“RUSSIA’S TINDERBOX” Conflict in the North Caucasus And its Implications for The Future of the Russian Federation Fiona Hill September 1995 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Background to the Report Introduction Executive Summary Section I The Structural Legacy of the USSR Section II The Crisis of National and Regional Leadership in the North Caucasus Section III The Failure of Russia’s Regional Policy Section IV Territorial Disputes in the North Caucasus Section V Chechnya Appendix 1 The Refugee Crisis in the North Caucasus Appendix 2 The Islamic Factor in the North Caucasus Bibliography Selected Works in English for Additional Reading on the North Caucasus PREFACE Background to the Report In the Summer of 1993, the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project began an inquiry into the conflicts in Russia’s North Caucasus region, as part of a broader study of post-Soviet ethno- political conflicts. In the course of this inquiry, it became apparent that there were practically no contemporary English-language studies of the North Caucasus. Although the new Transcaucasian states of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan were beginning to be studied more closely as a consequence of their new status as independent states after 1991, information on the Russian North Caucasus region was only available from news wires and the occasional flying visits of Western correspondents. This was in spite of the prevalence of violent conflict in the Caucasus as a whole, the involvement of North Caucasian groups in these conflicts, and Chechnya’s 1991 declaration of independence from the Russian Federation. By 1993, Azerbaijan and Armenia had been in a de facto state of war over Nagorno- Karabakh for almost five years; an armed conflict had flared between Georgia and South Ossetia sending a wave of refugees into North Ossetia in the North Caucasus; North Caucasian mercenaries were fighting on the side of Abkhazia in its war with Georgia; and a violent conflict had erupted within the North Caucasus itself between Ossetians and Ingush. In acknowledgement of these developments, a number of prominent Russian institutes in Moscow, such as Valery Tishkov’s Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Grigory Yavlinsky’s EPIcenter, and Ol’ga Vasil’eva’s North-South Center, had begun to produce surveys of the North Caucasus region and the ethno- political situation in individual republics. These were not generally translated into English, however, and were not available to the majority of Western analysts and policymakers. In response to this information vacuum, the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project began its own study of the North Caucasus region in the Spring of 1994, under the direction of its Associate Director, Fiona Hill, and with the assistance of a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The aim of the study was to build on the existing Russian-language and English- language literature, conduct new research, and produce a comprehensive analysis of conflict in the North Caucasus for a Western audience that would explain both the importance of the region for the Russian Federation and the sources and triggers of violence. This report is the culmination of the study which concluded in July 1995. The report draws on new data and interview material from the North Caucasus collected by Dr. Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov, a senior researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography in Makhachkala, Dagestan and an advisor to the government of Dagestan on ethnic issues in the republic. Dr. Magomedkhanov was a visiting scholar at Harvard from March to June 1995 and prepared background material for the study during his stay. A small Working Group of specialists from the Harvard community was also convened by the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project to provide input into the North Caucasus study and to comment on its findings. This group included Ivan Ascher, Sergei Grigoriev, Pamela Jewett, Aliona Kostritsyna, and Matthew Lantz of the Project’s research staff; Brian Boeck from the Harvard History Department, Nicholas Daniloff from Northeastern University, Ruth Daniloff, John Lloyd of the Financial Times, Arthur Martirosyan from the Conflict Management Group, and Gela Sulikashvili. Additional materials for the study were obtained with assistance from Leila Alieva of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Baku; Roy Allison of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London; Jonathan Cohen of International Alert in London; Michael Ochs of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe at the US Congress; Lara Olson from the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Suzanne Pattle of the Minority Rights Group in London; Dennis Pluchinsky of the US Department of State’s Threat Analysis Division; and George Tarkhan-Mouravi of the Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development in Tbilisi. Commentary on early drafts of the