Abstract
This article provides a brief overview
of bottom-up peace-building and its practice in the North
Caucasus. The hypothesis developed in this study is an
assumption that the conflict in North Caucasus starts at the
community, or grass-roots, level. Therefore, peaceful
resolutions to conflict should be sought by implementing a
local, bottom-up type of peace-building. Such peace-building
measures, in turn, require the active participation of civil
society and, in particular, independent and functional local
and international NGOs.
Keywords: Bottom-up
peace-building, North Caucasus conflict, grass-roots, civil
society, Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria.
Introduction
The collapse of the USSR has left the
North Caucasus, a region in the south of the Russian
Federation, in a quagmire of disputes among its multiple
freedom-aspiring ethnicities and the newly born Russian
state. In spite of almost two decades of violence in the
region, it continues to remain a “forgotten crisis”, even
more so than it used to be in the 1990s, when the region
arguably received more media attention. According to Human
Rights Watch, in 2009
the separatist insurgency in the North Caucasus intensified,
and a 2009 Crisis Watch report (ICG 2009)
identifies the region as an ongoing conflict area. With this
in mind, this paper analyses the prospects for
peace-building in the North Caucasus.
Increasing Violence: The 2000s
The end of large-scale fighting in
Chechnya (in 2002–3) was in fact the beginning of the
conflict’s spillover in the North Caucasus. The adoption of
the Chechen constitution by the Russian-backed government of
Ahmad Kadyrov in 2003 and Kadyrov’s being elected as
president of the Chechen republic officially put an end to
Chechnya’s independence and outlawed the separatist
government of Aslan Maskhadov.
The outflow of fighters from Chechnya,
from 2002–3, gave a powerful boost to the development of
insurgent cells in different parts of the region. The first
indicator of conflict spillover was a rapid increase of
attacks on government officials, security forces and
military installations throughout Dagestan, Ingushetia,
North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia.
Although sporadic incidents of violence took place in
different areas of the North Caucasus outside Chechnya prior
to 2002–3, it has been in the majority of cases masterminded
and conducted by Chechen militants rather than by home-grown
insurgencies. For instance, Dagestan has long been a scene
of the conflict due to frequent Chechen cross-border raids
even though prior to the end of large-scale military
operations in Chechnya it had no active insurgency of its
own. A new type of conflict began to emerge in the North
Caucasus between 2004 and 2006, in which most of the
violence has been perpetrated by the so-called military
jamaats:
home-grown and mostly autonomous insurgent groups operating
in the North Caucasian republics. The data compiled by the
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
indicates that as early as January 2004, Chechnya ceased to
be the only “hot spot” in the North Caucasus, and it was no
longer the most violent place in the region.
On October 2007 Doku Umarov announced the
creation of a “Caucasus Emirate” (Imarat Kavkaz).
The Caucasus Emirate has eliminated the concept of
independent Chechnya, instead replacing it with that of a
united pan-Caucasian state, including all of the Russian
North Caucasus. Although opposed by some of Ichkeria’s
leaders in exile,
the Caucasus Emirate has opened a region-wide front of
anti-Russian insurgency. As a result, the rates of violence
almost doubled in 2008, and tripled in 2009. Indeed, a surge
of violence in 2009 meant conflict had reached unprecedented
levels, with 1,100 incidents that year in comparison with
795 in 2008. The number of people killed in conflicts almost
doubled in 2009, with 900 fatalities compared with 586
deadly incidents in 2008.
Paradoxically, in April 2009, Russian
President Medvedev’s administration announced an end to
“counter-terrorism” operations in Chechnya.
The announcement was more symbolic than anything,
essentially needed to provide a boost for Ramzan Kadyrov’s
government. According to the latest data,
the first four months of 2010 have already seen more than
200 conflict-related deaths, with the majority of violent
incidents occurring in Ingushetia and Dagestan (109 in
Ingushetia and over 90 in Dagestan). In
spite of the increase in hostilities, there have been no
attempts to initiate peace talks (as of fall 2010) between
the state and the insurgents. Moreover, the federal
government actively denies the very existence of an ongoing
armed conflict in the North Caucasus and rejects any
necessity for conflict resolution and peace-building.
The situation in the North
Caucasus is officially defined by the president of the
Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, as a “struggle against
terrorism.”
After the cancellation of “counter-terrorism” operation in
Chechnya in April 2009 (started in August 1999), the
president emphasized “the clear improvement of the situation
in North Caucasus” republics’ and concluded that “Russia’s
fight with terrorism has been successful.”
Theory of Bottom-Up Peace-Building
Revisited
A bottom-up peace-building approach, also
known as “indigenous empowerment”, is a comprehensive tool
in the conflict resolution field. A core idea of bottom-up
peace-building is to empower local populations at the bottom
and mid-levels of society by allowing them to consolidate
and develop necessary resources for the implementation of a
peace process, which could be later advanced onto elite
levels.
Lederach’s pyramid of peace-building (see
Figure 1) reasonably places NGOs and other civil groups into
the mid level so as to represent a link between elite/state
and people/grass-roots. According to Lederach (1997), the
reason why bottom-up peace-building efforts can be more
efficient than those originating from the top is that
by virtue of their high public profile
[…] leaders are generally locked into positions taken with a
regard to the perspectives and issues in conflict. They are
under a tremendous pressure to maintain a position of
strength vis-à-vis their adversaries and their own
constituencies.
