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Ethnic Conflicts in the Former USSR: The Use and Misuse of Typologies and DataAuthor(s): Valery TishkovSource: Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 36, No. 5 (Sep., 1999), pp. 571-591Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/424534
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?
1999 Journal
of
PeaceResearch
vol.
36,
no.
5,
1999,
pp.
571-591
Sage
Publications
London,
Thousand
Oaks,
CAand New
Delhi)
[0022-3433
(199909)
365;
571-591;
009492]
Ethnic Conflicts
in
the Former
USSR:
The Use
and
Misuse of
Typologies
and Data*
VALERY
TISHKOV
Institute
of
Ethnology
and
Anthropology,
Moscow
e&
nternational
Peace Research
Institute,
Oslo
(PRIO)
This article
summarizes research on ethnic conflict in the Former
Soviet Union
(FSU).
Various
appealing
but
unsatisfactory
ypologies
have been
proposed, focusing
on the
subjects
f the conflict
(actors,
goals,
motivations);
on the environmentof the conflict
(territory,
language,
socio-economy,
environment and
resources;
or on
characteristicsf the conflict
(scale,
length,
form of
fighting,
losses,
aftermath).
Most
conflict
typologies
reflect better the
thinking
and
political agenda
of the
typologists
than the actual social
panorama.
Conflict theories and data
presentations
contain
strong prescriptive
elements and
may
even
generate
new conflict. For the conflicts
in
the Former Soviet
Union,
existing
typologies
fail to
grasp
several
major
factors,
such as the
strategies
and behavior of
individuals,
social
and
political
disorder,
power
and status
aspirations,
elite
manipulations,
and outside interventions.
This article discusses data on human and material osses in nine violent conflicts:
Karabakh,
Fergana,
Osh,
South
Ossetia, Transdniestria,
Tajik,
Abkhazia,
Ingush-Ossetian,
and Chechen. In
conclusion,
a
plea
is
made
for
writing
'between'
theory
and
data,
without
sacrificing
ensitive and self-reflectivenar-
ration in order
to
produce
new
insights
and new
knowledge.
The Politics of
Meta-Projects
It is difficult to
accept
as 'theories'
many
widely
acclaimed
postulates
in
conflict
studies. Theories
of'group
risk' or 'basic
human
needs',
for
example,
barely
meet the
minimum
requirement
of
being
reasoned
suppositions put
forwardto
explain
facts or
events.
Attempts
to use these
approaches
or
regional
or
case
analyses
run into all kinds of
problems, although
they
continue to serve as
attractive constructions
in academic exer-
cises.
Potential clients abound
for
ambitious
academic
or
political enterprises,
especially
*
This article
became
possible
with the
support
of the
Russian Fund for Humanities and PRIO's
Ethnic and
NationalistStudies
Program.
wish to thankSusan
Huivik
at PRIO for her editorialwork.
in the field of international relations and
conflict
research.
Thus,
the 'risk method-
ology'
from the minorities
debate
(Gurr,
1993)
evolved
into the
State Failure
Project
(Esty
et
al., 1995,
1998)
responding
to the
euphoria
felt
by
Western academics
and
the
political
bureaucracy
at the liberal
victory,
and
their
rush
to
'remake'
the
post-Cold
War world. And indeed, the results seem
impressive:
with a massive
amount
of data
(233
minority
groups
for
the 'risk'
project
and
2 million
pieces
of data for the 'state
failure'
project)
involving
quantitative
oper-
ations with
dozens
of indicatorsof
risk,
and
600 variables
for
failed
states,
the authors
have
produced interesting
observationsand
stimulated
new
questions
for
comparative
research. But
simply
by
identifying
571
W^^^^^^^RM
US^ ^
8/10/2019 Tishkov - Ethnic Conlicts in the Former USSR
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574
journal of
PEACE RESEARCH
centuries
researchers
refer
o focus
on evi-
dence
of historic
fights
and cultural differ-
ences.
The same
may
be said of Kazan
since
the
17th
century
and
Grozny
in
1960-80
with theirpeacefulmulti-ethnicities.Experts
find
it
easier
to
parrot
the Yeltsin-
Maskhadov
political
absurdity
of the
'300-
year
war between
Russia and
Chechnya'
which ended
with the
signing
of a
treaty
in
May
1997.
Very
few
pay
any
attention to
historicaldocuments that
disprove
this
myth
(see,
for
example,
Kusheva,
1997).
None of this
is meant to
question
the
need for
theory
and
data,
as
I
hope
to
illustrate, using an area from my own
research.
Definitions
and
Typologies
What is 'ethnic
conflict'?
Most
attempts
at
theories of ethnic
conflict
(Carment
&
James,
1997)
simply sidestep
the
problem
of
definition.
In
Russia,
the
term 'ethnic con-
flict' came
into use
late,
because the word
'conflict'
was
usually replaced
by
the
euphemism 'contradictions'. In fact the
Soviet
Union
was
a
place
of relative ethnic
peace
despite
the state's contradictory
policy
of
repression
and
pandering
towards
non-
Russian
nationalities
(Bromley,
1977;
Drobizheva, 1981;
Karklins,1986;
Kozlov,
1988;
Suny, 1993;
Tishkov, 1997a).
The
first ethnically-tinged
civic clashes
under
Gorbachev
(the
Sumgait
and
Fergana
pogroms
against
Armeniansand Turks)
were
dismissed by expertsas 'incidents', 'events',
etc.
Until the
Ingush-Ossetian
conflict and
the
Chechen
War
erupted
on the
territory
of
Russia
itself,
the
term 'ethnic
conflict'
was
seen
as an
inadequate
and
humiliating
term
to describe
people
who do
not
normally
hate
and
fight
each other.
Ethnic
entities,
it
was
held,
are
deliberately
driven
into conflict
by
in-group
agitators
or
by
outside
conspiracies.
Conflicts
were viewed
as
carrying political,
territorial,
criminal,
or economic
dimen-
sions,
and as
falling
into two
major
cat-
egories
-
conflicts
of
ideological
doctrines,
and conflicts
of
political
institutions
(Payin,
1996;
Payin
&
Popov,
1990;
Popov,
1997).
Another extremeis expressed n the 'clashof
civilizations'
paradigm,
which sees an ethnic
conflict as
the
incompatible
encounter
between the
'pre-modern'(e.g.
Ingush)
and
'modern'
(e.g.
Ossets)
peoples
(Skakunov,
1996).
Russian
'conflictologists'
have con-
tributed
theoretical/typological
construc-
tions,
but
very
few have
presented
case
analyses
(e.g.
Ivanov &
Smolaynsky,
1994;
Kremenyuk,
1994;
Zdravomyslov,
1997).
What, then, is an ethnic conflict?
Yamskov
(1997:
206)
has
defined it as
'dynamically changing
sociopolitical
situ-
ation caused
by
rejection
of
existing
status
quo
on
a
part
of
significant
number of
people
representing
one or several local
ethnic
groups'.
This
rejection
can takethe
form of:
*
ethnically
selectiveexodus
from
a
region;
*
emerging
national or
cultural political
organizations
demanding
a change
in the
situation in the interests of a certain
ethnic
group;
*
protest
actions against
violations
of
group interests
by
othergroups
or by the
state.
