HOW TO RETURN TO NORMALITY IN CHECHNYA

Aleksandr Khalmukhamedov

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Aleksandr KHALMUKHAMEDOV, department head, RF Ministry for the Federation and Nationalities Affairs.

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The wave of crime in Chechnya brought the republic beyond the legal limits of the Russian Federation and undermined the very foundations of Chechen society. By this the policy of separatism demonstrated its failure.

Five main factors explain this development: (a) the secular institutes of power were completely destroyed when President Maskhadov in February 1999 introduced Shari’ah by decree. The national-democratic state ideology was transformed into a clerical-military ideology; (b) the field commanders became deputies to parliament and leaders of the ‘parties’. They constitute the economic class (criminal oligarchy) and the ruling political elite and decide whether or not President Maskhadov should remain president, and whether talks with Moscow should proceed at all; (c) the economy of the republic shifted to such practices as stealing oil, trading in hostages and using their labour, drug trafficking, forgery, etc.; (d) an exodus of the civilian population took place. According to official figures 220 000 Russians and Russian speakers and 650 000 Chechens have left Chechnya since 1992. That means that in the Chechen Republic, which by the early 1990s had been home to about one million, 870 000 voted with their feet against the Dudaev-Maskhadov regime; (e) the idea of national self-determination was carried to the point of absurdity as medieval clan customs were revived. Under Dudaev the clan (teip) affiliation became the determining factor for political and human relations. The important aspect was no longer who you are as a person but where you belong. The blood-feud supplanted criminal law.

In this way the republic strengthened its independence, socialism receded into the past and the tribal system of the past was revived. History was moving backwards, ethnic affiliation became more important than social relations, and no attention was paid to human rights.

That Chechnya is a criminal republic is not a verdict of the Russian special services, it is a political fact. The republic did not even have the weakest shoots of civil society, the political system was built according to criminal laws. The separatist leaders opted for terrorism as their variant of political self-assertion and Wahhabism, which is alien to the Chechens, as their ideology. The result was a crushing defeat in the military, political, ideological and moral spheres.

Also, the federal powers are responsible for the crisis in Chechnya during 1991–99. They failed to act on time to return Chechnya into the legal sphere of the Russian Federation (RF). As a consequence of Boris Yeltsin’s words: ‘Take as much sovereignty as you can cope with’, an ugly chain of events developed in the Chechen Republic. Today the ‘Independence from Russia’ slogan has been removed from the banners.

The state-political aspect

President Putin’s first statements on the issue of the federation reflect a completely different approach: to restore a centralized state in Russia and to introduce direct federal rule in the Chechen Republic. This straightforward approach to Chechnya should not be explained by the personal preferences of the former KGB man: it was rather the objective circumstances that cast doubt on the Chechen Republic’s competence as a subject of the federation. These circumstances can be described as follows:

First, Chechnya has never completed the historical process of building a nation-state. In other words, the Chechen Republic does not exist as a separate state unit.

Let us examine the historical facts:

In 1918–20, what is Chechnya today was part of the Terek, and later, Gorskaia (Mountain) Autonomous Republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR);

In 1922, the Chechen Autonomous Region was created within the RSFSR outside the Gorskaia Autonomous Republic;

In 1934, the Chechen and Ingush autonomous regions were united into the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Region;

In 1936, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Region was transformed into an autonomous republic of the same name;

In 1944, the autonomous republic was liquidated and its indigenous population deported;

In 1957, the autonomous republic was restored and the deported population was returned to their homeland;

In 1990, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was transformed into the Chechen-Ingush Republic;

On 15 September 1991, the last session of the republic’s Supreme Soviet disbanded itself;

On 1 October 1991, some of its former deputies decided to divide the Chechen-Ingush Republic into the Chechen Republic and the Ingush Republic;

On 27 October 1991, General Dudaev won the so-called presidential elections in the ‘Chechen Republic’ (only 20 per cent of the voters came to the polls);

On 1 November 1991 Dudaev issued the decree ‘On Sovereignty of the Chechen Republic Since 1 November 1991’;

On 2 November 1991, the Fifth Congress of People’s Deputies of the RSFSR declared elections to the supreme body of power (the Supreme Soviet) and of the President of Chechnya illegal and the presidential decrees null and void.

This is where the meaningful part of the history ends. The Russian Federation is the legal heir to the RSFSR, and therefore all decisions taken by Dudaev, Yandarbiev and Maskhadov, or adopted by the republic’s parliament, are illegal. This includes the constitution of 12 March 1992 (Resolution No. 108) and the post of president then introduced; the 1997 presidential elections conducted according to this constitution; and all decisions by President Maskhadov, including his decrees of February 1999 which introduced Shari’ah as the form of government and made the Shura the highest legislature.

From the legal point of view the Chechen Republic was born on 12 December 1993 when the national referendum approved the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which registered Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic as two independent federation subjects.

However, all efforts to create pro-Moscow institutes of power in Chechnya have been without success: the Provisional Council (under Avturkhanov), the government of national renaissance (Khajiev), the government (Koshman), the head of the republic (Zavgaev), and the Popular Assembly (Osmaev, Alavdinov), and the provisional administration under Musalatov.

There is a Chechen Republic under the Constitution of Russia, but in reality it does not exist. It lacks constitution, president, parliament and laws. There is no clearly defined territory since the commission set up to draw the frontier between Chechnya and Ingushetia is no longer operational.

Beslan Gantamirov, one of the pro-Moscow Chechen leaders, who claims to be the vehicle of the nation’s will, is absolutely convinced that the constitution of Chechnya corresponds, in letter and spirit, to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. One can hardly agree with this since the text opens with the words: ‘By the will of the Almighty’ and contains no single reference to the Russian Federation. Also, it proclaims the priority of the Chechen constitution over the laws of the RF.

Second, the situation in which no Chechen political leader or organization is accepted by the Chechen people or is capable of uniting them calls for extraordinary measures by the federal centre.

During his three years as president Maskhadov failed to become a true head of state and a leader of the nation. The people who voted for him have scattered over Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and abroad, and he is left with criminal leaders. Much time has passed since the invasion of Dagestan in August 1999, when Maskhadov was confronted with the issue of denouncing terrorism and surrendering the terrorists to Russian justice. He wasted his last chance—to meet and lead the federal forces to the liberated capital as the Yamadaev brothers did in Gudermes.

There is a chorus abroad and individual voices at home calling for the reopening of negotiations with Maskhadov. There is a theoretical possibility that negotiations can take place even without preliminary conditions: and this desire is mutual. A consultative group at the federal level maintains contacts with a similar group under Maskhadov; the regional doors Maskhadov–Aushev and Maskhadov–Dzasokhov remain open.

Negotiations always call for mutual obligations. The question is whether the President of Chechnya is capable of fulfilling his obligations. According to captured field commanders Maskhadov no longer controls the situation. It seems that as the anti-terrorist operation comes to an end, there will be more evidence of Maskhadov’s negative role.

Finally, and most important, Maskhadov’s political stand is erroneous. He says: ‘We should first decide what Chechnya is. Otherwise no agreements can be reached. I have never rejected the idea of negotiations.’ He presents political conditions for the future status of the republic, which the federal centre will not accept.

It is both necessary and possible according to Russian law to remove Maskhadov from power either by bringing the case to the Constitutional Court or by the use of the Criminal Procedure Code. Different alternatives exist.

An open court procedure and the recognition of Maskhadov as illegitimate would make it possible to neutralize the attacks from international and Russian pro-Ichkeria forces, which want to see Maskhadov at the negotiation table. The hopes the Chechen separatists pin on the opening of a second, ‘diplomatic’ front in the West are doomed even if Maskhadov emigrates.

What other possible leaders exist?

During the first six months of the war the federal centre managed to activate on its side many pro-Russia minded public figures, who are respected and have real social and political support, money and even armed detachments behind them. They are Beslan Gantamirov, Akhmad Kadyrov, Amin Asmaev, Malik Saidullaev, Aslanbek Aslakhanov, Yakub Deniev, Adam Deniev and some others. However, none of them is able to come up with a real political programme or contribute to political consolidation. It can be ruled out that they would agree on joint initiatives. They cannot even appear together at a joint press conference. The Union of the Peoples of Chechnya, which was announced in November 1999, was never set up. The emigrants failed to close ranks. The diaspora has demonstrated its ideological, political and organizational weakness against the backdrop of two efficient federal election campaigns (parliamentary and presidential).

Moscow’s expectation that the nation would produce a leader loyal to Russia and uncompromising toward the bandits proved futile.

Further socioeconomic circumstances make the introduction of federal rule necessary. The experience of rehabilitating society after the armed conflict in Dagestan in August 1999, in North Ossetia after the war in October–November 1992, and in Chechnya in 1995–96 revealed that the local authorities are ill-prepared to distribute money from the federal budget. This explains why the republican budget of Dagestan has been allocated over the federal budget since late 1999. It seems that this method will also be applied in Chechnya.

