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COMMENTS ON PART III

Taylor Seybolt
Dr. Taylor SEYBOLT, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sweden).

My comments are made from the perspective of someone who has academic training and is not a policymaker in any sense. The prescriptions I offer are abstract in nature.

Let me begin by addressing the question of who or what is the ‘international community’? I am interested primarily in who makes up the international community. (A focus on what it is would look at international norms and principles.) My idea of who comprises the international community is, first of all, states, and second the international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multinational corporations. We have heard very little about the possible roles for NGOs in conflict resolution, but they potentially play a very important one, which I will mention later in my comments. Naming the types of actors, rather than simply using the term ‘international community’, begins to indicate the range of roles outsiders can play—political, economic, social, and religious—all of which are wrapped up in this conflict, as they are in other conflicts that are difficult to settle.

We have heard most speakers in this room give gloomy assessments of the prospects for peace and stability in Chechnya, particularly in the short term. I share their pessimism, I am sorry to say. Yet Lena Jonson opened this conference by saying that she does not accept that ongoing violence precludes a constructive role for members of the international community. I also share this position, as do the other members of this panel.

There are a number of potential roles for outsiders to play and many of them have just been elaborated here. Before addressing the presentations of S. Neil MacFarlane, Friedemann Müller and Odd Gunnar Skagestad, I want to state five fundamental assumptions as a foundation. Many of them are restatements of what others here have already said. First, the Chechen war is a separatist struggle with deep historical roots. Second, there is no easy or quick solution to this conflict. Third, the objectives of the members of the international community should be to influence the relationship between Russian and Chechen leaders, not only Chechen leaders or only Russian leaders. The conflict is about their relationship, and we have not heard enough about this at the seminar. Fourth, the two sides do not trust each other at all. It is not too strong to say that this is a relationship built on hatred rather than trust. The final point in this group of assumptions follows from the previous ones: the process of achieving peace and stability in Chechnya and the Northern Caucasus will be a very long one.

Where does this leave us? Members of the international community who are interested in helping to resolve the Chechen conflict need to ask themselves what kind of peace they want. Do they want a ‘negative peace’ characterized by a lack of overt violence but little progress toward long-term stability in the region? Or do they want a ‘positive peace’ of political transformation and economic reconstruction, that will preclude a third Chechen war? The answer almost everyone would give is that they desire a positive peace. But this is a more difficult objective by far, given the five principles I just laid out. It is interesting and somewhat depressing that the one presentation we have heard that was optimistic about a fairly rapid end to the current war, from Aleksandr Khalmukhamedov of the Russian Ministry for the Federation and Nationalities Affairs, was an articulation of a negative peace.

The implication of the answer that a positive peace is desired seems to be understood by most of the people in this room, but it is not at all clear that it is understood by the political leaders involved, nor by influential members of the international community. The implication is that there is a need for a long-term commitment of substantial effort by a diverse set of actors to do related things: reconstruct the social, economic and political institutions that reward non-violent, law-abiding behaviour; and transform the relationship between Russian and Chechen people and leaders from one of severe distrust to one of mutual regard. (Mutual respect is too much to ask for.)

The presentations we just heard from MacFarlane, Müller and Skagestad reflect this long-term, process-oriented approach. MacFarlane is right that the multitude of Western objectives are not mutually reinforcing and that pursuing some will necessarily impede the pursuit of others. I find it interesting that he believes the ‘harder’ coercive responses of financial sanctions and exclusion from international organizations would be inefective and counter-productive. Yet he contends that the ‘softer’ option of the ‘politics of shame’ could be effective. This reveals that his real concern, and the concern of a lot of people including myself, is for the West not to alienate Russia more than has already been done; and equally for Russia not to further alienate the West. The larger strategic relationship between Russia and the West is the overriding factor in outsiders’ involvement in the Chechen conflict. This is a severe constraint on what states can do.

What about non-state actors? Müller gave us much to think about with regard to long-term efforts to rebuild Chechnya and the Caucasian region in general. His enumeration of the components of a stability pact was very useful. It is interesting to note that many of the tasks he identified can be, and I submit should be, carried out by international organizations, companies, and non-governmental organizations. In this way members of the international community can become constructively engaged in a manner that is less threatening to the Russian Government than other governments telling Russia what to do. The non-governmental, economic approach can also reach the Chechen population without focusing on the Chechen military leaders. Let us take a lesson from Somalia where international peace and reconciliation efforts, not to mention relief assistance, focused on the warlords to the exclusion of people who wanted to make peace.

Skagestad made the very important point that the victor in this war, in any war, must win at least a modicum of legitimacy in the eyes of its opponents. This is absolutely true if there is to be a lasting peace. Lack of perceived legitimacy is part of the reason the peace after the last Chechen war did not last. There is a role for outsiders in this process too. It echoes a comment by Gail Lapidus, who said that guerrilla fighters need popular support to survive. For the foreseeable future there will be elements within Chechen society that demand complete separation from Russia. Secessionist ideas are not going to disappear. International actors need to undermine these elements by providing Chechens with a reason not to support the extreme separatist position. Not all Chechen people are radical separatists; not all Chechens are guerrilla fighters. But at the moment they face a choice between supporting the extreme separatists or supporting the Russian Government, which has laid waste to their homes. This brings us back to the economic development emphasized by Müller, as well as the continued process of the integration of Russia into European institutions as emphasized by MacFarlane and Skagestad.