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2511. Chechnya Weekly: Chechen Rebels Step Up Operations

Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Kavkazky Uzel reported on April 8 that Chechnya's rebels have stepped up their activities and even taken control of villages on at least two occasions during the last month. With the arrival of spring and the appearance of foliage, which works to the advantage of guerrilla fighters, rebel units have noticeably stepped up their actions in the republic's foothills and mountainous regions, the website reported. While last month's incident in the village of Alkhazurovo, in which a large contingent of rebel fighters took over the village and held it for several hours, killing five policemen and burning down the local administration building before leaving (Chechnya Weekly, March 20 and April 3), received significant press coverage, a similar rebel operation in the village of Yandi-Kotar in Chechnya's Achkhoi-Martan district received none.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Development
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

2512. Chechnya Weekly: Chechen Parliament Asks Defense Minister to Deal with Vostok Battalion

Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Chechnya's parliament on April 17 adopted a resolution calling on Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov either to dissolve Vostok, the elite Chechen-manned battalion that answers to the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff, or to replace its leaders, including its formal commander, Sulim Yamadaev. A road collision between Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's motorcade and a Vostok convoy that occurred near the Chechen town of Argun on April 14 was followed by an armed confrontation between Vostok fighters, including Sulim Yamadaev's younger brother, Badrudin, who commands one of the battalion's platoons, and fighters loyal to Kadyrov. According to Reuters, 18 or more people were killed in a shootout that followed the traffic accident (see Andrei Smirnov's article).
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Development
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

2513. Chechnya Weekly: Channel One "Uncovers" a Turkish-U.S. Plot in the Caucasus

Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
Russian state television's Channel One on the evening of April 22 broadcast a putative documentary film made by Kremlin correspondent Anton Vernitsky called “Plan 'Kavkaz'” (The Caucasus Plan). The film purports to show how Turkey, the United States and Great Britain attempted at the start of the 1990s to divide Russia into small parts not controlled by the federal center. The film featured Berkan Merrikh Yashar, born Abubakar—a Turkish-born ethnic Chechen who claims to be a journalist who once worked for Radio Liberty in Munich and a politician with close connections to the Turkish leadership.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Development
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Turkey, Asia, and Chechnya

2514. Structural Stability: On the Prerequisites of Nonviolent Conflict Management

Author:
Andreas Mehler, Lena Giesbert, Jenny Kuhlmann, Christian von Soest, and Ulf Engel
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The concept of “structural stability” has been gaining prominence in development policy circles. In the EU's and the OECD Development Assistance Committee's (OECD DAC) understanding, it describes the ability of societies to handle intra-societal conflict without resorting to violence. This study investigates the preconditions of structural stability and tests their mutual interconnections. Seven dimensions are analyzed: (1) long-term economic growth, (2) environmental security, (3) social equality, (4) governmental effectiveness, (5) democracy, (6) rule of law, and (7) inclusion of identity groups. The postulated mutual enhancement of the seven dimensions is plausible but cannot be proven. The most significant positive relationship appears between “democracy” and “rule of law,” respectively, on the one hand and the dependent variable “violence/ human security” on the other hand. This points to the usefulness of the political concept of structural stability to promote development policy agendas in this area at least. Applications that reach beyond these initial findings will, however, require further research.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Security, and International Political Economy

2515. Chechnya Weekly: Chechen Rebels Step Up Attacks

Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
A battle between rebels and security forces took place in Chechnya's Urus-Martan district on May 6. Kavkazky Uzel on May 7 quoted a Chechen Interior Ministry source as saying of the incident: “Yesterday at around 1400 in a forest tract at the village of Komsomolskoe in Urus-Martan district servicemen from a Defense Ministry unit who were carrying out intelligence-reconnaissance activities discovered a gang-formation unit numbering up to 15 people that was concealed at a temporary base. After a short shootout, the bandits retreated and left, presumably in the direction of the mountains (the village of Komsomolskoe is located in the foothills). There were no causalities or wounded among the servicemen. An operation to find and neutralize that gang group is continuing at the moment.” According to Kavkazky Uzel, Chechen rebel websites claimed that the battle lasted more than one and a half hours but did not report on whether any rebel fighters were killed or wounded.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

2516. Chechnya Weekly: Zyazikov Reportedly Beaten Up by Opposition Businessman

Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The opposition Ingushetiya.ru website reported on April 30 that around two weeks earlier, Musa Keligov, the former deputy presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District and well-known businessman who some call the “purse” of the opposition to Murat Zyazikov, Ingushetia's president (Chechnya Weekly, March 20), by chance ran into Zyazikov in a Moscow hotel. According to Ingushetiya.ru, the chance encounter ended with Zyazikov's bodyguards finding him “unconscious and with a smashed face.” The website reported that Keligov asked Zyazikov bodyguards to tell Zyazikov once he regained consciousness that he had been dealt with “according to Ingush laws” and that judgment according to Russian laws lay ahead.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Asia

2517. Colombia: Making Military Progress Pay Off

Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Almost six years of intense security operations against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) by the administration of President Álvaro Uribe are beginning to produce tangible results. Government forces killed several important rebel field commanders in 2007 and two members of the central command in March 2008, including second-in-command Raúl Reyes, and have severely disrupted insurgent communications, prompting a loss of internal cohesion and decreasing illegal revenues. However, this progress has come at the cost of severely deteriorating relations with Ecuador and Venezuela and increased risk of political isolation after the controversial bombing raid on Reyes's camp inside Ecuador. Military gains can pay off only if combined with a political strategy that consistently pursues a swap of imprisoned insurgents for hostages in FARC captivity, reestablishes much needed working relations with neighbours along borders and strongly advances integrated rural development to consolidate security and broaden Colombia's international support.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Security, Politics, Regional Cooperation, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Colombia, Latin America, Central America, and Venezuela

2518. Key Points from "Memo to the President Elect: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership"

Author:
Madeleine Albright
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:
America's next president will face an array of problems more daunting than any since the Vietnam era and will be constrained to do so with US assets—military, economic and political—under severe strain. Our new leader must therefore arrive in the Oval Office equipped not only with the right programs, but also the right temperament to handle the world's most challenging job. Qualifications include analytical skill, an understanding of global strategy, a willingness to recognize and correct mistakes, and a gift for persuading others to do—and even more important to want—what we want.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Development, Diplomacy, and War
Political Geography:
America and Vietnam

2519. Chechnya Weekly: Kadyrov Keeps the Heat on the Yamadaevs

Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
In what appears to be an ongoing campaign by Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration against the Vostok Battalion of the GRU (Russian military intelligence), investigators with the republic's law-enforcement bodies are looking into the battalion's possible involvement in the murder of the Arsamakov brothers (Chechnya Weekly, April 17 and 24; May 1). Kavkazky Uzel on May 8 quoted a Chechen law-enforcement source as saying that investigators who are looking into the Vostok Battalion's activities have information about the possible involvement of battalion members in the kidnapping and subsequent brutal murder of Yusup and Yunus Arsamakov and their driver, who disappeared in early February of 2007.
Topic:
Security and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Moscow

2520. Developing a Contextually Relevant Concept of Regional Hegemony: The Case of South Africa, Zimbabwe and "Quiet Diplomacy"

Author:
Miriam Prys
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
South Africa's “quiet diplomacy” has been often used to reject the notion of South African leadership or regional hegemony in southern Africa. This article finds that this evaluation is founded on a misguided understanding of regional hegemony, which is based on conventional hegemony theories that are mostly derived from the global role of the United States after World War II. Alternatively, this article uses a concept of hegemony that, for example, takes into account the “regionality” of South Africa's hegemony, which both allows external actors to impact on regional relations and allows South Africa to pursue its foreign policy goals on the global level of international politics. This concept helps to systemically analyze South Africa's foreign policy in the Zimbabwean crisis and to better integrate this policy into the broader framework of its regional and global ambitions.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, International Relations, Security, Diplomacy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, South Africa, and Zimbabwe