ILYAS AKHMADOV - CHECHNYA’S SECRET WARTIME DIPLOMACY

Chechnyas Secret Wartime Diplomacy

Chechnyas Secret Wartime Diplomacy

Aslan Maskhadov and the Quest for a Peaceful Resolution

Ilyas Akhmadov and Nicholas Daniloff

Translated by Anatoly Semenov

With a Preface by Mark Kramer

CHECHNYAS SECRET WARTIME DIPLOMACY

Copyright Ilyas Akhmadov and Nicholas Daniloff, 2013.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2013 by

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

in the United Statesa division of St. Martins Press LLC,

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ISBN: 9781137338785

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Akhmadov, Ilyas, 1960

Chechnya's secret wartime diplomacy : Aslan Maskhadov and the quest for a peaceful resolution / by Ilyas Akhmadov and Nicholas Daniloff; translated by Anatoly Semenov ; with a preface by Mark Kramer.

pages cm

For the first time in English, this volume makes available transcripts and commentary from the secret correspondence between former Chechen foreign minister Ilyas Akhmatov and Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, who would be killed by the Russians during the second Chechen-Russian War in April 2005.

ISBN: 9781137338785

1. Chechnia (Russia)HistoryCivil War, 1994Diplomatic historySources. 2. Chechnia (Russia)Foreign relationsRussia (Federation)Sources. 3. Russia (Federation)Foreign relationsRussia (Federation)ChechniaSources. 4. Maskhadov, Aslan Alievich, 19512005Correspondence. 5. Akhmadov, Ilyas, 1960Correspondence. I. Maskhadov, Aslan Alievich, 19512005. II. Daniloff, Nicholas, 1934 editor. III. Title.

DK511.C37A374 2013

947.52dc23 2013026829

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

Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: December 2013

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Contents

Mark Kramer

Ilyas Akhmadov

A Note on Translation

The Russian-Chechen wars have been studied mostly through official statements of the Russian government, recollections of Russian officers, and reports from Russian and Western journalists. To date, little has come out that reflects the thinking and goals within the Chechen political leadership. This is why the correspondence (19992003) between President Aslan Maskhadov and his Foreign Minister Ilyas Akhmadov constitutes the first substantial and unique resource into the thinking of the rebellious Chechen leaders.

These communications were carried on by audio letters transmitted by couriers and postal services. About 60 percent of the surviving tapes were in the Chechen language and the remaining 40 percent in Russian. Akhmadov translated the Chechen parts, creating a complete collection in Russian. Dr. Anatoly Semenov of the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, CA, translated the whole into English. Nicholas Daniloff reviewed and edited the English translations to fit within the length of 100,000 words set by the publishers. In shortening the translations, we were guided by the following considerations:

Maskhadov, constantly moving around to avoid capture, spoke in a discursive and often disorganized manner, repeating sentences and thoughts. He sometimes repeated information in subsequent cassettes because he was not sure the first ones had been received. His speech was heavily larded with interjections, like the Russian particle mol, which can be translated as he says or they say. He frequently would close a sentence with thats the way it is or the Arabic expression Vallakhi. We have eliminated a good number of these interjections but preserved a few to give a sense of the tone of these reports.

Some of the material was very sensitive because it concerned individual Chechens who subsequently fled to the West and are wanted by the Russians for treason. We cut some of this material for their safety.

A good deal of Maskhadovs conversations deals with the details of internal problems. To remain within the word limit, we deleted some of this material that we judged would probably not interest a Western reader. We nevertheless made every effort to retain details pertaining to the war, the possibility of negotiations, and Maskhadovs political and military opponents.

Finally, we agreed that a copy of the complete collection of audio letters in Russian and Chechen would be archived for perusal by specialists after a period of at least 15 years.

Preface

Mark Kramer

After the Soviet Union broke apart, the Russian government fought two large-scale wars in Chechnya: the first from December 1994 until the signing of the Khasavyurt accords in August 1996 and the second from 1999 through mid-2007. The three-year interregnum between the wars was a period of de facto independence for Chechnya, but instead of evolving into a robust state, Chechnya during that time became plagued by violence, rampant lawlessness, warlordism, criminality, and kidnapping rings. Even though the second war did not officially end until 2009, the insurgency was largely crushed by the latter half of 2007, and it has not revived within Chechnya since then. Under the iron rule of the brutal president Ramzan Kadyrov, who was appointed by Moscow in March 2007, Chechnya has experienced the first prolonged period of relative tranquility and peace in its post-Soviet history.

In neighboring regions of the North Caucasus, however, violent instability has remained acute. In Dagestan, in particular, the situation over the past several years has been increasingly reminiscent of Chechnya in the late 1990s. Dagestani insurgents have joined with Chechen fighters based in Dagestan to foment violent turmoil and destabilize the Dagestani government. The individual fighters and groups in Dagestan are not a unified forcethey often disagree about tactics and goalsbut they share the basic aim of establishing an Islamic caliphate in some or all of the North Caucasus. Because the attacks launched by these groups are likely to be a continuing source of instability in the North Caucasus for many years to come (including during the Olympics in Sochi in 2014), it is all the more important for scholars and policymakers alike to understand the dynamics of the two major wars that occurred in Chechnya from 1994 to 2007.

The publication of the transcripts of these formerly confidential audio tapes, recorded by Aslan Maskhadov during the initial years of the second war, helps to redress the imbalance of sources. Maskhadov had been elected president of Chechnya in early 1997 and remained in that post until he was killed by Russian special-operations forces in March 2005. He recorded the tapes as a means of transmitting instructions, advice, and informational updates to Akhmadov, whom he had appointed foreign minister in late July 1999, not long before the second war in Chechnya began. In 1991, just before the Soviet Union ended, Akhmadov had graduated with a degree in philosophy (summa cum laude) from Rostov University. When the first Chechen war broke out in late 1994, he returned to Chechnya to fight alongside one of the leading military commanders, Shamil Basayev, who subsequently referred Akhmadov to Maskhadov. Akhmadov thus emerged from the first war with links to both Basayev and Maskhadov. At the start of the second war, Maskhadov ordered Akhmadov to leave Chechnya and serve as an envoy and spokesman for Chechnya in exile. Akhmadov spent time in Azerbaijan and Turkey, where the tapes were delivered to him by couriera hazardous task that often took a great deal of time to elude interception by Russian security forces and border guards. In 2002, Akhmadov moved to the United States, where he was eventually granted asylum, albeit only after supporters in Congress helped him to overcome the resistance put up by the US Department of Homeland Security.