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The Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus and the Conflict Over Abkhazia

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The Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus and the Conflict Over Abkhazia Volume 6 Issue 2 2012 39 THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION federalist projects. While watching the nationalist elites of their new countries gradually master the imperialist parlance in their dialog with the minorities, the smaller groups placed their stakes (where possible) not on the division of power within a common country but on political independence. They did not need federalism to realize this design. David MATSABERIDZE Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (Tbilisi, Georgia). THE CONFEDERATION OF THE MOUNTAIN PEOPLES OF THE CAUCASUS AND THE CONFLICT OVER ABKHAZIA Abstract his paper argues that the Confedera- the Confederation was motivated by the T tion of the Mountain Peoples turned political conjunctures generated by disso- the ethnic relations among the peo- lution of the Soviet Union and that the Ab- ples of the Caucasus into a zero-sum khazian secessionist, central Georgian, and game. Initiated as a platform for peaceful Russian authorities, as well as the leaders collaboration among the Caucasian peo- of the North Caucasian ethnic groups, used ples, the Confederation turned into a kind it to pursue their radically different [politi- of hub where ethnic claims and contradic- cal] interests. Hence, there are serious tions were played out among the various doubts about the prospect of the Confed- ethnic groups in general and between the eration forming a common platform for set- Georgians and the Abkhazians in particu- tling the conflict over Abkhazia and build- lar. This study claims that establishment of ing peace in the post-Soviet Caucasus. Introduction This paper deals with various aspects of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples that emerged at the end of the 1980s as a project for a future political entity within the Caucasus. It was designed to bring the peoples of the North Caucasian territorial-administrative units into a single political-governmental structure, attaching some other peoples of the Russian Federation (mainly Cossacks from the Kuban district) and incorporating some territories of the Republic of Georgia (Ab- 40 Volume 6 Issue 2 2012 THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION khazians, through incorporation of the Abkhazian Autonomous Republic, Shida Kartli, Racha, Svan- eti, and a portion of Samegrelo).1 An analysis of the popular speeches of that time by politicians from Georgia, Abkhazia, the Russian Federation, and the North Caucasian political units, as well as of the founding Declaration of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples, reveals that the new structure turned the ethnic relations among the targeted groups into a zero-sum game. Initiated as a platform for peaceful collaboration among the Caucasian peoples, the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples turned into a kind of hub where ethnic claims and contradictions were played out between the Geor- gians and the Abkhazians. Interestingly, the post-Soviet developments around Abkhazia have always gone beyond the framework of the so-called Georgian-Abkhazian confrontation due to the involvement of wider re- gional political entities. At different times, Abkhazia, as a political unit, was depicted either as part of wider regional political structures (the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples) or was seen as a member of non-materialized ideological inventions (the Caucasian House). Paradoxically, since the late 1980s, relations between Sukhumi and Tbilisi were frequently developed through this insti- tution. Nevertheless, it is hard to deny the negative role of the Russian Federation in the relations among the various units of the Confederation and the developments over Abkhazia. The logic of Russia’s involvement in this respect is summarized nicely by Gachechiladze, who rightly mentions that “Abkhazia has a definite advantage over the land-locked North Caucasus republics of the Rus- sian Federation.”2 The first part of this paper will discuss the emergence of the Confederation and its relation to the conflict over Abkhazia, while the second part will highlight the triangle of Georgian-Russian-Con- federation relations of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The conclusion will provide some justification for wider regional contextualization of the Abkhazian problem at different times, i.e. viewing it through the prism of the Confederation. The Birth of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus The idea for establishing the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus was born in the minds of the North Caucasian people who emigrated to Turkey in the middle of the 19th centu- ry. Their aim was to unify the small peoples of the