|
|
|
|
The Search for Peace in Chechnya: A Sourcebook 1994-1996
Preface
March, 1997
This sourcebook brings together materials produced by the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project (SDI) at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government during its monitoring of the war between the Russian Federation and the secessionist republic of Chechnya that began in December 1994, and its analysis of the subsequent peace process leading up to the August 1996 Khasavyurt accord.
The SDI Project is a private, non-profit research initiative funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York which works to catalyze and provide support for three historic transformations taking place in Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union: to sustainable democracies, free market economies and cooperative international relations. In 1993, in the context of research on post-Soviet ethno-political conflicts, the Caucasus was identified as one of the most volatile regions of the former USSR and worthy of further intensive study. In July 1993, the Project produced a background report on Ethnic Conflict in the Russian Federation and Transcaucasia, and in 1994-1995 SDI conducted an in-depth study of conflict in the North Caucasus region. A final report from this study, Russia's Tinderbox: Conflict in the North Caucasus and its Implications for the Future of the Russian Federation, was published in August 1995.
A large quantity of memoranda, briefings and documents have been produced and collected in the course of this research and follow-up activities, including cooperation with the Cambridge Massachusetts-based Conflict Management Group (CMG) in framing a session on Chechnya at the meeting of the Hague Initiative in the Netherlands in March 1996. This session was chaired by President Mintimer Shaimiev of Tatarstan, and SDI Director Graham Allison, and brought together Russian government and Chechen representatives, including Russian Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov, to discuss a negotiated solution to the war. The sourcebook includes the memorandum produced by the SDI Project for participants in the Hague Initiative and the final public statement from the session on Chechnya.
The main items in this volume are, however, an expanded chronology of the unfolding peace process in Chechnya and a collection of supporting original documents obtained from Russian and Chechen sources, SDI associates and the Russian press. The chronology reveals successive failed attempts to end the war in Chechnya by diplomatic means and a series of negotiations conducted against a backdrop of ongoing military conflict. The first turning-point in the peace process came in the summer of 1995 with Chechen commander Shamil Basaev's surprise attack on the Russian city of Budennovsk in Stavropol Krai in June.
Prior to this juncture negotiations had been conducted behind the scenes by Russian plenipotentiaries to try to persuade Chechnya to suspend its 1991 declaration of independence from the Russian Federation and to conclude a bilateral treaty on powersharing and autonomy, similar to that signed by the Federation and the Republic of Tatarstan in February 1994. Prominent Russian political figures, such as former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, and human rights activist Sergei Kovalev, had also spoken out strongly against the war and urged the government of President Boris Yeltsin to seek an immediate political solution. Until Budennovsk, however, the peace process was pursued in what can only be described as a half-hearted manner. Shamil Basaev's raid demonstrated that the Chechens were both determined and capable of taking the war outside Chechnya's borders and that the Russian Federation was vulnerable to such attacks from the "inside." The inability of Russian forces to free hostages taken by the Chechens in a bloody showdown at Budennovsk's hospital discredited Russia's military operation in the Caucasus and brought the direct and highly visible intervention of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in the negotiations.
Budennovsk, and Chernomyrdin's involvement in securing the release of the hostages, propelled Moscow toward the negotiating table. In the wake of the raid, Russia and Chechnya concluded a military accord on July 30, 1995 which made provisions for a ceasefire and the gradual withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. By the Fall of 1995, however, the accord had disintegrated into a further round of fighting and mutual recrimination. This was exacerbated by Chechen commander Salman Raduev's hostage-taking raid on the village of Kizlyar in neighboring Dagestan in January 1996 and a military confrontation in the border settlement of Pervomaiskoye that resulted in the deaths of hostages and Russian servicemen, and the escape of most of the Chechen forces.
By Spring 1996 and the beginning of the Russian presidential election campaign, the war in Chechnya had become a major campaign headache for President Yeltsin and his team. Public opinion polls consistently showed that the majority of the Russian population was opposed to the war in Chechnya, and a lightning strike on the Chechen capital of Grozny by separatist forces in early March 1996 refuted Moscow's claims that most of Chechnya was under the control of Russian federal forces and the Moscow-backed Chechen government of Doku Zavgaev. Demands increased for political action, and on March 31, 1996, President Yeltsin announced a major initiative to bring about peace before the June presidential election. This initiative seemed to suggest a ceasefire and intensive negotiations, but it was Russian military strikes against the strongholds of Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev that intensified after March 31, and in April 1996 Dzhokhar Dudaev himself was killed in a missile attack.
Although a series of diplomatic maneuvers in May and June--including a visit to Moscow by Acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, a lightning visit to Chechnya by President Yeltsin, and a press blackout--succeeded in diverting public attention from the war during the presidential elections, the conflict was far from over. In late June and July 1996, Moscow continued to pursue a dual policy in Chechnya: high-level negotiations were accompanied by military actions aimed at completely wiping-out the secessionist forces and establishing the authority of the Moscow-backed Chechen government. It took another raid by the Chechens on Grozny in August 1996--this time resulting in the almost complete rout of the Russian forces guarding the city--to force a policy change. The Chechen raid indicated that only a full-scale and totally devastating attack on both the city and the republic could turn the tide of the war in Russia's favor. There was, however, no domestic political support for such drastic action and the civilian and military casualties it would entail. An ultimatum to the Chechen forces in Grozny from the Russian military commander and a warning to civilians to evacuate the city also provoked an impassioned international outcry and calls for an immediate end to the violence.
The absence of political will to eject the Chechen forces from Grozny by force resulted in Alexander Lebed's peace initiative in late August and the signing of an accord in the Dagestani village of Khasavyurt on: a ceasefire, troop withdrawal and an agreement to resolve the issue of Chechnya's status within a 5-year period. The Khasavyurt accord marked the end of the full-scale Russian military campaign against Chechnya and the pullout of Russian federal forces from its territory. Although the negotiations initially envisaged the permanent stationing of two Russian brigades in Chechnya, by November 1996 President Yeltsin had agreed to remove all troops from the republic.
The peace process was, however, far from over with the Khasavyurt accords. The legality of the accords was questioned by the Russian Constitutional Court and the Parliament, and the Russian political elite split on the issue of Chechnya's status and the possibility of its eventual independence from the Russian Federation that was implied in the document. In spite of the election of former Chechen Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov as President in elections that were pronounced "free and fair" by international observers in January 1997, Chechen politics was also fractured. Heavily armed factions persisted in carrying out raids and kidnappings in Chechnya and neighboring regions and challenged Maskhadov's authority.
Negotiations between Russia and Chechnya now proceed against a backdrop of a lack of consensus in both Moscow and Grozny on fundamental issues, the economic devastation of Chechnya, a refugee and humanitarian crisis, and the failure to complete the demilitarization of the republic begun by the Russian troop withdrawal. It is our hope that this sourcebook will be of some use as a reference material for those analysts monitoring the peace process as it progresses.
The sourcebook has been produced by SDI Associate Director Fiona Hill and Research Assistants Diane Curran and Elena Kostritsyna. The SDI Project is also extremely grateful to Diane Roazen for her help with obtaining documents and to Henry Hale and John Henriksen for their assistance in translating materials.
Email this citation