The above explains why the federal centre cannot stand aside from the process of restoring the Chechen statehood. This does not violate the republic’s sovereignty since the sovereignty has never been recognized. It does not violate the spiritual sovereignty of the Chechen people: they are just people wishing to survive. Mufti Akhmad Kadyrov is convinced that law and order are impossible without federal forces. He has said in an interview to Argumenty i fakty: ‘Without Russian forces my district will live according to my law; their district according to their law. We shall not obey one another. Therefore new authorities have to be elected in a legal way and definitely rely on force. Today, this force is the Russian Army.’ (Interview in Argumenty i fakty). Heads of district administration also spoke in favour of direct presidential rule.

Suggestions for the introduction of direct presidential rule

The republic should re-establish control over the social, political, economic and ideological processes—this is the key to a settlement. One option is to introduce direct federal rule for the transition period of 18–24 months.

In fact, today (April 1999) there are already elements of federal rule in Chechnya. Power belongs, first, to the military administration (the Defence Ministry and the Ministry of the Interior), which have to bring the anti-terrorist operation to an end and, second, to the representative of the Russian Government, which deals mainly with economic questions. There are territorial units of the federal ministries and departments in nearly all districts; Nikolai Koshman, plenipotentiary representative of the Russian Government, appoints heads of district administrations after they are approved by the military; a governmental commission has been set up for normalizing the social and political situation in the republic; the Ministry of Economics of the Russian Federation has elaborated a programme of urgent measures in the economic and social sphere for 2000; a special representative of the Russian President for human rights in Chechnya has been appointed. The federal authorities are working toward a settlement and the smooth functioning of the state system in Chechnya.

What is also needed is a plenipotentiary representative of the President of Russia with the power to address all problems of administration, the channelling of funds, coordination of power structures and other organs, preparation of a constitution and personnel selection. Under the Russian Constitution it is the responsibility of the president to draw up foreign and domestic policies and to guarantee the unity and integrity of the state. Finally, it is up to the president (or his representative) to initiate the creation of republican authorities and, when time is ripe, to delegate power.

Such a representative could remain the key figure throughout the transition period until key state institutions have been created in Chechnya and a Chechen constitution exists.

Direct presidential rule would not be tied down by the complex procedure of passing federal laws through the State Duma and the Federation Council. The presidential decrees are normative acts and binding across the Russian Federation.

The creation of republican authorities is regulated by the ‘Federal Law on General Principles of Organization of Legislative (Representative) and Executive Bodies of State Power of the Subjects of the Russian Federation’. Its Article 30 states that within two years of its enactment (6 October 1999) all legislation by federal subjects must correspond with federal law.

This shows that Chechnya will receive fully-fledged power structures only in two years time. In the meantime governing structures on the republican level can only be part of federal power.

When constitutional law and order are introduced in Chechnya, the republic will become one of the most disciplined federal subjects. At least, one can be sure that the constitution will be drafted in Moscow (politically if not geographically). This will leave in the cold those regional leaders, the so-called new feudal lords, who are blackmailing the federal centre with the bogey of Chechnya-Ichkeria.

There is little sense in introducing the state of emergency according to the 1991 law, something which the media is eagerly discussing: the law excludes elections on the republican and local levels during the entire period of the state of emergency. It seems that the task of stabilizing the situation can only be solved through the Chechen statehood, republican state structures and local self-administration.

The ethno-sociological aspect

Today nearly all politicians are concerned with the problems of the state, yet, social arrangements and local self-administration should not be pushed to the outer rim. It seems very probable that the future of the nation will be decided on this basic sociological level.

The task consists of creating authoritative power structures in the valleys and the piedmont areas. During the last Chechen campaign the appointed pro-Russian heads of administration did not enjoy authority among the local people (in many cases, this was absolutely justified). This undermined all the good intentions of the federal centre, from paying pensions to restoration of the Chechen economy. It seems doubtful that the newly appointed administration heads will enjoy authority this time. They are, in fact, part of the federal rule. It is hard, if not impossible to settle all major problems with the help of a chain of orders from the top down. Federal rule is not an aim in itself—it is an instrument of national resurgence.

Chechen society is patriarchal and traditional; the norms of the common law (adat) coexist with the adapted Islamic norms of the Shari’ah. Together, they form the skeleton of society.

