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The second challenge will be to convince EU skeptics that a deeper involvement in the Black Sea region can bring about added value and be useful in achieving Brussels’ security and economic objectives. For many EU members, Black Sea regional organizations are only “talking shops” and have no particular relevance to the EU.
One positive sign comes from new EU member states and their Eastern neighbors. Countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland and the two members, Rumania and Bulgaria, are increasingly joining forces in what is referred to in EU circles as the “Baltic-Black Sea axis.” Also, the “New Group of Georgia’s Friends” was founded by four new EU members—Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland—in early February 2005. These countries, through the “New Friends” initiative, want to share with Georgia the wealth of experience they acquired in their process of accession to the EU and NATO. As a complement, they also want to promote the Wider Black Sea Area. Moreover, they also want to promote the Wider Black Sea Area as a region and a concept in achieving different security and developmental objectives.
Alla YAZKOVA
D.Sc. (Hist.), professor at the Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences, director of the Center of Mediterranean-Black Sea Affairs (Moscow, Russian Federation).
THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS: SITUATION ANALYSIS AND POSSIBLE WAYS TO OVERCOME THE CRISES AND CONFLICTS
Abstract
This article looks at the political and socioeconomic collisions in the Northern Caucasus, one of the most geopolitically and ethnopolitically problematic regions of the present-day Russian Federation. According to the author, the conflict-
prone potential of this region is spearheaded by various factors ranging from the history of ethnic relations in the region to eth-no-confessional and axiological characteristics of the different nationalities residing in it.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The Northern Caucasus is one of the largest, as well as most problematic and vulnerable regions of the Russian Federation. Being an integrated economic region in the past, the Northern Caucasus current-
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ly unites seven national republics—the Republic of Adigey, the Republic of Daghestan, the Republic of Ingushetia, the Karachaevo-Cherkessian Republic, the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia Alania, and the Chechen Republic, as well as the Krasnodar and Stavropol territories and the Rostov Region. The geopolitical significance of the Northern Caucasus is indisputable, and its stability is important not only for ensuring the security of Russia’s southern frontiers, but also for preserving peace and restoring good-neighborly relations with its southern neighbors, primarily Georgia, and finally in order to maintain the balance of power in the Great Chess Game in the Eurasian expanse.
At the same time, we cannot fail to notice that Russia’s state policy in the Northern Caucasus over the past fifteen years has been characterized by the absence of strategic approaches to finding a solution to the difficult problems that have accumulated, which has led to several serious economic and political blunders. So it seems pertinent to look at the main aspects of the current situation in the North Caucasian region and find ways to settle the crises and conflicts that have arisen there.
The Socioeconomic Situation
The events of the past fifteen years have confirmed the important conclusion that the abrupt deterioration in the economic situation is inevitably leading to an increase in social and national tension, which has been having a direct effect on the situation in the North Caucasian republics. Social stratification of the multiethnic formations was manifested to the greatest extent here, including at the grass roots level, due to the halt in the activity of the state economic structures, the sharp drop in social management, mass unemployment, total corruption, and criminalization of economic activity. The demands of the advanced part of the North Caucasian societies for democracy, political freedom, and national independence, which were voiced at the beginning of the 1990s and not underpinned economically, began to turn into ethnic and national contradictions and conflicts, strivings for ethnic separatism, and attempts to restructure the existing territorial units.
The main regions of the Northern Caucasus have the lowest economic development indices in Russia (with the exception of some types of agricultural products). The region’s traditional industries are concentrated in the piedmont area, where small amounts of coal, oil, and gas are produced, and there are also machine-building, chemical, light, and food industries, while the mountainous regions have ferrous metallurgy, as well as the food and light industries. After 1991, the indices dramatically dropped in all of these industries: the volume of annual oil production decreased three-fold (in 2002, it was 3-4 million tons compared with 10-12 million tons at the end of the 1980s), coal production amounts to 10-12 million tons compared with 29 million in 1990, and gas production comprises approximately 3.5 bcm (it dropped several times compared with the mid-1970s when the gas-producing regions of the Northern Caucasus provided 1/5 of the nation’s gas production).1
The socioeconomic situation has been wavering for the past fifteen years due to the breakdown in economic ties after the collapse of the U.S.S.R, the low competitiveness of production in the state economy, and the wars in Chechnia. The existence of several “procumbent” conflicts has also had an extremely detrimental effect on the state of the economic complex of the North Caucasian region. According to specialists, no improvement in the performance of the region’s production complex can be expected without economic restructuring, and this requires large investments.
The shadow economy is an increasingly important sector of economic development, a kind of buffer between the old and new economic structures for partially absorbing the negative social consequences of the reforms.2 The main branches of the shadow economy in the Northern Caucasus that formed during the 1990s and retain their importance to this day are as follows:
1 See: V.V. Kistanov, N.V. Kopylov, Regional’naia ekonomika Rossii, Financy i statistika, Moscow, 2003, p. 424.
2 See: S.P. Glinkina, “Vlast’ plius biznes ravniaetsia fiktivnaia ekonomika,” Biznes i politika, No. 2, 1997.
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■ Unlicensed manufacture of petroleum products and their sale (primarily in Chechnia);
■ Unofficial (amateur) production of caviar and sturgeon and their sale via the underground trade network;
■ Unlicensed production of wine and vodka surrogates from contraband liquor under well-known trademarks;
■ Unregistered export through the port in Novorossiisk.3
The shadow (unofficial) economy creates opportunities for some people to find second or even third jobs, thus raising their incomes to the necessary consumption level, and this explains why the shadow sector in the South of Russia comprises an average of 30%, that is, essentially every third resident is engaged in illegal business. These indices are particularly high in North Ossetia (80%), Ingushetia (87%), and Daghestan (75%).4
But these same republics top the list of the most subsidized constituents of the Russian Federation. According to the most modest estimates, in 2004, the state lost approximately 50 billion rubles due to the shadow economy in the North Caucasian region, while financial aid (subsidies) to the South of Russia amounted to 47 billion rubles at that time. According to the data of the Russian financial monitoring service (Rosfinmonitoring), more than 50,000 economic crimes were exposed during this period, 13.5% of which were large or extremely large, and the amount of damage they inflicted was estimated at 56 billion rubles.5
This money would have been impossible to appropriate without the help of high-ranking officials acting within the framework of a well-defined clan system. “The corporate associations that have formed in the government structures have monopolized the economic and political resources. In all the North Caucasian republics, the leading positions in the government structures and the largest economic entities are occupied by people who are related to each other. This has disrupted the system of checks and balances, which is leading to a spread in corruption.”6
The economic system that has developed in the North Caucasian region has resulted in an uncontrolled increase in unemployment that is much higher than the average indices throughout Russia. According to unofficial data, from 70% to 80% of young people (under the age of 30) do not have a permanent job, which is not only related to the critical state of the economy, but also to the low level of professional training. This is primarily explained by the fact that in the armed conflict areas, it is much harder to obtain school and technical education.
Mass unemployment among young people is hiking up the level of social tension and aggravating the criminal situation, thus augmenting the influence of extremist, including armed, groups. The residents of the region possess hundreds of thousands of firearms, and almost every home keeps cold arms on hand. This, regardless of the will and intentions of the peaceful majority of the population, is creating the danger of the accumulated contradictions escalating into an armed conflict.
Under these conditions, many national groups of the population are trying to find a solution to the current economic situation by means of ethnic separation and to obtain benefits and advantages from this, whereby the larger groups are carrying out “economic expansion” with respect to their neighbors, while the smaller ones are striving for administrative separation (for example, the Kabar-dinians and Balkars in Kabardino-Balkaria). Direct evidence of this is the creation of nationalistic political parties and sociopolitical movements in most of the regions of the Northern Caucasus (Ka-rachais, Balkars, Kabardinians, and Circassians, for example, are characterized by a high level of
3 See: Puti mira na Severnom Kavkaze. Nezavisimiy ekspertniy doklad, ed. by V.A. Tishkov, Moscow, 1999, p. 85.
4 See: A. Riskin, “Chernaia dyra na Iuge Rossii,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 31 January, 2006.
5 See: Ibidem.
6 Quoted from the report published in Moskovskiy komsomolets newspaper on 16 June, 2005 by authorized representative of the Russian President in the South Federal District D. Kozak.
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sociopolitical mobilization). In most ethnic groups, this is related to the restoration of historical and spiritual values, which has a direct effect on ethnopolitical mobilization.
