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71. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 7, Issue 4

Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
On January 25, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a resolution on the human rights situation in Chechnya. According to PACE's website (assembly.coe.int), the resolution, which passed by a vote of 117 to 24, stated that the Strasbourg-based assembly "is deeply concerned that a fair number of governments, member states and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe have failed to address the ongoing serious human rights violations in a regular, serious and intensive manner, despite the fact that such violations still occur on a massive scale in the Chechen Republic and, in some cases, neighboring regions in a climate of impunity." The assembly also reiterated its "unambiguous condemnation of all acts of terrorism" and expressed "its understanding of the difficulties the Russian Federation faces in combating terrorism."
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, Government, Human Rights, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya

72. Changing Conflict Identities: The case of the Southern Thailand Discord

Author:
S.P. Harish
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
The current wave of violence in southern Thailand began on 4 January 2004 and is showing no signs of declining. The frequent attacks have become a thorn in the side of the Thaksin administration. Recent literature on the conflict as well as media reports tend to represent the insurgency in Thailand's restive south as Islamic in nature and portray attacks as revenge against the Buddhists. However, studies published in the 1970s and earlier do not represent the conflict in southern Thailand as such. Instead, they emphasise more on the ethnic Thai versus Malay character of the conflict. This paper attempts to explain the transformation of the southern Thailand conflict from a primarily ethnic discord to a predominantly religious strife. It argues that this change can be best explained by considering the role of identity in the conflict. The interplay and manipulation of the ethnic Malay and Thai identity on one hand, and the religious Islamic and Buddhist identity on the other, are key factors that will assist in explaining the change in the character of the unrest.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Ethnic Conflict, and Religion
Political Geography:
Asia and Thailand

73. Managing ethnic divisions in the Philippines and Malaysia

Author:
Peter Kreuzer
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Abstract:
Another lesson of history may be lost, a lesson that can teach not only Malaysians but others as well about the conduct of Government, the behaviour of politicians, and the discipline required in a democracy in order to prevent a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multicultural country from going up in flames and destroying itself.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Ethnic Conflict, Islam, and Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Malaysia, Asia, and Philippines

74. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 6, Issue 40

Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Russian media have been reporting over the past week that large-scale security operations are continuing in Kabardino-Balkaria and elsewhere in the North Caucasus following the October 13 rebel attacks in Nalchik. Gazeta reported on October 26 that Ramazan Tembotov, a local legislator from the village of Khasnya in Nalchik's suburbs and a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, was arrested without explanation on October 23 and taken to the headquarters of RUBOP, the anti-organized crime directorate, in Nalchik. "People in masks came flying in, they [treated me] like a criminal, with obscene language. It is a disgrace for me—after all, the treatment of a deputy is special, like [the treatment of] an attorney; everyone knows me in the village," Tembotov told the newspaper. "I, unlike others, was not beaten: they lead me around the rooms, the cellars, and showed what they were doing to other detainees: they were torturing people like the Gestapo. No lawyers, no interrogations—simply beating to death, until they confessed or pointed to others." Tembotov said that the police personnel displayed particular animosity toward anything connected to Islam. He was released on October 24, the day after his detention, and told Gazeta that he thought the only thing that saved him was a telephone call he had managed to make to an acquaintance who works for the Federal Security Service.
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, and Islam
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, Chechnya, and North Caucasus

75. Chechnya Weekly:Nalchik: The Official Stats Don't Add Up

Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Kavkazky Uzel reported on October 19 that a total of 92 rebel gunmen were killed on October 13 during the attack on government and law enforcement buildings in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. RIA Novosti reported that day that a total of 24 law enforcement officers died in the attack along with ten civilians, while Ekho Moskvy radio quoted the press secretary of Kabardino-Balkarian President Arsen Kanokov as saying that the bodies of ten civilians killed in the attack had been identified while another two bodies remained unidentified.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Kabardino

76. Chechnya Weekly: Kosachev: Blair And Putin Discussed Zakaev

Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Russian media reported on October 5 that President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who held talks that day and signed a joint statement on combating terrorism, discussed the issue of Akhmed Zakaev, the Chechen separatist envoy who received political asylum in the United Kingdom in December 2003. State Duma International Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev, who was present at the meeting, said that Blair showed "understanding" on the issue. "The British prime minister made clear that he is in favor of changing and strengthening current British legislation to allow more specific and decisive action to be taken against people suspected of links to terrorism," Kosachev said in remarks carried by Ren-TV.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia

77. Chechnya Weekly: Putin Talks Up Chechen Parliamentary Elections

Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
President Vladimir Putin took several questions from residents of Chechnya in a live link-up from Grozny during his nationally televised three-hour call-in show on September 27. As the Moscow Times reported the following day, a woman told Putin her son had disappeared without a trace after being abducted four years ago and that thousands of people in Chechnya were in a similar situation. "We will continue work to search for both disappeared people and those who are guilty of these crimes," newsru.com quoted Putin as saying. The problem, he said, is linked to the fact that the problem of security has not been resolved fully, adding that it is sometimes impossible to determine whether abductions have been carried by disguised "bandits" or are "abuses by official law-enforcement organs." Dozens of criminal cases, including those targeting officials and federal servicemen, have been launched in connection with kidnappings in Chechnya, Putin said. "The main solution to the problem is political regularization in Chechnya, bringing in the largest number of people in the process of this regularization," he said, adding: "I attach very great importance to the upcoming parliamentary elections in Chechnya…It seems to me that people with the most varied political convictions should appear there [in parliament], so that all divisive issues are resolved openly, in a civilized manner, in a political process, and not through the use of force."
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya

78. Chechnya Weekly:Servicemen And Police Killed In Fresh Rebel Attacks

Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
An officer in Chechnya's Anti-Terrorist Center was killed and three Chechen policemen were wounded on September 20 when rebels fired on three police vehicles outside the Shelkovsky district village of Krasny Voskhod, Interfax and Kavkazky Uzel reported on September 21. Rebels also severely wounded a policeman in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district. "The attack was carried out near the district court by three unidentified assailants," a source told Interfax. "The policeman was hospitalized." RIA Novosti reported on September 20 that two policemen and a Federal Security Service (FSB) officer had been injured the previous day when the UAZ vehicle in which they were traveling hit a land mine near the town of Shali. According to the news agency, the mine exploded with a force equivalent to one kilogram of TNT. Separately, unidentified attackers fired shots at police officers on patrol in Borozdinovskaya on September 19, injuring one police officer. A Chechen law-enforcement source told Interfax that one policeman was wounded and hospitalized. Borozdinovskaya is the village from which eleven residents disappeared during a June raid allegedly carried out by Russian military intelligence's Vostok battalion. Also on September 19, a remand prison belonging to the Chechen narcotics control directorate in Grozny's Leninsky district came under fire from assault rifles and grenade launchers. According to Interfax, no one was injured in the attack and law-enforcers returned fire. Meanwhile, law-enforcers detained four militants in the Shali district village of Novye Atagi in connection with an August attack on a car carrying district police officers, which killed one policeman and wounded another.
Topic:
Security, Civil War, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya

79. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 6, Issue 32

Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Chechen State Council Chairman Taus Dzhabrailov raised eyebrows on August 15, when he told journalists that the two wars in Chechnya have killed about 160,000 combatants and civilians, 30,000-40,000 of them Chechen fighters and civilians. He said that the remaining victims were "representatives of various ethnic groups," but that the vast majority of these were Russians, Novye izvestia reported on August 16. Agence France-Presse noted that a large portion of the 400,000-450,000 people who lived in Grozny before the first war were ethnic Russian and that the city was devastated by Russian air and artillery bombardments in 1995 that caused massive civilian casualties. "They never thought they would have bombs dropped on their heads or be shot at by heavy weapons," the news agency quoted Dzhabrailov as saying. Izvestia, meanwhile, reported him as saying that "the figures I have quoted are compiled by collecting together information about all the losses in the republic in the last fifteen years. We obtained information from all those involved: the military, the Interior Ministry, and the districts. Our data for the Ichkeria period are based on official documents that I obtained from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Ministry of Internal Affairs when I was an employee of the republican mufti's press service. The losses at that time were no smaller than they are now or were during the counter-terrorist operation."
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, and War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, France, and Chechnya

80. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 6, Issue 31

Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The Council of Muftis of the Chechen Republic on August 4 officially declared a jihad against "Wahhabism." Interfax quoted Chechen Mufti Sultan Mirzaev as telling journalists that the decision had been announced during a meeting between representatives of the clergy and law-enforcement agencies in the village of Tsentoroi, which is the home village of the Kadyrov clan. Mirzaev said it was the largest such meeting since the death of Akhmad Kadyrov in May 2004. "Wahhabism is the plague of the 20th and the 21st centuries," he said. "All Arabic scholars have come to be unanimous that those fighting against Wahhabism are on the path of jihad, following the way of Allah." Wahhabis and terrorists, he said, "are bringing evil into the world and the entire world must oppose them. We adopted an official fatwa (a religious ruling in Islam – Interfax), so that those fighting terrorism and Wahhabism have no doubt that their cause is just. We have declared war on these phenomena. Those killing innocent people must be either stopped or put behind bars or exterminated. This has to be done by whatever method. Our fatwa is that those who have shed blood, those who do not want to stop must be killed by any method." Mirzaev said rebels had killed sixteen district imams in Chechnya and that he himself had been "seriously wounded" in a rebel attack. "Should I remain silent about this?" he said. "If it becomes necessary, I will take up arms and I am ready to fight against them."
Topic:
Security, Ethnic Conflict, Islam, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Chechnya