Place:Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus

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Short description: Former militarized political organization in the Caucasus
Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus
Конфедерация горских народов Кавказа
LeadersMusa Shanibov (1989–1996)
Yusup Soslanbekov (ru) (1996–2000)
Dates of operation1989–2000
Active regionsNorth Caucasus
IdeologyNorth Caucasian confederalism
Allies
Opponents Georgia
 Russia (1994-96)
Battles and wars
  • 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia
  • 1991–1992 South Ossetia war (1992)
  • First Chechen War[3]
  • Russo-Caucasian conflict
Flag

The Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (CMPC; Russian: Конфедерация горских народов Кавказа (КГНК); until 1991 known as Assembly of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus) was a militarised political organisation in the North Caucasus, active around the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and after, from 1989 to 2000. It played a decisive role in the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia, rallying militants from the North Caucasian republics. Its forces have been accused of committing war crimes, including the ethnic cleansing of Georgians.[4] The Confederation has been inactive since the assassination of its second leader, Yusup Soslanbekov (ru), in 2000.

Creation

On the initiative of the Abkhaz ethno-nationalist movement Aidgylara, the Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus was established in Abkhazia's capital Sukhumi on 25 and 26 August 1989. On 13 and 14 October 1990, the Assembly held its second congress in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, where it was transformed into the so-called Mountain Republic.[5] Sixteen nations of the Northern Caucasus joined the Confederation. However, the Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus refused to join it, and the Ingush refused as well due to its anti-Russian character. The Assembly elected the president (Musa Shanibov) and 16 vice presidents. Yusup Soslanbekov (ru) was the chairman of the Caucasian Parliament and Sultan Sosnaliyev was appointed the head of the Confederation's military department. A third assembly was held in Sukhumi on 1 and 2 November 1991, when the organization was renamed to the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus. In the autumn of 1991, Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev took the organization under his patronage in Chechnya. The organization rivaled Zviad Gamsakhurdia, an exiled ex-president of Georgia in Chechnya who advocated for the all-Caucasian unity instead of the North Caucasian confederalism and had friendly relations with Dudayev.[6] The organization demanded the secession of the Northern Caucasus from Russia.[7]

War in Abkhazia

Following the outbreak of War in Abkhazia in August 1992, the Confederation held its 11th parliamentary session in Grozny. The Confederation created assault detachments of volunteers that were later deployed in Abkhazia during the war. The confederation raised about 1,500 volunteers in the span of a month.[8] It was reported that Shamil Basayev became commander of CMPC forces in 1992.[9] Russia turned a blind eye toward the mobilization conducted by the Confederation, and allowed its Chechen troops to reach Abkhazia, while also supplying them with weapons. The Confederate troops passed through the Russian territory without any issues. When they reached Kabardino-Balkaria, initially the rumors spread that they were planning to attack Nalchik, but after they explained that they needed a safe route to Abkhazia, they were assisted by the local authorities and given fuel.[10] According to one version, Russia supported the participation of the Confederation in the Abkhazian war to "eliminate an imminent Adyghe threat" and "channel separatism" from its own territory to Abkhazia against Georgia as the separatist tendencies began to grow in Nalchik in the summer-autumn of 1992.[11] Shamil Basayev's detachment reportedly collaborated with the Russian GRU and military during this war, including receiving training and cooperating on the battlefield with the GRU specialists, which was acknowledged by Basayev.[2]

Sukhumi Massacre

On September 27, 1993 the Abkhaz side violated the UN-mediated cease-fire agreement (the Georgian side had agreed to pull out all heavy artillery and tanks from Sukhumi in return for a cease-fire) by storming defenceless Sukhumi. The Confederates moved into Sukhumi and started to sweep through the streets of the city. As the city was engulfed by heavy fighting, civilians took refuge in abandoned houses and apartment buildings. Some of the civilians of Georgian ethnicity were massacred after their discovery by the Confederates. By late afternoon the remainder of the Georgian troops surrendered to the Abkhaz side. The majority of Georgian POWs were executed on the same day by Abkhaz formations and Confederates. Few civilians and military personnel managed to survive the massacre. The massacre continued for two weeks after the fall of Sukhumi (See Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia).[12][13][14]

Later history

IV (extraordinary) congress of the Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus. Grozny, Chechen Republic, October 3-4, 1992

Following the Abkhazian war, the Confederation went into a period of decline largely due to the feuds among its pro- and anti-Kremlin factions. It experienced a brief revival in December 1994, when Shanibov rallied thousands across the North Caucasus to block roads to the Russian forces heading to Grozny.[15] Shamil Basayev and others would put the training they had received from Russia during the Abkhazian war against Russia itself during the Chechen wars.[2] However, the change of power in Shanibov's home republic, Kabardino-Balkaria, in favor of a strongly pro-Moscow leader prevented him from exerting any political influence in the region, forcing him to retire from politics in 1996. Since then, the organization has had no role in Caucasus affairs.[15] It never disbanded, but has been completely inactive since Shanibov's successor, Yusup Soslanbekov (ru), was assassinated in Moscow on July 27, 2000.[16]

Controversy

The confederate forces have been accused (inter alia by Georgian State Commission of Ascertaining Facts of the Policies of Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide) of committing war crimes, including the ethnic cleansing of Georgians.[17]

References

  1. ↑ "Армения: правительство отказывается от услуг парламента" (in ru). Kommersant. 4 May 1992. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4554. "Конфедерация горских народов Кавказа, сессия которой проходила в Цхинвале, напротив, поддержала южных осетин в их стремлении присоединиться к России" 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Dunlop, John (1998) (in English). Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict. Cambridge University Press. pp. 144–145. ISBN 9780521636193. https://books.google.com/books?id=AxwpDAAAQBAJ. "One of the reasons that Basaev was successful in this operation was that he had reportedly received training from the Russian GRU. As the former GRU colonel Stanislav Lunev has noted: "Shamir Basaev's detachment went through not only training, but was also 'broken in' under fire in Abkhaziya under the direction of GRU specialists, whose professionalism and individual courage received the highest marks from the Chechen terrorist himself."... Shamir Basaev has confirmed the fact of his earlier cooperation with the Russian military: "While still in Abkhaziya," he recalled in mid-1995, "I had contact with Russian generals and officers." Beginning in 1994, he would put this training to use against the very Russians who had provided it to him in the first place." 
  3. ↑ Steven Gutterman (14 December 1994). "Chechen neighbors back rebel region". United Press International. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1994/12/14/Chechen-neighbors-back-rebel-region/3380787381200/. 
  4. ↑ "Memorial of Georgia". https://www.icj-cij.org/node/104808. 
  5. ↑ Shamba, Sergei (17 December 2008). "Сергей Шамба о 20-летии движения "Аидгылара" и национально-освободительной борьбе народа Абхазии". REGNUM News Agency. http://www.regnum.ru/news/1100732.html. 
  6. ↑ Zverev, Alekseĭ; Coppieters, Bruno; Trenin, Dmitriĭ (1998). Commonwealth and Independence in Post-Soviet Eurasia. F. Cass. p. 105-106. ISBN 9780714644806. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Commonwealth_and_Independence_in_Post_So/OlF8OtvgXowC. 
  7. ↑ "Krisenherd Kaukasus". http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13690934.html. 
  8. ↑ Collier, Paul; Nicholas Sambanis (2005). Understanding Civil War. World Bank Publications. p. 272. ISBN 0-8213-6049-3. https://books.google.com/books?id=tyBCW9sA-ekC&q=Abkhazia. 
  9. ↑ "Шамиль Басаев: враг России номер один". BBCRussian.com. 1 November 2002. https://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/special_report/bbcrussian/2002_06/newsid_2385000/2385487.stm. 
  10. ↑ Mironova, Vera (2026). Conflict in the North Caucasus. Oxford University Press. p. 41. ISBN 9780197759141. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Conflict_in_the_North_Caucasus/KNHBEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA41. 
  11. ↑ Koiava, Revaz; Baghaturia, Edisher; Nikitina, Yulia (2017) (in English). Georgia and Russia: Bilateral View on the Quarter Century Relations. Caucasian House. p. 45. http://regional-dialogue.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Research-EN-web.pdf. "Mindful that I may seem cynical, I would still venture to make the following conclusion: The Kremlin’s ‘condonation’ of the Confederation of the Mountainous Peoples of the Caucasus was in fact, an act of ‘channelling separatism’ to Abkhazia. Time has proved that Yeltsin was right to distance the Confederation of the Mountainous Peoples of the Caucasus from Nalchik, Maikop and Cherkas and direct its vigor to Gagra and Sukhumi. Political cynicism or national selfishness? Maybe. But faced with the Chechen challenge and Ossetian-Ingush conflict, the Russian authorities chose to eliminate an imminent Adyghe threat, the ghost of which later acquired quite realistic contours in the summer-autumn 1992 in Nalchik.’5" 
  12. ↑ Human Rights Watch report GEORGIA/ABKHAZIA: VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR AND RUSSIA'S ROLE IN THE CONFLICT, March 1995.
  13. ↑ Chervonnaia, Svetlana Mikhailovna. Conflict in the Caucasus: Georgia, Abkhazia and the Russian Shadow. Gothic Image Publications, 1994
  14. ↑ U.S. State Department, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1993, February 1994, pp 877, 881, 891
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Sobaka Dossier on Musa Shanibov". http://www.diacritica.com/sobaka/dossier/shanibov.html. 
  16. ↑ Central Asia – Caucasus Analyst article "Who’s afraid of Yusup Soslambekov", by Miriam Lanskoy
  17. ↑ Tskitishvili, Irakli. "О ВЫЯВЛЕННЫХ ФАКТАХ ПОЛИТИКИ ЭТНИЧЕСКОЙ ЧИСТКИ". http://geocities.com/abkhazia_dream/public/19.htm. 

Template:Georgian-Abkhazian conflict



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