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THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION
Sofia MELIKOVA
Licentiate in International Relations, North-West Academy of Public Administration (St. Petersburg, Russia), M.A. in European Studies (Flensburg, Germany).
THE FIRST RUSSO-CHECHEN CAMPAIGN (1994-1996): CAUSES AND FACTORS OF ETHNIC MOBILIZATION
Abstract
This article attempts to examine the deep historical roots and causes of the first Russo-Chechen conflict (1994-1996) and the role it has played in influencing overall Russian policy-making in the North-
ern Caucasus. Furthermore, the author analyzes the link with Islam as an instrument of political mobilization. The level of involvement of international actors in the first Rus-so-Chechen campaign is also analyzed.
Introduction
The first Russo-Chechen war, which lasted from 1994 until 1996, is believed to be one of the most severe conflicts in the Northern Caucasus in terms of the number of deaths and scope of material devastation. On the one hand, it involved one of world's greatest military powers—the Russian Federation, while on the other, like no other conflict, it displayed the rebelling minority's fight for life or death. In addition, the war was fueled by international actors, which made the discord relevant in re-
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gional and international context. The conflict transformed slightly over time from a war against rebels to a war against terrorists.
The aim of this study is to investigate the specific features and causes of the conflict, the role of religion, and the engagement of the international community. The article examines how certain theoretical approaches in the field of nationalism apply to the case of the Chechen separatist movement.
The initial hypothesis of this study is that the Chechen experience of mass deportation and subsequent resettlement during the de-Stalinization campaign served as a keystone for the idea of establishing a separate Chechen state based on Shari'a values. In order to present particular and detailed information and provide a comprehensive analysis of the topic, the author will take an in-depth look at the historical tension between the ethnic Russians and North-Caucasian mountain ethnic groups and outline the main ethno-cultural features of the Chechen (Vainakh) identity. Furthermore, the crucial theoretical approaches to the problem will be summarized.
So, before proceeding to the dynamics of the first Russo-Chechen war, the historical background and possible reasons for its emergence should be underlined.
Historical Preconditions and Causes of the Conflict
First, the three main categories of historical factors constituting the formation of the overall Chechen identity and attitude toward the Russian state listed by Ekaterina Sokirianskaia must be underlined. Namely, the author distinguishes three types of memories, which are defined as "memories of grievance", "memories of success" and "memories of multicultural existence."1 It is clear that the first category of memories has contributed most negatively to the emergence of secessionist ideas in the Chechen republic. Therefore, the events contributing to this cluster will be scrutinized first and in more detail.
So, "memories of grievance" include mainly collective remembrance of violent resistance to the Russian and Ottoman authorities during the Caucasian wars, followed later by the forced collectivization and mass deportation during the Soviet period. It is crucial to point out that the North Caucasian region as such has always had a bloody history of engagement in wars with the Ottoman Empire, on the one hand, and with the Russian Empire, on the other.
In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917 due to the anarchy in the country there was an attempt to create the North-Caucasian autonomy in Daghestan and the Terek region. The provisional North-Caucasian government declared its independence on 21 December, 1917, the movement that was later followed by its other Caucasian neighbors. The autonomy existed only for a few years and in 1921, after the victory of the Red army in the Russian civil war, was incorporated again into the territory of the Soviet Russia. By the mid-1920s, the North Caucasian region was divided into administrative units depending on the ethnicity prevailing in the respective territory. This new political map based on the principles of ethno-feudalism further intensified the discrepancies between the regions and bred even more misunderstanding and hatred among the local ethnic groups. Furthermore, unlike the Union republics, the autonomous republics and autonomous regions did not have a full set of attributes of sovereignty. According to the Soviet Constitution, the autonomous republics were "national states" and not "sovereign states," like the Union republics. "The cultural rights of an A.S.S.R. were far more restricted than those of a Union republic. In an A.S.S.R., as a rule, school and university
1 E. Sokirianskaia, "Ideology and Conflict: Chechen Political Nationalism prior to, and during, Ten Years of War," in: Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and the State in the Caucasus: Post-Soviet Disorder, ed. by M. Gammer, Routledge, New York, 2008, p. 104.