For the past 15 years, a trend has also been designated in the Northern Caucasus which is known in conflict resolution studies as the differentiating function of the conflict.1 It is manifested in the disintegration into parts of a previously integrated region with subsequent polarization of relations. This becomes obvious using the example of two North Caucasian republics—Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia, in the names of which two nationalities are designated that were arbitrarily united within a single administrative framework without taking into account their ethnic and linguistic affiliation, lifestyle (valley dwellers, mountain dwellers), and the size of each of the ethnic groups.
The overall level of conflict-proneness in the Northern Caucasus can only be reduced if the socioeconomic situation is stabilized and economic reforms are carried out keeping in mind the specifics of the long-term historical development of this region, which can be considered one of most problematic and challenging in the Russian Federation. The slowdown in economic rates is promoting a search for autonomous development paths and prompting the national republics to turn to traditional forms of cooperation among themselves and with the main regions of the Russian Federation.
Historical Memory
Historical memory in the peoples of the Northern Caucasus has preserved a whole series of episodes of reciprocal movement toward each other in search of rapprochement with Russia, which was accompanied both by diplomatic contacts and bloody wars, as well as often by direct tyranny. From time immemorial, the mountain peoples have been surrounded by more powerful states, and in the 16th-18th centuries, the Northern Caucasus became an arena of conflict among Ottoman Turkey, Persia, and Russia. But in contrast to the Transcaucasus (the Southern Caucasus), the regions located to the north of the Great Caucasian Mountain Range, with the exception of Kabarda and Alania (Ossetia), had only episodic relations with Russia right up until the second half of the 18th century.
In the 19th century, the fifty-year Caucasian war, which unfolded in a series of armed conflicts, first with the Chechens and Avars and then with the Adighes (Circassians), led to Russia assuming the image of permanent enemy in the eyes of the mountain dwellers.8 During the hostilities, a large part of the indigenous population was physically destroyed or driven out of the Middle Eastern countries, and entire ethnic groups disappeared.
But the mountain leaders, including Shamil, were unable to raise the whole of the North Caucasian population to fight against Russia. Historians who have studied this era explain this by the fact that despite all the gross mistakes St. Petersburg made in its policy toward the Northern Caucasus, pragmatism ultimately took the upper hand in it. The Russian politicians steered clear of any hasty attempts to radically restructure the mountain lands along the lines of the Russian gubernias, instead limiting themselves to minimum interference in the domestic lives of the mountain dwellers. Confirmation of this was the formation of the Caucasian vicegerency in 1845, a special form of governance that kept in mind the regional specifics as much as possible. This “state within the state” was usually headed by flexible pragmatists who knew the territory well and were interested in and respected the people living in it, as well-known Russian expert on the Caucasus V.V. Degoev noted.9 They be-
7 See: Yu.G. Zaprudskiy, “Sovremennaia konfliktologiia kak metodologiia poznaniia i upravleniia obshchest-vennymi protsessami,” in: Konflikty na Severnom Kavkaze i puti ikh razresheniia, SKAGS Publishers, Rostov-on-Don, 2003, p. 41.
8 See: M.M. Bliev, V.V. Degoev, Kavkazskaia voina, Moscow, 1994, p. 148.
9 See: V. Degoev, “Kavkazskiy vyzov rossiiskoi gosudarstvennosti,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 14 October, 1998.
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lieved, he continued, that unification with the empire by force alone was unproductive and fraught with the opposite result. Mutual understanding, mutual tolerance, and mutual gain were needed. And, of course, an understanding of the indubitable truth: the multifarious ethnic and cultural world of the Caucasus formed over long centuries could not in principle become absolutely Russian.10
After October 1917, the Bolsheviks were able to successfully take advantage of the historical momentum of the relations with the Caucasian peoples, and during the years of the civil war, the North Caucasian periphery became a convenient springboard for repressing freedom in the Southern Caucasus. But the next steps—forced collectivization, repeated re-drawing of the borders of the North Caucasian autonomous republics, and then the direct crimes of the Stalin regime—could not help but have an impact on the further formation of the mentality of the subsequent generations.
Sweeping deportations to Kazakhstan and Central Asia of entire ethnic groups (Chechens, Ingushes, Balkars, and Karachais), who were indiscriminately accused of “treason,” were carried out with particular brutality in the winter of 1943-1944. Many people perished on the way, but according to the official statistics of the U.S.S.R. NKVD for October 1946, among the deportees there were 400,478 Chechens and Ingushes (including 191,919 children under the age of 16); 60,139 Karachais (32,557 children); and 32,817 Balkars (16,386 children).11
The de-Stalinization processes that began in 1957 promoted the gradual rehabilitation and return to the Northern Caucasus of those who were able to live through the hardships of exile. But problems of accommodating the forced migrants arose due to their frequently tense relations with the ethnic groups that made up most of the Caucasian people. Conflicts arose between the Ingushes and Ossets, Balkars and Kabardinians, Karachais and Circassians. On a wider scale, problems also arose with restoring the administrative units and territorial demarcations abolished after the deportations.
The matter initially concerned the revival of national languages and cultures, but later political demands were also formulated, including with respect to changes in the borders of the national autonomies and dividing the “bi-national” republics—Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia. In so doing, the national self-organization of ethnic groups primarily occurred within democratic union-wide, and then Russian-wide movements.
In April 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation adopted a law on rehabilitation of repressed peoples which also contained Arts 3 and 6 regarding their “territorial rehabilitation.”12
Later it became evident that this law was of a general, essentially framework, nature and could not meet the specific demands of the ethno-national groups. Moreover, sub-legal acts to them were not drawn up. The RF presidential decree signed in July 1995 corrected the situation somewhat by insisting on observance of the procedure and conditions set forth in the RF Constitution (Art 65.2 and Art 67.3, according to which the borders between RF constituents could only be changed with their mutual consent) when carrying out “territorial rehabilitation.” Approval of the changes of inter-republic borders was entrusted, according to Art 102 of the Constitution, to the Federation Council.13
But neither the 1995 decree, nor the sub-legal acts adopted after it removed the urgency of the ethnic disputes and territorial demands, which, in addition to everything else, went beyond the framework of the provisions of the 1991 Law. Historical justice could only be restored by means of mutual concessions and compromise decisions, but this was impossible due to the increase in authoritarian trends. Other forms of ethno-national self-determination (national and national-cultural autonomies) were not taken into account from the very beginning, and it would be a long time before a polyethnic civil society was formed in the Northern Caucasus.
10 See: V. Degoev, “Kavkazskiy vyzov rossiiskoi gosudarstvennosti,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 14 October, 1998.
11 See: Tak eto bylo. Natsional’nye repressii v SSSR. 1919-1952 gg, Vol. 1, Insan, Moscow, 1993, p. 293.
12 Gazette of the Congress of People’s Deputies and RF Supreme Soviet, No. 18, 2 May, 1991, p. 572.
13 See: Sobranie zakonodatel’stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii, No. 39, 25 September, 1995, Doc. No. 948.
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On the whole, this hiked up the tension in the national regions of the Northern Caucasus, particularly against the background of their economic stagnation and the unresolved social problems. The Islamic factor, which was already becoming obvious and now occupies a prominent place in the political life of the North Caucasian republics, also complicated the situation.
Islam in the Northern Caucasus
Before the beginning of the 1990s, Islam did not have any significant influence in the Northern Caucasus, particularly in its western part. The mountain traditions were always more important than Islam, particularly since Islamization of the Northern Caucasus, which did not begin until the 19th century, was interrupted in 1917.14 But as early as the second half of the 1990s, as social protests rose, the democratic movements that began during perestroika and were gradually reduced to naught began to be replaced by religion. The network of radical religious organizations increasingly spread, and there is sufficient evidence to state that today it has cells everywhere, including in the government structures of most republics.
By the beginning of the 2000s, the Muslim population of the region amounted to about four million people according to approximate estimates, whereby Islam did not enjoy the same influence everywhere. It was strongest in the east: in Daghestan, Chechnia, and Ingushetia, and weaker in the west (Adigey, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachaevo-Cherkessia). In the eastern regions, primarily in Daghestan, despite the persecution in the years of Soviet power, the tradition of the Islamic culture survived, the center of which was Derbent. The local Muslims succeeded in saving quite a few medieval manuscripts. At that time, it was just in the east of the Northern Caucasus after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. that foreign missionaries began their activity.15
The penetration of traditional Islamic trends uncustomary for the North Caucasian Muslims could only have been prevented by returning to the Soviet system of total suppression of religion, which was already impossible. The foreign preachers acted resolutely, however, by classifying the calls to purify Islam as social demagoguery and taking advantage of the weakness of their opponents both in the religious sphere as such, and on the political arena.
According to the estimates of authoritative Russian academic experts on Islam, radical Is-lam—Wahhabism (a more precise concept is Salafism)—initially declared its purpose to be purifying Islam by calling for social equality and social justice.16 The political leaders of the North Caucasian republics at first preferred to steer clear of the religious disputes, while supporting Moscow’s official position. But soon they began to see the activity of the preachers as a threat to their political position and support of those who were dissatisfied with the situation, after which, as early as the second half of the 1990s, mass persecutions of believers who were suspected of being affiliated with Wahhabism began.
Keeping in mind the difficulty of the socioeconomic situation and the ethnic opposition in the North Caucasian region, the local and central authorities will sooner or later be forced to conclude that it would be much more sensible to prevent a further expansion of extremism by means of a public dialog than fight it with force. It is no accident that former authorized representative of the Russian president to the South Federal District D. Kozak spoke out against calls for an immediate ban on Wahhabism after the events of October 2005 in Nalchik.17 By this time, it had become clear that for
14 See: A. Malashenko, Islamskie orientiry Severnogo Kavkaza, Gendalf, Moscow, 2001, p. 8.
15 See: Ibid., p. 9.
16 See: D.V. Makarov, Ofitsial’niy i neofitsial’niy islam v Dagestane, Moscow, 2000, pp. 27-28.
17 See: G. Shvedov, “Severokavkazskaia palitra,” available at [www.gazeta.ru/comments/2005/10/13].
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the main groups of young people, the matter concerned the revival of Islam not only as a historical and cultural tradition and not so much as a religious outlook, but primarily as a way of life imbibed with high morals and responsibility.
Conflict of Value Orientations
There is also the problem of ethnic and personal differences and a conflict of value orientations among the peoples and elites of the Northern Caucasus and central regions of Russia. Emerging against the background of the ongoing instability in the Chechen Republic and the terrorist acts beyond its borders, Caucasus-phobia has become entrenched in the mass consciousness of some Russians and is beginning to have an indirect effect on the policy being conducted toward this region. Many previous achievements of national policy that could not withstand the rapid change in orientation were cancelled—the tests of democracy and the reforms of the 1990s and the subsequent confirmation of authoritarianism.
What were the value orientations of the residents of the national regions of the Northern Caucasus defined by earlier and how are they defined now, and what gives rise to their conflict-proneness with the residents of other regions of Russia? For many years, academic ethnologists have been studying this problem, and today their findings have been formulated in several published works.18
Most authors today admit that the peoples of the Caucasus (both the South and the North) historically formed and interacted under the conditions of a multilingual, inter-civilizational, and inter-confessional dialog, so they were open to all kinds of influences and impacts from the most diverse value orientations and systems. The Caucasian identity has developed from real elements of the material, normative, and everyday culture of different ethnic groups, after incorporating the Islamic and Christian mentality, traditions, and customs of mountain and valley cultures and sprinklings of the Turkish, Persian, Greek-Roman, Arab, and Slavic civilizations. In recent and most recent times, integration of the Caucasus into the Russian-Empire and later into the Soviet context played an important role.
It just so happened historically, notes Afrand Dashdamirov (acting member of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences), that in Russia the Caucasian peoples were perceived and are still perceived by the mass and elite consciousness not only and sometimes not so much as independent ethnicities, but as a single whole, as “Caucasians” in general. Whereby the image of “Caucasian” at different historical times and depending on the different political situations assumed both positive and negative hues, so today’s stereotype of “person of Caucasian nationality” has its ethno-psychological roots in the historical past.19
A practical cross-section of the current, at times extremely unfriendly, attitude toward representatives of the Caucasus (including of the North) has also become a barometer of the ill-being of Russian society, which is showing increasing features of aggressive nationalism and xenophobia previously unknown to it expressed recently in the slogan “Russia for the Russians.” Essentially inappropriate for multinational and multi-confessional Russia, this slogan has laid the foundation for open anti-Caucasian speeches and pogroms, as happened for example in 2006 in Kondopoga.
To a certain extent, the events in Kondopoga revealed deeper reasons for the conflict of value orientations between the residents of the Russian “center” and the “Caucasians.” The people of the Northern Caucasus (in this case, Chechens) are usually characterized by a penchant for business,
18 See: A.F. Dashdamirov, Ideologicheskie problemy mezhkavkazskikh otnosheniy, Baku, 2001. The author of this publication also relied on a general article by Professor V.A. Tishkov, director of the RAS Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (Nezavisimaia gazeta, 22 January, 1998).
