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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
There are numerically small peoples in every state and, if they decide they want political independence, this will only lead to endless wars.”20
0 Sakartvelos respublika, 27 August, 2008 (in Georgian).
Elshad MIRBASHIR
Ph.D. (Political Science), lecturer at the Political Science and Political Management Department, Academy of State Administration under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (Baku, Azerbaijan).
ETHNOPOLITICAL CONFLICTS IN THE CAUCASUS AND THEIR SPECIFIC FEATURES
Abstract
The author probes into the nature of the ethnopolitical conflicts that are now unfolding in the Caucasus to reveal the intricacies and interpenetration of the problems that led to their emergence in the first
place. He pays particular attention to their origins and functioning. The events of the summer of 2008 in Georgia demonstrated that if ignored they might hit the local countries and send negative waves across the world.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The events of the turn of the 21st century demonstrated with clarity that ethnopolitical conflicts have not only developed into a permanent feature of domestic life in many states, they have also become one of the main factors of world politics and international relations. A large part of the political scientist community is convinced that the factor behind the ethnic conflicts is being pushed to the fore by two opposite trends of ethnopolitical development.
The first can be described as the peoples’ desire to reach a higher level of ethnosocial organization (national self-determination), the highest rung of which is a nation-state. We have already witnessed that if realized (in various forms up to and including bloodshed) this trend will shake the building of international relations down to its very foundations. The second worldwide trend, which reflects globalization imperatives, is manifested in the limited sovereignty the nation-state imposes on itself when it integrates into poly-ethnic entities (I have in mind all sorts of integration structures, the most convincing of which is the European Union).
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It should be said here that those who insist that the trends are recent are wrong. One hundred years ago Lenin pointed out that under capitalism nations and national relations were developing along two lines: awakened national life that led to national states, on the one hand, and internationalization of all aspects of social life, on the other.1
Today, one hundred years later, these trends look different; however, having affirmed themselves in international law as “the right of nations to self-determination” and “the right of states to territorial integrity,” they remain as urgent as ever.
The practice of international relations has demonstrated that the choice of one of the two principles as a tool of conflict resolution in the latter half of the 20th and early 21st century depends to a great extent on an adequate interpretation of the nature of internal ethnopolitical conflicts, their specifics, emergence, and the way they unfold in each particular case. The 2008 August events in Georgia jolted the world into the realization that the Caucasian conflicts were volatile and that it was too early to shelve the problem.
The Nature of Ethnopolitical Conflicts
Today most authors associate ethnic conflicts mainly with the economic interests of the social strata as a collective actor identified by their position in the production system.2 Ethnopolitical conflicts are destructive and persisting, which suggests that we should distinguish between “conflicts of interests” and “conflicts of values” (conflicts of identity). Ethnic conflicts normally belong to the latter: the tasks and aims of the sides involved are usually mutually exclusive, which explains why they are hard to settle.
The internal aspects of any ethnopolitical conflict should receive adequate attention. It should be said that the “ethnopolitical conflict” concept covers a wide range of phenomena and situations. Emerging on an economic, sociopolitical, or sociocultural basis the conflict gradually acquires ethnic hues. We know from history that pure ethnic conflicts are few and far between yet if and when ethnic differences are exploited (consciously or unconsciously) to channel an already raging conflict along definite lines and when these differences develop into a powerful mobilizing symbol the ethnic community is transformed into the main factor behind the conflict’s essence and dynamics.3 At the same time, the ethnonational, relatively independent, factor can affect all aspects of social life and exacerbate all pending socioeconomic problems. In short, in a multinational state any issue might acquire ethnic hues.4 The reverse side of this approach can be described as: “‘Ethnic conflicts’ are rooted outside ethnic realia proper. The ‘ethnic nature’ of these conflicts is related not so much to their essence as to their manifestations.”5
The history of ethnopolitical conflicts as a worldwide phenomenon is very long: our current ideas about them relate to the tiniest part of the ethnic storms of the past. To get to the very heart of the issue we should study each of the elements of the ethnopolitical conflict as a highly contradicto-
1 See: V.I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochineny, Vol. 41, Moscow, p. 164.
2 See: A.G. Zdravomyslov substantiates this approach in several of his works (see: A.G. Zdravomyslov, “Dinamika natsionalnogo samosoznania rossian i etnopoliticheskie konflikty,” in: Obnovlenie Rossii: trudny poisk resheniy, Issue 6, Moscow, 1996, pp. 51-68; idem, Mezhnatsionalnye konflikty v postsovetskom prostranstve, Aspekt press, Moscow, 1999).