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education was only available in Russian."2 The same practice also applied to the Chechen and Ingush ethnicity by creating a new consolidated Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Region in 1934 that was later (in 1936) transformed into the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic. Interestingly, the principle of "divide and rule" prevailing in heterogeneous societies, including in the Soviet Union along with the Soviet "nomenklatura," contributed to some extent to the ethnicization of bureaucracy. In the case of Chechnia, the local elites mainly comprised the educated middle classes, which subsequently contributed to the political ethnic mobilization.
In addition, the main reason for the rise in rebellious attitudes, which the Chechen people are also referring to, is their mass deportation initiated by Joseph Stalin. Accused of collaborating with the Nazi invaders, the Chechen people were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan. The deportation started on 23 February, 1944 and lasted till 9 March of the same year. The entire Chechen-Ingush republic was disbanded. It should be mentioned that some other ethnicities, such as Koreans, Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Karachay, Balkars, and Kalmyks, were also the victims of Stalin's deportations. There is no clear and exact data regarding the total number of people killed and deported. However, according to the official Soviet statistics, in July 1944, Lavrenty Beria reported to the Kremlin that "in February and March 1944, 602,193 residents of the Northern Caucasus were moved to the Kazakh and Kirghiz S.S.Rs, including 496,460 Chechens and Ingush, 68,327 Karachai, and 37,406 Balkars."3 During transportation, the conditions were so poor and the people were so tightly packed into the vehicles that a large number of the deportees died of epidemics, starvation, or cold, since deportation occurred in the month of February. Estimates of the number of Chechens who died range from about 170,000 to 200,000, which at that constituted almost 1/3 of the total Chechen population. It was not until after Stalin's death and the subsequent de-Stalinization process initiated by Nikita Khrushchev in 1957 that the deported ethnicities had the opportunity to return to their homes. At the international level, the European Parliament first recognized the 1944 deportation of Chechens as an act of genocide in 2004.
Furthermore, it might be of interest to underline the psychological concept of "marsho" or "freedom," described by Moshe Gammer as "a central concept in both Chechen culture and the Chechen psyche." Although Chechen nationalists attach to it modern political connotations, traditionally its meaning went far beyond that of either the Western or Islamic connotations of the word. In the Chechen language the word also contained the connotations of "peace" and "well-being." The author also admits that for the Chechens the acceptance of Russian rules meant "more than losing freedom in the Western sense of the word: it was losing one's manhood and more important—one's soul."4 This could also probably serve as one of the explanations for the desperate and enduring history of the Chechen resistance. What is more, it was hard for Cossacks to understand during czarist times why the Chechen rebels, women, and even children were committing suicide instead of being imprisoned.
So in conclusion it should be underlined that the above-mentioned historical facts and events contributed to the emergence of discontent among the Chechens over Russian rule. These facts also set a certain precedent in understanding the causes and roots of the otherwise irrational civil wars between the Russian federal forces and the Chechen rebels. In addition, the sequence of these tragic events enhanced even more the consolidation of the Chechen nation. The Chechen identity is a clear example of "multifaceted self-determination." One of these identities is the common shared territorial identity together with the specific Sufi-Islam beliefs that will be examined later. Furthermore, being part of the North Caucasian and, in particular, Checheno-Ingush linguistic (or Vainakh) community
2 C. Zürcher, "The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood," New York University Press, New York, 2007, p. 26.
1 V.A. Tishkov, Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society, University of California Press, London, 2004, p. 25
' M. Gammer, The Lone Wolf an
Publishers Ltd., London, 2006, pp. 6-7.
3 -
4 M. Gammer, The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule, C. Hurst & Co.
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favored the emergence of the radical expansionist ideas of establishing an Islamic state in the Northern Caucasus during escalation of the conflict.
Theoretical Analysis of the First Chechen War (1994-1996)
First, it should be noted that the Chechen case is a clear example of a nationalist movement. The term "nationalism" is well-defined by Michael Hechter as "collective action designed to render the boundaries of the nation congruent with those of its government unit."5 In order to be considered a nation, a certain social group should have a common history along with claims on territory. These two features are the basic criteria for a group of genetically unrelated people with high solidarity to be distinguished as a nation. In the present case, the Chechen separatist movement adheres to the intrastate secessionist or irredentist type of nationalism, when a culturally distinctive territory resists incorporation into an expanding state or attempts to secede and set up its own government.
Furthermore, in terms of the primordial approach, the Chechen conflict can be explained as a security dilemma situation, where the uncertain political situation in a country (in our case, the collapse of the Soviet Union) creates an anarchic situation: mistrust, misperceptions, and lack of credible commitments among citizens leading subsequently to ethnic violence. These circumstances of the democratic transition experienced by a number of post-Soviet countries at the beginning of 1990s were followed to a certain extent by the emergence of local armed ethnic conflict areas.
In addition, the Chechen resistance can be considered an "ethnopolitical conflict," where an ethnic group "organizes around their shared identity and seeks gains for members of their group."6 According to this theoretical approach, such groups can be further divided into either "national peoples" who want to separate, or "minority peoples" who seek equal rights. In our case, the Chechen ethnic group can be referred to both of these categories depending on the time and stage of the conflict. However, taking into consideration the period at the beginning of 1990s, it is clear that the Chechens constituted the "national peoples" group. According to the same theory, there are basically several crucial factors that determine the emergence of ethnopolitical action, namely:
■ the salience of ethnocultural identity for members of the group based on a common decent and shared past;
■ the extent of the group's capacities for collective action;
■ the availability of opportunities in the group's political environment that increase its chances of attaining group objectives through political action.7
As regards the Chechen case, the first section on the historical background of the conflict already proved the fact of the salience of ethnocultural identity that has formed over the past several centuries and has greatly consolidated the Chechen people. Also, the economic inequalities between the center and the regions, especially in ethnically diverse states, often lead to ethnic tension. In the present case, the consistently high birth rates among the Chechens, together with about 340,000 returnees from exile, outpaced Moscow's modest investments in Chechnia-Ingushetia (which was re-
5 M. Hechter, Containing Nationalism, Oxford University Press, New York, 2000, p. 3.
6 T.R. Gurr, "Minorities and Nationalists: Managing Ethnopolitical Conflict in a New Century / Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict," ed. by A. Chester, F.O. Hampson, P. Aall, United States Institute of Peace, 2001, pp. 163-164.
7 See: Ibid., p. 167.
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instated in 1957 and survived until 1992), leading to endemic unemployment and other social problems. In addition, the Soviet authorities "refused to give any moral or financial compensation for deportation, indeed it did not acknowledge the fact of genocide."8 So, on the one hand, due to the absence of sufficient economic conditions, the Chechen people, feeling their unequal treatment, sought to separate from the rest of Russia and establish their own state. However, on the other hand, this socioeconomic approach toward the conflict does not fully explain the incentives of the rebels for separation. Other ethnic republics neighboring on Chechnia, such as Ingushetia or Daghestan, for instance, have not expressed their desire for secession.
Furthermore, in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, proceeding from the examples of secession of other Union republics, the Chechen leaders felt it possible to use the weakness of the newly formed Russian Federation to create their separate country. Regarding this, David Laitin pointed out in his book that a weak state can be a source of civil war in a country. By "weak states" he implies "newly independent or newly democratizing" countries.9 In addition, the author also underlines environmental conditions as a possible source of civil war. For instance, in our case, mountainous terrains have mainly favored the local rebels who are used to such harsh conditions and, in the event of conflict, have simply hidden there.
The nationalist movement in Chechnia intensified when former general of the Soviet Army Dzhokhar Dudaev was invited to become its leader. After creating a new National Congress of the Chechen people, Dudaev started to act more independently of the Russian government. Between 1991 and1994, de facto independent, Chechnia became a working anarchy ruled by an unsuccessful dictatorship. After first Russian president Boris Yeltsin refused to grant the Chechen people independence, the tension between the central and local governments intensified, with subsequent Russian invasion of the republic in 1994. Initially, this military campaign was planned to be short and directed against the separatist movements in Chechnia. In reality, it lasted for almost 13 months and claimed the lives of approximately "4,000 Chechen fighters and 7,500 Russian soldiers (...); as many as 35,000 civilians [were] killed during the course of the two-year conflict"10 (the data differs considerably according to the source). The capital of the republic was completely destroyed. Almost 500,000 refugees were forced to abandon their homes.
