IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, No. 53: excerpts
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Subject: IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, No. 53: excerpts
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IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, No. 53: excerpts
WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, NO. 53, October 13, 2000
VETERANS FALL PREY TO RACKETEERS AND BUREAUCRATS Russian "contract"
troops returning from Chechnya complain they are being cheated of
their hard-won wages. By Mikhail Ivanov in Moscow
SPOON-FEEDING IN CHECHNYA The federal press centre's trips to the
warzone are expertly stage-managed - and utterly unenlightening. Erik
Batuev reports from Chechnya
THE LEGACY OF "DIVIDE AND RULE" The first in a two-part series
examining the roots of conflict in the North Caucasus. Shy Zakya
reports from Nalchik
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................
THE LEGACY OF "DIVIDE AND RULE"
The first in a two-part series examining the roots of conflict in the
North Caucasus
By Shy Zakya in Nalchik
It is tempting to dismiss the regional conflicts of the North Caucasus
as outbursts of religious, nationalist or separatist feeling. Tempting
because this approach ignores the political, ideological and economic
roots which go back through the centuries. And these are roots which,
to the frustration of the central authorities in Moscow, defy
short-term solutions and violent acts of repression.
Standing on the border between Europe and Asia, straddling the Black
and Caspian seas, the North Caucasus occupies a strategically vital
position on the world map. The region is also torn between conflicting
religious cultures - the Orthodox Russians to the North, Iran and
Turkey to the south. Furthermore, its natural resources - such as oil,
tungsten and molybdenum - have redoubled its geopolitical significance
over the past two centuries.
Consequently, successive invaders have looked on the North Caucasus as
a valuable prize - the Scythians, the Arabs, the Persians and the
Mongols, then the armies of Tamerlaine the Great, the Russian tsars
and Adolf Hitler. And unsurprisingly the local tribes developed strong
military traditions and gained a reputation for stubborn,
uncompromising resistance.
This stormy history bequeathed the region a bewildering range of
disparate tribes and dialects, although, by the beginning of the 19th
century, the Adygeans (or Circassians) had emerged as the dominant
ethnic group. At this time, they occupied the territory that extends
from the shores of the Black Sea to the Terek and Sunzhi delta and
were famous for their unbending code of honour.
Russia's colonial campaigns in the North Caucasus date from this time
- vicious, bloody wars that set one tribe against another, playing on
the old divisions and the culture of blood vengeance. With this in
mind, the Imperial armies built a string of fortresses from which they
could launch punitive expeditions, burning down villages and
plundering arable land and livestock. They employed a scorched-earth
policy, levelling forests and causing irreparable damage to the local
ecology.
During this time, the North Caucasus split into two distinct halves -
the Dagestanis and Chechens in the east and the Adygeans and
Abkhazians in the west. By the 1830s, the eastern part was already
dominated by the religious ideas of the "Gazavat" - which held holy
war against the unbelievers at the centre of its ideology.
Islam enabled the legendary Imam Shamil to unite both Dagestanis and
Chechens into a theocratic state which in turn allowed organised
resistance to be established. However, external pressures and internal
contradictions combined to bring about Shamil's downfall in 1859.
In the west, religion never played a decisive role. An attempt by Naib
("General") Shamil Mahomed-Amin to unite the Adygeans on religious
grounds was doomed to failure simply because his credo conflicted with
the deep-rooted traditions and customs of the Circassian tribes.
The Adygeans, however, rallied to a different banner - the ideology of
war itself. The warrior's chief concern was not where he would go
after death but what the bards (dzheguako) would sing about his
exploits in the heroic epics. The Adygean code was governed by a love
of freedom and their homeland - and this love was best expressed in
the desire to fight and die for them.
Prior to the Russian invasion, the Adygean peoples were divided by
internal feuding but the wars against the tsars united them - the
Kabardinians, the Shapsug, the Cherkess and Ubykh - and their
organised resistance continued for five years after the defeat of Imam
Shamil.
