Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Aug 23 2013
The Caucasus archive. 20 years ago. June 1993
23 August 2013 – 4:29pm
Oleg Kusov, exclusively to VK
During the 1990s, the Caucasus remained the hottest region of the CIS.
Sometimes it just looked like a detonator placed under the entire
post-Soviet space by some major political forces. What for? Perhaps
foolishly, or recklessly, or perhaps for destructive purposes.
The events of the summer of 1993 are indicative. In the South Caucasus
two wars blazed – in Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The end of the
first one was quite close, but the Karabakh ceasefire only came after
about ten months. In the North Caucasus, the main destructive
processes – almost all related to Dudayev and Ichkeria – were just
beginning. It turns out that the South Caucasus in the middle of 1993
gradually, with great difficulty, was appeased, while the North
Caucasus, in contrast, just exploded. Eighteen months previously the
collapse of the USSR had occurred; a test for Russia was just
beginning. Now we already know that in the end Russia resisted, but
then, in 1993, many Moscow newspapers often published a map of the
North Caucasus painted green. They quite seriously predicted to the
Caucasus its own Islamist future. Ichkeria was considered almost a
breakaway from the country’s territory.
Let us turn to the most important events of the summer of 1993 in the Caucasus.
The end of the collapse
The main events in the Caucasus took place in June of this year,
according to most experts, in Azerbaijan. June 15, Heydar Aliyev was
elected President of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan. On June 24 a
parliamentary decision entrusted him with the post of acting president
of the country. Another change of the leadership of Azerbaijan,
according to politicians and experts, had become nothing more than a
stage for the start of saving sprawling country. It was hard to even
imagine what disastrous consequences the collapse of the largest and
richest region of the Caucasus could bring.
Heydar Aliyev’s return to power was preceded by a rebellion led by
Colonel Surat Huseynov, which, in turn, was a response to the attempt
of the then-leadership of the country to seize and destroy the troops
of Huseynov in Ganja with the armed forces of the National Guard. The
army operation against Huseynov started on 4 June, but quickly got
bogged down, and on June 10 Huseynov’s unit moved to Baku. The colonel
had a warrant for the arrest of President Elchibey issued by attorney
general Ihtiyar Shirinov. The country’s leadership was close to panic.
They persuaded Heydar Aliyev to come from Nakhichevan; he had already
met on June 13 with Suret Huseynov in Ganja. On June 18 President
Elchibay secretly fled from Baku to the village of Keleki in the
Nakhichevan Republic.
The Ganja unit was stopped only on June 29, 1993, after another
meeting between the Acting President Aliyev and Suret Huseynov. On
June 30 Huseynov became the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan.
The Karabakh war and the Russian ruling
June 2, the echo of the Karabakh war reached almost to the center of
Baku. On a siding at a railway station a passenger car was blown up.
An investigation established that the terrorist act was committed by
Khatkovski, a Russian citizen recruited by the opposite side in the
armed conflict.
The greatest event of the war in June was the seizure by Armenian
gangs of the Agdam district of Azerbaijan, not part of
Nagorno-Karabakh. Attacks on the region continued on 23 and 24 June.
As a result, the already huge number of Azerbaijani refugees who were
expelled during the war increased by 120,000 people. The fighting
destroyed what was once one of the richest agricultural regions of
Azerbaijan. According to official statistics, in the area there were
97 settlements, 38 farms, 26 farms and cooperative associations, 24
construction companies, 12 industrial enterprises, 105 industrial
sites, 271 cultural institutions and 99 clubs. Prior to 1993 there was
the development of the cotton industry and viticulture there.
On June 27 the Armenian army occupied the city of Martakert, located
60 kilometers north of Stepanakert. On the eve of the battle for the
settlement of Magauz in this area, an Armenian volunteer from the
United States, the commander of the unit “Crusaders” Karo Kahkedzhyan,
was killed.
Another death of another native of the United States – Monte Melkonian
– took place on June 12 in the village of Marzili, located on the
border of the Martuni and Agdam regions. Melkonian is called one of
the organizers and leaders of the Armenian armed forces in
Nagorno-Karabakh. Prior to that, he was fighting in Lebanon. The first
time he took part in the fighting in Beirut, when he was 21 years old.
Two years after this Melkonian joined the military organization of
ASALA (the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia),
organizing attacks and capturing objects in European countries. The
U.S. State Department recognized it as a terrorist organization. After
the assassination of the head of the organization Hagop Hagopian in
1988, on the threshold of his Athenian home, ASALA’s work entered a
less active period. In 1985 Melkonian was arrested in Paris and
sentenced to six years in prison for possession of weapons and forging
documents. He was released after four years and arrived in
Nagorno-Karabakh in 1990.
The attitude of the Armenians towards Melkonian is expressed by his
awards – the “Hero of the NKR’, “The Golden Eagle”, “National Hero of
Armenia” (posthumously).
It is interesting to follow the temporary crossing of two diverse
events in Armenia at the end of June 1993. In the days when the
Armenian armed groups seized the Agdam district, not part of the
Nagorno-Karabakh, the heads of government of Russia and Armenia signed
five agreements in Moscow, according to one of which Yerevan was
granted a loan of 20 billion Russian rubles (18 million 762 thousand
dollars) . The agreement stipulated that with this amount Armenia will
buy a variety of Russian goods. But were there any mechanisms of
control of such large-scale procurement? Was it justified to allocate
such a large amount of money to warring countries? During the
fighting, the primary means are allocated to the military rather than
the social and economic spheres.
West Caucasus weapons are not laid down
By the summer of 1993 Sukhumi was under the control of the Georgian
authorities. Abkhaz armed units had already unsuccessfully tried to
attack the city three times. According to experts, the Georgian forces
were superior to the Abkhaz ones in the number of weapons, but they
were inferior in quality. Despite a Georgian intelligence report about
a possible assault on June 27, Eduard Shevardnadze arrived in Sukhumi.
He volunteered to head the defense of the city.
The Abkhaz military, indeed, did not sit idly developing a plan for a
summer offensive against the Georgian positions. The main task they
set was the capture of the Zugdidi – Gal – Sukhumi road, through which
the Georgian troops got help. The plan was limited to the simultaneous
capture by armed groups from Tkvarcheli of a section of the route in
Ochamchyry (a mountain road from Tkvarcheli led here) and an attack on
Sukhumi from Gudauty (the temporary capital of Abkhazia). Georgian
forces were also preparing to repel the attack, but according to the
participants of the armed events the summer of 1993 marked the moral
degradation of these units. Robbery, drugs, sales of weapons and
ammunition became a commonplace for them. Attempts by Defense Minister
Gia Karkarashvili to reverse the situation did not lead to success.
Another factor to weaken the Georgian troops in the summer of 1993 was
the activation of the deposed president Zviad Gamsakhurdia in western
Georgia. The ex-president at the time was still in Grozny, visiting
Jokhar Dudayev. The rebel troops were led by Loti Kobalia. On June 3
they entered the district center of Gal, establishing control over the
entire area. On June 14 in Zugdidi there was a televised appeal by
Gamsakhurdia, which stressed that the current Georgian authorities
(from his point of view, of course, illegal) had already made the
decision to surrender in Abkhazia’s Sukhumi and Ochamchyry.
Gamsakhurdia offered the Georgian military to join his forces,
renouncing “the impostor Shevardnadze” and continuing the struggle for
the territorial integrity of Georgia. All summer long, gradually, his
armed units strengthened their positions in Western Georgia, preparing
a basis for the return of Gamsakhurdia. He would come here in
September to head the government in exile.
Dudayev selects a dictatorial way
In the North Caucasus the main shocks were just beginning. Jokhar
Dudayev gradually established himself as the sole ruler of Ichkeria.
This was an interest of his entourage. The main motive of this
interest remained control of local oil resources. Back in early 1993,
President Dudayev instructed his team to prepare amendments to the
Constitution of the Republic for focusing all power in his hands.
Dudayev explained the strengthening of authoritarianism by the
necessity of organized opposition to the foreign threat, referring to
Moscow. The opposition centered in parliament could not calmly
perceive such a dramatic action of the President. On April 15 in the
Theatre Square in Grozny an opposition rally started to demand the
resignation of the president and the government, new parliamentary
elections and increasing the role of the representative government.
The rally lasted until the morning on June 5. In response, Dudayev
dissolved the parliament, the Constitutional Court and Grozny City
Council, and made appointments to key positions of power (without
parliamentary approval – in violation of the Constitution). This was a
scenario like the one that was implemented a few months later by the
Kremlin in Moscow against the Supreme Council of the Russian
Federation. The conflict between the president and parliament in
Ichkeria was resolved by force. On the night of June 5th Special
Forces seized a government building of the City Council, in which in
those days the work of the parliament, the Constitutional Court and
city deputies took place. According to some estimates, about 30 people
were killed. The storming of the building was commanded by Shamil
Basayev.
Dudayev formed a new government. The Minister of Information and Press
was Movladi Udugov, the Minister of Culture – Akhmed Zakayev. The
Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Ichkeria was Aslan Maskhadov.
At the end of June 1993 Dudayev announced the resumption of
parliamentary work, but without the right to engage in legislative
activities. Just about half of the deputies took office – 20 people.
First of all, they voted for the deprivation of all parliamentary
powers of their opposition colleagues.
Jokhar Dudayev came out of the political crisis a dictator and a
winner. But the opposition did not leave Ichkeria, moving to the
western regions of the republic and establishing a connection with
Russian officials and the military.
Flag for the Balkar
June 10, 1993, the Russian government adopted a decree on
socio-economic support of the Balkar people. The help needed to have a
specific ethnic address that now cannot be imagined. Nine days later
the first congress of the Balkar people was held, the main result of
which, according to experts, was the adoption of the national Balkar
flag – a light blue background with two white horizontal stripes and
the silhouette of Mount Elbrus. No one in Moscow paid attention to
this fact, despite its apparent separatist message.
The year before the Congress, in March 1992, a session of the local
councils operating on the territory of Balkar settlement appealed to
the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies with a request to adopt the
law “On establishing the Balkaria Republic.” Not having received a
positive response, Balkar activists spoke of a Kabardino-Balkarian
Confederation. Looking ahead, we recall that the main separatist
events unfolded here in autumn 1996, after the next congress of the
Balkar people. It adopted an appeal to the president of Russia and the
Federal Assembly with a request to establish direct presidential rule
till the establishment of the republic and to suspend the laws of the
CBD, in the part “contrary to the Constitution of Russia and the
decisions of the congress of the Balkar people about establishing a
Balkar Republic.” This Congress created the State Board of Balkaria
and decided to establish a national militia.
Official republican authorities used milder form of repression against
separatists – riot police smashed up the Balkar Social and Political
Center. With respect to members of the State Council, criminal cases
were opened. The State Duma opposed the idea of the formation of the
new republic in the North Caucasus. The leader of the Balkar District,
General S. Beppaev, repented and two years later established the
“Voice of Balkaria” loyal to the authorities for addressing the social
and cultural problems of the people.
In the summer of 1993 in the Caucasus, the ground was laid for further
processes – in the South Caucasus the beginning of stabilization
became more noticeable, and in the North Caucasus, on the contrary,
the boiler was more and more heated.
In a week, we’ll recall the main events of July 1993.
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/politics/44232.html