What is more, the need to stand up to bandit lawlessness strengthened the traditional institutes of local self-administration, which manifested itself in Gudermes, Shali, Achkhoi-Martan, Argun and some other settlements. These settlements were liberated by the local people. Even in Urus-Martan, the stronghold of religious extremism, the local communities (kups) had started driving the Wahhabis who were alien to them from public life long before the anti-terrorist operation began.

Internal separatism in the republic resulted from the political elite’s inability to deal with the problems that were plaguing the man-in-the-street. In the summer of 1999, representatives of one of the richest and most influential teips, Chinkhoi, convened a congress at which they decided to set their own independent power within their clan territory. Other teips (Genderchenoi, Peshkhoi, Nashkhoi) followed suite. Here is a recent example: the elders of the Gehi-chu village let R. Gelaev’s militants enter the village. This was followed by the shelling of the village by Russian forces and its total destruction. Nearby, in the village of Shalazhi the elders refused to let militants in and the village and human lives were saved.

At the local level in Chechnya there has always been real but informal power in the form of a village council, which consists of the most respected people (elders and young educated men). The local people trust them because they are neighbours; their decisions and words carry weight. All important decisions in the village are decided by these informal structures. The task is to institutionalize these structures and to give them consultative and to some extent decision-making functions. It is important to notice that at this level there is today efficient cooperation with the federal authorities and with the military.

The internal situation in the republic can be radically improved once attention is given to the aspect of local self-administration. Local self-administration does not require republican laws since this is regulated in the ‘Federal Law on the General Principles of Organization of Local Self-Administration in the Russian Federation’. Local self-administration can be set up as soon as the situation has stabilized. Presidential and parliamentary elections require a republican law, however, and there is no such law.

The ethno-territorial structure of Chechen society can potentially contribute to the current settlement. It is organized in the following way: the basic unit of the kup (community) to the sektor (a union of several kups), the village community (within a village), the district community (within administrative districts), and the republican community (covering all of Chechnya). While the last link in the chain, the nation state, does not exist so far, the village communities do.

The kup is an informal dozen of families (normally neighbours or relatives) who join forces to deal with the problems of their street, quarter, etc. As informal structures kups are found in nearly all settlements. They are headed by the most respected person, the kup-da; several dozens of kups form a sektor (about 30 kups or 300 people). The kup leaders elect the iurt-da, who is the head of the village. This is how local self-administration in Chechnya is organized: the iurt-das elect the district head and higher up to the head of the republic. The system offers no place for field commanders or Wahhabi agitators.

The territorial-family community is the basic cell of social organization. This structure has several advantages: first, Chechen society is organizing itself from below rather than from above; second, the local self-administration level is free from political and ideological pressure, which weighs heavily on the higher structures; third, this structure is best suited to the democratic values which the Chechens also appreciate. It is kindred to the ideas of the village community of the Russian population in the republic (there were about 20 per cent of Russians in the early 1990s).

The institute of the kup can be restored in any political conditions. What is more, if the kup was included into the political structure it would contribute to a normalization process. It would make the countryside immune to the influence of bandits. This system is already functioning in Ken-Yurt, Shalazhi, and elsewhere.

Local self-administration cannot substitute the power of the state, yet, it can teach people to look after themselves. Potentially, it can produce the political elite of the future.

The attempts of the leaders of Ichkeria to revive the division into teips and clans and to kill off the traditions and customs of local self-administration failed. These traditions are alive and developing.

On the whole, the federal centre has a small role to play in this arrangement because according to Russian law local self-administration is independent of state power. The latter should make sure, however, that unwelcome developments will not take place.

The regional aspect

Despite its relatively small territory the Chechen Republic has regional specifics which the conflict has aggravated. They must be taken into account.

Russians have always lived in the north (Naurskii, Nadterechnyi and Shelkovskoi districts), there were Russians around Grozny (in the countryside) and in Gudermes. In the past these were Cossack areas. The local Chechens are loyal to Moscow and the Russians, and most of them blame the bandits and the Wahhabis for their sufferings. The prospects for normalization are good in these areas: the municipal systems have been restored, there are enough jobs in agriculture and services; wages, pensions and allowances are paid on time, and nearly all the schools and hospitals are functioning.

The military commandant’s offices are of secondary importance; instead the structures of the representation of the Russian Government and the Provisional Administration carry the main burden of responsibility; force is rarely used in administration.