3 See: I.N. Klenov, Etnopoliticheskiy konflikt: genesis, sushchnost, puti uregulirovania, author’s synopsis of candidate thesis, Russian Academy of Civil Service under the President of the Russian Federation, Moscow, 1996, p. 10.
4 See: G. Perepelitsa, “Ethnopoliticheskie faktory mezhnatsionalnykh konfliktov,” Sotsialny konflikt (Kaluga), No. 1, 2000, pp. 65-69.
5 V.N. Streletsky, “Etnoterritorialnye konflikty v postsovetskom prostranstve: sushchnost, genesis, tipy,” paper delivered at the Carnegie Moscow Center, 1996, p. 7.
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ry and complex phenomenon separately, which outcrops in a variety of forms. The most general approach describes the ethnopolitical conflict as a conflict in which confrontation along the lines of an ethnic split is supported by a definite level of organized political action in which public movements and political associations are involved and which causes separatist actions, massive unrest, or even a civil war.
An analysis of how an ethnopolitical conflict unfolds over time and how it develops from one phase to another reveals its potential of developing from one type of conflict into another. In other words, after starting as a social conflict, after developing into an ethnopolitical conflict, and after reaching the stage of an ethnic clash the conflict might discharge its destructive energy into adjacent social areas.6 It will hardly be resolved if it has already reached the stage of national antagonism when the conflicting sides turn a deaf ear to rational arguments in favor of peace and agreement. In such cases ethnic tension continues to mount; it can no longer be reversed; instead it develops into an irrational ethnic war—the worst form of settlement of any ethnopolitical conflict.
An ethnopolitical conflict covers a wide range of situations, relations, and processes. I have already written that there are no (or practically no) purely ethnic conflicts. Social, political, and economic conflicts among groups of people that identify themselves by ethnic features (race, language, and national origins) are much more frequent phenomena. On many occasions these ethnic features push other specific features to the background, which, if analyzed in depth, might become far more important factors in a conflict. According to V. Tishkov, any form of internal or trans-state civil confrontation in which at least one of the sides organizes or mobilizes itself by means of the ethnic principle or in the name of an ethnic community can be defined as an ethnic conflict.7
Ethno-political science identifies stratified and non-stratified systems of ethnic relations even though mixed forms are fairly frequent. In non-stratified systems ethnonational conflicts are triggered by one or several groups apprehensive of losing their position or convinced that their position might deteriorate compared to the position of another ethnic group (previously equal as far as wealth and power are concerned). Such conflicts might be localized and proceed without interference from the political center. Most ethnonational conflicts, however, take place within stratified ethnic systems in which the ethnic groups are vertically arranged with respect to their power, prestige, and wealth. What is even more important, in stratified ethnic systems political power and the state are appropriated to a certain extent by the dominant (or largest) ethnic community. This makes the subjugated community (or communities) social outcasts. In stratified systems a sociopolitical conflict might take the form of an ethnic conflict because it is usually related to state power. In this way it threatens the institutional foundation of the ruling regime.8
Typologization of ethnopolitical conflicts is an important and, at the same time, challenging task because ethnopolitical conflicts are too varied to be squeezed into classification brackets. It is important because it will make responses to ethnopolitical conflicts more adequate and international efforts in conflict settlement much more consistent, coordinated and, therefore, effective.
Typologizations differ in terms of the factors used to create conflict classifications.9 Conflicts can be classified by the means they employ (political pressure, economic blockade, armed clashes), the degree of violence (low-intensity warfare, etc.), and other criteria.10
See: G. Perepelitsa, op. cit.
6 f
7 See: V.A. Tishkov, “Ambitsii liderov i nadmennost sily. Zametki o chechenskom krizise,” Svobodnaia mysl, No. 1, 1995, pp. 19-28.
8 See: M.V. Lobazova, “Osobennosti primenenia klasternogo analiza pri issledovanii etnopoliticheskogo konf-likta v respublike Dagestan i na Severnom Kavkaze,” in: Molodezh v informatsionnom prostranstve, Part 2, Moscow, 2001, pp. 11-17.
9 See: M.M. Lebedeva, “Mezhdunarodnye protsessy,” in: Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia: sotsiologicheskie pod-khody, project head P.A. Tsygankov, Moscow, 1998.
10 See: P.A. Tsygankov, Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, Moscow, 1996.
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Michael T. Klare, for example, has identified the following types of conflicts: regional conflicts; resource wars; separatist and nationalist conflicts; irredentist conflicts; internal ethnic, religious, and tribal strife; revolutionary and fundamentalist wars; struggle for democracy; and national-liberation wars.11
Conflicts may differ by the number of sides involved—they can be bilateral and multilateral; by the territories they cover—regional or global; by the conflict’s duration—short and long (long conflicts are mainly associated with religious, cultural, and ethnic differences). Conflicts can be armed and unarmed; they can be territorial, economic, and ethnic, depending on the object of strife.12
Ethnopolitical conflicts can be classified by historical prerequisites. Georgi Mirskiy, for example, has identified, first, the conflicts caused by prolonged antagonistic relations between ethnic groups. In such cases, “blood heritage” and mutual enmity sooner or later erupt into violence. Second, there are conflicts predated by long mutual alienation that previously did not develop into direct confrontation with the use of force (the conflicts between Georgia and Abkhazia and South Ossetia). Third, conflicts among ethnic groups, the earlier relations among which were absolutely normal (the Ossets and Ingushes and the Russians and Moldovians).13 Dr. Mirskiy is convinced that conflicts of the first type are the hardest to settle irrespective of whether they are rooted in ethnic or religious factors.14
To be more specific about the type of ethnopolitical conflict we should take into account the entire range of problems typical of any given conflict: the historical context in which the nation developed; its psycho-physiological specifics and ethno-psychological, geographic, and geopolitical features; the religious factor; the social and economic conditions of the nation’s development on its territory; and the political aspect.
How Conflicts Emerge in the Caucasus: Regional Specifics
In all ethnic conflicts international aspects, territory, status, and power are the most important universal targets of ethnopolitical impact.
In this context the trend toward internationalization of the ethnopolitical conflicts underway in the Caucasus today is the most striking feature. In the beginning, most of the ethnic conflicts that are unfolding in the world look like the domestic concerns of the states in question, in which ethnic groups stand opposed to one another within society or an ethnic group claims rights and power from the central government. This casts doubt and, probably, changes state policy and the regulatory-legal settlement conditions; the legal status or the status of an ethnic group can be modified.
In the Caucasus the ethnopolitical conflicts are becoming internationalized for several reasons.
■ First, because of the international or regional status of the ethnic group involved in the conflict: such group can count on all sorts of support from its diaspora in other countries. In such cases neither state borders nor state sovereignty prevent the demonstration of ethnic solidarity in political, economic, military, and other forms. This means that the ethnic statehood kindred to the side involved in the conflict or a powerful diaspora may serve
11 Quoted from: G. Mirskiy, “Eshche raz o raspade SSSR i etnicheskikh konfliktakh,” Mirovaia ekonomika i mezh-dunarodnye otnoshenia, No. 2, 1997, p. 15.
See: M.V. Lobazova, op. cit.
See: M.M. Lebedeva, op. cit.
He specifies this idea in his article quoted above (see: G. Mirskiy, op. cit., pp. 12-22).
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another, and fairly important, factor jolting what looked like an internal ethnic conflict into action.
■ Second, the recent history of international relations has amply demonstrated that ethnopoliti-cal conflicts are started and used by the leading world and regional powers as an important tool for attaining their geopolitical aims. For example, it is no secret that the ethnopolitical conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East, the so-called Kurdish question, etc. were stirred up by powers far removed from the conflict seat in pursuance of their own interests. No wonder many researchers have detected the sources of the Caucasian and neighboring regions conflicts in the so-called arc of confrontation between the land and sea powers stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
There is another, specifically Caucasian, feature of ethnopolitical conflicts: local ethnoses have many mutual territorial claims. There are numerous factors behind them: the past, the rejection of present borders as illegal; the return of an earlier deported ethnic group to its historical homeland; the frequent and arbitrary changes of administrative borders; the artificial division of a single ethnic area among several neighboring states, etc. This explains why ethno-territorial issues underlie the absolute majority of the latent and actual ethnopolitical conflicts in the Caucasus when national-ethnic elites are locked in rivalry for absolute domination over one and the same territory. According to Russian experts in ethnic political science a large share of ethnic conflicts in the post-Soviet expanse are developing as ethno-territorial conflicts: about 140 territorial claims have not yet been settled.15 In the Caucasus territorial disputes are the most burning among the local conflicts (ethnic, ethno-territorial, and ethnopolitical); today there are over 35 territorial claims there.16
■ Third, there is another specific feature of the ethnopolitical processes in the Caucasus: for a number of reasons (historical, sociocultural, economic, etc.) the local ethnic groups resort to political arguments to raise their statuses. This means that the self-determination principle is interpreted as political (state) independence which invites a joint response from the state and the politically organized national movements of the opposing ethnic group.
This is not all: in the Caucasus the emotionally charged events and ideological constructs of various ethnic configurations screen the fierce power struggle between ethnic groups at the local, regional, and state level. The school of realism in conflict management asserts that the ethnic elites are hoisting the banner of the right of nations to self-determination in order to hide their status aspirations and their resolution to control the resources of the disputed territory.
It follows from the above that the most outstanding specific features of the awakening ideology of national rejuvenation of the Caucasian people and their activities designed to realize the most important interests and values express the following:
—the specifics of local political involvement: the ethnopolitical demands formulated by the ethnic elites might not reflect the peoples’ genuine national interests;
—the qualitative and quantitative diversity of factors behind the conflicts responsible for the high level of radicalization of ethnic tension;
—the obvious intertwining between the ethnopolitical conflicts in the Caucasus and global geopolitics and the interests of the leading world powers.
15 For more on this question, see: Bank dannykh po etno-territorialnym konfliktam v byvshem SSSR, Compiled by O.B. Glezer, N.V. Petrov, V.N. Streletskiy, Tsentr politiko-geograficheskikh issledovaniy, Moscow, 1991-1996; G.A. Bordiugov, “Etnicheskie konflikty. Opyt sozdania bazy dannykh,” in: Mezhnatsionalnye otnoshenia v Rossii i SNG, Issue 1, Carnegie Moscow Center—AIRO-XX, Moscow, 1994, pp. 21-26.
16 See: V.A. Soloviev, “Problemy uregulirovania etnoterritorialnykh konfliktov i likvidatsii ikh posledstviy,” Yuzh-norossiiskoe obozrenie, Issue 6, 2002, available at [http://ippk.edu.mhost.ru/elibrary/elibrary/uro/v6/a6_10.htm].
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How Conflicts Develop in the Caucasus: Regional Specifics
The ethnopolitical conflicts in the post-Soviet territory are very specific and unfold in a very explicit way.
It should be said, first and foremost, that having concentrated the entire range of socioeconomic, spiritual, and psychological problems within them the political conflicts across the post-Soviet expanse unfolded as rigid ethnic confrontations. Today, when some of them are 20 years old political elites, clans, and groups are still fighting under ethnic banners; in some cases this strongly affects the way people are adapting to the new political, legal, social, and economic realities of their states, ethnic groups, and their own existence. Many of the objective factors indicate that these conflicts are of a more or less identical nature and demonstrate more or less identical dynamics, which suggests that there are identical mechanisms of their prevention and settlement.