Yamskov (1997:
206-207)
sees ethnic con-
flict
as an organized
political process
when
'national movements
(or parties)
struggling
for the "national
interests"of the
people
acquire
a certain
nfluence
and try
to change
cultural/linguistic, socio-economic, or pol-
itical
statuses' (Table
I).
Such typologies
are
not simple to apply
to
concrete
research purposes.
It is certainly
impossible to
place any
known conflict
in
the Former
Soviet Union
into a single cell.
Even the Karabakh
onflict
studied in detail
by
Yamskov
(1991),
contains
all
the
elements
of the
typology.
Another
scheme for the analysis
of
so-
called ethno-territorial
conflicts has
been
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Valery
Tishkov ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN
THE FORMER
USSR
575
Table
I.
A
Typology
of
EthnicConflict
Long-term
potentially
table)
Short-term
self-destroying)
Nonviolent Violent
Nonviolent
Violent
Forms
of
manifestation
Parties,
allies,
Pogroms,
error,
Emigration
Deportation,
clubs,
meetings,
disorders,
genocide
movements
guerrilla
Source: amskov
1997:
213);
cf. also
Coakley
1992: 6-7).
suggested
by
Strelezkii
(1997),
who
has col-
lected
data on conflicts in the USSR since
1991.
By
definition,
ethno-territorialcon-
flicts involve
disputes,
claims,
and
open
con-
flicts over territorialissues, which include
state
(administrative)
overeignty
over terri-
tories, borders,
and
rights
of
groups
to live
on territoriesand to control them. The ter-
ritorialization
of
ethnicity
is one of the
Soviet
legacies
which laid the foundationfor
ethno-nationalism.
Indeed,
the USSR was
the
only
state
in
the
world besides
Yugoslavia
whose internal structure
was
built
on ethnic
principles.
All
major
non-
Russiangroupshad their 'own' autonomous
territories.
Strelezkii
rightly
points
out that
practi-
cally
all territorial ssues
in
intergroup
and
interstate
levels on the
territory
of the
Former
Soviet
Union
acquire
an 'ethnic'
form because even
newly
emerged
states
preach
an
exclusivist
ideology
-
'Latviafor
the Latvians'or
'Georgia
for the
Georgians'.
However,
Strelezkii's
wn vision
of
ethnicity
is not
radically
different
from those who
built
the USSR
and
those who constructed
the 'Soviet
theory'
of ethnos
(see
Skalnik,
1988; Slezkine, 1994;
Tishkov,
1997a:
1-23).
This
methodological position
is
made
clear in Strelezkii's classification
of
subjects
of ethno-territorial laims:
*
ethnoses
with their own national state-
hood: titular
groups
in former Soviet
Union
republics;
*
ethnoses
with elements of statehood
in
the
form of
national formations within
sovereign
states;
*
ethnoseswhich
did not have their
own
national-territorial formations in the
USSR and which havenow put forward
such
claims;
*
groups
of
people
living
in
Diaspora
outside
their own national
formations
(about
65
million,
including
25
million
ethnic
Russians and
Ukrainians)
(Strelezkii,
1997:
233-234).
Here
I
have
deliberately
retained
the
deeply
rooted Soviet
phraseology
for
describing
ethnic
issues,
a
clear case when mental
con-
structsor
speech
acts
produce
socialrealities.
In another
academic
tradition or
political
context these
groupings
would be
catego-
rized
simply
as
'minorities',
'ethnic
com-
munities', 'ethnie',
etc. There
are no basic
differencesbetween the Irish in the
UK,
the
Quebecois
in
Canada,
the
Swedes
in
Finland,
the
Hungarians
in
Romania,
the
Chinese in the
USA,
the
Turks
in
Bulgaria,
the Serbs in
Croatia,
the
Ukrainians
in
Russia,or the Russians n Ukraine:they are
all members
of
multi-ethnic
political
nations
with
group-cultural
aspirations.
The Soviet
(and
wider East
European)
raditionof
using
the term 'nation' and 'national'
in
the
exclusively
ethnic sense
implied
a
propagan-
dist
formula for the
solution
of the 'national
question'
-
first
anti-imperial,
social demo-
cratic
(Austro-Marxism),
then Bolshevik
(revolutionary
Communism)
(Brubaker,
1996;
Suny,
1993.)
Today
there lurks
a
8/10/2019 Tishkov - Ethnic Conlicts in the Former USSR
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576
journal
of
PEACE
RESEARCH
hidden
political
agenda
behind
this ethno-
nationalist
rhetoric,
in
the
assumption
that
in the
post-Cold
War
world
nations
have
emerged
which
have not
fully
accomplished
the process of nation-building, i.e. 'quasi-
sovereign
states'(Carment
&
James,
1997:
205).
Western
academics
and
policymakers
have
easily
absorbed
an
ambivalent
anguage
for the
FSU area
-
a
language
they
would
never use
for
describing
the
same realities
elsewhere.
A
speech
construct
of'national
minorities'
(in other
similar
contexts,
it
may
be
'linguistic',
'ethnic',
etc.)
has
come
into
Realpolitik, including the institution of the
OSCE
High
Commissioner
for
National
Minorities.
Terms
like
'nations
without
states',
'non-represented
nations',
'non-
status
nations'
have
emerged
as labels
for
ethnic
communities
in
countries
where
'remaking'
s
in the
cards,
especially
f their
state and
administrative
borders
are con-
tested and
not congruent
with ethnic
or cul-
tural borders.
Strelezkii (1997:
237-244)
identifies
the following types
of ethno-territorial
con-
flict:
*
conflicts
over
disputed
territories
with
demands
that
interstate
or
internal
administrative
borders
be
changed;
*
disputes
about the administrative
status
of
a
territory
expressed
in
ethnically
defined
claims
for
independent
states
and
for
new
autonomies,
or for
their
abolition;
*
conflicts
over
the status
of existing
national
formations;
*
conflicts
over
claims
for the federaliza-
tion of existing unitary
polities;
*
exclusion
of
population
and
cleansing
of
territories;
*
repatriation,
or
post-deportation
'terri-
torial
rehabilitation'.
This
classification
mixes
two
ratherdifferent
types
of
disputes
-
over
territory,
and
over
power.2
The
unclear
ormulas
or these
types
makes
it
possible
to
place
conflicts
like those
in
Abkhazia,
Chechnya,
and
Nagorno-
Karabakh
n all six
categories
at the
same
time.
Mapping
and
Labeling
Conflicts
My
own definition
of ethnic conflict
is as
follows:
any forms
of
civic clash
within or
across
tate
boundarieswhen
at leastone
of
the
warringparties
is mobilized
and
organized
along
ethnic
lines or on
behalf of
a
certain
ethnic
group.
On
this
basis,
I have identified
six violentconflicts f considerableduration,
with
organized
front
lines,
with
partici-
pation
of
regular
troops
and
paramilitary
formations,
and with
the
use of
heavy
weapons
(Nagorno-Karabakh,
South
Ossetia,
Transdniestria,
Tajikistan,
Abkh-
azia,
Chechnya).
There were
four
violent
clashes
or
riots)
of short
duration
and with
non-organized
parties
and
mob violence
(Sumgait
and
Baku,
Fergana,
Osh,
Ingush-Ossetian).
Finally, there
were ten
nonviolent
conflicts
with political,
ethnic,
religious,
and
clan tensions
and confronta-
tions
(Yakutia,
Tatarstan,
Tuva,
Kabardino-
Balkaria,
Karachevo-Cherkessia,
Daghestan
in
Russia;
Alma-Ata
in Kazakhstan;
Crimea
in Ukraine;
Gagauzia
in Moldova;
Dushanbe
in Tajikistan).
All
of these
have
occurred
since
the late
1980s.
Here,
I will
comment
on nine
violent
cases, omitting
the
Sumgait
porgoms
of
1988.3
2
The distinction
between
territory'
nd 'government'
s
the
basis for conflict,
also rather
implistic,
s used by the
Conflict
Project
at Uppsala
University
see, for example,
Wallensteen
& Sollenberg,
1998).
The territorial
ype
includes
all armed
conflict
in the Former
Soviet
Union
except
Tajikistan.
3
Three of these
cases(Chechnya,
ngush-Ossetian,
Osh)
I have
analyzed
myself (Tishkov,
1997a).
For the other
cases,
I
have
reliedon my
colleagues'
esearch,
specially
the
resultsof the
Moscow Carnegie
Center
seminarwhere
I served
as academic
onsultant
see Olcott
et al., 1997).
An articleby
Mukomel (1997)
on human
lossesand the
economic
and social
implications
of
violent conflicts
has
been particularly
elpful.
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Valery
Tishkov
ETHNIC CONFLICTS
IN
THE FORMER USSR
577
Even
the
listing
of conflicts is
in
itself
controversial. The
project
on ethno-terri-
torial
conflicts started
n
1991
when
a
group
of
young
researchers at the Institute
of
Geography, USSR Academy of Sciences,
began
collecting
data
on
ethno-territorial
claims in the FSU
area. 'Political
geography'
of that kind
had
been
practically
non-exis-
tent in Soviet research. Members
of the
group
had
approached
the
doyen
of
ethno-
demographic
studies,
the
now-deceased
Professor Solomon
Brook,
a
long-time
Deputy-Director
of the Institute
of
Ethnography,
USSR
Academy
of Sciences.
For
two
hours
ProfessorBrook
regaled
hem
with the
stories of borderand status
changes
in
ethno-territorial
autonomies
in the
USSR,
especially
as the results
of Stalin's
mass
repression
and
deportations.
Not
many
days
later,
he came into
my
office
-
I was
then the Director
of the Institute
-
wor-
riedly
brandishing
he latest issue of Moscow
News
(17
March
1991):
'Look,
these
young
people
made
a
map
of
what
I was
telling
them about '
This was a
double-pagemap
on
which the authorshad located 76 ethno-ter-
ritorial
disputes
n the
USSR.
One
year ater,
a similar
map published
in
the
same news-
paper (29
March
1992)
showed
180 con-
flicts This issue
of
MoscowNews
(published
in
Russian
and
English)
attracted
wide
attention
in
the
country
and
abroad.
The
group
received
enthusiastic
encouragement
from Western
academics and
funding
insti-
tutions,
and
its members
were
among
the
first whose writingson conflictswere trans-
lated
and
published
in
the
West
(Glezer
&
Strelezkii, 1991;
Kolossov
et
al., 1992;
Petrov, 1994; Strelezkii,
1995).
For the
period 1988-96
this
group
accumulated
information
on
about
300
territorial
con-
flicts
(Strelezkii,1997:
226).
Beside
the
stories
related
by Brook,
the
group mainly
collected
press clippings
on
everything
that could
qualify
as territorial
disputes
or
claims, together
with
bits and
pieces
from
history
texts
and archives.
There
was no
division
between the
past
and
the
present (everything
was considered
relevant);
norwere there
any
criteria or
selecting
cases.
The mere fact of being mentioned in any
printed
text or in
public
meeting
was
enough
to
put
a 'conflict' on
the
map.
The
authorscharacterizedmore
than half of these
cases as
'dormant' conflicts
-
for the
past
three
years
there had been no information
on them
(Strelezkii,
1997:
227).
Eventually, many
political
leaders
and
experts
began
to
discover
'conflicts' in their
regions
based
on information rom Moscow-
based
political geographers
and from the
press,
rather
than from the
challenges
of
local
reality.
When I was
Federal
Ministerof
Nationalities
in
1992,
Viktor
Stepanov,
the
President
of the Karelian
Republic,
com-
plained
to me that
placing
his
territory
within the
category
of'conflict zone'
gave
a
powerfiul
stimulus to
marginal
activists to
advocate
their
political disagreements
nd
to
strengthen
the rhetoric of
complains. 'They
showed me this
Moscow News
paper
and
blamed me for not wanting to notice this
conflict',
said
President
Stepanov.4
The
research enthusiasm
of
neophytes,
re-
sponding
to
political requests,
started
with
two
newspaper pages.
A few
years
later a
Western
expert
was
to
do
it
in
the form
of
660-page
book based on the same
'data'
bank
(Stadelbauer, 1996). Using
such
'methodology',
one could
write volumes
on
'territorial
onflicts'
in
post-FrancoSpain
or
in Switzerlandwith its currentdebateon the
newly
emergedJura
cantons.
Mapping
conflicts
is
difficult.
The idea
that there are
many potential,
dormant
con-
flicts hidden
behind
the veil of our
ignorance
or
deliberately camouflaged by
interested
actors,
is not
very helpful.
Such discoveries
often
have
shaky empirical
foundations.
Since
the
word
'conflict'evokes
the idea
of
4
Personal
notes,
5
May
1992.
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of
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RESEARCH
danger,
it
acquires
political meaning.
But
how
many
such
dormant conflicts did not
happen,
because
they
were never
subjected
to
'fact-finding'
missions
or
the
zeal
of
researchers?
For the
territory
of
the Former Soviet
Union there
is
little
disagreement
on the list
of violent events. The nine cases
listed
in
Table II exhaust the
tally,
although
there
have also been violent
political
clashes
in
Baku, Tbilisi, Vilnius,
and Moscow under
Gorbachev
and
Yeltsin. As to
mapping
violent and other
conflicts,
the
issue
becomes
more
complex,
even
though
the
warringparties may have defined front-lines
and
the area of
battlefields
s
basically
well-
known.
In conflict
drawing,
the
logic
of
experts
tends to follow administrative/state
borders.
On world-scale
maps
of conflicts it
is the
country
that receives
he
color
assigned
for conflict cases
(Smith,
1997).
This
prin-
ciple
is
simple
but
appealing
to the
lay
reader,
who
can
see how vast
segments
of the
globe
called
'Russia', 'India',
'China' are all
painted
with
the
colors of conflict.
And
yet
Chechnya, for example, comprises only
0.5%
of the
territory
of
Russia.
One
noteworthy
example
of the non-sen-
sitive
use
of
mapping
is
the
now
widely
cited
map
of Stalin's
deportations.
The
brutality
of the mass
deportations along
ethnic
lines
provided
a
powerful argument
for consider-
able
political
rhetoric and
activity
since the
beginnings
of
Soviet
perestroika.
Huge
amounts of archivaldata were
released,
and
many
books were written or
translated
nto
Russian from Western languages. The
metaphor
of'rehabilitation'
became
trans-
formed into
one of
the most controversial
laws,
'On the rehabilitation of
repressed
peoples', passed
by
Yeltsin's
Supreme
Soviet
in
April
1991. The
undeniable trauma
of
sufferers ed to
efforts to
redress
he
past
by
committing
new
injustices
by
changing
the
borders and administrative tatus of territo-
rieswith
new
demographic
and
political
pro-
files. The two violent conflicts in Russia
(North
Ossetia
and
Chechnya)
can
be
attrib-
uted to some extent to the
poor
manage-
ment of this
problem by
the
state,
and
to the
manipulations
of ethnic
entrepreneurs.
