4. CHECHNYA BETWEEN THE WARS (1996-1999)
MAIN SOURCE. V.A. Tishkov, Obshchestvo v vooruzhennom konflikte: Etnografiia chechenskoi voiny [Society in Armed Conflict: Ethnography of the Chechen War]. Moscow: Nauka, 2001, chapters 14 and 15. (An English-language version of this book is to be published by the University of California Press.)
POPULATION
More than half of Chechnya's pre-1991 population, including many Chechens as well as members of other ethnic groups, had left. Most qualified specialists had left. 5-600,000 people remained. About a quarter of them were old age pensioners.
The state of health of the population was extremely poor. With few physicians remaining, some hospitals closed, and most people unable to afford medicines, conditions were conducive to the spread of epidemics. Malnutrition was widespread. Chechnya had the highest infant mortality in the FSU.
ECONOMY
The war of 1994-96 inflicted enormous damage on Chechnya and its economy. A large part of Grozny was destroyed, as were some 20 villages, many roads and bridges, and wooded areas. Water sources were polluted. About a third of the arable land was mined or otherwise rendered unusable. The numbers of cattle and sheep remaining in the whole republic roughly equaled the numbers on a single big collective farm before 1991.
44 industrial enterprises of various sizes were left standing, but only 17 of these were able to operate, providing employment to only 15,000 people. Factories which formerly produced high-tech output for the whole USSR (e.g. electrical instruments, equipment for the oil industry) had switched to simple products for local use (e.g. kettles, pots and pans, iron gates). Industrial output in 1999 was between 5 and 8 per cent of the pre-1991 level.
How did people survive under these conditions, especially in the towns? Lecturers at Grozny State University interviewed by Vakhit Akayev in summer 1999, who were receiving no salaries, mention the following sources of subsistence:
-- relatives working outside Chechnya who bring money when they come to visit
-- relatives in the countryside who bring gifts of food
-- sideline occupations (coaching children, repairing household appliances)
-- extraction and sale of oil from underground deposits (but this had to be done clandestinely, as the government sought to monopolize the oil trade)
-- petty trade at the bazaar
Virtually everything obtained by these means went on food. There was no money to buy medicine, clothes, etc.
Several other sources of income were available to certain groups of the population:
-- The federal government continued to transfer funds to Chechnya for pensions, grants to invalids, and other social benefits as well as to pay physicians, school teachers, and state employees (though payments were received with the same long delays usual elsewhere). By agreement between Moscow and Grozny, grain was shipped to Chechnya. Chechen leaders accepted this assistance as "reparations" for war damage. In fact, it showed that Moscow still regarded Chechnya as part of Russia.
-- People living near the oil pipeline which ran through Chechnya (from Baku) could tap oil from it. Extracted and stolen oil was processed at thousands of makeshift mini-refineries.
-- Many people stole metal and other materials from the ruins of bombed-out factories and from infrastructure (telephone and electricity lines, water pipes, etc.).
-- In the remaining forested areas, people could cut and sell wood.
-- In the mountains, poppies could be cultivated for the drug trade.
-- A lot of money was made in the kidnapping business. (See next item.)
The government never had official policies to regulate privatization of property or the division of land. These processes occurred spontaneously, with armed force often playing a decisive role.
SOCIETY
Chechen society was dominated by veterans of the first war who kept hold of their weapons, and especially by the veteran commanders, who controlled the most military force. War veterans enjoyed many official privileges: priority access to government employment and educational institutions, free use of public transportation, and periodic special distributions of products. As the "fighters" [boeviki] had weapons and other people did not, they could rob, kidnap, and kill with impunity, deterred (in the absence of policing) only by the risk of blood revenge. The veterans also effectively monopolized political activity.
There were, however, many divisions among the veterans. The number of lucrative government positions was much smaller than the number of "fighters" seeking them. This fueled rivalries and conflicts which often took on ideological or religious expression and occasionally led to armed clashes.
IDEOLOGY
The Chechen newspapers (many of which had to be printed outside Chechnya) were filled with patriotic poetry, war memoirs, and fantastic speculations about the origins of the Chechens, alleged to be the world's greatest and most ancient people. Ethnic megalomania went alongside paranoia about the Chechens' numerous "enemies." Discussion of the real problems facing Chechnya took second place.
The best-known ideological divide in inter-war Chechnya was that between Maskhadov and his supporters, who wanted to build an orderly secular state and establish normal relations with Russia, and the commanders who wanted an Islamic state and believed that the Chechens had the mission of leading the "liberation" of the whole Caucasus. In 1999 Maskhadov reached a compromise with his Islamist rivals which amounted in many ways to a capitulation, leading to the introduction of Shariat.
The ideological spectrum was, however, more complex than a simple confrontation between Islamists and secular nationalists. Some advocated a form of democracy based on customary law [adat] and the traditional clan structure (teip democracy). There was also a fascist party which rejected democracy in favor of the rule of "heroes" -- a reflection both of "Kalashnikov culture" and of the influence of classical Nazi thought. The fascists claimed that the Chechens were the original founders of the white Aryan race, and greatly resented the fact that Russians call Chechens "blacks."
FOREIGN POLICY
Chechnya pursued a dual foreign policy, corresponding to the split within the ruling stratum. Maskhadov's attempts to build normal relations with Russia and the international community were successfully undermined by his rivals (see next item). The anti-Maskhadov camp counted on the further disintegration of Russia into regional states with which Chechnya could do business. Eventually Chechnya would play the leading role in a new Caucasian (con)federation.
With the federal government at this time lacking any effective strategy for dealing with Chechnya, the Chechen warlords were indeed able to intimidate neighboring regions of the Russian Federation. In summer 1997, for example, five Chechens were arrested in North Ossetia, probably with a view to exchanging them for Ossets held captive in Chechnya. Following a Chechen campaign of public threats against the Osset people, North Ossetia's president Galazov ordered the release of the five Chechens.