19 See: A.F. Dashdamirov, “Kavkazskaia identichnost’ i dialog kultur,” in: Moskovskoe ekho Kavkaza, Ethnosphera Center, Moscow, 1997, pp. 21-22.
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trade, and seasonal work to maintain families with a large number of dependents (children and elderly), as well as a striving for a higher level of prosperity. In the national environment represented by the indigenous residents of Kondopoga, this was unacceptable and aroused open protests, right down to demands to expel “all blacks” and confiscate their property. And as experience showed, this kind of demand could be made not only of Chechens.
The high level of entrepreneurship and competition in the struggle to achieve a high standard of living and dignified status is essentially characteristic of all residents of the Caucasus, primarily of its mountainous regions, where economic activity in the severer natural conditions is much more difficult than in the fertile valleys. So in terms of their labor skills and psychology, the Caucasians have proven more prepared for the market reforms, which demand an active lifestyle.
But the situation that developed gave rise to serious problems and contradictions. The mutual complaints of the indigenous residents of the Russian valleys and the newcomers trying to actively establish themselves in the economy and politics gave rise to ethnic tension. Their attempts to legally realize their potential fell on barren ground and, in the end, ethnic nationalism took the upper hand on both sides. This shows how a conflict of value orientations can undermine the Russian Federation’s integrity and unity, which makes it impossible to ignore the continuing outflow of the Russian population from the North Caucasian republics.20
Russians began to leave the North Caucasian republics during the second half of the 1980s, and at the beginning of the 1990s, the process became ubiquitous, which was explained by the destruction of the science-intensive potential of the North Caucasian republics, the spreading influence of the ethnic clans, and the emergence of numerous ethnic conflicts. As a result, as early as the beginning of the 2000s, there were no more than 4% of Russians left in Chechnia, 1% in Ingushetia, and no more than 5% in Daghestan. The number of Russians in Kabardino-Balkaria is a little higher at 25%, while they constitute 23% in North Ossetia and 33% in Karachaevo-Cherkessia.21 These figures fluctuate since the constantly changing national composition makes it difficult to keep a reliable record, plus the size of the Russian population (this particularly applies to North Ossetia) has been increasing due to the presence of federal servicemen and their families, who cannot be counted as permanent residents. In Kabardino-Balkaria, the Russian (Slavic) population is represented by Terek Cossacks, and in Karachaevo-Cherkessia by regions that used to belong to the Stavropol Territory.
Continuing Instability
In recent years, fears have repeatedly been expressed about the threat to Russia’s territorial integrity within its existing boundaries, and the Northern Caucasus has been mentioned as one of the most problematic regions. This problem was discussed in greater detail in a publication by the Agency of Political Science of 22 July, 2005 called SeverniyKavkaz: karta ugroz (The Northern Caucasus: A Map of Threats).22
The author of the publication stated that latent (procumbent) separation is going on in the Caucasian republics against the background of the economic depression. This means that the population, while paying lip service to the existing authorities, is becoming increasingly alienated from it and looking for a solution to its problems without assistance from the federal authorities. The administrative system in the Caucasian regions is ineffective, which is leading to a weakening of economic and
20 For more detail, see: O. Kusov, “Russkiy iskhod s Severnogo Kavkaza,” available at [www.prognosis.ru], 2 March,
2007.
21 See: Ibidem.
22 [www.abkhaziainfo.f2o.org/analitics].
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legal ties among the republics and the federal center. There is also the problem of information isolation, which is leading to decisions being made that lag behind the dynamically changing situation. The regional authorities are corrupted, bound to the system of clan structures, and sometimes simply incompetent. Loss of control over the observance of the federal laws means loss of control over territory, even if no one (or almost no one) shows any inclination toward separatism, notes the author. Western experts who are closely studying the situation in the Northern Caucasus are also inclined to look at the Northern Caucasus as Russia’s “internal abroad.”23
On the whole, it can be claimed that over the past two decades, the North Caucasian republics have been in a state of “controlled conflict,” with the exception of the two Chechen wars that designated the shift of the Chechen problem from the 19th to the 21st century, whereby the local wars in Chechnia became a significant factor in Russian national policy. As the authors of a recently published book rightly noted, “the Chechen conflict did not only have a direct effect on Russian society and the state, it became a barometer of the maturity of this society and of its ruling elite.”24
The general situation in the Northern Caucasus continues to experience the negative effects of the ongoing conflict in the Chechen Republic and its surrounding regions. According to the statement by commander of the combined group of forces in the Northern Caucasus Colonel General Evgeniy Bariaev (November 2006), there are up to 700 militants in the south of Chechnia, which, according to his explanation, is “due to the inflow of young people into the illegal armed formations.” The general added, “according to the available information, a large sum of money has been allotted to financing the militants” (which is confirmed by the existence of channels for financing terrorists that have still not been intercepted), and openly admitted that “it is impossible to oppose the band formations with military methods alone.”25
He was also supported by then president of Chechnia Alu Alkhanov, who stated that although the federal center is transferring billions of rubles to Chechnia for the restoration programs being developed, unemployment remains at the previous level and young people are not going to the widely acclaimed “building projects of the century,” but into the mountains.26
The operative situation remains unstable in other regions of the Northern Caucasus too: in the words of Head of the National Antiterrorist Committee, FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev, “terrorists are spreading throughout the entire region.” In the republics of Daghestan and Ingushetia, which neighbor on Chechnia, the authorities have still been unable to do anything to oppose terrorism. And whereas at the beginning of the 2000s, there was one hotspot in the Northern Caucasus—Chechnia, now there are more, which the authorities have also been forced to admit.27
At the end of 2005, the leadership of the South Federal District tried to overcome the current situation by introducing external financial management in the crisis zones—Ingushetia and Daghestan (this possibility was envisaged by the Russian Federation budget code: if the region’s debts exceed 30%, a temporary financial administration can be introduced in it). In Daghestan, this proposal was received with Oriental diplomacy: “they did not react at all, however, they took offense,” a commentary published right after this announced.28 President of Ingushetia Murad Ziazikov reacted less diplomatically: “I will simply not accept this and believe the statements of certain politicians that the Caucasus is corrupt to be provocative... We have had enough external management already, Chechnia alone is enough.”29
23 Puti mira na Severnom Kavkaze, p. 157.
24 A. Malashenko, D. Trenin, Vremia Iuga. Rossia v Chechne. Chechnia v Rossii, Gendalf, Moscow, 2002, p. 13.
25 A. Riskin, “Osenniy prizyv,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 7 November, 2006.
26 Ibidem.
27 See: A. Riskin, “Tri Chechni vmesto odnoi,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 28 August, 2006.
28 “Iz kniazei—v svadebnye generaly. Plany vvedeniia vneshnego upravleniia v dotatsionnykh regionakh vstre-chaiut soprotivlenie politicheskoi elity na Severnom Kavkaze,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 9 December, 2005.
29 Ibidem.
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The western subregion of the Northern Caucasus is made up of the republics located to the west of North Ossetia: Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Adigey, as well as the Krasnodar Territory and Rostov Region. Despite the internal contradictions and involvement in international conflicts—the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetian—they are relatively more stable. Nevertheless, there is still tension in the “bi-national” republics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia, as well as in the Krasnodar Territory and its interrelations with Adigey.
C o n c l u s i o n
To sum up, it can be said that the current extremely difficult situation in the Northern Caucasus reflects the urgent processes and forms of Russia’s establishment as a federative state. But, in contrast to its central regions, where economic and social issues come to the forefront, in the southern areas they are significantly complicated by the challenges of nationalism, diversity of cultures, and the need to harmonize the revival of Islam and the European (Christian) model of Russia’s development. The experience of the past fifteen years has shown how difficult these problems are and confirmed that they cannot be resolved by force. So essentially new ways to regulate the crisis and conflict situations not only in the Northern Caucasus, but also in other similar regions of the world must be sought.
Rashad GUSEINOV
Ph.D. (Political Science), OSCE Office in Baku, head of the Press and Information Department
(Baku, Azerbaijan).
THE MAIN DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN BILATERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN AZERBAIJAN AND ISRAEL
Abstract
This article looks at the issues involving Azerbaijani-Israeli relations: their sources and the main development vectors in interstate political and economic ties. It emphasizes that the relations between the two states and their people are unique and could serve as an example for many countries. But
the complicated geopolitical situation in the region is having a negative effect on the development of bilateral relations between Baku and Tel Aviv. Keeping in mind the above facts, the author attempts to identify the main trends in the further development of relations between these two countries.
