Foreign Policy In Focus - Self-Determination

Self-Determination Crisis Watch is an electronic journal sponsored by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. FPIF, a "think tank without walls," is dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner." The project has received a grant from the Carnegie Corporation to advance new approaches to self-determination conflicts through web-based research and analysis. Crisis Watch presents the latest analysis about self-determination from our international network of experts. For more information, please visit our Self-Determination In Focus website at http://www.selfdetermine.org/index.html. We encourage readers to respond to opinions expressed in Crisis Watch as well as to send in unsolicited commentaries (send to <tom@irc-online.org>) about self-determination issues.

In Macedonia peace remains elusive, despite the signing of a political compromise between Macedonia's ethnic Albanian and Macedonian leaders on August 13. Relations between the country's Macedonian and Albanian communities are on the verge of a complete breakdown.

What the media has termed a "peace deal" bears little resemblance to a veritable peace agreement. Rather, the agreement represents a major reform package, that would radically change the nature of the Macedonian state, which will be celebrating its 10th year of independence on September 8. Facing international political pressure and military pressure from the Albanian insurgency, government negotiators agreed to make many concessions. The agreement provides for broader participation of the Albanian minority in the police, recognition of Albanian as an official language in certain regions of the country, and sweeping constitutional changes designed to enhance the position of minority groups in the country.

The National Liberation Army became active in Macedonia in February 2001. Fighting between the NLA and Macedonian security forces escalated dramatically over the summer months. Currently, the NLA occupies dozens of villages and towns in a wide stretch of Macedonian territory bordering on Kosovo. Each time the NLA would take over a village in Macedonia, they would declare the area "liberated territory" and systematically intimidate and ethnically cleanse the Macedonian population from the region. All these actions, the NLA's leaders claimed, were undertaken in order to gain "equal rights" for Macedonia's Albanian minority, which is estimated at about 30% of the population. The rebels say they will lay down their weapons only if the Macedonian side shows good will in implementing the political agreement. For their part, the Macedonians say they will implement the agreement only after the NLA disarms and relinquishes its territory.

NATO troops have recently entered the volatile Macedonian arena. Lord Robertson, the NATO secretary general, has vowed to disarm the NLA rebels through the 30-day long "Essential Harvest" mission. With a contingent of some 4,000, NATO has promised that it will not forcibly disarm anyone, but will collect only those weapons relinquished voluntarily. According to NATO, the rebels have approximately 2,950 assault weapons, 210 machine guns, 130 mortars and anti-tank missiles, 6 air defense systems, 2 tanks, and 2 armored personnel carriers. The Macedonian government, however, believes the Albanians have at least 85,000 weapons. This dispute over arms estimates threatens to derail the whole peace process and doom NATO's mission even before it starts.

NATO's potential for success in Macedonia is clouded by this loss of credibility with the Macedonian government. Few Macedonians have much faith in the current NATO mission. This skepticism is understandable given the role NATO in this subregion of the Balkans since 1999, when NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia and vowed to reverse the Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanians. Macedonia's government was a willing and eager ally for NATO at that time, opening up its territory and air space to NATO forces. Macedonia still hosts several military camps, which provide logistical support for the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR).

(Robert Greenberg <scholarships@unc.edu> is an expert with Foreign Policy In Focus and an associate professor in Slavic languages at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He spent the past seven months in Macedonia as a Fulbright scholar.)

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Fiji seems destined for more communal conflict, not less, after moderates lost to ethnic hard-liners in parliamentary polls. The elections were held to restore democracy following last year's nationalist coup in the South Pacific country.

Sectarian candidates prevailed in the vote tallied on September 7. As a result, indigenous Fijian businessman George Speight, who has been in prison since leading the May 2000 coup, appears poised to emerge as political kingmaker. This, as Fiji prepares to write a new constitution.

Caretaker Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase declared victory after his nationalist Fijian United Party (known by its local initials, SDL) captured 31 of the legislature's 71 seats. Because that figure falls short of the 37 seats needed to form a government, Qarase is wooing Speight's Conservative Alliance, which won six seats. Speight himself won a seat, prompting his party to demand his release as a condition of any political deal.