At the same time, the ethnopolitical conflicts in the Caucasus demonstrate another specific feature: having emerged more or less simultaneously with other zones of ethnopolitical confrontation in the post-Soviet territory they demonstrate persistency. As distinct from the other postSoviet regions where, after a while, conflicts enter a latent state, in the Caucasus they never subsided even if their intensity varied. No wonder the term “frozen conflicts,” which until recently was frequently employed to describe the state of ethnopolitical conflicts in the Caucasus, was short-lived.
The Caucasian conflicts are marked by extreme radicalism demonstrated by both sides; from the very beginning they are developing as separatist movements with secessionist and irredentist demands. As a rule, those who demanded secession counted on outside support mainly from the states that wanted to tip the regional balance of power as well as from the ethnically, culturally, or religiously kindred peoples. The Chechen separatists, for example, expected that certain states would come forward to help them. Irredentism—separation of an ethnic group with the intention to join its territory to a neighboring state—is a special case of separatism. The conflict in Abkhazia can be described as such: the local referendums repeatedly confirmed the intention to join the Russia Federation either directly or as an associated part.
These specifics (encouragement from the outside and reliance on neighboring states) led to another specific feature: in the Caucasus ethnopolitical conflicts gradually develop from ethnic into state conflicts. The conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Karabakh, and partly in Chechnia began as ethnic conflicts and later became conflicts between states. The events of 2008 legalized this transformation. Here I have in mind not only the five-day war in Georgia in August 2008 and its follow-up but also the Declaration on the Principles of Settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict signed in Moscow in November. The fact that Armenia and Azerbaijan signed the document has finally determined the conflict’s status.
The national and state development processes in the Caucasus remained incomplete, which added importance to ethnic self-identification of the Caucasian ethnic groups among other types of social identification. This inevitably stirred up another type of irredentism—enosis—incorporation of the ethnic minority into a monoethnic majority organized into a state or into the so-called titular nation in a neighboring state (Karabakh, South Ossetia).
The high level of de-humanization is another typical feature of ethnopolitical conflicts in the Caucasus; practically all of them were accompanied by ethnic purges and mass extermination of the local population. In 1988-1989, 241.8 thousand Azeris, 18 thousand Ajemi Kurds and one thousand Russian speakers were driven away from 22 districts and 170 settlements in Armenia. During the same period 243.7 thousand people were driven from their homes (410 Azeris, 57 women, and
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23 children among them were killed). On 26 February, 1992, during the Khojali genocide, Armenian separatists killed 613 people (106 women and 63 children).17
In the Caucasus the tactics offait accompli and as large territorial acquisitions as possible as the foundation for future talks are used in practically all ethnopolitical conflicts. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan demonstrated this with particular clarity. Armenian troops occupied seven Azeri districts outside the zone of the ethno-territorial dispute, which became a subject of fierce polemics in the Armenian media in the wake of the Moscow 2008 Declaration: the captured territories could either never be returned to Azerbaijan (tough alternative) or they could be returned in exchange for additional concessions (soft alternative).
The above has shown that no matter how varied typologically the ethnopolitical conflicts in the Caucasus have very much in common. This obviously makes it possible to unify the peacekeeping efforts both at the stages of dealing with the conflict and of its settlement.
We should admit that the attempts of each of the states in the post-Soviet expanse (and in the Caucasus) to resolve the problem of ethnopolitical conflicts on their territories single-handedly proved futile. These states are merely being drawn deeper into the conflicts: today it has become much clearer that the ethnopolitical processes in the post-Soviet expanse are interconnected and interdependent.
C o n c l u s i o n
It seems that the specifics of the ethnopolitical conflicts in the Caucasus described above should be taken into account when outlining a settlement technique common for all the conflicts in the region. We all know that the future of the Caucasus and each of its states and nations directly depends on balanced and constructive ethnic policies in the region. To achieve this we should acquire a clear idea about the causes and specifics of the local ethnopolitical conflicts and their settlement prospects.
? See: Karabakh v dokumentakh, available at [http://www.karabakh-doc.azerall.info/ru/articls/artc017.htm].
