russian sphere of dominion seems to be the main geopolitical motivation for Russia to be so territorially sensitive about the North Caucasus. If the West clearly discourages such unconstructive modes of thinking in Moscow and makes it clear that the South Caucasus is a region where international, not imperial, rules should be followed, possessing absolute power over the North Caucasus would no longer be such an obsession for Russia.
Secondly, the West should help Russia realize that separatism and terrorism are not the same, and that the desire for self-determination of the non-Russian nations of the North Caucasus should be at least understandable, and it does not constitute a lethal danger to Russia's core national interests. There are ways to deal with the justified demands of small nations without losing face as a superpower. There are civilized ways, such as an agreement of a more confederative model, or gradual shift towards full independence of certain units, which does not predestine any kind of "domino effect" among other units, which are much more integrated in Russian society and have completely different history.
Most of the North Caucasians are by now scarce and relatively integrated in Russian socio-economic system. The republics of the Northwest Caucasus (Kabarda-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and Adygeia) as well as North Ossetia and the Muslim areas of the Kuban and Astrakhan regions of Russia proper would most probably be satisfied with improved socio-economic conditions, sincere autonomy and rational revision of the Stalin-era border complex. There should be an arrangement of cantons ensuring local self-determination especially for the Balkar-Karachay Turks and the Circassians.
The Northeast Caucasus is more problematic since the level of Russification is much lower, and Russian policies since the split-up of the Soviet Union have very efficiently alienated the Chechen-Ingush and Dagestani peoples from any loyalty to the Russian rule. It would probably serve the long-term interests of Russia to ultimately grant formal independence to Chechnya and Dagestan, and to construct friendly, economy-based influence in not only them but also the South Caucasian republics. The loss of formal Russian territory would be minimal, while the benefits in the increase of Russian profits and regional leverage could be significant. Besides, Russia would gain an effective buffer zone against possible southern threats, while the present occupied war-zone only serves to attract and absorb the worst kinds of threats into Russia.
Dagestan, moreover, should be based on a loose central power in multiethnic Makhachkala, while granting strong local autonomy for each ethnic canton. While in the Northwest Caucasus borders of the republics should be revised, there is no urgent need for this in the Northeast Caucasus, where Chechnya (and Ingushetia) form a relatively mono-ethnic entity, while Dagestan, with its multiple but closely related ethnic groups, forms a functional mosaic with no overwhelmingly dominant ethnicity. The small territorial hotspots – most significantly Akki/Novolak and certain Kumyk areas – do not pose an insurmountable obstacle for state-building. A division of labor in the government between Avars, Dargins, Lezgins and Kumyks – as well as the smaller groups – is manageable, since the disputes are not ethnic as much as political in character.
In order to achieve such brave goals in the Northeast Caucasus, Russia should use Chechen nationalists under President Aslan Maskhadov as its allies, instead of enemies. They would share the common interest in thwarting the radical Islamist penetration into the Caucasian society. Russia should support, not suppress, healthy Chechen nationalism, and the need of such action is urgent.
Meanwhile, the Chechen leaders should clearly take a lead in preventing provocations of the Islamists and revenges of the kind that would destroy such an arrangement. Unfortunately, the information blockade against the Chechen nationalists only benefits the Islamists, whose media and agitation is by now linked with the Arab radical networks. It is very hard for the exiled moderate leaders like Ahmed Zakayev (in Britain) and Ilias Ahmadov (in the US) to reach the young recruits in field in Chechnya. To help their efforts to correct the propaganda damage already caused by Islamist cadres, Russia should urgently promote, not block, pro-Western media such as the banned Chechen-language newspapers and RFE/RL transmissions in Caucasian languages to reach the populations of the North Caucasus.
For Russia it would be a very difficult task to admit that most of the past politics have been wrong, and that after all it would be in Russia's best interests not to insist on full imperial dominion over all the land the Russian military might can yield. That would mean admitting that thousands of Russian servicemen have been sent to their death in vain. Some senior scapegoats might be needed, but Putin himself is lucky to enjoy such czar-like support from the obedient population that he does not need to apologize to anyone for a turn like that.
For the Chechens, it will be hard to restrain certain elements, most of all the Islamists, for taking advantage of such a victory in making boasts and propaganda out of it. But that is exactly why the national-liberationists should win, and not the internationalist Islamists who have always been opposed to the nationalists. There must be a truce between Chechnya and Russia to show that those with sense and patience will gain, while those who resort to terrorism against innocent civilians will lose. So far it has been the reverse, as the worst elements have triumphed on both sides.
For all this, strong Western involvement is needed. The Russian leaders will have to show to the people why cutting out the Northeast Caucasus was after all the best and most patriotic way to benefit Russia, as suggested by the famous Russian nationalist writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn years ago. Chechen leaders will have to have foreign support in order to restore control of their country, and to reconstruct everything from ruins. The policy must be consistent and include Chechnya and Dagestan together, in order to prevent the kind of development that took place in the late summer 1999. Also, all of this should take place in some kind of a regional arrangement that would also include the South Caucasus. Only then there could be a real respect between the region's states at each other's integrity, and a new era of regional co-operation could begin.
This, of course, is daydreaming amidst desperation. For a long time ahead, the situation will probably continue as bad and unstable as it is today and for all that time, things will only get worse in regard to terror, terrorism and radicalization of the participants in the armed conflict.
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The author is an analyst of the Research Unit for Conflicts and Terrorism at the University of Turku, Department of Contemporary History.