Northern Caucasus into a common Circassian state, create a common language, and form a new territorial unit as the 16th Union Republic of the Soviet Union. Thus, there was a perceived need to bring all the mountain peoples together into a new state. This idea was voiced at the congress held in Sukhumi on 25 August, 1989, which established the Confederation as a political organization along with a defense committee and military units for pro- tection from the “empire.” It is obvious that the formation of a 16th Union republic was an adventurist move, evidently quite understandable to the Russian Federation. These developments were negative- ly assessed from the very beginning by President Gamsakhurdia, who called it another of the Krem- lin’s provocations in the Caucasus. The Caucasian peoples, he stated, “had the right to choose the path of their future development themselves, whereas the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples would be a structure imposed on them by the Russian Federation as another imperial mechanism to bring 1 See: “Separatists, Confederalists and their Supporters,” Sakartvelos Respublika, No. 171 (450), 5 September, 1992 (in Georgian). 2 R. Gachechiladze, “Geographical Background to a Settlement of the Conflict in Abkhazia,” in: Georgians and Abkhazians. The Search for a Peace Settlement, ed. by B. Coppieters, G. Nodia, Yu. Anchabadze, Vrije Universiteit, Brussels, 1998, p. 54, available at [http://poli.vub.ac.be/publi/Georgians/], June 2011. Volume 6 Issue 2 2012 41 THE CAUCASUS & GLOBALIZATION them under its control.”3 For Gamsakhurdia, the “Assembly of the Mountain Peoples” was the echo of the so-called “North Caucasian Red Republic”4 of the 1920s, which “Chechnia withdrew from with the aim of creating its own republic.”5 Influence of the Confederation on the Conflict over Abkhazia The Confederation of the Mountain Peoples, crystallized at the end of the 1980s, ultimately played a negative role in the Abkhazian developments in the early 1990s and arguably crushed any possibility of Caucasian unity due to its conflicting intervention in the relations between the different Caucasian peoples (the Georgians and Abkhazians, the Russians and Georgians, the Circassians and Russians, the Chechens and Georgians). Since the new institutional creation was heavily burdened by Soviet legacy, it became more engaged in struggling with the legacies of the past, rather than in planning and devising a future peaceful framework and a common platform for the Caucasian peoples. The main problem was that the Confederation negatively interfered with the vertical and horizontal division and subjugation of the regional autonomous and republican units. Besides, the pan-Caucasian project was not simply a matter of Caucasians per se; the Russian Federation was also extremely interested in it. In addition, the international marketing of pan-Caucasian projects, like the Caucasian House and the Peaceful Caucasus, further complicated the existing situation. In this respect, any sort of pan-Caucasian unity became an externally projected plan, rather than a scheme for internal consideration and regional consumption. That is, Soviet institutional legacies, ethnic policy, and the important geopolitical location of the region turned the possibility of implementing any pan-Caucasian project into a zero-sum game. Meanwhile, the failed opportunities of wider pan-Caucasian unification determined the failure of any peace project for Abkhazia emerging from pan-Caucasian institutional considerations. So, what was the role of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples in the conflict over Abkhaz- ia that erupted in the early 1990s? The course of developments has demonstrated the negative role played by the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus in post-Soviet Caucasian af- fairs in general, and in the Abkhazian developments of the early 1990s in particular. The first two assemblies of the Confederation were held in 1989 (the founding congress) and in 1990. During the meeting on 25-26 August, 1989, the Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus—AMPC (AGNK is the abbreviation in Russian—Assambleya Gorskikh Narodov Kavkaza) was formed. The AMPC’s Second Congress, held in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, on 13-14 October, 1990, confirmed that “a period of practical work to implement a program for a new state structure for the Northern Caucasus and Abkhazia was on the way.”6 By 1-2 November, 1991, however, the third gathering of the representatives of the mountain peoples of the Caucasus, held in Sukhumi, had transformed the assembly into a confederation. Nevertheless, the Turkish people of the Northern Caucasus—the Balkarians, Karachays, Kumyks, and Nogays—refused to participate in the event, and the Laks even did not respond to the invitation.7 3 “To the Chechen Delegation, Participating in the Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus,” Sakartve-
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