Tishkov - Ethnic Conlicts in the Former USSR

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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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2/22

?

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^ ^


3/22


4/22


5/22

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

volume

6/

number

/

september

999


6/22

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


7/22

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.

volume

6/

number

/

september

999


8/22

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.


9/22

578

journal

of

PEACE

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.

volume

6/

number

/

september

999


10/22

Valery

Tishkov

ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN

THE

FORMER USSR

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

origin.


11/22

580

journal of

PEACE RESEARCH

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

volume

6/

number

/

september

999


12/22

Valery

Tishkov ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER

USSR

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

581


13/22

582

journal

of

PEACE RESEARCH

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.

volume

6/

number

/

september

999


14/22

Valery

Tishkov

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

583


15/22

584

journal

of

PEACE

RESEARCH

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-

volume

6/

number

/september

999


16/22

Valery

Tishkov ETHNIC

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.

585


17/22

586

journal

of

PEACE RESEARCH

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

volume

6/

number

/

september

999


18/22

Valery

Tishkov ETHNIC CONFLICTS

IN

THE FORMER USSR

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

Tishkov - Ethnic Conlicts in the Former USSR

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