The ethnic Indian-dominated Fiji Labor Party won 27 seats. Two independents won seats and three minor parties took a total of four seats. One seat remains unfilled after a candidate died during campaigning.

Ethnic Indians, descendants of indentured laborers imported by colonial Britain, account for about 44 percent of Fiji's 800,000-plus population. Indigenous Fijians, who belong to Melanesian and Polynesian clans, make up about 51 percent.

"We've been through a very difficult time," said Tupeni Baba of the National Labor Unity Party. "We've been through an economic crisis. We've been through a bloodbath and it appears now that the people don't want to go for moderation."

(Abid Aslam <aaslam@igc.org> is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy In Focus and the North America and Caribbean editor of Inter Press Service, an international news agency.)

After the failure of the coup attempt in Moscow in August 1991, leaders of the Russian Federation tried to assert their authority over the Chechen-Ingush Republic. On October 19, President Yeltsin ordered Chechnya to submit to terms promulgated by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation. Dudaev announced mobilization and expansion of the Chechen National Guard, and large popular demonstrations in Grozny supported him. Chechnya tried to act like an independent sovereign state, while Russia continued to regard the Chechen Republic as part of the Russian Federation and subject to its laws. Although Russia failed to establish effective control over Chechnya, the two coexisted until mid-1994.

In February 1994, Russia and Tatarstan--the only republic other than Chechnya that did not sign the March 1992 federal treaty--signed a treaty affirming Russian sovereignty but giving Tatarstan great leeway in domestic affairs. Dudaev, however, refused to enter negotiations with Russia until the latter recognized Chechnya as an independent state and subject to international law. A low-level conflict between the two began in July 1994. After various military incidents, Dudaev in December issued a decree calling the Russian forces "illegal armed formations," while on the same day the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Defense reciprocated the gesture with respect to Chechen forces. Two days later, on December 11, Russian troops invaded Chechnya.

Russian forces leveled Grozny, the capital, and other population centers, but Chechen forces held extensive territory outside the urban centers through 1995 and into 1996, fighting from mountain enclaves. After Russian troops used indiscriminate force in attacking urban centers, Chechen fighters shifted to guerrilla and terrorist tactics against Russian forces. A wave of kidnappings hit the Caucasus region soon after Russian troops pulled out of Chechnya in 1996. In July 1996 Russian forces began a new assault. Through the mediation of General Alexander Lebed, the Khasavyurt accords were signed that August, and Russian military units were withdrawn from Chechen territory in December, leaving the separatist forces in effective control of the Chechen Republic.

International organizations estimate that up to 500,000 people fled Chechnya during the war. In January 1997, the Chechen people elected Aslan Maskhadov as the Republic's president. Also that month, Russia approved an amnesty for Russian soldiers and Chechen rebels who committed illegal acts during the 1994-1996 war.

In August and September of 1999, Islamic extremists based in Chechnya, independent of the government of Chechnya, twice staged armed incursions into the neighboring Russian Federation Republic of Dagestan. When Russia began a new incursion into Chechnya in October that year, it presented the operation as a crusade against terrorism and said it merely wished to subdue bandits operating from the mountains. Chechen leaders said war against the Russian troops would continue as a guerrilla operation involving hit-and-run attacks against Russian positions.

On 8 June 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on the creation of a new, temporary, Chechen administration that will be directly responsible to the Russian president, government, and the president's representative in the North Caucasus, Colonel General Viktor Kazantsev. This new Chechen administration is headed by Stanislav Iliyasov and replaced the Russian government representation in Chechnya headed by Nikolai Koshman.

Neither the Russian nor the Chechen side likes the current, chronic low-level hostilities, where tangible gains cannot be achieved. Moscow seeks to eliminate Chechen field commanders, see weapons decommissioned, and establish a new power structure in the republic, while promoting social and economic reconstruction. The guerilla forces seek to continue their military hostilities to prove they are still viable, able to resist Moscow's troops, and implement terrorist operations against individual officials.

PROFILES OF MAJOR ORGANIZATIONS IN CHECHNYA CONFLICT:

(Note: All organizations in boldface are listed also in the Sources for More Information section at the end of this profile.)

