RIA Novosti
September 12, 2005
Will Russia and the West cooperate in the North Caucasus?
Moscow. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev) --It looks like experts and politicians in Europe and the United States are getting tired of fruitless appeals to Moscow to launch negotiations with the "Chechen rebels." Today they offer practical cooperation to resolve a whole range of issues pertaining to the entire North Caucasus.
During a recent session of the Valdai Discussion Club aboard a steam ship traveling from the Moskva River to the Volga, U.S. Presidential Advisor and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution Fiona Hill, a leading expert on the Caucasus and Russia, told RIA Novosti: "Even before the death of Maskhadov, after Beslan and even before that there was a realization that continuing to push Russia on the issue of negotiations with Maskhadov and Chechen rebels was really not getting anywhere."
Regarding this new attitude in the opinion of the public and political elite in the West, Fiona Hill pointed out that the need to change the subject of talks with Moscow had been obvious for some time. Beslan was a major breakthrough in this direction, after which the world realized that Chechnya was not the only point at issue, and that the North Caucasus was a big and problem-ridden region with no easy solutions.
Indicatively, intelligence experts have long understood that Chechnya and the North Caucasus pose a threat not only to Russia, and that under the worst-case scenario the region could become another Afghanistan, from which terrorists would be able to strike at any target. The problem was how to transform the opinion of a narrow circle of experts into policies of states and non-government organizations.
This is exactly what is taking place now. Last May, Berlin played host to a conference of international sponsors of the World Bank and European Commission. Fiona Hill said that they were inspired to a certain extent by the talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder, when Putin said that if there were any proposals on long-term development of the North Caucasus, Russia would like to hear them.
What could international community do in practical terms in this region?
Several proposals were voiced at the Berlin conference. Fiona Hill emphasized the need for "an international effort to address the problems of the region." An international working group could be set up to accumulate useful experience of other countries, for instance Tajikistan, where a similar group had helped overcome the aftermath of the civil war. Russia played a leading role in it, but the UN, EU, the U.S. and many non-governmental organizations and experts contributed to the effort. There is similar experience as regards Northern Ireland, and even Afghanistan and the Balkans.
Participants of the Berlin conference stressed the need for a new generation of local leaders in the Caucasus. Fiona Hill said: "Frankly, there are no good leaders and Russia has a major problem in finding them." It is necessary to train managers, looking first of all at young people who had been let down by the local educational system, primarily because of the Chechen war. "A package could be developed in schools, universities - to help link people in the North Caucasus with their counterparts in Russia. People in the North Caucasus are very isolated, they don't have an opportunity to travel a lot and study elsewhere in Russia. Universities like Grozny University has been destroyed, it has no classes, no equipment, no teachers. A similar situation has been in Saraevo University, not to mention universities of Iraq," said Fiona Hill.
The World Bank could work out a program of loans for Russia aimed at developing small business in the North Caucasus; naturally, corruption and other factors would have to be taken into account, as they generate numerous economic crises. But the situation in the North Caucasus is not unique - other countries have managed to cope with similar problems.
Fiona Hill raised another important point: "The problem is that those of us who gathered together in Berlin are getting weak signals in the Russian government. There wasn't much clarity on that part whether there is a willingness to accept these initiatives."
But this is easy to explain. In the last few years many in Moscow and in the North Caucasus have got used to appeals from "well-wishers" in Europe and the U.S. to conduct negotiations with the terrorists who had first seized a hospital, then a theatre, and finally a school, detonating bombs in residential blocks, in planes, on trains, and at concerts on the go.
Furthermore, many of these well-wishers failed to take notice of the fact that Moscow did what they had urged it to do by signing an agreement with "the Chechen rebels" represented by Akhmad Kadyrov, the first President of new Chechnya. But the appeals for a "dialog with rebels" continued. Not surprisingly, under the circumstances Moscow had only two options for interpreting this attitude: either those well-wishers were misguided, or their intention was to create a political crisis in Russia by exploiting its problems. Therefore, it is understandable why many officials in Moscow and the North Caucasus will be very suspicious for a long time to come of any European or American proposals to pool efforts against a common threat. This notwithstanding, the Berlin initiative has every chance of success.