I. Akhmadov - The Chechen Struggle

THE CHECHEN STRUGGLE

Ilyas Akhmadov and Miriam Lanskoy

Foreword by
Zbigniew Brzezinski

THE CHECHEN STRUGGLE
Copyright Ilyas Akhmadov and Miriam Lanskoy, 2010.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
in the United Statesa division of St. Martins Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

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ISBN: 9780230105348

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lanskoy, Miriam.

The Chechen struggle : independence won and lost / Miriam Lanskoy and Ilyas Akhmadov ; with a foreword by Zbigniew Brzezinski.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 9780230105348

1. Chechnia (Russia)HistoryAutonomy and independence movements. 2. Chechnia (Russia)HistoryCivil War, 1994 3. Government, Resistance toRussia (Federation)ChechniaHistory. 4. Chechnia (Russia)Foreign relationsRussia (Federation) 5. Russia (Federation)Foreign relationsRussia (Federation)Chechnia. 6. Akhmadov, Ilyas, 1960 7. Foreign ministersRussia (Federation)ChechniaBiography. 8. Maskhadov, Aslan Alievich, 19512005. 9. PresidentsRussia (Federation)ChechniaBiography. I. Akhmadov, Ilyas, 1960 II. Title.

DK511.C2L36 2010
947.086dc22 2010013319

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: December 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America.

W hen I first visited the United States in 2000 and 2001 and sought political asylum here in 2002, I was fortunate to find a community of Americans who were knowledgeable about Chechnya and sympathetic to my situation. Without the support of American friends and American non-governmental institutions this book would not have been possible.

The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, which was chaired at the time by the former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the late General Alexander Haig, former senior State Department official Ambassador Max Kampelman, did a great deal to help me promote peace. The committee arranged meetings with government officials, Senators, and Congressmen, and enabled me to continue to advocate for negotiations, hold confidential meetings with Russian parliamentarians, and promote the peace plan that I developed. Dr. Brzezinski with whom I discussed Chechnya frequently became an enthusiastic supporter of this project.

I recall fondly my first public presentation in Washington D.C., which was at Johns Hopkins University, Central Asia and Caucasus Institute, where I first met its chairman, Fred Starr, whose cheerfulness and optimism proved invaluable during many complications and setbacks while writing this book.

The work began during my Reagan-Fascell Fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy where Miriam Lanskoy and I began to draft the first two chapters. I am particularly grateful for the personal warmth and moral support of NED President Carl Gershman and Deputy to the President for Policy and Strategy Barbara Haig who had faith in me at a very difficult time, when Chechens were nearly universally feared and ostracized.

I owe the biggest debt of gratitude to Edward Kline and Nicholas and Ruth Daniloff for their thoughtfulness, kindness, and generosity, which sustained me over several years while writing this book. I am grateful for Edwards and Nicholass detailed reading of the manuscript and their many insightful edits, comments, and suggestions.

ILYAS AKHMADOV

* * *

This journey began for me in the fateful winter of 1994, when the war was starting in Chechnya while I was embarking on my graduate studies at Boston University and my father put in my hands his tattered copy of Tolstoys Haji Murat. Thanks to my father, Alexander Lanskoy I grew up with an appreciation of Russian literature, the moral example of Soviet-era dissent, and was captivated by Russias post-Soviet transition. In graduate school, I benefited enormously from the mentorship of Professor Uri Raanan who taught me about the importance of immersing myself in my subject, the historians demand for precision and detail, and the value of oral history.

When I set out to write a dissertation about Chechnya I found that my best sources would be the Russian scholars, journalists, and human rights activists. It was with their help, and thanks to their research, and advice, that I wrote my dissertation: The War of the Russian Succession: Russia and Chechnya between the Wars, which analyzed Chechen effort at state-building and Russias Chechnya policy during President Boris Yeltsins second term, 199699. Ever since then, I have viewed my work as a partnership with the activists.

When I met Ilyas Akhmadov and was presented with an opportunity to work with the Foreign Minister of Chechnya to write a history of their struggle, this appealed to me not only because of his many fascinating insights but also because the act of writing ones own historyfor a nation under foreign domination, war torn and scattered into exileis to become the subject of history. Most books about Chechnya are written by foreign journalists or scholars, and hardly any are written by the Chechens themselves. For a nation, particularly one that has endured such turmoil, the record, analysis, and debate of recent history are needed for the maintenance of the national idea.

I am very grateful to my colleagues at the National Endowment for Democracy, and especially Carl Gershman, Barbara Haig, Nadia Diuk, Marc Plattner, and Sally Blair for encouragement and good advice; Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Edward Kline, who read and commented on drafts of the manuscript and our editor, Luba Ostashevsky, for her patience and professionalism. We owe the biggest debt of gratitude to Nicholass Daniloff who read early versions of the manuscript and suggested numerous revisions and clarifications, particularly during a two-day editing session in October 2009. My mother, Anna Lanskoy, and my friends Catherine Osgood, Irakly Areshidze, and Ruth Daniloff provided tremendous encouragement and moral support.

MIRIAM LANSKOY

I lyas Akhmadovs story is simultaneously a personal account of the turmoil and confusion of the national rebirth of Chechnya, and the tale of a young intellectual-turned-fighter, eventually Chechnyas Foreign Minister, who sought peace for a state that the international community preferred to ignore.

This small nationin a poor, mountainous, landlocked territoryafter two hundred years of Russian domination attempted to realize a centuries old dream: to fashion their own nation state on the basis of its national customs and culture, relying on the inspiration of the heroic warrior tradition with which Chechens resisted Russian conquest in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among its most serious internal obstacles were the acute post-Soviet ideological confusion among the Chechens, and the challenges from radical Islamic religious ideas.