Peace In Chechnya? The Problem and Possibilities for Resolution

Strengthening Democratic Institution
Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project
John F. Kennedy School of Government

March, 1997

I. Basic Realities in Moscow

The Russian Government’s attempt to solve the Chechen problem militarily was a mistake––according to the overwhelming consensus of the politically active in Moscow. As Russian President Boris Yeltsin stated in an October 1995 press conference in the Kremlin: “This is the biggest disappointment of my entire presidency ... I think we may agree with the criticism of Western states that use of force could have been avoided.” The issue, therefore, is: having stumbled into a blind alley and paid significant costs how can Moscow extricate itself?

President Boris Yeltsin has stated repeatedly his own judgment that he can not be reelected in June 1996 if the war continues in Chechnya. On some occasions his dominant concern appears to be his fear that withdrawing the Russian troops from Chechnya will lead to a slaughterhouse.” At other moments, he is clearly searching for a compromise, in the absence of which he believes his government will be rejected on June 16.

In February and March he created three commissions under the Russian Government, the Presidential Council and the Presidential Administration to analyze solutions to the war. Most recently (as of this writing), on March 15, after a meeting of the Russian Security Council to discuss final proposals, President Yeltsin asserted that a solution had been found but that no details would be made public until later this month. On March 19 a Presidential spokesman announced that this “secret” plan approved by the Security Council was already underway in Chechnya.

The creation of a series of competing commissions suggests an intense, sometimes frantic, search for a solution. In the noise around the search one can make out two powerful opposing tendencies. On the one hand, one group clearly prefers negotiations––including with Dudaev––to reach some conclusion that will leave Chechnya within the Russian Federation. On the other hand, the “Power Ministries” and those forces entangled with responsibility for the course of the war appear intent on achieving a military solution.

On the ground in Chechnya, the outline of a plan can already be discerned. The Moscow-backed Chechen government under Prime Minister Doku Zavgaev and the Russian commander of the federal forces in Chechnya, Lt. General Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, have begun to secure individual peace agreements with those Chechen regions and villages that agree to expel Dudaev’s fighters. On March 14, the Russian press reported that agreements had been reached with 8 regions and districts and a number of villages. On March 18, Defense Minister Grachev suggested that Russian troops would begin to withdraw from these regions and from Chechnya in April. In the meantime, the Russian military is pursuing a series of full-scale strikes against Dudaev strongholds in the Achkoi-Martanovsky region and villages that refuse to conclude a peace agreement with Zavgaev’s government and the federal forces.

Over the past 15 months Chechnya has been a tragedy of errors for the Russian Government. An attempted covert action by the security services failed in Fall 1994; followed by Defense Minister Grachev’s delusion that the military could solve the Chechen problem in 48 hours; succeeded by Russian sledgehammer tactics that destroyed the capital, Grozny; and finally the botched and bloody attempt at Pervomaiskoye to free the ethnic Russian hostages taken by Chechen terrorists in neighboring Dagestan.

Russian military, Interior Ministry, and Security Service forces have proven incapable of imposing a military solution. The performance of the Russian military and Interior Ministry forces raises, for any objective observer, the most serious questions about these institutions’ current capabilities. Nowhere are these questions raised more vividly than in the failed effort to surround and capture 200 Chechen fighters in the isolated village at Pervomaiskoye in Dagestan, and in the recent assault by more than 1000 Chechen fighters on Grozny in which they succeeded in capturing huge swathes of the city from Russian federal forces for over a week.

II. Basic realities in Chechnya

Multiple power centers exist on the ground with control of Chechen regions split among the Moscow-backed government of Prime Minister Doku Zavgaev, the forces of Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev, district “chieftains,” and the Russian federal forces who maintain checkpoints on all the main roads, bridges, borders and entries into Grozny. Even in Grozny while the Russian forces rule by day, the Chechen fighters have the night.