Figure 1:
Lederach’s peace-building model
Source: John Paul
Lederach (1997), Building peace: Sustainable
Reconciliation in Divided Societies, p. 39.
Middle-range actors are usually not
involved in the governing process. In general, they are
educators, intellectuals, businessmen and representatives of
civil society. However, they can have a certain degree of
influence on the elites while simultaneously serving as a
link between the state and the population. Most importantly,
middle-range actors should have no political or military
affiliations. And although they do not necessarily have to
be neutral, they, nevertheless, are not expected to support
either side openly. Accordingly, middle-range leaders do not
usually “depend on visibility and publicity”.
In the case of the North Caucasus, middle-range actors can
be representatives of local and international civil groups,
community leaders, village elders, intellectuals, scholars
and, in some cases, clan leaders. However, the exact
definition of middle-range leaders needs to be more precise
in each particular case. For instance, in Dagestan, where
those of Avar ethnicity traditionally occupy governmental
posts, many Avar clan leaders might be expected to have
links with authorities or occupy certain positions in
government. However, many of Dagestan’s insurgents are also
of Avar ethnicity. In such cases, it might be reasonable on
rely on middle-range leaders from civil society rather than
on community or clan leaders. The same might be said of
Kabardino-Balkaria, where those of Kabardin ethnicity form
the ruling group, and Kabardins are also a major recruitment
pool for rebels. In Ingushetia, clan leaders as a rule are
in charge of municipal or district administrations and are
less trusted than elders and grass-roots leaders without
clan affiliation.
Lederach (1997) also places religious
leaders into a middle-range category. That might have a
dubious role in the case of North Caucasus. Most of the
religious establishment in the region is closely associated
with the government; it supports authorities and receives
backing from elites, both local and federal. Sufi religious
leaders are seen by the government as a bulwark of moderate
Islam and a counter-balance to radical Salafi
separatists. However, popularly Sufi clerics are often
regarded as corrupt and as using religion to legitimize
local authorities with no respect for traditional notions of
Islam. Thus, by adhering to Salafi branch of Islam, rebels
and critics of the state deny clerics’ power of religious
authority. The so-called hunt for Wahhabis,
unleashed by Putin’s administration in the North Caucasus,
along with the start of the Second Chechen campaign
(launched in 1999), in fact, allowed Sufi clerics to
strengthen their position and eradicate their opponents from
other branches of Islam.
However, considering that many rank-and-file members of the
insurgency as well as some of its commanders are still
followers of the Sufi branch rather than radical Wahhabis,
it might be expected that the emergence of neutral Sufi
clerics could be favorable for any peace process.
Indeed, the middle-range actor category
also includes the leadership of the insurgents. In
comparison with such rebel movements as the Tamil Tigers and
Angola’s UNITA, which have the whole decision-making and
leadership process concentrated in the hands of a “supreme
leader” whose death would cripple the struggle, the
insurgency in the North Caucasus has a rather dispersed
power-center. The rebel movement’s leadership is constantly
undergoing staff turn-over, with newly emerged leaders
replacing deceased ones. Also, in contrast to former and
current Chechen warlords, insurgency leaders in other parts
of the North Caucasus prefer to stay in the shadows and
rarely appear in the headlines. It has been speculated, for
instance, that as head of the Caucasus Emirate, Doku Umarov
has only a nominal power over insurgent jamaats
(organizations) outside of Chechnya.
In general, most of the insurgent leaders in Ingushetia,
Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria are from the middle class
rather than from the republics’ elites.
However, in spite of middle-range level’s
importance, Lederach (1997) allocates a leading role in
peace-building to grass-roots leadership, i.e. members of
NGOs working with local communities, health care personnel
and grass-roots volunteers at the community level. As
Lederach observes:
[…] the local level is a microcosm of
the bigger picture. The lines of identity often are drawn
right through local communities, splitting them into hostile
groups. Unlike many actors at the higher level of the
pyramid, however, grassroot leaders witness first hand the
deep-rooted hatred and animosity on a daily basis.
Lederach also implies that most of the
social issues, such as human-rights abuses and inter-ethnic
divisions, often start at the grass-roots level.
Accordingly, the actions taken by leaders of the state are
slow to reach their actual beneficiaries at the bottom of
pyramid, i.e. grass-roots community levels. By contrast,
activities conducted from the bottom-up are more likely to
be aimed at the actual needs and grievances of the affected
population. Regarding the ongoing conflict in the North
Caucasus, it is obviously the level of social insecurity and
the inability of civil society to fulfill its role that
affects the issue. The conflict’s distinctive feature is
that it has clan members and representatives of multiple
ethnicities rebelling against their leaders and the
establishment that they support rather than rallying along
ethnic and national divisions, similar to past conflicts in
the Caucasus. The incompatibility begins at a grass-roots
level sometimes overtaking middle levels of society but
never the upper ones. Thus, the classical models of
peace-building
which aim to identify the top leaders and bring them to a
negotiating table for peace talks is less plausible in the
North Caucasus. As mentioned earlier, insurgency in the
region does not have a clearly defined leadership capable of
ordering all the groups to cease fighting; the leadership is
dispersed, symbolic in nature and constantly changing.