Also, Dudaev, the main leader of the Chechen separatist movement, was killed in 1995 by the Russian army. After that, Aslan Maskhadov was elected president of the Chechen Republic. After withdrawal of the Russian troops and signing a ceasefire with the Chechen separatists, the republic remained de facto independent. Aslan Maskhadov, who commanded the secessionist movement after the death of Dzhokhar Dudaev, was elected as a president in 1997. Many experts, including Alexei Malashenko and Dmitry Trenin, defined this conflict as a "commercial war" seeking control over the flow of Chechen oil and money.11
In general, for Russia, secession in the strategically important region of the Caucasus posed a particular challenge. Loss by the parent state of territory and population would have caused another chain of separatist movements in other national republics of the Russian Federation. Furthermore, as Mike Bowker argues, "independence would not have led to peace and stability for Chechnia, and it was also likely to further destabilize the Caucasus region. There is no doubt, however, that Moscow's policies toward Chechnia have exacerbated a difficult situation, and ... its conduct in the war has made peaceful settlement more difficult to achieve."12
8 G.M. Derluguian, "Ethnofederalism and Ethnonationalism in the Separatist Politics of Chechnya and Tatarstan: Sources or Resources?" International Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 22, No. 9-10, 1999, p. 1412.
9 D.D. Laitin, Nations, States, and Violence, Oxford University Press, New York, 2007, p. 21.
10 B.G. Williams, "The Russo-Chechen War: A Threat to Stability in the Middle East and Eurasia?" Middle East Policy, Vol. 8, 2001, p. 131.
11 See: A. Malashenko, D. Trenin, Russia's Restless Frontier: the Chechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington D.C., 2004, p. 16.
12 M. Bowker, "Russia and Chechnya: The Issue of Secession," Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 10, Issue 4, 2004, p. 462.
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Islam as an Instrument of Political Mobilization
First, it is crucial to point out that Islam came rather late to the Northern Caucasus. Moreover, Chechnia was actually Islamized in the late 18th century, that is, much later than Azerbaijan, Central Asia, or Tatarstan, for instance. It can already be assumed that Islam was not the main factor in formation of the Chechen identity. The Chechen language is considered to be one of the oldest on earth— "linguists date its origins to some four to six thousand years ago."13 What is more, by adapting to the local traditions and customs, Islam in Chechnia appeared in a new form, so-called Sufi-Islam. It is considered to be a certain mystical branch of the more official Sunni-Islam, but with some crucial new elements. In particular, this form of Islam rejects Shari'a law in favor of "adat" or customary codes, which also prevail in the neighboring North Caucasian republics. The system of Sufi brotherhoods (Naqshbandi and Qadiri) and the subordinate relationship between pupil ("murid") and master ("sheikh," "murshid"), known as "muridism," were adopted as the structure for the resisting community and, in the Imamate of Shamil, this crystallized into an actual "Islamic state," until its capitulation in 1859.14 This was actually one of several times in history when the local Islamic customs converted to a certain extent to their more fundamental form. Also of particular interest here is the fact that there have been clear differences among the different brotherhoods. For instance, in the 19th century the Naqshbandi branches supported jihad ideas, while the followers of Qadiri (in particular the Kunta-Hadji group) tended to oppose radical ideas and maintained peaceful relations with Russia. However, at the beginning of the 1990s their positions underwent considerable changes. The Naqshbandi branches, which were concentrated mainly in the northern parts of the republic, surprisingly "opposed the confrontation advocated by Dudaev, and in contrast both the Qadiri branches and the Kunta-Hadji orders supported the secessionist regime, which was increasingly looking for support in the mountainous southern region."15
Furthermore, the Caucasian phenomenon of "ghazavat" was the turning point toward the "holy war" or "jihad" idea, which also came from fundamental Islam and Shari'a and meant armed resistance against non-Muslims (so-called "kafirs") in Chechen territory. For instance, green headbands with statements taken from the Koran that have been associated with Wahhabis and terrorists "were worn by many young Chechens who vowed to fight without regard to their own lives, as warriors of Islam."16 At the same time, both concepts do not imply the same meaning: jihad represents the universal concept about order, whereas "the North Caucasus' tradition of ghazavat has served rather as an instrument of social mobilization against the external enemy."17
It should be noted that after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian religious and nationalities policies have had to deal with a range of old and newly appeared religious communities that experienced relief after years of enduring Soviet atheistic ideology. Such a "religious renaissance" was followed by politicization processes, especially in the newly emerged conflict areas. In the present case of Chechnia, according to Moshe Gammer, four major processes characterized this period, namely:
■ Islamic revival;