The military commandant’s offices are all-important in central (piedmont) Chechnya (Grozny, Achkhoi-Martan, Shali, Kurchaloi and part of the Gudermes district). They are responsible for people’s safety and also pay out pensions and allowances, participate in restoring municipal systems, issue passes, and so on. They have a say on all important issues, including the presidential elections of 26 March 2000.

In some places (Shali, Achkhoi-Martan and the Staropromyslovskiy district of Grozny) the military commandants work together with the elders and clergy; some of the public organizations are functioning there (councils of the Great Patriotic War veterans), much attention is paid to young people, and the provisional administrations and local people are actively involved.

Tension reigns in those places where there is no understanding between the military and local people (the town of Argun, and the Urus-Martan and Vedeno districts, etc.). There the feelings of the locals change quickly depending on whether they like the military commandant and his policy or not, on the news coming from the area where the fighting is going on, and on inevitable mistakes made in dealing with the population.

In the south, in the mountains (Vedeno, Itum-Kale, Shatoi, and part of the Urus-Martan district) where hostilities are still going on, power belongs to the army in-the-field. The recently established military commandant’s offices cannot influence what the troops are doing, and civil administrations are not functioning. This part suffered most in the conflict and anti-Russian sentiments are the strongest there. The area supports the guerrillas; the local people (not more than 10 per cent of the total population) belong to the Kadiri trend in Islam and always wanted independence for Chechnya.

In the south there are small villages independent from the rest of the country and of one another, where the types of mountain dwellers described by Russian writers in the 19th century can still be seen.

It seems that this is the place where the state of emergency should be introduced: there are no political obstacles to this while the technical side, a cordon sanitaire, should be discussed with specialists.

The humanitarian aspect

Political figures and the media have been actively discussing the failures of the first Chechen campaign and their causes. The explanations ranged from Russia’s economic and military-political inability to preserve its territorial integrity to betrayal of corrupt Russian officials.

Recent events have caused new insults; the Russian leaders recognize that the federal forces do not always behave correctly in relation to the local people; investigations of such cases are under way; the results should be made public. Regrettably, the information policy is aimed at shaping public opinion among the larger part of the nation and does not take into account what the Chechens want. In Chechnya itself rumours are the main source of information—the situation which best suits the terrorists who disseminate leaflets threatening those who help ‘the Russian occupation forces’. The national newspapers, in small numbers, reach Chechnya with a 2-day delay.

Fear is the dominant feeling: people are afraid that the events of 1996 may repeat themselves when the troops are removed from Chechnya; they are afraid (and justly so) of the Russian military; they are afraid of the militants. So far there is no confidence in the federal centre.

Ten years of independence produced a generation that practically knows no Russian, is nearly illiterate and whose only skill is fighting. It is among them that the field commanders and Wahhabi leaders recruit fighters. These young people should be returned to their homes and included into peaceful life, they should receive training and jobs—without this no final settlement is possible.

While the republic can be said to have been freed from bandits, the majority of them were not destroyed. They scattered and settled in all parts of the republic, including the north. In March 2000 nearly all commandant’s offices in large district centres (Urus-Martan, Nozhai-Iurt, Shali, Kurchaloi, Naurskaia) registered an increase of the number of young men from 16 to 35. While in early February there were barely 100 men of this age bracket in Naurskaia, in late March there were several thousands of them. The same could be seen in Grozny despite its status as a closed city: barely half of over 30 000 men had been registered with the military commandant’s offices.

Today several thousands of ‘irreconcilable’ criminals are still resisting the federal forces, arms in hand, many of them foreigners. Most of the former militants have been absorbed into the local population. It is next to impossible to identify and call them to account unless Stalinist methods are applied. There is another war ahead of us: we must win to our side the hearts and lives of common people, Chechens and Russians alike, those who have passed through the hell of independence and the purgatory of two wars.

Conclusions

The strategy of settlement presupposes a set of measures, the main ones being: direct presidential rule introduced in the shortest time possible; vertical power with the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian president at the top; a state of emergency in the southern areas of the republic; gradual establishment of parallel institutes of state power that would tap the local potential; psychological rehabilitation; dissemination of information and propaganda among the local people; development of secondary and higher education and professional training; and urgent steps to create more jobs.

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1 See Kommersant, 10 Mar. 2000.

2 Interview by Aslan Maskhadov to Radio Liberty. Quoted from Groznenskiy rabochii, no. 6 (17–23 Feb. 2000.

3 The institution of the ‘makhallia’ which is developing into an important element of state structure in Uzbekistan is another well-studied sociological phenomenon.