Moreover, in contrast to societies in “old wars”, where
rebel leaders often attempted to represent the whole
population and pursued higher goals, such as independence
from colonialism, or the struggle against capitalism,
dictatorship or ethnic liberation, insurgent leaders in the
North Caucasus hardly even have clear and feasible
objectives for the struggle. Apart from that, top-level
peace-making has previously failed in earlier conflicts in
the North Caucasus, in the first Chechen war in particular.
It must also be noted that in comparison with the “old
wars”, where the top-level peace-building has mostly been
used before, both of the conflicting sides in the North
Caucasus have reached the stage when mutual vilification
makes it extremely difficult even to start peace talks.
Middle-range peace-building has a better
potential for success in the North Caucasus. Lederach (1997)
identifies a number of major activities as a part of
middle-range conflict resolution, e.g. problem-solving
workshops, conflict-resolution training and peace
commissions. The main goal of these activities is to
initiate contact and dialogue between middle-range leaders
representing civil society and the conflicting sides. Such
workshops or meetings are normally conducted off the record
and are designed to lead to further dialogue at higher
levels. The 1993 PLO–Israeli accords and the 1996 Guatemala
accords are usually cited as outcomes of such informal
problem-solving meetings. Conflict-resolution training can
be understood as an element of a middle-range
peace-building. The training is expected to be conducted by
leaders of civil society and community representatives in
order to raise awareness of peace and reconciliation. In
general, middle-range peace-building activities may take
many different forms directed at changing perceptions,
stereotypes and incompatibilities of the warring sides.
In spite of the importance of
middle-range peace-building, it is bottom-up, grass-roots
action that is expected to serve as a decisive force in
enforcing a peace process. In fact, grass-roots actors are
most of all in need of peace because it is they who have to
cope with ongoing violence in their daily lives.
Lederach (1997 & 2001) concludes that it is desperation and
frustration with the conflict that usually force grass-roots
actors onto the pass of promoting peace. However, in order
for bottom-up peace-building process to start, it is
necessary to “empower” local actors by ensuring them of the
feasibility of peace efforts and of the plausibility of
conflict resolution. Such an empowerment is generally
considered to be the job of NGOs and civil society. It is
non-governmental actors, from both middle-range and
grass-roots, who can arguably be responsible for initiating
dialogue, “empowering” themselves and local communities at
the same time. Active and vocal civil society is a necessary
prerequisite for the implementation of bottom-up
peace-building. Advocates
of the bottom-up approach claim that most modern civil wars
of the “new type”, i.e. conflicts between state and
non-state actors or civil wars between two or more non-state
actors, have ended as a result of bottom-up peace-building.
Peace-building is also often associated
with society-building, which is usually the case in
post-colonial societies and societies in transition.
Society-building has become a necessity in many post-Soviet
states in the early 1990s in the aftermath of the collapse
of USSR. That process has also engulfed the North Caucasus.
However, society-building in Dagestan, Ingushetia and
Kabardino-Balkaria was not as clearly shaped as in the
independent states of the Caucasus. In comparison with
Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, where society-building
evolved around rising nationalism and ethnic identity, a
similar process in the Russian North Caucasus (with the
exception of Chechnya) has been largely focused on economic
transition from industrial and agricultural industries to
service-oriented industry and tourism.
Civil Society in Bottom-Up
Peace-Building
At first sight it might be rather
difficult to access the effectiveness of NGOs’ role in
peace-building. Whereas the proponents of peace-building
from the bottom strongly advocate the idea of empowering
local groups and communities, others are either wary about
the role of NGOs in an armed conflict
or cautious about the level of NGOs’ engagement.
Yet another debate focuses on whether
global civil society is more efficient in peace-building
than local. The proponents of the global approach
claim that, on average, national NGOs tend to work on
peace-building at macro levels, targeting elites and the
state,
whereas supporters of the local peace-building
state that international NGOs often attempt to bring Western
ideas of peace-building and disregard local needs and
traditions. Anderson and Olson (2003) also add that:
Agencies with experience in many
conflicts can create the impression that they are the
experts in peace. This can disempower people who have
experience in only their own conflict. It can undermine
local people’s energy and initiative to act. In some cases,
peace agencies inadvertently communicate the implicit
message that local people cannot make peace without their
outside help.
Generally speaking, it is very difficult
to present NGOs as either a positive or a negative actor in
bottom-up peace-building. Examples from different parts of
the world offer diverse techniques used by civil actors in
implementing. Varshney (2001) in his study on civil
networking at grass-roots level and their influence on
inter-ethnic conflicts in India concludes that civil society
does matter in reducing inter-ethnic tensions via
grass-roots networks incorporating members of different
ethnic groups.
He argues that associational and everyday forms of civic
engagement have served as a balance in inter-ethnic and
inter-confessional conflicts in different parts of India.
Civil society’s involvement in peace processes in the
Philippines has been considered a success,
leading to peace agreements between the government and the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Due to the active
participation of grass-roots groups, religious leaders,
local and international NGOs, it has become possible for
civil society to influence conflict participants by
elevating the root causes of conflict from grass-roots to
elites. However, Toohey (2005) emphasizes that if NGO
interventions “are
not accompanied by meaningful government redistributive
policies and political reform, then it is likely that their
constituencies will become increasingly disillusioned with
the promises inherent in the struggle for peace.”
Successful examples
of bottom-up peace-building can be found in the 1998 Angola
peace process and the 1994 Guatemala peace talks.