13 E. Walker, Islam in Chechnya, available at [http://iseees.berkeley.edu/bps/caucasus/articles/walker_1998-islam.pdf].
14 U. Halbach, "Islam in the North Caucasus," Archives de sciences des religions, 46e Annee, 115, Islam et Politique dans ke Monde (Ex-Communiste), 2001, p. 97.
15 Ibid., pp. 102-103.
16 A. Kroupenov, "Radical Islam in Chechnya," International Institute for Counter Terrorism, available at [http:// papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1333154].
17 E. Souleimanov, O. Ditrych, The Internationalization of the Chechen Conflict: Myths and Reality," Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 60, No. 7, 2008, p. 1209.
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■ The use of Islam by both the authorities and many opposition groups;
■ The involvement, usually reluctant, of the Sufi leadership in politics; and
■ The appearance on the stage of the "Wahhabis."18
The turn to Islam was essentially a political phenomenon based on the insecurities and traumas of past experience. As Edward W. Walker admitted, the Islamic revival there itself became "politicized, fundamentalist, anti-Russian, and probably anti-Western in orientation."19 In order to understand why did the leaders of the secessionist movement turned to radical Islamic, anti-Russian, and anti-Western ideas, the policies of both Dzhokhar Dudaev and Aslan Maskhadov should be briefly analyzed.
First, it should be emphasized that both leaders did not at first have any intention of consolidating Chechen society on a religious basis. For instance, several scholars still regard Dzhokhar Dudaev as a controversial figure and sometimes inconsistent in decision-making. Working as a commander of the Soviet Army while also being married to an ethnic Russian woman, Dudaev spent most of his life far from Chechnia, namely in Kazakhstan. The leader even had poor command of the Chechen language and did not respectfully follow the Islamic traditions. The Chechen Constitution adopted under Dudaev's regime established a secular state and provided for the freedom of religion in the republic. The leader even pointed out the following in an interview with Literaturnaia Gazeta: "I would like the Chechen Republic to be an institutional secular state."20 The problem was that due to the absence of any other ideological substitution for the consolidation of society over state-building, Dudaev and later Maskhadov had to base the secessionist movement on radical Islamic ideas. As Edward Walker pointed out, after the death of communism, "western liberal democracy has been discredited by the refusal of the West to help Chechnia during the war." Moreover, in the presence of certain local clan relations and customary codes, liberal ideas seem to be alien to the traditional Chechen culture. After understanding that the Western world was not going to support the secessionist movement, Dudaev visited Iran, after which he called for a jihad against the Russian state. During his inauguration as a Chechen president on 9 November, 1991, the leader swore with his hands on the Koran in front of numerous representatives of Islamic religious institutions. During the ceremony, the leader "promised to abide by and to protect the Islamic faith."21 However, at one of the press conferences at that time he repeatedly made the mistake of assuming that good Muslims should pray four instead of five times per day, which was outrageous for a leader insisting on the establishment of an Islamic republic.
Still, Chechnia remained secular until the outbreak of the first Chechen war in 1994. This was the same year the Chechen political leaders established their first crucial ties with other Islamic countries. The war "triggered the Islamization of politics in Chechnia and catapulted the Wahhabis and their ideology" into the center of attention, both in Chechnia and in neighboring republics.22
■ One of the most prominent leaders of the Wahhabis at that time was Movladi Udugov, who established the "Islamic Umma Congress" in 1997 with the aim of creating one single Islamic nation. The second famous leader was Shamil Basaev, who also established the "Congress of the Peoples of Daghestan and Ichkeria" in 1998, pursuing the similar aim of uniting the Muslim peoples of those two republics into one state. Basaev also collaborated with another famous radical commander of the Arab volunteer fighters in Chechnia—Emir Khattab. The presence of Middle Eastern "Islamic charities" in the Chechen republic was first recorded in 1995. According to some sources, Wahhabi emissaries operated mainly according to the fol-
18 M. Gammer, "Between Mecca and Moscow: Islam, Politics and Political Islam in Chechnya and Daghestan," Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 41, No. 6, 2005, p. 834.
' E. Walker, op. cit.
19 ]
20 E. Souleimanov, O. Ditrych, op. cit., p. 1209.
21 A. Kroupenov, op. cit.
22 See: M. Gammer, "Between Mecca and Moscow. p. 836.
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lowing scheme: "local Mullahs and Imams were offered one-time grants of $1-1,5 thousand plus a monthly salary of $100-150 in return for their consent to join the Wahhabi sect."23
■ Two of the most dramatic terrorist attacks during the first Chechen war were the Budyon-novsk hospital hostage crisis in 1995 led by Shamil Basaev and the Kizliar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis conducted by Salman Raduev in 1996. Both of those terrorist attacks were initiated under the Islamic banner with the fighters wearing symbolic green Islamic headbands that clearly exhibited radical Islamist features. The main objective of the rebels was to demand that Russia withdraw from Chechnia. These two events are the main human rights violations committed by the Chechen side in the first war. At the international level, Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president at that time, "faced heavy criticism for letting the rebels off so lightly."24
To briefly sum up, it can be assumed that Islam was adopted quite late by the Chechens. Moreover, as mentioned above, Islam in the North Caucasian region faced strong local customs and beliefs that consequently mixed with each other. During conflicts, warlords and politicians had to use radical Islam as a tool for consolidating the nation and furthering their own interests. Using the example of the first Chechen conflict, it clearly showed the transformation of the initial purely separatist and secessionist goals of the rebels toward the radical ideas of a holy war against Russians and later against the whole Western world. To a certain extent, they pursued such aims due to the external funding coming from abroad and terrorist organizations. However, it is still important to bear in mind that the conflict in Chechnia was a separatist movement with the late appearance of Islamic features.
Conclusion
So the above discussion brings us to the conclusion that over the course of the first Chechen war and especially in its aftermath, Chechen nationalism was vividly reflected in Chechnia's efforts to preserve and develop the ethnic culture, where Islam played an undisputedly important role. However, we should not neglect the fact that Islam in the Northern Caucasus is mixed with certain local traditional customs and beliefs. The Soviet past considerably influenced the secularization processes in all the republics of the Soviet Union, including Chechnia, where Sufi-Islam local specifics also contributed to this. So it can be assumed that at the beginning of 1990s the Chechen people were considered to have multiple political identities, the salience of which was triggered by certain dramatic situations and events in the past. Although there was a religious revival in Chechnia at the time, Islam initially played a marginal role in the ideology of the Chechen separatists.
Overall, it can be concluded that the initial hypothesis of the present study, which assumed that certain tragic experiences of the past wars and deportation served as a keystone for the idea of Chechen secession, turned out to be partially right. Even though this tragedy also applied to some other ethnicities accused of betraying the Soviet regime and supporting the Nazis, only the Chechens sought to use these historical events as the main reason for their independence struggle. The moment to secede seemed quite appropriate since Russia was still weak after the fall of the Soviet Union.
23 A. Kroupenov, op. cit.
24 "Chechen Rebels' Hostage History," BBC News, 2004, available at [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/
2357109.stm].