Historians often overlook the fact that the aggressive policies of a
Christian state (Russia) against the North Caucasus persuaded the bulk
of the local population to convert to Islam - more as a symbol of
resistance and defiance rather than an expression of religious
conviction. By 1864 and the final defeat of the Adygean tribes, only
the Ossetians, the Abkhazians and a small section of the Kabardinian
peoples remained Christian.
The Russian Empire continued to oppress the North Caucasian peoples
long after the fighting had ended. Hundreds of thousands were driven
from their homes by special punitive detachments and, by the 1870s,
only 3% of the pre-war Adygean population was left in the region. The
survivors lived in tiny enclaves surrounded by Russian colonists.
The Russians went on to give the Adygeans the official status of
"aliens" living within the borders of their empire. As a result, the
Caucasians had no legal rights and all disputes were settled by
military courts. It was a situation which caused Lenin to describe the
Russian Empire as "a vast prison of its peoples".
Unsurprisingly, the ethnic minorities of the North Caucasus were
ardent supporters of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
The Soviet government made an encouraging start. Autonomous republics
and oblasts were created whilst efforts were made to preserve national
languages and cultures. But, under Stalin, the borders between the
republics were established arbitrarily, forcing ethnically diverse
peoples to share disputed territories.
The Adygeans were divided into four official groups - the
Kabardinians, the Cherkess, the Adygeans and the Shapsug - whilst the
ethnic Russians were established as the "elder brothers" of all the
"smaller" peoples. Gradually, a policy of Russification was set in
motion with all national traditions being declared harmful
anachronisms. A levelling of peoples began, leading to a gradual
erosion of national cultures.
In time, the history of the 110-year war in the North Caucasus was
rewritten in a bid to persuade the Caucasian peoples that they had
joined the ranks of the Russian Empire voluntarily.
But the greatest uprooting of all came in 1944 when Stalin deported
millions of Chechens, Ingush, Balkars and Karachai to Central Asia for
allegedly collaborating with the Nazis. The deportations cost the
lives of thousands of these enforced "settlers" and it was not until
1957, during the Khrushchev thaw, that the exiles were allowed to
return to the Caucasus.
On their return, some fared better than others. The Balkars, for
example, found their villages were unclaimed and they were given the
chance to inhabit the fertile lowlands once occupied by the Adygeans.
The Karachai, on the other hand, discovered their traditional
territories had been taken over by the Cherkess while the Ingush had
been displaced by Ossetian settlers.
The deportations effectively served to open up the old rifts which had
split the Caucasian peoples in the centuries before the Russian
invasions. And the resentment which was allowed to fester during the
next 30 years of Soviet rule exploded into open conflict as soon as
the Communist state collapsed.
Continued next week...
Shy Zakya is a historian and political commentator from
Kabardino-Balkaria
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IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service provides the regional and
international community with unique insiders' perspective on the
Caucasus. Using our network of local journalists, the service
publishes objective news and analysis from across the region upon a
weekly basis.
The service forms part of IWPR's Caucasus Project based in Tbilisi and
London which supports local media development while encouraging better
local and international understanding of a conflicted yet emerging
region.
IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service is supported by the UK National
Lottery Charities Board. The service is currently available on the Web
in English and will shortly be available in Russian. All IWPR's
reporting services including Balkan Crisis Reports and Tribunal Update
are available free of charge via e-mail subscription or direct from
the Web.
The institute will be launching a fourth news service, IWPR Central
Asia Reports, in the coming months. To subscribe to any of our
existing or forthcoming news services, e-mail IWPR Programmes Officer
Duncan Furey at [email protected].
For further details on this project and other information services and
media programmes, visit IWPR's Website: <www.iwpr.net>.
Editor-in-chief: Anthony Borden. Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan;
Assistant Editor: Alan Davis. Commissioning Editors: Giorgi Topouria
in Tbilisi, Shahin Rzayev in Baku, Mark Grigorian in Yerevan, Michael
Randall and Saule Mukhametrakhimova in London. Editorial Assistance:
Felix Corley and Heather Milner. To comment on this service, contact
IWPR's Programme Director: Alan Davis [email protected]
The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) is a London-based
independent non-profit organisation supporting regional media and
democratic change.
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The opinions expressed in IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service are those
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Copyright (c) IWPR 2000
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