Statement:

The Situation in Chechnya is a civil war with a recent peace agreement. The history of Chechnya appears to support a claim of self-determination.

Background:

Although the czars began a three hundred year attempt to subjugate the Northern Caucasus in 1560, by 1585 Chechnya and other areas of the Caucasus had been conquered by the Ottoman Empire and represented its northern reach into what has become modern Russia. Under Ottoman rule, the Chechens adopted Islam. Russia continued its attempt to capture the area and finally forced the retreat of the Ottomans by 1785. After winning the Caucasian war (1817-1864), the Russians deported hundreds of thousands of Chechens. In 1877, 1920, 1929, 1940 and 1943 the Chechens made unsuccessful attempts to rebel against the czars and then the communists. While most of the Chechen males were fighting against Hitler in the winter of 1943-44, Stalin ordered that Chechnya be obliterated. Villages were burned, 500,000 people were deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia and their land was given to non-Chechens. In 1957, the Chechens were allowed to return to their homeland.

Dzhokhar Dudayev seized power in Chechnya in August 1991. After a popular vote elected him president that November, Dudayev declared independence from the Soviet Union - a month before its collapse. In August 1994 the Russian government began military action to stop Chechnya's succession. Russian troops began aerial bombing and attacked the capital of Grozny in December and in February 1995. Subsequently, the rebel Chechen government moved to the hills and Chechnya was put under an armed Russian occupation.

Current Situation:

The Russian army fully withdrew on January 5, 1997 following an August 1996 agreement granting the republic autonomy and establishing it as a free economic zone. Chechen presidential elections on January 27 were won by Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen military chief of staff in charge of the war effort.

Over 50,000 civilians have died in the war. Six workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross were murdered in their sleep in December 1996, the worst premeditated attack in the history of the organization.

U.N. Action:

Sub-Comm'n 1995: Statement.

Rpt. Sec.-Gen. (E/CN.4/1996/13 & Add.1).

Report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture (Nigel S. Rodley:

E/CN.4/1996/35 & Add.1).

Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary

Executions (Bacre Waly N'diaye: E/CN.4/1996/4).