Palestinian civil society also has a long history of
involvement in peace-building and is known to have won a
number of achievements in peace talks with Israel. The
above-mentioned 1998 Angola peace agreements as well as the
Nuba Mountains Ceasefire in Sudan are examples of a
successful third-party-initiated, bottom-up peace-building.
In both cases peace processes have been monitored by the
international community with a strong focus on local
participation.
On the other hand,
Ramirez (2008) suggests that civil society’s involvement in
the Colombian civil war so far has had limited success. She
argues that even in times of active NGO participation in
peace processes between leftist guerillas and the
government, levels of violence have had little correlation
with levels of civil engagement.
Such claims support
Kalyvas’ (2006) theory which states that levels of violence
“persisting across time and space” are mere reflections of
armed groups” struggle over territorial control.
Accordingly, in areas where such control is contested,
levels of violence are high. By contrast, areas where an
armed group (or the government) has established firm control
over a given territory, levels of violence are the lowest.
However, this theory can hardly serve as an explanation for
the escalation of violence in the North Caucasus. Being a
territory controlled by the federal government in Moscow,
the North Caucasus keeps plunging deeper into violence.
Contrary to Kalyvas’ hypothesis, the Russian government is
in physical control of the territory in North Caucasus, with
no areas under the control of the separatists, a fact which
to some degree can be a cause for the conflict.
Bottom-up
peace-building has been widely used in Somalia, although
with different outcomes. Active grass-roots involvement in
the 1991 peace agreements in Somalia, described by Lederach
(1997) as a successful case of the bottom-up approach,
included the participation of clan leaders and elders and
contributions from many communities and ethnic groups.
Another successful application of bottom-up peace-building
in Somalia is a peace-process and governance building in
Puntland from 1991 to 2007,
which lead to the creation of the Puntland administration
supported by clan leaders and local communities. However,
the bottom-up peace attempts have been of little success in
Mogadishu area, as well as in other parts of the country
after the end of UN intervention in 1992.
Apart from Colombia
and Somalia, Sri Lanka can be cited as one of the failed
examples of bottom-up peace-building. Harpviken and Kjellman
(2004) mention Sri Lankan civil society’s lack of
impartiality as one of the main reasons for its failure to
serve as a bridge between the government and the Tamil
Tigers.
International organizations likewise failed to achieve
considerable results in the Sri Lankan peace-building
process, mostly due to the distrust of the Tamils and the
unwillingness of the government to cooperate. Afghanistan is
often mentioned as an example of a successful empowerment of
local civil society in the early stages of post-9/11
reconstruction.
Bottom-up peace-building exercised in a form of empowering
tribal shuras, or village councils, is presented as a
success which resulted in driving the Taliban out of many
tribal areas in the north of the country. However, recent
developments in Afghanistan seem to prove that bottom-up
empowerment can be a short-lived success in an absence of
human security in the long term.
Retrospectively, it
is difficult to single out bottom-up peace-building as the
most successful type of implementing peace, or to brand it
as a failure. It has seen both successes and failures in a
variety of conflicts around the world. However, in a modern
political arena dominated by conflicts of the “new type”,
i.e. intrastate civil wars, the bottom-up approach reaches
to the very core of a conflict – the population, or the
grass-roots. Some of the above-mentioned cases of the
bottom-up theory application in practice are similar to the
North Caucasus, whereas others are too different. For
instance, similar to Sri Lanka, civil society in the North
Caucasus lacks impartiality and keeps at a distance from
insurgents, who often portray it as state-controlled, in
particular such elements of civil society as the religious
establishments and charity groups. The North Caucasus
conflict also resembles the conflict in Mindanao,
Philippines, where peace-building efforts required not only
inter-ethnic but also inter-confessional dedication. And
similar to Afghan civil society, civil grass-roots in the
North Caucasus are weak and in need assistance. In spite of
the existing proximities and discrepancies of peace-building
approaches around the world, it is necessary to consider the
uniqueness of each case study and the difficulty present in
attempting to replicate successes and avoid failures. The
most significant lesson to be drawn at this point is that
bottom-up peace-building can solve conflicts: it deals with
local communities, mobilizes local peace-building
potentials, requires the participation of civil society and
welcomes the collaboration of national and international
civil groups. A set of examples presented in this section
also aims to illustrate that the bottom-up approach does not
require NGOs, grass-roots movements and other elements of
civil society to be highly developed and sophisticated.
However, it does require civil society to be independent
from the state and capable of acting as a “third” sector,
balancing between the state and people or, in other words,
capable of fulfilling its function as a civil society.
Therefore, it might be useful to examine how successful the
practice of empowering local actors has been in the North
Caucasus thus far.
Bottom-Up
Peace-Building Practice in the North Caucasus
After a brief
overview of bottom-up peace-building practice around the
world it might be necessary to scrutinize the history of
peace-building efforts in the North Caucasus. Peace-building
as such is not new to the region, and the bottom-up approach
has been used previously in the North Caucasus. In spite of
being applied in different contexts and settings, previously
used approaches can nevertheless be of some help to future
peace-builders.
Bottom-up
peace-building began with the start of the first Chechen war
as early as in 1995. Grass-roots peace efforts were mostly
focused on ceasefire negotiations and prisoner exchanges,
and were implemented mainly by national NGOs. The most
prominent group initiating informal talks with Chechen field
commanders and working on community-level peace-building was
the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia (CSMR).
Figure 2: Committee of Soldiers”
Mothers of Russia (CSMR)
|
Organization’s Profile:
“Committee
of Soldiers” Mothers of Russia (CSMR) founded in
1989, as a grass-roots movement, works on peace and
non-violence, implementation of civil accountability
and transparency of federal and municipal
administrations and the development of civil society
and civil consciousness in Russian Federation. With
the start of war in Chechnya in 1994, CSMR actively
worked on the protection of conscript’s rights,
exchange and release of prisoners of war and
hostages. In 1996, CSMR received “Right Livelihood
Award” for its contribution to peace and civil
development. |
Source:
CSMR official website,
http://www.ucsmr.ru/english/.
CSMR volunteers
managed to organize massive prisoner exchanges and secure
releases of captured Federal soldiers and officers.
The successes of CSMR can be attributed to their
“straightforward” approach of directly contacting Chechen
warlords and village elders rather than negotiating prisoner
exchanges via the top command of both the federal and
Chechen sides, which could be less successful and could take
more time. Mostly elderly female CSMR volunteers managed to
vouchsafe free entry into rebel-controlled areas and
establish trust-based contacts with rebel commanders on the
ground. After the end of hostilities in 1996, CSMR’s work
has been continued by another Russian grass-roots group, the
“Peacemaking Mission of General Lebed” (PMGL).
|
Organization’s Profile:
The Peacemaking Mission of
General Lebed (PMGL), founded in 1998 by Gen.
Alexander Lebed as “Peace Mission in the North
Caucasus”. The group works on prisoner release and
exchange as well as the release of hostages and
illegally detained persons.
It claims to have released over 200 prisoners and
hostages in Chechnya since the start of its work in
1998.
According to the group’s mission statement,
one of its main priorities is conflict prevention
and the de-escalation of violence in the North
Caucasus. |
Figure 3: The
Peacemaking Mission of General Lebed (PMGL)
Source: PMGL
and FEWER.
Although both CSMR
and PMGL are still active in the region, it is obvious that
their previous peace-building successes have been achieved
in an environment different from the current one. Precisely
speaking, both of these grass-roots groups have worked in an
environment of large-scale military activities, almost
unobstructed by the state, capable and willing to engage the
rebel side in Chechnya, which remained their main partner.
Both groups have also deployed typical bottom-up approaches
of reaching out to minor Chechen warlords or clan and
village elders in an informal way. Generally, throughout the
whole Chechen conflict, Chechen warlords operated in a
locality of their origin, i.e. village, town, settlement.
Accordingly, they drew their recruits, food and supplies
from such a locality and closely depended on it. Therefore,
community peace-building could potentially succeed in such
an environment.
The current
conflict, on the other hand, is more of a type of guerilla
warfare without clear-cut frontlines, where insurgents do
not control any areas and only have basic contacts with the
local population in rural and urban areas. The composition
of insurgent groups has itself changed significantly from
locally recruited Chechen warlords’ bands. Now a typical
profile of an insurgent recruit can be presented as follows:
He or she is young—in the 18-20 age
range—and almost always a college student, often away from
home. They might be a student in Moscow or in one of the
Western countries or, on rare occasions, a student at an
Islamic institute in the Middle East. Whatever the case, he
or she is a young person who is only about to begin an
independent life; a person who is easily attracted to the
idea of comprehending the truth and distinguishing it from
untruth.
It is known that
insurgents are receiving continuing support from the local
population.
However, most of the insurgent jamaats are fairly autonomous
from the local population; they receive recruits
(predominantly from urban populations) handpicked by the
jamaats’ operatives, who are normally not connected to local
communities and are not subjects to elders or community
leaders. In terms of their supply links, insurgents seem to
be more prone to rely on “institutionalized” methods of food
and supplies collection rather than on donations from
communities in their localities.
Another source of insurgent logistics is mentioned by
Vatchagaev (2009):
Whether or not there are shared
ideological views, any interaction with relatives who happen
to be militants is governed by the mechanism of highland
ethics that is inherent in all Caucasian peoples. It implies
that if a person invokes a name of a relative, then to
assist him or her is not simply an obligation but also a
matter of personal honor.
In addition, on a number of occasions the
local population involved in the rebel “food supply chain”
has been either financially or forcibly convinced by federal
forces to poison rebels.
Thus, trust between the local population in rural areas and
the insurgent groups operating there is not of the same
level as in previous Chechen conflicts. Therefore, groups
such as PMGL, who based their work on first establishing
links with local communities and through them extending
their reach to rebel commanders, might experience
difficulties in achieving their goals.
Furthermore, in comparison with the
Chechen wars of the 1990s, the current conflict requires
slightly different peace-building priorities and goals.
There is no longer a need for prisoner and hostage release
from the rebel side; most of the missing persons are now
allegedly held by security forces.
In comparison with the aftermath of the first Chechen war,
i.e. the period from 1996 to 1999 when hundreds of civilians
were kidnapped in Chechnya and outside it by armed Chechen
gangs, mostly made up of former rebels, most of the
kidnappings are now conducted by police, the Special Forces
and other law enforcement agencies. Moreover, grass-roots
peace-builders of the 1990s seem to have prioritized
short-term activities, e.g. prisoner release and exchange,
over long-term goals, such as community peace-building,
conflict cessation and the eradication of war culture. The
dynamics of the current hostilities, however, dictate
prioritizing long-term goals in the first place. Cessation
of hostilities seems to depend now on the government’s
policies and the shift in both republican and federal
policy-making rather than on the dissolution of rebel
forces. In terms of community peace-building, there is a lot
more to do now than in 1990s Chechnya; it is necessary for
peace-builders to establish contacts with rebel commanders.
And that might be as important as peace-oriented community
work in areas of rebel activity. However, a personal
approach, actively used in 1990, is also a must. Similar to
the conflicts of the 1990s, insurgent forces do not have a
“supreme” leader with whom to negotiate, and, therefore,
approaching individual field commanders remains necessary to
achieve peace. Evidently, a new peace-building approach
needs to incorporate some activities of earlier
peace-building efforts in cohesion with new strategies.
In general, with the regard to previous
grass-roots peace-building experience it is possible to
identify a number of priority areas for peace-builders.
First, peace-building has to target wide circles of the
population, starting with the grass-roots, i.e. the current
and potential rebel recruits, supporters, sympathizers as
well as the local population in areas of insurgent activity.
It is necessary to ensure that peace-building efforts are
directed at those most affected by the conflict, i.e. the
civilian population. Second, peace-building has to include
not only the rebel forces but, most importantly, the
security and military of the North Caucasus republics, as
well as similar structures at the federal level. As
mentioned earlier, the growth of authoritarianism and its
onslaught against civil society, accompanied by
centralization and militarism, are presented here as some of
the main reasons for the current escalation of violence.
Decentralization and demilitarization of local and federal
governments might be considered as long-term objectives to
de-escalate the conflict. Working with the police and law
enforcement agencies is necessary to prevent human-rights
violations, which are known to fuel conflict and increase
the distrust of the population toward the government. The
improvement of the human-rights situation should be given
priority in eradicating the root causes of conflict, the
insecurity of the population and the heavy-handed treatment
by police and law enforcement. However, although current
peace-building efforts in the region are limited in their
scope and nature, some bottom-up activities are still taking
place.
Current
Efforts of Bottom-Up Peace-Building in
the North Caucasus
There are a handful
of peace-building programmes operating in the North
Caucasus. A brief analysis of their activities presented
below may help to understand the pitfalls of the current
peace efforts.
Nonviolence
International (NI) peace-building
|
Organization’s Profile:
“Nonviolence
International promotes nonviolent action and seeks
to reduce the use of violence worldwide. Nonviolence
International is a decentralized network of resource
centers that promote the use of nonviolent action.
NI is also a non-governmental organization in
Special Consultative Status with the Economic and
Social Council of the United Nations.”
It was founded in 1989 by a Palestinian activist and
is registered in Washington D.C., USA. It runs
projects in Indonesia, Palestine, South America, the
former Soviet Union and Southeast Asia. |
Figure 4:
Non-violence International
Source:
Nonviolence International,
http://nonviolenceinternational.net.
A multi-sector
peace-building programme launched by an international NGO
Nonviolence International (NI) on the territory of the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 1993 was
expanded to the North Caucasus in 2001.
Nonviolence International in the CIS (NIS) began its
peace-building efforts in the republic of
Karachay-Cherkessia and the border regions between Chechnya
and Dagestan. Its main goal is conflict prevention and
de-escalation as well as reconciliation and rehabilitation
in conflict-affected societies. The NIS peace-building
programme focused on conducting peace trainings to youth in
remote regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia. In 2001–2, NIS
launched a number of programmes designed to increase
inter-ethnic reconciliation and peace-building in the border
regions of Chechnya and Dagestan. These programmes aimed to
reduce tensions between Dagestani and Chechen villagers in
the border regions after the invasion of some border
districts of Dagestan by Chechen-led Islamist Brigade in
1999 (which served as the start of the Second Chechen
campaign). Two separate programmes have been also
implemented in Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria.
Both had as their goals to increase inter-ethnic tolerance
and conflict prevention in the multi-ethnic settings.
NIS defines its peace-building priorities as:
Any humanitarian, human rights,
cultural, sports, analytical, educational and/or other
activity implemented then and there, when and where it can
practically influence a situation in the direction of
preventing violence, mitigating tensions and managing
conflicts between self-identified groups of population.
According to the
data provided by the Nonviolence International group, most
of its funding, used to implement peace-building programmes
in the North Caucasus, is from private sources.
In 2005 NIS
launched the North Caucasus Regional Peace-building
programme.
The programme was intended to cover almost all of the
Russian North Caucasus and its primary goals are
peace-building, regional development, inter-ethnic and
inter-confessional tolerance. It also defines
republic-specific goals. For instance, in Kabardino-Balkaria
it identifies as a priority the participation of young
people in social and political life of the republic. It also
includes training courses and seminars on non-violence and
tolerance as well as the promotion of education and
employment. In Dagestan it prioritizes inter-ethnic
cooperation and tolerance to Chechen IDPs, as well as
inter-confessional reconciliation between the Sufi and
Salafi adherents of Islam. The programme pursues similar
goals in Ingushetia.
Most of the
peace-building activities implemented as a part of the
programme are sport competitions, culture and socializing
clubs, peace education programmes, training courses and
discussion clubs. Notably, almost all of the NIS activities
took place in rural areas.
Generally, the NIS work can be described as local
capacity-building. However, its scale and degree of
penetration into the society are insufficient to bring
long-term results in peace-building. First, the majority of
NIS programmes are focused on inter-ethnic relations and
tolerance, which are not the causes of the current conflict.
Second, considering that a great degree of violence and
human-rights violations are conducted by the law enforcement
and state authorities, NI does not have programmes dealing
with such issues as abductions, torture and extra-judicial
executions often practiced by law enforcement as a part of
“anti-terrorism” campaigns. Third, in comparison with PMGL
and CSMR, the NI does not establish links with insurgents,
which limits its opportunities at implementing a long terms
peace.
Peacebuilding UK and
the rest
|
Organization’s Profile:
“Peacebuilding
UK’s mission is to support and build local
capacities for peace in the Russian Federation,
predominantly in the North Caucasus region. This
involves supporting and jointly implementing
projects with staff, local groups and individuals in
the region to promote sustainable peace, well-being
and the enjoyment of human rights, with a particular
focus on children, youth and other vulnerable people.”
|
Figure 5:
Peacebuilding UK
Source:
Peacebuilding UK,
http://peacebuildinguk.org/home.
Peacebuilding UK
began operating in the North Caucasus in 2006. Currently it
runs two programmes in six republics, including Dagestan,
Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. Peacebuilding UK mostly
focuses on cultural and social programmes, psychological
rehabilitation and peace-building networking.
Funded and supported by the Russian Charitable Fund, the
group also conducts conflict resolution and conflict
transformation trainings in the North Caucasus and Russia.
It must be said that Peacebuilding UK also actively works at
the grass-roots level by engaging in the daily lives of
local communities and promoting their focus on culture and
self-identity. Apart from peace activities, the group also
works on the reconstruction of infrastructure, mainly of
educational and cultural facilities, and particularly in
Chechnya.
“Humanitarian
Dialog for Human Security in Chechnya” is a peace-building
project implemented in Chechnya in 2005 by FEWER
International, in association with swisspeace. The
project focused on bringing the conflicting sides together
for negotiations on non-political subjects, e.g. issues of
psychological rehabilitation, reconciliation, release of
illegally detained persons and enhancement of human security
aimed at increasing the effectiveness of humanitarian
operations.
Unfortunately, the project was meant to bring together only
local/federal officials and representatives of Chechen civil
society without directly reaching out to the separatists.
The project also promoted strengthening the rule of law and
state institutions, which meant the delegation of more power
to the Kadyrov’s clan. However, strengthening state
institutions in the North Caucasus, and in particularly in
Chechnya, often means the allocation of additional authority
to corrupt state officials (as in the case of Ingushetia) or
autocratic strong-men (as in Chechnya) rather than the
promotion of democracy.
Yet another
peace-building programme worth mentioning is a UNICEF-run
peace education programme. Focused on children and youth,
the programme conducts regular summer camps for peace
education, distributes materials and disseminates knowledge
and conflict awareness.
A couple of other
NGO initiatives have been implemented in the region with the
goal to boost peace-building initiatives, namely by the NGO
“Friendship–North Caucasus” and the Russian NGO
Intercentre. The NGO “Friendship–North Caucasus”,
created in 1997, works on multi-ethnic tolerance and
reconciliation. It is also one of a few local civil groups
engaged in peace activities. In 2007, the NGO started a
programme called “Cooperation in ethnological monitoring
implementation and early conflict prevention”. Based in
Stavropol, it is mostly active in the North-West Caucasus. A
two-year project entitled
“Cross-Cultural Understanding and Peace in the North
Caucasus”,
has been launched by the Russian NGO Intercentre,
founded by the Open Society Institute (OSI) and aimed at
promoting peace education and non-violence in elementary and
high schools in all the republics of North Caucasus.
Top-Down
Efforts
Amid the ongoing
human insecurity crisis, the government of the Russian
Federation also took note of the need for peace. In spite of
stubbornly adhering to Putin’s ideology of “no talks” with
the underground rebels, denying the very existence of
conflict in the North Caucasus and branding all anti-Russian
resistance as international terrorism, Medvedev’s
administration has nevertheless made a few short-lived
attempts at peace-building.
Worth mentioning is
the “Peace to the Caucasus” project, which was brought to
life by a pro-Kremlin journalist, Maxim Shevchenko, and has
been described by state officials as “one of the last hopes
for the North Caucasus for improvement.”
Launched in October 2009, the project attempts to initiate
dialogue between state officials and representatives of
civil society in the region. To distinguish it from a purely
top-down initiative, the project also considers talks with
community leaders and grass-roots organizers. Although it is
difficult to brand the “Peace to the Caucasus” as a complete
failure at the moment, it has already been pointed out that
the project has not yet moved from the “talking” stage (as
of spring 2010). According to a well-known Dagestani
sociologist, Enver Kisriev, “There
were hearings; no decisions were made, various suggestions
were moved; and everybody was [invited] to take further part
in drafting the report in the Northern Caucasus.”
Limited in its scope to a discussion project and with no
attempts to communicate with the population or with
militants, it seems obvious, that
“Peace to the
Caucasus” is not aimed at
bringing any concrete results apart from emphasizing its own
existence as a “peace effort” brought over by the state and
civil society (represented by Maxim Shevchenko).
“Peace
to the Caucasus” remains the first top-down peace effort
which aimed to cover the whole Caucasus and not only
Chechnya. It is important to mention that since the start of
conflict spillover in the region both local and federal
authorities have hardly ever tried to implement any peaceful
conflict resolution measures at all.
Amnesty to rebel fighters in Dagestan
announced in February 2010 by the newly appointed president
of Dagestan, Magomedov, was one of a few attempts at
reducing violence through non-violent means.
The outcome of that amnesty has never reached the press and
its results remain unknown for the moment (as of August
2010). However, considering the Chechen experience of
amnesties, during which many of the former insurgents who
chose to hand over their weapons were later abducted or
subjected to continuous harassment from law enforcement,
it is doubtful that amnesties can work in the absence of
human security and law and order.
Conclusions
In retrospect, most of the current
peace-building efforts in the region are failing to bring
the conflict participants, i.e. the insurgents and the
federal government, to the negotiating table. They also fail
to address the root causes of violence, in particular the
grave violations of human rights conducted by law
enforcement forces against civilians, systemic corruption
and a lack of transparency and accountability on the part of
state officials and institutions. Moreover, the majority of
these peace initiatives are failing to accept that the
region remains a scene to an ongoing armed conflict.
Instead, most of the projects are of a post-conflict nature,
focusing on inter-ethnic communication and social and
cultural activities.
The bottom-up peace-building has been
used before in the Caucasus, has the potential to be used
again and can be a solution to the ongoing conflict.
However, a review of the current peace efforts in the region
shows that both top-down and bottom-up peace activities are
far from targeting their goals and equally far from reaching
positive outcomes. In the meantime, both the international
community and the local and federal authorities are
realizing the gravity of situation in the region and slowly,
and to some extent reluctantly, are starting to conceive of
peace efforts. It is obvious that top-down peace-building
can have little success in the current conflict: the Russian
government simply would not find credible counterparts on
the insurgent’s side to start talks and guarantee the end of
violence. Moreover, the state under the current government
has no desire to acknowledge the very existence of an armed
conflict in the North Caucasus, which makes any possibility
for top-down peace-building impossible.
The bottom-up approach, by contrast,
might have a brighter future. As we have seen from the past
experience of NGO engagement in local empowerment and
bottom-up peace activities in earlier conflicts in Chechnya,
civil society can help to tackle the problem. However, the
lack of such a civil society at the present moment poses a
different problem. The current peace-builders in the North
Caucasus, be it NIS or Peacebuilding UK, are obviously not
entirely enough to change the situation on the ground. A
brief analysis of the conflict shows that efforts of
post-conflict transformation and reconciliation are too
premature and inter-ethnic tolerance and empowerment of
state institutions are not directed at the root causes of
violence, e.g. the infringement of civil liberties and
freedoms as well as ongoing abuses of human rights. The
current peace activities undertaken by the above-mentioned
NGOs, at first glance, resemble a humble effort in a chaos
of an armed conflict. Although both the NIS’s and
Peacebuilding UK’s programmes are aiming at grass-roots
conflict resolution, they do not engage the actual
participants of the conflict: insurgents and law enforcement
and state officials. Considering the dynamics of ongoing
conflict, particularly that it is neither a rural or urban
conflict nor an ethnic or nationalist one, bottom-up
peace-building has to be directed at wider masses of the
population.
To sum up it is necessary to emphasize
that bottom-up peace-building can bring positive changes to
the region only if its proponents are willing to consider a
number of essential criteria for the success of peace
efforts in the North Caucasus.
First, activities aimed at rural and IDP
communities alone are not sufficient to ensure that all
potential conflict participants are included into a peace
process. Considering the heterogeneity of the conflict, the
diversity of its participants and its geographical scope,
peace-building programmes may need to focus on those
segments of the population which are most likely to be
involved in conflict. Programmes working with young people
need to ensure that their target groups are not only well
aware of the importance of non-violence, which is mostly the
type of work that the current peace-builders are engaged in,
but, most importantly, that young people are free in
expressing their beliefs, points of view and are safe from
persecution. The number of young people joining the
insurgents can be reduced by increasing the social and
physical security of the new generation and ensuring the
preservation of their identity as ethnic and religious
minorities within the Russian Federation. This implies that
community grass-roots level peace-building remains a
priority, but its scope and target groups need to be
expanded to include youth in urban and rural areas, working
and middle classes alike.
Second, peace-building should be
multilateral, i.e. peace-builders have to work with both
local and federal authorities as well as with the
insurgents. Obviously, it would be impossible to convince
the insurgents to lay down their weapons as long as there
are no guarantees for their security in the short term and
no improvements in the areas of social and economic security
in the long term. On the other hand, it is unlikely that law
enforcement will change its strategies as long as the threat
from insurgency persists. Therefore, the job of
peace-builders in that area might be that of mediators
having an ability to reach out to rebel field commanders and
law enforcement officials at local and federal level and
ensuring that both sides respect any terms of peace which
are set. This task requires civic groups to be influential
enough in order to decentralize state institutions and
ensure the transparency of their service.
The peace process, necessary to ensure
the efficacy of humanitarian and development efforts in the
region, has to originate from below in order to succeed in
the North Caucasus. However, the bottom-up peace-building
approach suggested above is a means of conflict resolution
which can only succeed if implemented by non-state actors,
that is civic groups, represented by both local and
international NGOs.
(pp 325-341)