WPS AGENCY, RUSSIA
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
August 13, 2008 Wednesday
SOUTH WITH ELEMENTS OF NORTH
by Ivan Sukhov
CRISIS IN THE CAUCASUS COMPROMISES STABILITY OF THE RUSSIAN REPUBLICS
IN THE REGION; Conflict in South Ossetia threatens to disrupt
stability of the Russian Caucasus.
The Caucasus Range whose peoples President Dmitry Medvedev guaranteed
security this Monday forms the Russian state border on the territory
between the Black and Caspian seas. It was different, once.
At first, the Caucasus was a colossal "white spot" between the Russian
domains in Georgia and its environs on the one hand and Russian
fortresses on the Terek and in Kuban on the other. Following that, it
was part of the Russian Empire. Political-administrative geography of
the USSR in the region owes its existence to the outcome of WWI that
gave life to Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan within the frontiers
resembling the existing ones.
The Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, when it was already clear that
the political-administrative division the Caucasus owed to the
Bolsheviks (and the one recognized by the international community, for
that matter) included several ethnic "landmines". Some of them went
off in the late 1980s. In the first half of the 1990s therefore,
Armenia found itself at war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia in its turn backed two self-proclaimed formations on its
borders (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) at the cost of relations with
Georgia.
This support of the self-proclaimed republics was dictated by the
necessity to stop the bloodshed in conflict areas and, no less
importantly, prevent the lack of stability from spreading into the
Russian part of the Caucasus. It turned out all of a sudden that the
borders prevented contacts between peoples but never served as an
impenetrable barrier for weapons, gunmen, and separatist ideas. Russia
and Georgia put the Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts on hold and
left them for later, for when they themselves would be stronger and
hopefully capable of settling the matter.
Accomplished through blood and efforts by the middle of Vladimir
Putin’s second presidency, relative stabilization in the Caucasus
became one of the factors that convinced Russia of its strength in the
region. Chechnya was finally pacified sufficiently to take its place
among other Federation subjects. By 2003-2005, it ceased being the
locomotive force generating lack of stability in the region and
beyond. The Kremlin replaced leaders in some other, less potentially
volatile republics. It sparked there the hope that the population
would be spared life under the semi-independent regimes selling their
loyalty to Moscow in return for subsidies. Moreover, the general level
of prosperity increased some.
The only catch is, all these successes and accomplishments are
fictitious. Pacification of Chechnya only demonstrated inability of
the federal center to accomplish elementary military objectives on a
limited territory through deployment of its own regular army and
police force and without help from the local elites who only feign
obedience and loyalty to Russia. These elites established in the
republic the regime of practically complete internal freedom from
elementary demands of the federal legislation. They rely on their own
security structures staffed with former gunmen.
In fact, Moscow’s control over Chechnya was gauged for a long period
by Putin’s control over Ramzan Kadyrov. There was a period when
charismatic Kadyrov did gain popularity and was in the position to
become a leader of the whole Caucasus. Shortcomings of this project
became apparent this May. It seems that Kadyrov’s personal popularity
increases no longer because all of Chechnya feels his insecurity.
Indeed, who is going to become the lord-protector of Chechnya now that
Russia has a new president? Other Chechens – wealthy and powerful –
began going to Moscow assuring it of their loyalty and castigating
Project Kadyrov as faulty. Chechen youths in the meantime join the
resistance so that Russian convoys in Chechnya are no longer
safe. Kadyrov is not to be blamed of course. The blame rests with the
system forced on the regions when gubernatorial elections were
abolished. After all, personal loyalty stipulates that a new suzerain
may (and probably will) have new vassals.
These tectonic shifts in the regional elites are not restricted to
Chechnya alone. They are noticed in other Russian regions. In the
Caucasus, however, they are somewhat unique because – unfortunately –
these elites are undeniably connected with the underworld. Paradoxical
as it may appear, but the local authorities are both the enemy and
sponsor of the gunmen fighting under the green Islamic flag. Some are
paying gunmen just to be left alone, others to remove an adversary. It
is hardly surprising therefore that a crime wave is reported to be
hitting all of the Russian Caucasus again. The governors (presidents,
whoever) appointed by Moscow never elbowed local crooks out but did
waste away a great deal of the population’s trust. Turf fighting and
power struggle are only to be expected as a result.
To a certain extent, local power struggle is one of the elements of
the crisis in South Ossetia. This republic has never been a Russian
region, but it has adopted a great deal of aspects of the political
systems existing in the Russian republics nearby. Creature of Russian
security structures, President Eduard Kokoity couldn’t help wondering
what the new arrangement of forces in Moscow would have on his own
lobbyist capacities. Just like some of his counterparts across the
mountains.
Sociologists in the meantime emphasize that more and more young men
from good families, once who received proper education, are joining
the regional jihad currently split into all sorts of petty splinter
groups and movements. They are not illiterate and impoverished
peasants anymore, which means that better prosperity alone does not
impede proliferation of radical Islam.
Last but not the least, there are certain channels by which the crisis
may spread from South Ossetia to the Russian Caucasus. South Ossetian
refugees in North Ossetia create pressure on the Ossetian-Ingushetian
conflict area where consequences of the bloody clashes in 1992 are
only proclaimed resolved and settled. Ingushetia is still convinced
that literally thousands were ousted from their homes in ethnic purges
in 1992. Even if refugees from South Ossetia are not as numerous as
the North Ossetians claim, their appearance in North Ossetia will
inevitably mount ethnic tension already elevated by the tragedy in
Beslan.
Source: Vremya Novostei, August 12, 2008, p. 4
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress