Archive of 2007 Events
Archive of 2006 Events
Archive of 2004 Events

Chechnya: After Maskhadov - Conference

School of Oriental and African Studies (www.soas.ac.uk), London University/ Great Hall at the Brunei Gallery
Thornhaugh Street
Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG
8:45 am - 6pm

The Conference will concentrate on the humanitarian situation in Chechnya and explore the political and socio-economic background. It is hosted jointly by Medical Aid and Relief for Children of Chechnya (MARCCH - www.marcch.org) and the Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Speaker include:
Lord Judd, ex EU Rapporteur on Chechnya
Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Member of Parliament
Akhmed Zakaev, former European envoy of the late President Maskhadov
Andrew Jack, Financial Times
Oksana Antonienko, Institute of Strategic Studies
Dr. Khassan Baiev, Surgeon and author
Chris Langdon, Military Historian
Paul Goble, Journalist
Medina Megamedova, Mothers of Chechnya
Natalia Estemirova, Memorial
Dr. Muhammed Al Shishani, Vice President of the World Chechen Congress
Ibragim Arsanov, Gotch magazine
Steve Crawshaw, Director, Human Rights Watch UK
Bill Bowring, Professor of International Law
Isabella Barras or Daniel Schriber, ICRC Geneva

For further information contact Satanay Dorken, Chief Executive of MARCCH.

Searching for Peace in Chechnya – Swiss Initiatives and Experiences

swisspeace Annual Conference

Hotel Bern
Zeughausgasse 9
Bern, Switzerland

Speakers include Anna Matveeva, Andreas Gross, Alexei Malashenko and Larissa Bitkaeva

The violent conflict in Chechnya has lasted for more than a decade now. The political solution to this conflict must be found by the parties directly involved on both the Russian and the Chechen sides. What can external actors such as Switzerland contribute to peace in the region? What role do Russian and Chechen parties expect of external actors? Russian, Chechen and international experts will explore these and other questions at the swisspeace annual conference.

For more information, including conference program and registration, go to www.swisspeace.org/news/default.htm.

Chechen Migration to Europe: Ukrainian and Austrian Perspectives

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Presentation by Karin Keil, visiting scholar at Brooklyn Law School and Project Director, Caritas Austria/ Project Leader for the establishment of Migration Management system in Ukraine

Graduate Program in International Affairs Seminar

New School University
66 West 12th Street, 4th Floor, Room 404
New York
6-8pm

Since 2003, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has reported that Russian citizens, overwhelmingly ethnic Chechens, have constituted the largest group of new asylum-seekers arriving in European countries. Today, an approximate 100,000 Chechens live in Europe, some as recognized refugees, others still waiting for a decision, and, tragically, many who have become trapped in a European asylum system that leaves them in constant limbo. These numbers represent about 10% of the total Chechen population and consequently every Chechen either knows someone who has endeavoured to go to Europe, or has a relative there or has considered exile for him- or herself. This large-scale migration, due largely to continued human rights violations, discrimination and bleak economic prospects at home, has emerged as one of the central stories in Chechen lives today, but has been hardly given enough attention at the analytical and political level.

Karin Keil received a degree in law from Vienna University and LLM in international human rights law from American University in Washington, D.C. Currently, she is conducting research as a visiting scholar at Brooklyn Law School. She is the Project Director of the Department for Refugees and Migration at Caritas Austria, where she has helped hundreds of Chechens file applications for asylum and appeal negative decisions, and Project Leader for legal advice, policy and training/ Establishment of the Migration Management system in Zakarpattya, Ukraine (an EU-funded capacity-building project). In this latter capacity, she has monitored conditions in what has become a major transit country for Chechen refugees on their way to Europe.

The large-scale migration of Chechen asylum-seekers to Europe: sample cases illustrating the Austrian approach and a view of the situation in the transit country Ukraine

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Presentation by Karin Keil, visiting scholar at Brooklyn Law School and Project Director, Caritas Austria/ Project Leader for the establishment of Migration Management system in Ukraine

Harriman Institute Chechnya Speaker Series

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
12pm

Since 2003, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has reported that Russian citizens, overwhelmingly ethnic Chechens, have constituted the largest group of new asylum-seekers arriving in European countries. Today, an approximate 100,000 Chechens live in Europe, some as recognized refugees, others still waiting for a decision, and, tragically, many who have become trapped in a European asylum system that leaves them in constant limbo. These numbers represent about 10% of the total Chechen population and consequently every Chechen either knows someone who has endeavoured to go to Europe, or has a relative there or has considered exile for him- or herself. This large-scale migration, due largely to continued human rights violations, discrimination and bleak economic prospects at home, has emerged as one of the central stories in Chechen lives today, but has been hardly given enough attention at the analytical and political level.

Karin Keil received a degree in law from Vienna University and LLM in international human rights law from American University in Washington, D.C. Currently, she is conducting research as a visiting scholar at Brooklyn Law School. She is the Project Director of the Department for Refugees and Migration at Caritas Austria, where she has helped hundreds of Chechens file applications for asylum and appeal negative decisions, and Project Leader for legal advice, policy and training/ Establishment of the Migration Management system in Zakarpattya, Ukraine (an EU-funded capacity-building project). In this latter capacity, she has monitored conditions in what has become a major transit country for Chechen refugees on their way to Europe.

Ruslan Khasbulatov speaks about "Russian Capitalism and the Situation in the North Caucasus"

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Harriman Institute Chechnya Speaker Series

Columbia University/ International Affairs Building
Lindsay Rogers Room, 7th floor
420 West 118th Street
New York
2pm

Ruslan Imranovich Khasbulatov is one of Russia’s most high-profile politicians. He is best known for his actions as Chairman of Russia’s Supreme Soviet, when he led the resistance against President Boris Yeltsin’s unconstitutional dissolution of the parliament in 1993. In the mid-1990s he fought against the separatist Dudaev regime in Chechnya, and has since led a number of peace initiatives, including the proposal of a peace plan that he co-authored (the so-called Liechtenstein Plan). An economist by education, Ruslan Khasbulatov is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and currently teaches at the Plekhanov Institute of National Economy in Moscow. He has published numerous articles and books, including a five-volume series entitled “The Kremlin and the Russian-Chechen War” and several textbooks on the global economy for Russian students.

Since seating is limited, we request that you RSVP to can@chechnyaadvocacy.org.

Defending Human Rights in Russia: Threats, Pressure and the Chechnya Effect

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty invites you to a briefing by

Ludmilla Alekseeva
Founder and Chairman, Moscow Helsinki Group
Tanya Lokshina
Chairperson, DEMOS Center for Information and Research (Moscow)

Ludmilla Alekseeva, one of the most prominent human rights advocates in Russia today, has served since 1996 as chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group -- a group that she helped found with Russian physicist Yuri Orlov and other prominent Soviet dissidents in 1976. Alekseeva served as president of the International Helsinki Federation from 1998-2004. Tanya Lokshina is the Chairperson of the Moscow-based human rights think-tank, DEMOS Center for Information and Research, which monitors the state of human rights and democracy across Russia, conducts research and develops recommendations that are distributed to state agencies, public organizations, and expert bodies. Lokshina is also a Chechnya/North Caucasus researcher for the International Helsinki Federation on Human Rights.

Please RSVP by October 25 by email to dc-response@rferl.org, by telephone to Melody Jones at (202) 457-6949, or by fax to (202) 457-6992

Friede fuer die Tschetschenen (in German)

Die Foederation fuer Weltfrieden (www.weltfriede.at) und die Europaeisch-Tschetschenische Gesellschaft laden Sie herzlich zu einem Informationsabend ein.

Seidengasse 28, im Hof rechts
1070 Wien
18.00 - 21.00 Uhr

• Begruessung und Einfuehrung in das Thema des Abends
• Videofilm: „Tschetschenien – der endlose Krieg“ – Das Schicksal einer Frau mit Ihren erwachsenen Kindern in Moskau
• Tschetschenische Kinder tragen Gedichte vor - Praesentation der sechs besten Teilnehmer eines Wettbewerbs organisiert vom „Fluechtlinsprojekt Ute Bock“, der „Gesellschaft fuer bedrohte Voelker“ und der „Europaeisch-Tschetschenische Gesellschaft“.
• Buffet mit Spezialitaeten aus der tschetschenischen Kueche
• Podiumsdiskussion zum Thema des Abends: Mit Waha Banjaev (Ueberlebender eines Straflagers), Dr. Leo Gabriel (stellt sein neues Buch „Politik der Eigenstaendigkeit“ vor), Mag. Alexej Klutschewsky (Multikulturelle Autonomie: Eine Loesung fuer Tschetschenien), VertreterIn des Fluechtlinsprojekts Ute Bock, VertreterIn der Gesellschaft fuer bedrohte Voelker, DI Khawash Bisaev (Europaeisch-Tschetschenische Gesellschaft)
• Preisverleihung Vortragswettbewerb und tschetschenische Lieder

Um Antwort wird gebeten - Peter Haider (0650/2588846 oder info@weltfriede.at)
Unkostenbeitrag fuer das Buffet: 5 Euro (fuer Studenten gratis)

A lawyer in a lawless land: Musa Khasanov speaks about his experiences with courts, corruption and human rights violations in Grozny, Chechnya

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Harriman Institute Chechnya Speaker Series
Co-hosted by the Public Interest Law Initiative at Columbia University Law School

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
12pm

Musa Khasanov is a 2005-2007 Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) fellow at Columbia University Law School (more about the PILI fellowship program at www.pili.org/fellows/fb/). He received his degree in law from Chechen State University in Grozny in 1997. He also holds a degree in economics from the same university, and has extensive training in conflict resolution. Mr. Khasanov is a member of the Chechen Bar Association in Grozny, where he works as a lawyer specializing in criminal and civil cases. Representinghis clients, he is regularly confronted with instances of judicial corruption, intimidation and human rights violations.

Mr. Khasanov is also Coordinator of the North Caucasus Peacebuilding Network in Chechnya with the British-based Centre for Peacemaking and Community Development. In this role he organizes a variety of activities for youth, such as seminars on conflict resolution, festivals, exchange programs, and other community strengthening events.

Lunch will be provided courtesy of PILI. For information, contact CAN at can@chechnyaadvocacy.org.

Journalism, freedom of speech and media development in today's Chechnya - a veteran Chechen reporter's view

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Presentation by Tamara Chagaeva, journalist and children's advocate

Harriman Institute Chechnya Speaker Series

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
12pm

Tamara Chagaeva graduated from Leningrad State University (when it still went by that name) and has been a journalist for 25 years, writing for popular Chechnya-based newspapers such as Groznenskii Rabochii and more recently the award-winning Chechenskoe Obshchestvo. She is also a peace activist and dedicated advocate for children affected by war, organizing help for children who have lost limbs and displaced children as well as translating international children's literature into the Chechen language.

Beslan, Chechnya and the Search for Stability in the Caucasus

Presented by the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, Freedom House and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest
Washington, D.C.
09:30 A.M. – 2:30 P.M.

Speakers include:

Anna Politkovskaya (Correspondent, Novaya Gazeta)
Emil Pain (Director, Russian Center for Ethnopolitical Studies)
John Dunlop (Hoover Institution, Stanford University)
Aslan Doukayev (Northern Caucasus Service, RFE/RL)
Glen E. Howard (Executive Director, ACPC)
Jennifer Windsor (Executive Director, Freedom House)
Donald N. Jensen (Communications Director, RFE/RL)

Lunch will be served.
Space is limited. Please RSVP to acpc@peaceinchechnya.org or (202) 364-2466 by 5:00p.m. on Tuesday, October 11, 2005.

Roundtable Discussion with Chechen Journalist Tamara Chagaeva

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Committee on Conscience
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Classroom B
1:00pm to 3:00pm

Chechen journalist Tamara Chagaeva will discuss the current conditions in Chechnya. Before the wars, she worked with the Chechen newspaper Groznenskii Robochii. She currently resides in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria and writes for several online publications. Ms. Chagaeva has also worked with displaced children and has translated children's literature and fairy tales into Chechen.

For more information, go to www1.ushmm.org/conscience/calendar/.

Relief to Recovery? Current trends in humanitarian and recovery assistance in the Northern Caucasian republics of the Russian Federation

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Presentation by Mike Young, Country Director for the International Rescue Committee in the North Caucasus/Russia

Harriman Institute Chechnya Speaker Series

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
3pm

Over the last year, the focus of international aid agencies active in the North Caucasus has shifted from purely humanitarian relief to sustained recovery and reconstruction. The International Rescue Committee, one of the oldest and most distinguished international aid NGOs with a special mandate to help displaced people, maintains a large and multifaceted presence in the region and runs a variety of programs in the areas of community development, public health, education, housing and sanitation. It is one of the main implementing partners of the UN and has received grants from the US government and the EU. To learn more about the IRC's work in the North Caucasus, download a program description or go to www.theirc.org/chechnya.

Mike Young has worked on issues related to conflict and displacement for over 12 years, including program management and technical assistance in policy, advocacy, humanitarian assistance and post-conflict development. He has worked with international and local organizations in the Balkans, Sudan, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and the Russian Federation, and has been with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) since 2001. Currently he works as the Country Director for IRC operations in the Northern Caucasian republics of the Russian Federation.

Crisis in Chechnya - Films and Discussions at University of Washington, Seattle

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

The Ellison Center/ University of Washington
10:00 am- 1:30 pm
Smith Hall 205

Panelists and Films:
Mikhail Alexseev, Associate Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University
"Russia's Survival Dilemma: From Insecurity in Moscow to Bloodshed in Chechnya."

"Inside Chechnya" (1999), an International Emmy Award winning BBC documentary, directed by Raisa
Talkhanova, the first in-depth report from behind Russian lines in November 1999.

Raisa Talkhanova, Director of the film Inside Chechnya
"Inside Chechnya: What Has Changed in Five Years?"

Albina Digaeva, a Chechen refugee living in the United States
"Insights from a Refugee."

"Terror Strikes Moscow" (2003)
This documentary, by Dan Reed, tells the inside story of what happened in the besieged theatre in Moscow, October 2002.

Through documentary films and speakers intimately familiar with Russia's long-brewing conflict in the North Caucasus. This symposium will highlight the historical and political causes of the war in Chechnya, examine the effects of the conflict on civilians on both sides and explore possible
resolutions for the ongoing instability in the region. For more information, contact REECAS at 206-543-4852 or email reecas@u.washington.edu.

The University of Washington is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities, education and employment for individuals with disabilities. To request disability accommodation contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance at: (206) 543-6450/V, (206) 543-6452/TTY, (206) 685-7264 (FAX), or dso@u.washington.edu

Documentary "Coca- the dove from Chechnya"
North American Premiere at the 4th Annual Tribeca Film Festival (www.tribecafilmfestival.org) in New York City

Tue, Apr 26, 9:15pm at Regal Battery Park 1
Fri, Apr 29, 6:45pm at Regal Battery Park 9
Sat, Apr 30, 10:30am at Regal Battery Park 7

Born in exile in Kazakhstan, Zainap Gashsaeva, a Chechen businesswoman who has raised four children, in 1994 began documenting the atrocious human rights violations that are daily events in her homeland, where Europe's longest running conflict since World War II still rages unabated. Risking her life at every turn, she has used a video camera to compile a unique visual and oral history as evidence of what has happened. One hundred thousand of the one million inhabitants of this Caucasian republic have died, along with tens of thousands of Russian soldiers and Chechen underground fighters. Meanwhile, the rest of the world averts its eyes. As John Le Carre has written about this film, 'Moscow and Washington agree on this: that State terrorism is legitimate as long as it masquerades as the war on terror; and that the common enemy is the truth. These extraordinarily brave and resourceful women beg to differ. Their record, smuggled from the depths of hell at great risk, accuses the West as loudly as the East.' Director Eric Bergkraut notes: 'I have not made a film about high-level politics. Coca was conceived from the start to be about women who struggle against the destruction of bodies and souls; women who condemn violations of human rights and who hope for justice. They don't do this out of naivete, for which Chechnya would be the place least apt, but because they can and want to do nothing else, because they are courageous, and because they do not deny themselves and their ideals, even if to do so would be easier for them and their families, and would increase their life expectancies.' This film is co-presented with the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.

To find more informationand purchase tickets, go to www.tribecafilmfestival.org/purchase-tickets.html. The documentary's official website is at www.cocathedove.com/news.php

Chechnya and Terrorism in Russia: Beyond Beslan
A discussion with Jonathan Sanders, CBS News Russia Correspondent

Presented by the Media and Culture Concentration of the Graduate Program in International Affairs

6-8pm
Room to be announced
(check at www.gpia.info/calendar/ for location)
New School University

Veteran Russia correspondent Jonathan Sanders covered last year's Beslan school siege for CBS News. He will talk about that experience as well as discussing the wider Chechen conflict. In addition, there will be a screening of the documentary "Hostage," produced by Sanders, which CBS aired earlier this year as part of their news documentary program "48 Hours".

Please RSVP to Denis Fitzgerald

The Chechen Insurgency after Aslan Maskhadov

The W.P. Carey Forum
The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute

5-7 PM
Rome Auditorium
1619 Massachusetts Ave. NW,
Washington DC

With Ilyas Akhmadov, Visiting Fellow - International Forum, NED and Timothy Thomas
Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth

The death of Aslan Maskhadov, the elected President of secessionist Chechnya, is likely to be a watershed event in the travails of the Chechen people, in Russia's success in the Chechnya war, and perhaps in relations between Russia and the West. Because Maskhadov was elected and at one time was received in Washington as the Governor of a subject of the Russian federation, he gave the insurgency a certain legitimacy and seemed a possible negotiating partner for a political settlement. Does his death remove any possible partner? In this light, is it a success or setback for
Russian counterinsurgency strategy? Does Maskhadov's death herald a radicalization of the insurgency? If so, what will the effect be on Chechen public opinion, inside and outside the Russian Federation? Finally, it is an appropriate moment for reflection on the military successes and failures
of the Chechen guerrillas. Are "conventional" partisan-war operations at an end? Is the cost uncontrolled terrorism in the North Caucasus more generally? How great is the remaining capability of the Chechen rebels for each kind of operations? And how well are Russia's forces equipped and
trained to deal with continuing conflict?

Ilyas Akhmadov fought in the first war, mainly on the Maskhadov's staff. In the summer of 1999 President Maskhadov named him as Foreign Minister of Chechnya, a title that he no longer uses. After several months of the
second Chechnya war he left Chechnya to continue making Chechnya's case in the West. Subsequently Mr. Akhmadov claimed political asylum in the United States, and is currently writing a book on the successful and unsuccessful
attempts to make peace between the Russian government and the secessionist authorities.

Tim Thomas was a career officer specializing in the analysis of Soviet military performance, particularly small unit operations in "low-intensity" conflicts. He retired to become a civilian expert at FMSO, the Defense Department's center for such analysis, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, FMSO has broadened its reach to become the foremost center in the United States for the analysis of the military aspects of "low-intensity" conflicts. Tim Thomas, who has published widely in the open press, has become FMSO's primary expert on the Chechnya wars. His talk will comprise his own views, not those of the United States Department of Defense.

To RSVP, please send an email with your name and affiliation to: caci2@mail.jhuwash.jhu.edu or call (202) 663-7721