BACKGROUND: This CIS summit differed from previous summits in the marked absence of public complaints against Russia. In the past, the presidents of the CIS member states used the forum to criticize the CIS and Russia's leadership within it, sometimes even predicting its imminent demise. This time however, the presidents exhibited restraint and deference by refraining from public discussion of the war in Chechnya and their very strained relations with Russia. Moreover, in violation of CIS rules that dictate a rotating chairmanship, they elected Putin chairman. Discussion of the war in Chechnya and the situation in the Caucasus was relegated to a separate gathering of Putin, President Aliev of Azerbaijan, President Shevardnadze of Georgia, and President Kocharian of Armenia.
In another innovation, a "narrow conclave" of the 12 presidents met alone without their Prime Ministers and cabinet members to arrive at the major results of the summit, the election of the chairman and the decision to create a CIS anti-terrorist center and formulate an anti-terrorist program. Although member states oppose terrorism--after all Aliev and Shevardnadze have been the victims of numerous assassination attempts--there is apprehension that the anti-terrorist effort could be used to legitimate a widening of the Chechen war into the South Caucasus. The fears of spillover are quite realistic in view of repeated instances of Russian bombings of Georgian and Azerbaijani villages.
Russia has demanded to take control of the Chechen stretch of Georgia's border and threatened to introduce a visa regime that would devastate Georgia’s economy. In November 1999, Russia suspected that Gennady Shpigun, the Ministry of the Interior general kidnapped in Chechnya last March, was being held in the Georgian village Shatili, near the Chechen border. A few days later, General Valery Manilov, the Russian deputy chief-of-staff, alleged that a Chechen communications center and hospital were operating in the same village. The ominous message in these reports was that Russia was laying the groundwork for a possible incursion into Georgian territory, under the pretext of pursuing terrorists and freeing Shpigun.
IMPLICATIONS: Acting President Putin and Foreign Minister Ivanov have ducked Western criticism of the brutal offensive against the Chechen nation by reference to the need to fight terrorism. Now, through the creation of a CIS anti-terrorism organization and doctrine, Russia may attempt to extend the field of its anti-terrorist operations to the territory of other states.
Beyond the CIS summit, several recent developments also demonstrate a weakening of Georgia and Azerbaijan’s positions vis-a-vis Russia. Russian sources claim that Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo has persuaded Georgia to allow joint patrols of the Chechen section of its border. Moreover, Russian politicians have suggested that they can single-handedly mediate the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute by replacing the United States as the broker of bilateral negotiations. Russia has also gone back on promises made at the OSCE November summit in Istanbul by refusing to negotiate the removal of Russian military bases from Georgian territory.
The Western-leaning CIS member states that formed GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova) have doubts about the Western commitment to their countries and are apprehensive about Russia under Putin’s leadership. In order to avoid being seen by Russia as a bridgehead for NATO expansion into the CIS, they postponed indefinitely the planned meeting of GUUAM defense ministers. Moreover, Shevardnadze characterized GUUAM as primarily an economic rather than a security organization to deny that GUUAM is a competing entity to the CIS. When negotiators over Baku-Ceyhan pipeline construction recently encountered new hurdles, Azerbaijani politicians hinted at the possibility of using an Iranian route instead, seemingly in disregard of Baku-Ceyhan’s importance to Western countries.
Together with the meekness displayed at the CIS summit, these events signal Georgia's and Azerbaijan's apprehensions about Putin's Russia and about the depth of Western commitment to their region. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey took steps to develop the concept of the Caucasus Stability Pact, that would create an international security forum, including Armenia, the United States, European states, Russia and Iran to resolve regional conflicts. This arrangement would ensure that the states of the Caucasus are not left on their own to fend off the advances of an increasingly aggressive Russia. But this initiative will be stillborn if it fails to garner Western, especially United States, support.
CONCLUSIONS: In Chechnya, Putin has demonstrated that an anti-terrorist campaign means destruction for a small nation left alone with the assertive new Russia. And during the Chechen war, the Russian military and law enforcement officials seem to be laying the groundwork for a possible incursion into Georgian territory, under the pretext of pursuing terrorists. This is one reason why Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova, the countries that have suffered the most from Russian-sponsored separatist movements, have balked at Putin’s anti-terrorism efforts seeking to widen the language to include strictures against "separatism" and "aggressive nationalism."
Since the start of hostilities in Chechnya, Georgia and Azerbaijan have been subject to an unremitting barrage of unsubstantiated accusations. The most frequent charge is that they facilitate the transport of fighters and weapons from points outside the CIS to Chechnya. The evidence of such smuggling produced so far only implicates Russian servicemen from the Vaziani base in Georgia. Yet Russia’s charges threaten the region with broadening Russian incursions across its borders. If the United States and the international community grant Russia the sphere of influence it seeks, Azerbaijan and Georgia may well become the next victims of Russia's anti-terrorist initiatives.
AUTHOR BIO: Miriam Lanskoy is Program Manager at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy at Boston University and is a Ph.D. candidate in the University Professors Program. Her articles on the Caucasus are posted in the NIS Observed: An Analytical Review available at www.bu.edu.iscip
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