Dzhokhar Dudaev’s forces are engaged with Russian federal forces in a war of attrition which has now resulted in the deaths of as many as 50,000 civilians, many of whom were elderly Russians unable to escape the cities. Some 600,000 of the approximately 1,200,000 people living in Chechnya before the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 are refugees, and an additional 250,000 have lost their homes through the systematic destruction of Chechen villages by Russian forces.

Neighboring North Caucasian republics, such as Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia, are increasingly being affected by the activities of Russian federal forces and have been used as staging grounds for attacks on Chechen strongholds. Fears of a wider war have been raised as a result by regional leaders.

III. Essential Actors and Their Objective Interests in Chechnya

Yeltsin:
Halting the current bloody round of the war before the June 1996 Russian Presidential Elections.

Saving face politically and militarily by not appearing to concede defeat to a Chechen government under Dzhokhar Dudaev who has been branded a “gangster” and to Chechen fighters who have been dismissed as “bandits” and “terrorists.”

Retaining the appearance of military and interior ministry capacity for both internal and external audiences who are observing events in Chechnya closely.

Maintaining the territorial integrity of the Russian state.

Mitigating the impact of any compromise agreement with Chechnya on other negotiations with autonomous republics of the Russian Federation.

Ensuring the security of all existing and planned pipelines for oil from the Caspian Sea that run through Chechnya, Grozny and the Caucasus region.

Settling the war in Chechnya in a way that promotes stability in the Caucasus.

Dudaev:
Independence or autonomy for Chechnya. Are there conditions under which he is prepared to accept autonomy rather than independence?

Maintaining his position as leader of Chechnya. If he decided to settle for less than independence for Chechnya, could he survive as leader?

Zavgaev:
Ensuring the complete removal of Dudaev from power and the affirmation of his government.

Securing Chechnya’s autonomy within the Russian Federation.

Chechen Field Commanders:
Ensuring the complete removal of Russian troops from Chechen territory.

Obtaining the best possible position for themselves––militarily, politically or financially––in any final settlement. And for some, like Shamil Basaev, securing Chechnya’s de jure independence from Russia.

IV. Analytic options for the resolution of the conflict

Yeltsin:
Based on the realities on the ground and the objective Russian interests, Yeltsin faces three alternative paths to resolution: 1) Russian federal forces can continue the war in the hope of crushing Dudaev, either by achieving an outright military victory or by gradual strangulation; 2) Russian troops can withdraw and give Chechnya its independence on terms that meet the minimum conditions of the actors whose consent is required; or 3) a negotiated settlement can be found to end the war and reintegrate Chechnya into the Russian Federation. Each path leads to a number of possible options for settlement.

1) Continue the War

Military Victory:
A. Attempt to crush Dudaev by increased use of force in a series of full-scale assaults on existing Chechen strongholds which would destroy Chechen forces and the towns and villages sheltering them.

B. Attempt to isolate Dudaev in the smallest number of districts or areas by a strategy of pacification district by district. This would involve a combination of deals with local leaders and Russian military destruction of villages that refuse to reach an agreement.

C. Attempt to eliminate Dudaev through covert actions, perhaps hired out to mercenary forces.

Gradual Strangulation:
A. Seek to resolve the conflict at a lower cost for Russian forces by quarantining Chechnya or the Dudaev-dominated districts of Chechnya to restrict physical movement and trade from beyond its borders and then wait for the Dudaev government or a successor to come to terms.

B. A, plus military assistance and financial support to an anti-Dudaev group or groups prepared to settle for autonomy within the framework of the Russian Federation.

2) Independence for Chechnya:

A. Grant Chechnya outright independence and either cut it off entirely or punish the republic with a trade embargo.

B. Hold a referendum on the status of Chechnya with the participation of all the republic’s population, including refugees. If a majority of the Chechen population chooses to leave the Russian Federation, as seems likely given the demonstrations in favor of independence in Grozny and other towns recently attacked by Russian troops, Chechnya would become an independent state.

C. Hold a referendum on the status of each district of Chechnya. Regions adjacent to the Russian Federation where the majority wishes to remain in Russia would separate formally from Chechnya. The rump Chechen republic would then become an independent sovereign state.

3) A Negotiated Settlement:

This requires choices about both process and outcomes.

A. Propose negotiations with Dudaev on terms of Chechen autonomy within the Russian Federation and within Chechnya, based on the “Tatarstan model plus.” An agreement would be sweetened by a commitment from the Russian government, supported by other governments and international institutions, to provide economic assistance for the reconstruction of Chechnya.

B. Refer the dispute to a third party to propose a resolution–– either an international arbitration committee or a panel of heads of the republics of the Russian Federation.

C. Defer resolution by accepting a state of deliberate ambiguity in which Russia would assert that Chechnya was autonomous within the Russian Federation and Dudaev would say Chechnya was independent, but Russian troops would withdraw, and there would be an agreement on an internationally supervised referendum to be held at a fixed date 10 years hence. This is a variant of the settlement of the Saarland after World War I in which an often fought over area on the French-German border was left in ambiguous status for more than a decade pending a referendum.

Dudaev:
Dudaev’s options are much more limited than Yeltsin’s. He and his forces can either:

1) Continue the war in the hope that the tide of Russian and international opinion will force President Yeltsin and the current Russian Government to stop the war, or that after the June Presidential elections a new Russian government will choose to settle in Chechnya’s favor.

2) Compromise on the issue of de jure independence and seek a political settlement now that will at least ensure operational autonomy for the republic.

V. Constraints on Essential Actors

Yeltsin:
Time. The logic of international diplomacy (the G7+1 meeting in Moscow on April 19) and the Russian elections (June 16) have concentrated Yeltsin’s mind on finding some announceable solution now.

Given Yeltsin’s assertions about Russia’s stakes in Chechnya, the duration of the war, and the cost in blood and treasure, acceptance of formal Chechen independence is not on. This would be attacked by opponents as capitulation and would result in a collapse of confidence in the credibility and capability of the Russian Government.

Given the casualties among the Russian military and interior forces and the scale of the military action, anything short of a decisive victory probably seems unacceptable to the Russian military. But, rhetoric aside, the fact is that Russian forces have proved unable to crush the Chechen fighters. Moreover, the Russian forces have consistently underestimated Dudaev’s capabilities and overestimated their own.

Dudaev:
Although Dudaev’s popularity has been bolstered by Russian brutality, he exercises limited control over Chechen fighters and the extent of his support is disputable. The raids on Budennovsk in June 1995, and on Kislyar in January 1996, suggest that a number of Chechen field commanders are pursuing their own campaigns. Having brought his country to the brink of destruction by his insistence on independence, he may also be unable to admit defeat or make major concessions on Chechen sovereignty. With the end of hostilities, given the number of opposition leaders ranged against him, most analysts anticipate a further round of armed conflict between Dudaev and other groups.

Zavgaev:
Neither Zavgaev nor any other Chechen opposition leader is likely to command the confidence of a sufficient majority of the Chechen people to achieve full control of the republic. The most likely scenario after a Russian withdrawal from Chechnya is an Afghanistan-style civil war. If Russia has a client, it may find itself forced into the same position as in Tajikistan vis-ŕ-vis the Rakhmonov government.

VI. Possible Process for Reaching a Settlement Given These Interests and Constraints

Our analysis suggests that the most likely course of events in the near term is a Russian version of United States Senator Aitken’s recommendation to President Johnson in Vietnam to “declare victory and withdraw.” (In fact, that strategy was adopted 6 years later by President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger, but without acknowledgement.) We expect Yeltsin to announce peace in Chechnya, and the withdrawal of Russian military units, leaving continuing efforts to pacify districts and isolate Dudaev to special operations of Ministry of Interior and Security Service forces. The Achilles’ heel of this strategy is that Dudaev and his forces have not been defeated. Dudaev’s ability to deploy more than 1000 Chechen fighters in Grozny in early March serves as a stark reminder that he retains significant military capacity. Thus a military analyst would have to anticipate initiative by Dudaev’s forces. The question is now––if Yeltsin adopts this path and it fails (or even if he anticipates failure down this path) could he decide to shift to the path of negotiations? If he can, the process might include the following:

Agreement by the Russian Government to negotiate directly with Dudaev.

Ceasefire and the conclusion of a military accord––this could be a revival of the July 30, 1995 military accord between the Russian and Chechen governments in the wake of the Budennovsk crisis.

Negotiations between the Russian government and all Chechen parties: Dudaev, Zavgaev, and others.

Facilitation of these initial negotiations by a third party group: 1) to help search for common ground among the parties, 2) to serve as guarantors of the process and of the concrete military and political agreements.

Creation of a Special Observation Commission (as envisaged in the July 30, 1995 military accord) to carry out the organizational work and control the implementation of the negotiations and agreements on a range of military issues. The Commission would consist of representatives of both sides, including all Chechen forces, Chechen elders, the clergy, the territorial administration of the federal government in Chechnya, and the military commanders in chief of both the Russian federal forces and the Chechen armed forces.

Conclusion of district by district peace agreements with local Chechen commanders, elders and local authorities; the release of all military prisoners and others forcibly detained as a result of the war on the basis of “all for all” within a fixed time period; the disarmament of all illegal armed formations in Chechnya; and the simultaneous stage by stage withdrawal of Russian troops––all under the close supervision of the Special Observation Commission, and with the participation of observers from the OSCE (again as agreed in the July 30, 1995 military accord).

Operational agreement on the terms and conditions of life in Chechnya under a transition period of legal ambiguity––using the “Tatarstan model” to delimit the authority of Moscow and Grozny over key issues without making any final determination of Chechnya’s de jure political status.

Elections for a new Chechen government, with preparations for the elections made by the Special Observation Commission, and a plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Chechen republic, and the monitoring of the elections conducted by the Commission and observers from the OSCE.

Referendum to determine the ultimate status of the republic at some fixed date in the future, after a transition period of 10 years (similar to the process for the Saarland after World War I).

VII. Who Could Serve as a Third Party Negotiator?

Regional leaders from the North Caucasus, for example Dagestan and Ingushetia and others from major Russian centers such as Stavropol and Krasnodar.

A group of presidents of autonomous republics within the Russian Federation led by President Mintimer Shaimiev from Tatarstan.

A group of regional leaders from the Russian Federation led by President Shaimiev and Boris Nemtsov of Nizhny Novgorod.

President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia, perhaps in conjunction with a Russian regional leader, like President Shaimiev of Tatarstan––in line with Shevardnadze’s recent proposal for a “Grand Bargain” solution for the Caucasus which would approach the resolution of the conflicts in Chechnya, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh as a single package.

A high-level joint team from the Muslim clergy and the Orthodox Church. Islam is an important cultural factor in Chechnya and Dagestan and the Muslim clergy in Dagestan already have a successful tradition of mediating inter-group disputes. This would also play into the traditional Caucasus respect for elders, which the Muslim clergy of Dagestan have frequently utilized. The Orthodox Church is also enjoying a political revival in Russia and has protested the continuation of the war. Fielding a joint team could capitalize on the prestige of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as promoting improved Orthodox-Islamic relations in Russia as a whole.

A high-level UN or OSCE special envoy along the lines of Cyrus Vance and David Owen for Bosnia or some other prominent former statesman. Candidates: Jimmy Carter (former US President); Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (former French President); Hans-Dietrich Genscher (former German Foreign Minister); Ruud Lubbers (former Dutch Prime Minister); David Owen (former British Foreign Secretary); Colin Powell (former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff).