07.02.2000 18:00 HUMANITARIAN COOPERATION
(Speech at the Wilton Park Conference "Humanitarian Principles: Engaging with Non-State Actors")
The problems of Chechnya are extremely complex. The task of rendering humanitarian assistance to the population of the Chechen Republic cannot be called a simple one. However, it seems that over the past few years the Russian leadership has come to understand from its bitter experience, so to speak, the principles, possible forms and methods of such assistance. I believe that the problem will become more evident, if we consider it in development. I shall try to minimise legal and political aspects, although, let me admit, I cannot fully avoid them.
The active phase of the current conflict can be very roughly divided into three stages. The experience of the first stage of the 1994-1996 war is so untypical and, I would say, so extraordinary that, to my mind, it is not of a universal nature. Russian society was strongly against the war; the intelligentsia, the press and television were on the side of the rebels and the latter were widely and frequently showed by television and covered by the press. All this was accompanied by a whirl of destructions, truces and chaos, when the Russian army had to seize the same cities as many as four times over. During that period the federal authorities rendered humanitarian assistance and also restored social infrastructure facilities, which time and again turned out to be in the centre of combats. All this ended in the conclusion of the Khasavyurt agreements with the deferred status of Chechnya.
The second stage opened with the election of Maskhadov as the Chechen President. I shall use a new term: for Russia he became if not a "non-state actor" but a "semi-state actor". That is, formally, he was elected not according to Russian laws but was recognised as a representative of the majority of the population, which had left in the republic. (For justice's sake, it should be noted that after the escape from Chechnya in 1991-1994 of 300,000 Russians and many Chechens, less than half of the Chechen population of 1990 continued to live in the republic).
I am confident that many problems of separatism can and must be solved precisely through "humanitarian softening of contradictions". But in most regions of the world the very logic of confrontation brings to the foreground the efforts of the world community. In Russia the special form of legitimacy of power in Chechnya placed upon the federal authorities the tasks, which in other places could be achieved only by international organisations and foundations.
Apart from that, the very scope of the tasks, which the two negotiating parties faced, did not make it possible to presume the possibility of the receipt from foreign humanitarian participants of the resources which could be somehow compared with the efforts of the Russian state. (The experience of Kosovo will not make anyone be deluded; moreover, the success of the Kosovo peace-keeping effort is not at all guaranteed). But all this does not mean in any way that we underestimate the role of international humanitarian organisations widely represented at that time in the Chechen Republic. In Grozny the OSCE mission was active and the work of the Doctors Without Frontiers Organisation and many humanitarian foundations was very effective. They were and hopefully will be Russia's objective allies.
Did the federal authorities have a real interest in the significant economic and social upturn in the republic? What sentiments would Russia want in Chechnya in 2001? These questions would sound strange, as it is not at all difficult to guess!
But everything happened a far cry from what had been expected. Was financing insufficient? But it is insufficient throughout Russia. The main factor was different: our partners embezzled everything and immediately. For example, as distinct from the rest of Russia, the funds allocated for employees of budget-financed sphere in Chechnya were dispatched regularly and in full. However, not a single pensioner, teacher or doctor in the republic has seen them in the past three years.
They say about a steady weakening of Maskhadov's power. This soft expression is applied because of the impossibility to comprehend the scope of what has happened. In actual fact, over the past few years Chechnya has experienced such an acute crisis of society that it led to the disappearance of the social ties typical of the past few centuries. Schools, polyclinics and hospitals are not functioning. But the main thing is that there are no minimal guarantees of personal security in the republic. Although every citizen is armed, the kidnapping of people actually affected every family. Your relative has been kidnapped for ransom but you don't have the money and have to abduct your neighbour. This leads to a chain reaction.
There can be no international cooperation in this society. Each foreigner is a highly desirable prize. After five employees of the Red Cross were killed, this renowned organisation left Chechnya. The OSCE mission left for Moscow due to the absence of the guarantees of security in Chechnya. London cannot forget the brutal killing of four British engineers.
The current economy of Chechnya is based on oil wells, which are at the disposal of major field commanders and are surrounded by thousands of small self-made mini-factories for the production of gasoline, and slave trade.
It is known that business builds bridges between peoples. Smugglers generate only customs officers.
At the same time, Russian and Chechen oilmen have always had specific plans of restoring Chechen oil fields, to say nothing of the famous project of the Trans-Caucasian oil pipeline, which is awaited not only in Russia.
Finally there happened the inevitable. Society living according to the principles of the early medieval times - he who has the force has the rights - invaded the neighbouring and richer territories - the Chechen aggression against Daghestan took place.
Today the third stage still goes on but the interim result is as follows: 90% of the population of Chechnya live on the territory under federal rule.
At some places life is relatively coming to normal: the first text-books, kiosks, electricity, doctors, a train, pensions appear... In other areas the interior troops are inspecting house after house day after day and making a pontoon bridge instead of the old one. But actually everywhere there are sprouts of some new and common rules of the game, which are becoming clear for everyone: what may and may not be done.
These innovations have at once revealed the force, which will become decisive in the revival of Chechnya. These are not the forthcoming Russian investments or generous donations from Persian Gulf co-religionists. These are Chechens who left their homeland since the early 1990s and now, despite the fact that they settled down in central Russia, have begun to return home. These are entrepreneurs, doctors and teachers who know foreign languages, computers and many other things.
Meanwhile international humanitarian organisations, which discuss the "ways humanitarian organisations do engage with non-state actors on humanitarian issues", should study the specific state of a particular society. But whatever state of the spirit and mind people may experience in a particular period of their history, all parents want their children to live in the 21st century and not in the 12th.
Mikhail Margelov, head of the Russian Information Centre
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