report was also provided by Alexander Babyonyshev of Harvard University’s Slavic Department; Henry Hale of Harvard’s Government Department; Kenneth Keen of Harvard University; Teresa Lawson of the Kennedy School of Government’s Center for Science and International Affairs; Stephen Shenfield of Brown University’s Center for Foreign Policy Development; Astrid Tuminez of the Carnegie Corporation; and Celeste Wallander of Harvard University’s Government Department. Jeffry Pike of Harvard University produced the original maps of the North Caucasus region and the individual republics for the report. ii “RUSSIA’S TINDERBOX” Conflict in the North Caucasus And its Implications for The Future of the Russian Federation INTRODUCTION Chechnya. Prior to the December 1994 Russian military intervention, few people in the West other than Russian specialists had even heard of Chechnya or were familiar with its people. Today, it is infamous as the site of one of the most violent ethno-political conflicts of the 1990s and of the largest military campaign on Russian soil since World War II. Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, is in ruins, in the wake of a massive and ferocious bombing campaign by the Russian airforce. Hundreds of thousands of Chechens have been killed, maimed or left homeless. Russian military intervention has, however, ended in stalemate. The initial conflict that sparked the war between the Russian political leadership in Moscow and Chechnya over the republic’s status in the Russian Federation has not been resolved by the overwhelming show of force. The factors that both led to war and now hinder a peace settlement are not exclusive to Chechnya. They are present to a greater or lesser degree throughout the Russian Federation, but are most acute in the broader region of which Chechnya is a part––the North Caucasus. In contrast to the rest of the Russian Federation, which has largely managed to avoid violence since 1991, the North Caucasus region has now been the scene of two wars and an array of armed clashes, and has also become embroiled in conflicts beyond its borders. The North Caucasus region consists of seven mountainous republics designated as the territory of a number of non-Russian ethnic groups—Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and Adygeia—and two Russian regions, Krasnodar and Stavropol’, which are stituated on the steppe north of the mountain ridge. Russian geographers and economists also frequently consider the Rostov Oblast’ of the Russian Federation, which lies to the north of Krasnodar on the border with Ukraine, as part of the North Caucasus Economic Region.1 The North Caucasus is Russia’s land bridge between the Caspian and the Black Seas and thus the crossroads for trade between North and South, East and West. As such, it is of critical strategic and economic importance to Russia. It is Russia’s southern flank, the front-line military 1 The territory of the North Caucasus region is 355,100 square kilometers, which is equivalent in size to Germany, and accounts for approximately 2% of the total territory of the Russian Federation. According to the 1989 Soviet Census, the total population of the North Caucasus is 16,751,000, which is approximately 6% of Russia’s total population. The seven mountain republics have a combined population of 5,628,000, accounting for 33% of the population of the region. district guarding the international border with the new states of Transcaucasia—Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and Russia’s old imperial rivals—Turkey and Iran. It is Russia’s route for pipelines from oil fields in the Caspian to its ports on the Black Sea and markets in Europe and the Middle East. And it is Russia’s premier agricultural region, producing almost one quarter of all its annual agricultural output.2 The North Caucasus is also one of the most densely populated regions of Russia, with a population density ranging from 27.7 people per square kilometer in Karachaevo-Cherkessia to 76.5 people per square kilometer in North Ossetia, in sharp contrast to an average of only 8.4 for the Russian Federation as a whole. This unusually high population density is complicated by the fact that the North Caucasus is the most ethnically diverse region of the Russian Federation, with as many as 40 small ethnic groups spread across its territory. Although Russians are the largest of the ethnic groups, accounting for 67.6% of the total population, they are unevenly spread with non- Russian groups dominating in the east of the region toward the Caspian Sea. In spite of its preeminence as a center of agricultural production, and indeed because of its economic specialization, the North Caucasus region has experienced a severe economic decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The seven mountainous republics of the region have been especially hard hit. Prior to 1991, the North Caucasus had the largest rural population in Russia, with 43% of the total population living in rural areas as compared to 26% for the Federation as a whole.