There were numerous
nstancesof
border
redesigns
executed
quite arbitrarilyby
the
Soviet state
from above or under local
pressure.
A
map
of
deportations showing
directions and numbers of
deportees
of
about a dozen Soviet nationalities became
one of the focal documents at the 1996 CIS
conferenceon the
problems
of
refugees.
The
average
reader
may
perceive
this
map
in a
literal
sense,
as
showing
how severalmillion
suffering
people
need to be returned o their
homes. This
could serve as an invitation to
mass resettlement n a situation of
instability
Table II. Casualties
n
FSU
Conflicts,
1989-97
(in
thousands)
Conjflict
1989 1990 1991 1992
1993
1994 1995
1996
1997
Total
Nagorno-Karabakh
0.1
0.4
0.5 7.0
14.0 2.0
- - -
24.0
Fergana pogroms
0.1
- - - -
- - - -
0.1
Osh
conflict
-
0.3
- - - - - - -
0.3
South Ossetia
- -
0.6
0.5
- - - - -
1.1
Transdniestria
- - -
0.8
- - - - -
0.8
Tajikistan-
-
-
20.0
1.5
0.9
0.6 n.d.
0.5 23.5
Abkhazian-
-
-
3.8
8.0 0.2
- - -
12.0
Ingush-Ossetian
-
- -
0.8 0.2
- - - -
1.0
Chechen War
- -
- - -
4.0
25.0
6.0
-
35.0
Total 0.2
0.8 1.1
32.9 23.7 7.1 25.6
6.0
0.5
97.9
n.d.,
not data.
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ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN
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579
and
painful
socio-economic transformation.
The real
irony
is
that
this was
adopted
by
a
highly
respected
international
body
con-
cerned with the
challenge
of
forced migra-
tions. UNHCR bureaucrats could not
withstand the
powerful
pressure
rom ideo-
logically
engaged
academics
and
politicians
who
had
become enmeshed
in new
geopolit-
ical rivalries.
It is
questionable
whether
the
map
of
deportations belongs
anywhere
but
in
history
books on
World
War II
and
the
Stalin era.
Publicizing
victimization
may
provoke
revenge
and frustration
among gen-
erations who did not themselves suffer the
trauma
but
who have received
it
solely
through
storytelling.
Some
90%
of the
deportees
did
in fact return
home
soon after
Stalin's
death,
whereas
those who
stayed
on
had become
locally
integrated.
For the new
generation,
Siberiaand Kazakhstan
were the
only
native lands
they
had known
person-
ally.
Thanks
to the inflamed
agitation
of
leaders
and wide
political attention, many
people found
themselves
moved to 'historic
motherlands'ratherby the logic of collective
behavior,
as
happened
to
Crimean
Tatars,
ethnic Russians
n
Kazakhstan,
nd
to
Volga
Germans
n
Kazakhstan nd
in Russia.
The metaphor
of rehabilitation and
return
was
particulary powerful
for
those
groups
which
located
their motherland
in
countries
with
higher
material
standards,
such
as
Germany,
Greece,
or South
Korea.
This was
actually
a
sophisticated
form of
economic emigration for people who were
culturally mainly
Russian
but
who
could
claim
deep
roots
in other states.
'Former
deportees'
were
forced to
follow a totali-
tarian
collective
logic
and the
nostalgia
of
older
generations.
There
is
a
tendency
to
extend the
spatial
boundaries
of an
intergroup
conflict
to the
corresponding
administrative
units. The
term
'Ingush-Ossetian
conflict'
constructed
a
powerful image
of
a conflict
between
two
republics
in
the
Russian
Federation.5
This
conflict
took
place
on the
territory
of North
Ossetia and included ethnic
cleansing
of the
local
Ingush
minority.
Long
and
unproduc-
tive negotiations ensued between the auth-
orities of the
two
republics.
This caused the
alienation
to
spread
to the
general popu-
lation
of both
republics.
The conflict could
have been more
accurately
named
the North
Ossetian
conflict
or the
Prigorodny
onflict;
and the conflict resolution
process
would
have
gained
a
lot of momentum if the North
Ossetian
government
had been
induced to
accept
the
return
of its
expelled
citizens and
the provisionof post-conflictremedies.
How does a conflict
acquire
a label
which
is then listed
in
yearbooks,
atlases,
and
pol-
itical
documents?
The first
reports
on violent
Uzbek-Kirgiz
clashes
in the cities of Osh
and
Uzgen
and some
villages
of
Kirgizia
n
1991
were not
categorized
as
the
Uzbek-Kirgiz
conflict
but rather as the
Osh
conflict
(Tishkov, 1995).
This
played
an
important
role since
it avoided
the
construc-
tion
of
a conflict
between
the
dominant
population groups
in two Central Asian
states. As
a non-constructive
contrast,
in
North Ossetia the
conflict
was
labeled
an
'intergroup
ethnic
conflict'.
Interestingly,
the
first
reports
reffered
to the 'events'
in
Prigorodnyi
raion'
(the disputed part
of
North Ossetian
territory
with the
Ingush
minority).
When the term
'Ingush-Ossetian
conflict' started
to
gain currency
in
the
public
debate,
I
was asked
by Ingush
leaders
not to use
it
in my own writing because
it
influenced the
political vocabulary.
Why
is
'Ingush'
and
not 'Ossetian'
placed
first,
implicitly indicating
that we are
the ones
5
Numerous
reports
of the conflict
producedby
influen-
tial Ossetian intellectuals
and
by
Moscow-based
xperts
and
journalists
ntroduced
cliches
like
'Ingushetia's
erri-
torial
claims',
Ingushaggression',
frontline
f
Ingushetia',
thus
making
this
republic
into
one of the
conflicting
parties.
Incidentally,
two
leading journalists
of Neza-
visimayagazeta
-
AsIan Aliev and
Ruslan
Pliev
-
happen
o
be
of Ossetian
ethnic
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who
initiated the
conflict?',
askedthe
Ingush
social scientist
Bagaudin
Toriev.6
At the
time I
did
not
heed
this
appeal,
and
gave
a
chapter
in
my
book the title 'The
Anatomy
of Ethnic Cleansing: the Ingush-Ossetian
conflict'
(Tishkov,
1997a:
155-183).
The
reference to ethnic
cleansing
seemed more
important
in this
context;
I
also felt that
changing
the
wording
to
'Ossetino-Ingush
conflict' sounded
awkward in
English.
Today
I feel that I
missed
a historic chance
to
register
this conflict
under
an
ethnically
neutral
label.
Later,
this became much
harder
to
do.
Chechnya is another case
in
point.
All
over the world this conflict is labeled with
this one word. But the
naming
reflected
the
dynamics
of the conflict and the
politics
sur-
rounding
it.
Around the tme when
the con-
flict broke
out in December
1994
between
the
self-proclaimed independent
state and
the federal
authorities,
many
experts
referred
to
it as the
'Chechen
crisis'or 'Chechencon-
flict'
(see,
for
example,
Petrov,
1994, 1995;
Tishkov et
al., 1995).
After massive
military
escalation,this term startedto look too soft,
and
two short-lived extreme
formulas
emerged.
The term from
Russian
offi-
cialdom
was
'enforcement of constitutional
order',
whereas Western
experts
and the
European
Union
spoke
of'Russian
interven-
tion
in
Caucasus'.Both reflected
deological
stances.
Writing my
own
analysis
in
1995-96,
I
opted
for
the
term 'Chechen
War',
which
was rather unusual at the time and even
unacceptable
o
that
part
of
the Russian
pol-
itical
spectrum
close to
the
government.
Later
on,
it became
a routine
definition,
even used
by top
officials.
The
warring
parties
avoided
using
the
term
'Russian-
Chechen
conflict',
because of the
undesir-
able ethnic
connotations.
There
was no
direct clash between ethnic Chechens and
6
Personal
notes,
12
February
993.
ethnic Russians
indeed,
Chechen combat-
ants
preferred
o call their
enemy
the
ederals.
According
to
academic
criteria
the conflict
can be
categorized
as
'ethnic',
but for
pol-
itical and ideological reasons this probably
should
not be
done. After the
federal
mili-
tary
failureand the
peace agreement
of
May
1997,
Chechens have startedto
speak
of the
'Russian-Chechen War' or 'Second
Russian-Chechen War'. This
implies
a
fight
between two
sovereign polities,
as an ordi-
nary
interstate
war,
and refers to
the
Caucasus
war
led
by
Imam
Shamil
in
the
19th
century
against
the Russian
Empire
as
the 'first'
war of
Chechnya
for
independent
statehood.
Counting
Deaths
in
Conflict
The
major
indicatorof the
severity
of a con-
flict is the number of battle-deaths. For
example,
1,000
battle-deaths
s the threshold
for a violent conflict to be classifiedas a war
in the Correlatesof War dataset
(Small
&
Singer,
1982).
Wallensteen
&
Sollenberg
(1998) use the same limit to distinguish
between
major
and
minor
conflict.
However,
such
estimates
are
extremelyspec-
ulative
in view
of the nature
of
the
fighting
where it
is
difficult
even
to
establish the
number of
combatants
involved,
and
because
of
the
emotional and
political sig-
nificance of
these
figures
for
the
warring
parties.
It is
common international
practice
to
provide
a
range
of
estimates, e.g.
40,000-100,000 for Chechnya,or to calcu-
late an
average. Exaggeration
for
political
purposes
is
widespread.
In
1994,
Nikolai
Ryzhkov (former
Head
of the
Soviet
govern-
ment under
Gorbachev)
stated:
'as a result
of
military
conflicts
on the
territory
of
the
former USSR hundreds
of
thousands
of
people
were
killed'
(Postfactum
-
Humanitarian
News,
18
June 1994).
Two
months
later,
the President
of
Kazakhstan,
Nursultan
Nazarbayev, repeated
that
in
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Tishkov ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER
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these conflicts
and
wars 'ten times more
people
were killed than
in
the
Afghan
war
-
about
150,000
people'
(Interfax,
Vestnik,
24
August
1994).
Even more cata-
strophic figureshave been cited by leadersof
the anti-Yeltsin
opposition,
especially
Communist leaders: Viktor
Ilukhin,
chairmanof the State Duma Committee on
Security
Issues,
has said that
600,000
people
have been killed
in inter-ethnic
conflicts
over the
past
five
years;
at a
public
meeting
a
representative
of the Russian Communist
Party
announced
that
1.5
million lives
had
been lost
(Interfax,
8 December
1995;
7
May 1996).
In
fact,
the overall
number of losses in all
these conflicts is
about
100,000
people,
as
shown in Table
II,
with an additional
500,000
injured.
For a
territory
which
experienced relatively peaceful
times after
World
War
II,
these
figures
are
in them-
selves
tremendously
large,
and need
no
embellishment. Yet
there is a
demand
for
inflated
figures.
The initial
figures
are
usually
the
highest
because
they originate
at
a moment of chaos and lack of accurate
information. Rumors
and
imagination
are
the
main
sources,
sometimes even
deliberate
forgery.
In October
1995,
while
visiting
Grozny
in
the
morning
after
night-time
shootings,
I
was
informed
by
'Cossack Ivan
Grigoriev',
who was
accompanying us,
of
'terrible
night fights'
after which 'the
dead
bodies are
now
being
removed
from the
streets'.
A little
later, however,
more reliable
informationthrew doubts on the night-time
casualties,
and
even the
very
fact
of a
fight.
'Young
soldiers
have
just
been
shooting
in
the air
to feel
more confident and
safe',
remarkedGeneral
Andrei
Chernenko,
who
was
responsible
or
our
security.
Initial data
on the
Tajikistan
war
of
1992
cited
50,000-100,000
killed.
Tajik
officials
stuck
to the
highest figure
not
only
out
of
ignorance, but
also because
of the
political
wish to attractworld
attention
to the scale
of
this human
tragedy.
It was later established
(and
also
recognized
by
Tajik
authorities)
that a more accurate
casualty
figure
was a
little
over
20,000.
Among
outside
sources,
the UppsalaUniversityconflict projectcame
closest to this
figure
(Wallensteen
&
Axell,
1994;
see also
Baranovsky,
1994).
In
the Karabakh
onflict,
the main source
of information
was the
Azerbaijani
side
-
not
only
because the
fighting
took
place
on
its
territory,
but also because
Azerbaijanregarded
itself
as the
subject
of
Armenian
aggression
and wanted
to
display
the
suffering
of the
victims to the world. At
the sametime, the authoritieswere afraidto
disclose to
the
public
the whole truth about
their
military
failures,
so
they
tended to
downplay
their losses.
Then,
after Aliev
came
power
and
began legal prosecution
of
political
and
military
leaders
guilty
of
poor
military performance
around
Karabakh,
he
figure
started to
grow,
from
16,000
all the
way
to
40,000.
Aliev's
Ministry
of
Defense
announced this
figure
when the President
was
strengthening
his
unchallenged
status
and eradicatingopposition leaders(Interfax,
25 April 1995). Speaking
at the OSCE
summit
meeting
in
Lisbon in December
1996,
however,
President Aliev
used
the
figure 20,000
citizens
of
Azerbaijan.
If
we
include the Armeniancasualties,
we estimate
the overall losses at
24,000
at
most
(Mukomel, 1997).
The
figure provided by
the
Russian
Ministry
of
Defense
(13-15,000,
in
Segodnya,
and
19 February
1994) cannot be discarded,or even the most
conservative stimates
(4,000-10,000)
from
the
Uppsala
conflict
project (Wallensteen
&
Axell, 1994; Baranovsky,1994).
In
the Chechen
War,
the Chechens
sought
to maximize
losses whereas
the
federal
Russian side
desperately
tried to
cover
up
the
real
figures
and
failed to
count
properly
even
its own
military
losses.
First,
Chechen
propaganda
had
announced
that, up
until
February 1995,
some
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43,000-45,000
people
were
killed,
including
18,000-20,000
Russian
military
personnel
(Interfax,
9
March
1995).
According
to Chechen leader
Yandarbiev,
there were about 100,000 killed and 45,000
wounded
(Izvestia,
12
October
1996).
This
defies
belief,
since the usual ratio between
wounded
and killed in
military
operations
(3-5
wounded
for each
casualty)
would
yield
a
casualty
figure
of
around
10,000-15,000.
Nevertheless,
the Moscow
opposition
used the same
figures: Grigorii
Yavlinskii
spoke
of
100,000
casualties,
Dmitrii
Rogozin
about
150,000
(Neva-
visimaya azeta,5 October 1996). The most
exaggerated
statements
came
from the
former
Secretary
of
the
Security
Council,
General Alexander Lebed.
He
had
played
a
crucial role in
ending
the
war
in
the
fall of
1996
and
was
interested
in
ensuring
a most
dramatic
presentation
of
this
achievement.
Lebed
spoke
of
80,000
killed and
240,000
wounded
(Izvestia, 5
September 1996).
Chechen propagandists simply added
another 20,000
to the
casualty figure.
This
dubious information immediately became
widely cited.
Because
of the chaosand poor accounting
even
among
federal
regulars,precise figures
can never
be
established
with
any
accuracy.
The estimates provided by
Mukomel
(1997:
305)
are
probably
the
best:
Some
35,000
people
were
killed, including 4,300 federal
troops,
about
3,000
Chechen combatants,
and between
25,000
and
30,000
civilians,
up to 60% of whom could be ethnic
Russians iving
in
Grozny.
This
is still
a
high
figure,
combining
data
from
military
sources
and data
collected
by
the
leading
Russian
human
rights organization
'Memorial'
on
civilian casualties
in
Grozny.
The
Russian
Ministry
of
InternalAffairsestimates
overall
losses
in
the
Chechen
War at
about
18,500
people.
Even
when
there
is
agrement
on the
data,
they
can be
subjected
to
differing interpret-
ations. For
example,
Chechens cite
100,000
losses as the
price paid
for
their
indepen-
dence,
while Russian
emphasize
that about
70%
of
those killed
in
Chechnya
were
ethnic
Russians.Losseswill also be rememberedby
societies in
different
ways.
A low
opinion
on
the value of human life is a
general legacy
from
the
Soviet
regime.
Within the Former
Soviet
Union there are
probably
different
tolerance
evels
as
to loss of
life,
determined
by
modernization,
religious
beliefs,
and
his-
torical
experience.
The
phenomenon
of
'death without
weeping' (Scheper-Hughes,
1992)
may
be more
widespread among
Central Asian and Muslim communities
than,
say,
among
Armeniansand
Georgians.
Several dozen
graves
in a
schoolyard
in the
South Ossetian
capital
of Zkhinvali
can be
equivalent
in
political power
to
thousands
killed
in
Tajik
clashes.
In
one of the rounds
in
the Russian-Chechen
negotiations,
Asian
Maskhadov
said,
in
a
deeply
emotional
move: 'We Chechens,
by virtueof our soul,
can overcome
tragic memories and we can
start a new life as nothing had
happened
between our two peoples'.7 This is not an
excuse for atrocities,
but a reminder that
casualty figures cannot provide
a sufficient
basis for judging what is a deep-rooted
or
intractableconflict. Depending
on the atti-
tudes to death, conflictswith huge
losses and
destruction may be negotiated
and resolved
more easily
than
conflicts that are
relatively
minor
in
terms
of
actual human losses. The
same point applies
to materialdestruction,
although such figuresarerarelypublishedby
the major researchprojectson conflict.
Forced Movements of People
Because of the intense international
nvolve-
ment of the UNHCR, as well as the
growing
concern and efforts undertakenby
emerging
forced-migration services in
post-Soviet
7
Reportedby Vyacheslav
Mikhailov o
author,
summer
1996.
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ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER
USSR
countries,
data on forced
migrants
and inter-
nally
displaced
persons
are
increasingly
becoming
available
(see
UNHCR, 1998a,b;
Tishkov, 1996,
1997c).
The
major
method-
ological and politicalproblemis this: how to
distinguish
between
economically
or
cultur-
ally
motivated movements of
people
in rela-
tively peaceful
times,
and
forced
migrations
relatedto direct violence
or
potential danger
of violence?
There was
always
extensive internal
migration
within the USSR
Despite
the resi-
dence
permit
system
and restrictions
on
moving
into a
few
major
cities,
Soviet citizens
moved a lot within the country- to ethnic
periphery
areas,
as well as to cities like
Moscow.
Mostof these internal
migrants
were
driven
by
economic
motivation,
sometimes
camouflaged
by
the
ideological
rhetoricwhich
accompaniedhuge projects
n Siberiaand
in
the CentralAsian and Baltic
republics.
n the
post-Stalinistperiod
herewereno mass orced
relocations
except
or
restricted
erritories
or
military
or
space programs),
and
by
the late
1950s
most of the
formerlydeportedpeoples
had returned
to
their
homelands.
Some,
especially among
the
Volga Germans,
the
Crimean
Tatars,
and the
Koreans, opted
to
stay
on
in
the
places
where
they
had
already
been
living
for
at least
one
generation
and to
which
they
had
adopted economically
and
culturally.
Some did
not want
to return
because
their
group
had been denied the
res-
toration
of former
autonomies,
or because
of
restrictions
on
moving
to their
home
places
(Turks,CrimeanTatars, Ingush). Thus, the
overall
figures
on the
recent flows of
people
within the Former
Soviet Union
(about
9-10
million)
cannot
be ascribed
olely
to conflict
and indirect
violence.
The
average
annual
figure
for
population exchange
between
republics
of the
Soviet
Union was about
5-6
million in the
1970s
and
1980s.
Therefore,
at
least
half of the
recent
migrations
would
prob-
ably
have
happened
even without
the
breakup
of the USSR
Many
people
who
take
the
major
decision
to move to an environment which
they
regard
as
economically
better off and
cultur-
ally
more
friendly
will be
inclined
to
drama-
tize their situation, presenting it as
intolerable
n
order
to elicit
sympathy
or to
be
eligible
for the
support
and
privileges
assigned
o forced
migrants.
The
interplay
of
personal strategies
or
improving
social con-
ditions
and
of'push-out'
factors s a
complex
issue. Mass-media
propaganda
and
grass-
roots rumors
may
provoke
an
exodus of
people, especially
where there is a
large
potential pool
of economic
migrants
-
as
was the case with the exodus of Bulgarian
Turks in
1989,
with
Albanians
during
recent
civic
disorders,
and
with
many
Russians
in
Azerbaijan,Kirgizia,
and Uzbekistan.
For
the
territory
of the
FSU,
the number
of those
fleeing
armed conflicts
within this
area s
probably
some
2
million,
only
a small
part
of whom have now returned to their
former homes.
The
major
area
producing
refugees
is
Transcaucasus.
The conflict
around
Nagorno-Karabakh
caused the
highest
numbers of forced
migrants.
In
Azerbaijan, here are 185,000 refugees
from
Armenia;
some
600,000
had
to
leave
Karabakh
and
other
regions
controlled
by
Armenians
in
Azerbaijan by
now
approxi-
mately 60,000
have returned
to their
homes).
There are about
50,000
Meskhetian
Turks in
Azerbaijan
who
were
expelled
from
Uzbekistan
in
1990.
In
Armenia,
there are
340,000
Armenians from
Azerbaijan.
In
Georgia, there are 200,000 internally dis-
placed people
from
Abkhazia and from
South
Ossetia,
and
a small
number of
Abkhazians
in Abkhazia who
have come
from the
rest of
Georgia.
Central
Asia is another
region
with
many
refugees.
In
1992-93,
the war
in
Tajikistan
had
resulted
in
60,000 internally displaced
persons
and
over 100,000
who
fled
to
Afghanistan,
to other Central Asian coun-
tries,
and
to Russia.
Most of the
IDPs and
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refugees in
Afghanistan
have
now returned
home;
refugees
to the CIS countries remain
refugees
(30,000
in
Uzbekistan, 20,000
in
Russia, 20,000
in
Turkmenistan, 15,000
in
Kirgizia).There are about 10,000 Chechen
refugees
in
Kazakhstan
and
Kirgizia,
and
a
small number
of Armeniansfrom
Azerbaijan
who fled to Turkmenistan.
The Russian Federation
has
become
a
hub
of
population
movements.
Despite pol-
itical
instability
and
economic
crisis,
Russia
has been
receiving
arge
numbers
of
migrants
of all kinds
-
labor
migrants, refugees,
asylum-seekers,repatriates,
llegal migrants,
and others. The RussianFederalMigration
Service
registered
1,224,764
refulgees
as
of
January
1997;
according
to
my
estimates
there
are another
1.5
million
non-registered
forced
migrants
from other
post-Soviet
states
(mainly
Tajikistan,
Georgia,
and
Azerbaijan)
and
involuntarily
relocated
persons,
mainly
as
a result
of the
Ingush-Ossetian
conflict
and the
Chechen
War. Most
of
these
migrants do
not
go
through
the bureaucratic
procedure
of
regis-
tration,
with
scant
prospects
of
receivingany
sizeable
material compensation
and proper
civic status. Many
carriersof former Soviet
passports
arriving
in
Russia
are
satisfied
if
they
can find a
job
and
a
place
to live.
Sometimes
they
are refused
refugee
status or
they
are
afraid to announce
themselves and
to
apply
for
assistance.
n
summer
1992,
the
number
of registered
South Ossetian
refugees
from
Georgia
to North Ossetia
started to increase dramaticallybecause of
the
impending
procedure
of
issuing
Russian
privatization
checks.
Soon
after,
with
rumors
of an expected
resettlementprogram
to
South Ossetia,
numbers
began
to fall
again.
The drama and
chaos of the Chechen
War
caused
the
greatest
number
of
forced
migrants.
Many
local residents
had
left
Chechnya
in
the
years 1991-94.
Over
100,000 mainly
ethnic Russians
and
other
non-Chechens
were
forced to
move to other
parts
of the
country.
The
war
produced
a
mass exodus of
city
dwellers
from
Grozny,
Gudermes,
and
other
damaged
settlements
(about 300,000 people). After the war
ended,
another
100,000,
mainly
ethnic
Chechens,
left
the
republic.
Their
return is
progressing
slowly.
Various
arbitrary
measures taken
by
the authorities
in
neigh-
boring regions
(Kabardino-Balkaria,
Daghestan,
North
Ossetia,
Stavropol
krai)
to induce
Chechens to return home
have
proven
unsuccessful.
Under
the
existing
post-conflict
situation,
most of them
prefer
to stay away, despite appeals from Grozny
government
to
join
in
the restoration
effort
and in
building
up
an
independent
state.
None
of the
major
actorsare interested
n
publicizing
the
fact that
half
of
Chechnya's
population
are
emigres:
for
Grozny,
this
means an admissionof
poor
legitimacy
and
of the
weak attraction
of the secession
project; for the
federal authorities,
it means
the recognition
of a large-scalehumanitarian
problem demanding
material resources;
or
the international community, it means
unwilling disillusionment
with the
myth of
the oppressed
Chechen nation fighting
for
its independence.
Without the return
of the
Chechen elite elements
(managers,
ntellec-
tuals,
educationalists,business
people), true
post-conflict
restoration
n Chechnyawill
be
impossible(Tishkov,
1997b).
Sociocultural
Damage and a
Learning
Curve
There
are no established
quantitativecriteria
for measuringthe sociocultural
and psycho-
logical
damages resulting
from violent con-
flict. Analyses
of peacemaking
and
humanitarian
nterventions n conflict
zones
in
the
Former Soviet Union
have been
modest
and at
times
biased.
One
factor that
stands
out
as particularly
mportant
is
mili-
tarization through
illegal paramilitary
for-
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CONFLICTS
IN THE
FORMER USSR
mations or
'armies',
'national
guards',
or
'defense
battalions',
which
leads
to a
profu-
sion
of
small
weapons among
civilians. The
post-Soviet
world is a
striking example
of
how a highly militarized society that once
exercised
strict control
of access to arms has
lost this
control,
mainly
because of disinte-
gration,
weakening
order,
and
corruption
among
the
military.
Huge
army
arsenals
became available for the
entrepreneurs
of
violence and all kinds of
fighters
for a
'just
cause'. The
availability
of
arms,
their
ensuing spread,
and
questions
of control can
be
important
indicators
for
the
early
warning of conflict as well as for assessing
the
possibilities
of conflict
resolution:
without
arms,
one cannot
organize
a war.
One of
the
tragic
mistakes
made with
the
breakup
of the
Soviet
Union was to
enable
the
arming
of new actors
leaving
the
old
state
in
order to
safeguard
heir new
security
and
sovereignty.
In
particular,
Moscow was
too lenient about arming groups and
forces,
promising to combat anti-Russian politics
and radical
geopolitical reorientation,
as was
the case with Abkhazian separatists
demanding to rejoin
Russia after
winning
independence from Georgia .
The Georgian governments
under
Gamsakhurdia
and Shevardnadze would
never have been able
to unleash
a
violent
movement against
local
minorities
(South
Ossetians
and
Abkhazians)
f
the new state
had not
acquired
a
large proportion
of
the
Soviet Army arsenal.
This enabled
Georgia
to build up an army more reminiscentof a
mob, led by uneducated, ambitious,
and
irresponsible
men.
In
turn,
the
Ossets
and
Abkhazians
organized
armed resistancewith
weapons smuggled
from Russian
military
garrisons
and other
outside sources.
During
the war
in
Abkhazia,
the Abkhazian side
used
no less than
1,000 railway carriage
loads
of arms and
ammunition, mainly
from
Russian
arsenals.
Easy,
large-scale
access
to
sophisticated
modern
weapons
became a
decisive factor
for enthusiastsof the
Chechen 'nationalrev-
olution',
who
had
in
fact
initially
not
planned
an armedresistance.
Such a scenario
becamepossibleafter the RussianArmyhad
withdrawn,
eaving
behind
226
airplanes,
42
tanks,
36
armored
personnel
carriers,
and
29,000
machine-guns.
The
Chechen leader-
ship
decided to
arm the
male
population,
mainly
from the rural mountain
areas,
who
had lost
their
former sources of income
derived
from
seasonal work elsewhere in
Russia.
A
Kalashnikov
gave
them the chance
to 'restore
justice'
-
which
they
set about
doing by seizing the apartmentsand other
property
of
mainly
ethnic
Russian
city-
dwellerswho lacked
kinship protection.
The
glorification
of
physical
force and of
fighting
skills has remained an
element
of
culture,
from
ancient
mythology
to
Hollywood
productions.
In
Chechnya,
emo-
tional
preparation
or
fighting
preceded
real
battles. In 1991-92, the
Chechen publisher
'Groznenskii rabochii'
(Grozny worker)
printed 100,000 copies of two war-romantic
booklets: Ten Monthsof Prison in Chechnya
and Sables of Paradise: Mountaineers'
Weapons in the
Caucasian War.
Leo
Tolstoy's story 'Khadzhi
Murat',
with its
myth of the
noble
savage,
has
also
been
reprinted requently.
Heavy arming
of a considerable
propor-
tion
of
the male civilian
population
is a
pre-
requisite of conflict in
all its stages. Today,
with practically
all
violent
conflicts on the
territoryof the FSU in abeyance,weaponsin
civilian hands
remain the
major
obstacle to
the restorationof true
peace.
The
number
of
armed Chechen
combatants has
increased
several times after
they
seized
Grozny
and
federal troops
left
Chechnya
in
autumn
1996:
from
5,000-7,000
during
the war to
30,000
after the
January 1997
elections and
the formation of Maskhadov's
government,
up
to
50,000-60,000 by
the
end
of
1997,
some 10% of
the
population.
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Militarization,
from
propaganda
to the
real
arming
of
civilians,
is a
major
parameter
of these conflicts. It
produces
a
'Kalashnikov
culture'
highly
detrimental
to reconstruc-
tion, especiallyfor organizingthe returnof
young
men to
peaceful ways
of
earning
a
livelihood. Other
types
of sociocultural
damage
nclude
unemployment,
lack
of
edu-
cation,
deterioration
of medical
treatment,
ruptured
communal
ties,
and blood feuds.
Another
important
characteristicof con-
flicts
in the territoriesof
the Former Soviet
Union
is the
rapid change
in the demo-
graphic
situation,
including
the ethnic com-
position of the population. Ethnic cleansing
makes
a
territory
more
homogeneous
and
potentially
less vulnerable
to inter-ethnic
clashes.
This could even
be
interpreted
as
a
nasty
but
effective
way
of
avoiding
future
conflict,
if no other forms
of
pacification
are
available o the
warringparties.
But
partition
along
the ethnic
or
religious
lines cannot
provide
a
tidy
answer:
it brings
new prob-
lems and
sows
the seeds
of new conflict.
Homogenization
does not mean
bringing
harmony
and
peace
for the group in the
absence
of'outside
elements'.
In-group
con-
tradictions
and
cleavages
can
prove
no
less
severe,
once the
outsiders
('aliens',
'colo-
nizers', occupants')
have
disappeared.
Often
these 'outsiders'
have
served
to
keep
the
group together;
ndeed,
the
group
may
have
existed
precisely
because it
could find
cohesion and
identify
itself
through
the
opposition
with another group
or social
coalition. For example, the strong presence
of
Russian populations
in
former Soviet
periphery
areas
played
an
important
role for
ethno-national
consolidation
of
major
non-
Russian groups.
As soon
as the Russians
started to
leave
Kirgizia
and Kazakhstan
n
Central
Asia,
and
Georgia
and
Chechnya
in
the
Caucasus, cleavages
and
rivalries based
on
regional, religious,
kinship,
and
other
markers
emerged
among
local
groups
which
had
seemed
quite
coherent
until then. It
was
outside
intervention that made
Chechens
more united and
helped
to
overcome
the
violent internal
clashes in
1993-94
that
promised
speedy
failure
for the
regime
of
Dzokhar Dudaev. The conflict in Abkhazia
helped
to
keep
the
Georgians
consolidated
in
the
face of
growing
regional,
cultural,
and
religious
cleavages.
The mere movement
of
people beyond
borders does
not make
them
spatially
dis-
tanced.
Those who have been removed
or
expelled
tend to remain within close
reach,
nurturing
their hatred towards
enemies,
mixed with
nostalgia
and
grief
over lost
homes and property.Revenge mentalityand
activities
become the inevitable result
of
population
exchange
and ethnic
cleansing.
This can be
observed
among
expelled
Georgians
currently
involved
in
under-
ground fighting
and terroristacts
in the Gali
region
of
Abkhazia,
among
Azeris
expelled
from Karabakh and
surrounding
areas,
among Ingush
expelled
from
Prigorodnyi
raion, among Russians
in Stavropol krai
expelled
from Chechnya. Non-returnees
are
explosivefuel for the next cycle of violence.
Internal
violent conflicts and wars
seriously
affect
adjacent regions.
The Chechen War
spilled
over
the
administrative
borders of
that republic;
federal military
headquarters
and
other
installations,
including detain-
ment
camps
for
Chechens, were
placed
on
the
territory
of North
Ossetia,
Stavropol,
Ingushetia,
and Daghestan.
Two
major
clashes
caused by
terroristacts took
place
in
Stavropol krai (Buddennovsk) and in
Daghestan (Pervomaisk).
The war behind
no
borders gave
rise to
a specific
emotional
climate and
political
behavior
which can
be
qualified
as
'near
frontline'.
Even with
a
ceasefire
and
top-level peace
agreement,
armed conflict
tends
to
spread
violence and
political
instability
over
a
larger
terri-
tory
-
especially
because
there
will be
those
combatants who
remain
armed,
as well
as
those
who do not
accept
the
agreements
and
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587
who still can live on the business
of war
and
arms.
Hostage-taking
for
ransom,
seizing
property,
and
other violent manifestations
have now escalated
o
the
point
of new
crises
in Daghestanand Stavropolafter the end of
war in
Chechnya.
The
general
conclusion
on
world
patterns
of armed conflicts reached
by
Sollenberg
& Wallensteen
(1997: 22)
is
rel-
evant here:
Another
phenomenon
was
that
not
only
were
armed
conflicts
preading
ver
arger
errito-
riesand
giving
rise o
newconflicts ut so was
general
social
and
political
instability,
pointing
to a lack of state
legitimacy.
The
causal
inks
obviously
go
both
ways:
armed
conflict leads to instabilityand instability
leads
to armed conflict.
Thus,
a
region
becomes ocked
nto a
vicious
piral,
n some
cases towards
complete
state
failure,
as
in
Somalia
nd
Zaire.
The next
important
issue
concerns
the
changing
balance and sociocultural
climate
in
areas receiving
refugees and displaced
persons during
and
after the conflict.
In
1992,
wishful
thinking prevailed among
some
members of Gaidar's
government,
that
the ethnic Russians and
other
'Europeans'
forced
to leave
Central
Asia and
Transcaucasus
after
the
breakup
of
the
USSR would
be settled
in
underdeveloped
regions
of the Russian
heartland and
thus
contribute greatly
to
the economic
rise of
Russia
proper'.
The number
of'resettlers'
o
the
'historic motherland'
was
expected
to
between
5
and
7
million,
out
of
25
million
ethnic
Russians
abroad.
Similar false
expec-
tations for ethnic homogenization led the
Latvian
and Estonian
authorities
o choose
a
policy
of exclusion
for local residents
with
non-titular
ethnic
backgrounds.
These
expectations
also
proved
wrong.
Research
and
policy
were
permeated
with
the theor-
etically
untenable
assumption
that
people
have
some kind
of
deep-rooted,
historical
bonds
to their
eponym countries,
and
they
must
'return home'
or
be
repatriated
(Kolstoe, 1995;
Lebedeva, 1996).
Politi