The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, successor to the Chechen National Congress, is the now-disestablished government of Chechnya, which still exists in guerilla opposition. Aslan Maskhadov, a firm believer in Chechnya's independence and important commander in the 1994-1996 war, was elected its president in internationally supervised elections on 27 January 1997. President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation has recently declared direct rule of Chechnya, making official the new local administration, headed with Moscow's blessing by Stanislav Iliyasov.

International organizations from Europe are involved to varying degrees. The European Union has made occasional declarations but is the least involved on the ground. The Council of Europe re-established a field office in Chechnya in mid-2000. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) inaugurated its Znamenskoye office of the OSCE Assistance Group to Chechnya, marking the organization's return to the Republic, on 15 June 2001. The organization's concern in Chechnya is mainly with human rights.

A number of international nongovernmental organizations also monitor the human rights situation in Chechnya. The most prominent of these include Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Other international nongovernmental organizations, more oriented toward conflict reduction, have set out programs and promoted conferences seeking to resolve the conflict in Chechnya. The most representative and detailed such program is perhaps that of the Forum on Early Warning and Early Response.

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS AND EVALUATION OF PROSPECTS:

States tend to view the Chechnya conflict as an internal Russian affair and, at most, make cool, if any, criticism of systematic violations of human rights and the rules of war. International human rights organizations decry these violations but with little effect upon their continuation. Even Turkey, which has a sizeable population of Chechen refugees and social organizations, has reached a tacit agreement with Russia not to mention Chechnya officially, in exchange for Moscow's maintaining silence over the Kurds. International aid organizations tend to avoid the region following the widespread spate of kidnappings in the mid- and late-1990s.

Of the two evident solutions--independent Chechnya or Chechnya with significant autonomy inside the Russian Federation--only the latter has a chance to be at all viable. The international network of regional and policy specialists that comprises the Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER) has identified six directions for promoting economic development, dismantling the war economy, and promoting security. These are: to initiate and coordinate reconstruction efforts, to initiate efforts for a political settlement, to promote the transparency of efforts for a political settlement with media participation, to ensure Chechnya's autonomy, to protect and meet the basic needs of Chechen refugees and displaced persons, and to strengthen law enforcement and the protection of rights in the republic. The near-term possible evolution of the situation includes--in decreasing order of likelihood--the further intensification of hostilities (on a seasonal basis, with late spring through late autumn being the most active), moves toward a political settlement, and a large-scale intensification of the conflict.

WEB SOURCES OF MORE INFORMATION:

Amina LLC, "Chechen Republic Online," http://www.amina.com/. Originally monitored by the Government of the Chechen Republic but no longer, now maintained by a Chechen-sympathetic team that seeks to provide the general public with current news and information about social life in Chechnya.

Andrei Sakharov Foundation, "ASF Chechnya Brief" [anchor page for multiple internal site links], http://www.wdn.com/asf/. Parts of the above "History" section draw heavily on this presentation.

Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, "Index," http://www.chechengovernment.com/. Official documents and point of view of the Maskhadov administration.

Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, "The President of Chechen Republic Ichkeria," http://www.maskhadov.com/. More extensive material from the Maskhadov administration, including materials on Maskhadov personally.

Chechnya Information Channel, "Ichkeria.org/Chechnya Homepage," http://www.ichkeria.org/. Nonprofit organization provides information on Chechnya as seen by the Chechens.

Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Standing Committee, "Declaration on the Conflict in Chechnya" [16 May 2000], http://www.coe.fr/cp/2000/348a(2000).htm.

Jihad in Chechnya, "Jihad in Chechnya," http://www.qoqaz.net/. News and analysis from the Islamist (as distinct from Islamic) viewpoint, a site maintained by Azzam Publications.

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, "OSCE Assistance Group to Chechnya," http://www.osce.org/chechnya/.

Voice of Russia, "Chechnya" [index page of a subsite of the Russian Informational Center of the Russian Federation's Ministry for Press, Television, Radio Broadcasting and Mass Communication], http://www.vor.ru/Chechnya/. Reflects the official Russian viewpoint, with regular reports on the situation Chechnya.

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Table of Contents

Also See:

PROFILES OF MAJOR ORGANIZATIONS IN CHECHNYA CONFLICT:

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS AND EVALUATION OF PROSPECTS:

WEB SOURCES OF MORE INFORMATION: