INTRODUCING THE ISSUE

In January 2001, President Putin announced a major change in Russia's strategy in Chechnya. This special issue of the RAS on the situation in Chechnya begins with an analysis I prepared shortly after Putin made this announcement. Now, over a year later, it is time to ask to what extent Russia's strategy has really changed. A colleague who (unfortunately) must remain anonymous tackles this question in item 2. His conclusion is that there has been very little change.

However, Patrick Armstrong points out in item 3 that an important change has occurred in the nature of the war on the insurgent side: the incorporation of a local war of secession into the international Islamist jihad.

There has been a great deal of discussion, much of it unavoidably speculative, of connections which may exist between the outbreak of the current war and Russian domestic politics, in particular the rise of Putin. Drawing mainly on a recent book by prominent Russian scholar Valery Tishkov, items 4 and 5 explore a different aspect of the origins of the war, pertaining to developments in Chechen society and politics between the first and second wars, with special emphasis on the role played by the kidnapping business.

The next set of items (6-8) concerns the conditions of survival in Chechnya today. I present some findings from a survey of living conditions (item 6) and reproduce a report on the ecological situation (item 7).

I do not try to cover the human rights situation in a systematic fashion because excellent reports are available elsewhere. I recommend in particular the excellent report by Human Rights Watch at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/russchech/chech0202.pdf But I do want to draw attention to one specific problem: that of the access of inhabitants of Chechnya to official documents establishing their personal identity (item 8). I have also interspersed throughout the issue, under the heading THIS IS CHECHNYA, selected excerpts from press reports of the North Caucasus Bureau of the Information Center of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, taken from the site of this organization at: http://www.friendly.narod.ru/2002e/indexe.htm

Item 9 summarizes the findings of a recent survey of Russian public opinion concerning Chechnya policy. Unfortunately I have not been able to find comparable data on Chechen public opinion. Conditions in Chechnya are indeed hardly conducive to the gathering of reliable information on public opinion.

Despite all the horrors of the situation, there are many people, including both Chechens and Russians, who have not given up hope and continue to work for peace and recovery. The last group of items are devoted to the work and ideas of some of these people.

Item 10 presents the basic ideas of a plan for political resolution of the conflict put forward by the eminent Chechen scholar Jabrail Gakayev. Item 11 deals with the restoration of the healthcare and education systems in Chechnya.

In the final piece, Valery Tishkov, director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, describes the origin and work of a non-governmental organization which he founded, the Fund for Humanitarian Assistance to the Chechen Republic. Perhaps among our readers there are some who will be able to help realize his plans for the future work of this organization. His e-mail address is: tishkov@orc.ru

Professor Tishkov has also sent me the following two documents which I decided not to summarize but which I shall be glad to forward to anyone interested:

-- Peace Reconstruction Plan prepared by the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Peace Mission to the Caucasus, and Non-Violence International.

-- Valery Tishkov with the assistance of Larisa Sotieva and Musa Yusupov, The Role of NGOs in Building Civil Society in Chechnya (including an appendix containing information on NGOs in Chechnya and Ingushetia)

Stephen D. Shenfield, editor of the RAS