Anatol Lieven is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation and an expert on international security issues, who has authored books on the Baltic States, NATO, Ukraine and most recently American foreign policy. He extensively covered the pre-war period and the first war in Chechnya as a foreign correspondent and published "Chechnya. Tombstone of Russian Power", in 1998. He has since continued his research and analysis of Chechnya and written a number of articles, policy papers (e.g. A Spreading Danger: Time for a New Policy Toward Chechnya - Carnegie Endowment Policy Brief 35) and op-eds on the topic. He holds a BA in history and a PhD in political science from the University of Cambridge.

CAN: With the elections over, what are your impressions of the preparations and the vote itself?
Anatol Lieven: I would have to be very, very cautious speaking about the details of an election that I haven't observed myself. The good news is that they were peaceful and weren't disrupted by violence. As to how credible they were, it is difficult to say. The turn-out figures that were given by the state seem to be very high compared to the information provided by journalists. As to whether there was actual ballot-rigging, in favor of one party or another, I just don't know. Obviously, it is a point in favor of the freedom of the vote that liberal parties did much better than expected, including fierce critics of the situation in Chechnya. But, of course, the governing party [United Russia] won by a very large majority. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was rigged, because people who objected to the whole process, who had no faith in the process would not have turned out to vote anyway. So one can presume that most of those who turned up to vote are – more or less – in favor of Chechnya remaining part of Russia.

CAN: On the one hand, a coalition of human rights organizations [see IHF report] has denounced the parliamentary elections as taking place in a climate of fear and not representing a genuine political solution to the conflict. Journalists covering the vote describe less than enthusiastic, or even fearful, voters. On the other hand, the Russian and Chechen governments portray them as the last stage of the political "normalization process" in Chechnya. How would you rate these competing characterizations?
A.L.: In my view, it would have been better if Western NGOs and governments had agreed to monitor the elections; certainly in this case their criticisms would carry more weight and authority. There has been far too much comment in the West from people who have never been near Chechnya, or devoted any serious time to the study of this issue.
A climate of fear, which there obviously is in Chechnya, isn't in itself enough to invalidate an election. Or at least the West hasn't taken taken it to be enough to invalidate an election, because the elections in Iraq took place in a tremendous climate of fear across much of the country. So did the elections in Afghanistan, to a lesser extent, but certainly across most of the Pashtun areas and some other parts as well. There was a great deal of insecurity, fear not just of the Taliban, but fear of warlords, fear of local ethnic militias. Yet the Afghan elections did take place and although privately it was generally recognized that they were far from perfect, the elections there and in Iraq were nonetheless treated, not just by the US government but by Western governments in general and by most NGOs, as a step forward. So if those are our standards, then we shouldn't automatically reject the elections in Chechnya on these grounds.

CAN: In my understanding, the term “climate of fear” referred to the fact that threats were being made by the people most enthusiastically promoting the vote (unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where opponents of the elections threatened voters), like deputy prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov and other elements of the current Chechen power structures. People on the ground tell me that opposition campaigners risk getting beat up and things of that sort. So it's not just the threat from outside “spoilers”, who reject the elections. There is a qualitative difference. Would you agree with that?
A.L.: Not necessarily. If one followed the news from large areas of Iraq and Afghanistan, parties that did participate in and support the vote, nonetheless used a considerable amount of intimidation to turn out support in their area. Now, there is certainly a difference of scale, as this seems to have occurred on a national level in Chechnya. In these circumstances there cannot possibly be perfect elections; the Chechen elections are clearly very far from perfect, but one has to distinguish here between rivals of Kadyrov from among those who want to remain within the Russian Federation, and the separatist camp. Intimidation of other candidates from within the pro-Russian block, that's extremely bad and counterproductive, and extremely stupid of the Russian government to allow that. Though it may be inevitable given Chechen political circumstances, it doesn't serve Russia's interests or those of peace. When it comes to excluding separatists from the vote, people who still explicitly reject membership in the Russian Federation, it seems to me absolutely fair and correct. It's what the Indians have done in Kashmir. Why should people who reject the very political process that has produced the elections then be allowed to participate in the election? That's a contradiction in terms.

CAN: You have just answered the next question. So in your opinion it is more problematic that certain elements within the pro-Russian forces have been able to manipulate the vote than that separatists, or people who want to discuss Chechnya's independence on a political level, are not participating?
A.L.: Of course it's a problem, because they [the separatists] continue to be in rebellion against the state, but given that Russia has ruled out independence and that quasi-independence as we saw it between 1997 and 1999 was a disaster, independence is not practicable at this stage anyway, I see their exclusion as inevitable. It seems to be a much bigger problem that the choice even among the “pro-Russian” (though this term is a somewhat false cliche) candidates has been deliberately restricted because of the Kremlin’s alliance with Kadyrov. That means that Russia doesn't seem to be moving nearly far enough towards creating a genuine political space and a political process within Chechnya. By “political process” I don't mean what most Western observers mean, which is a political process that is supposed to lead to Chechnya's independence, because that's off the table, it's as much off the table, as it is, say, in Kashmir. But what Russia desperately needs to do is to create a political process within Chechnya where Chechens can get together and discuss freely how to manage their own lives and their own republic, within the Russian Federation. Instead, what we have so far mostly seen is the staging of an electoral process which has legimitized the power of one “pro-Russian” clan, the Kadyrovtsy. And that doesn't seem to contribute – well, it contributes something, but not nearly enough – to the whole attempt to create a political process.

CAN: We have already spoken about Iraq and Afghanistan, but there are also other examples of political processes to resolve conflicts, or political processes come into place after the military part of conflict is over. If you were to rank the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq etc. in terms of effectiveness, where would you put the Kremlin's strategy of Chechenization and the process of referenda and elections?
A.L.: Not nearly as effective as Northern Ireland, because the violence continues on a very large scale in the Chechnya and in the region. You can take Northern Ireland as the most successful example of peacemaking in recent years. Then again, in Northern Ireland, there were two great differences. One is that the Irish catholics, like the Tamil Tigers and others, had something that the Chechens never had, which is a united political and military organization. Now the IRA and Sinn Fein gave the British government a lot of trouble, but on the other hand, when the leadership of the IRA decided that it was time to make peace, they could make peace, because they could give orders to their followers. This is something the Chechen separatists have never been able to do. The second thing to remember is that the IRA surrendered on its main point, which is that they have always stood for Northern Ireland to become independent from Britain in order to join the Republic of Ireland as one country. In Chechnya by contrast, so many of the commanders and their fighters have become so radicalized and their agendas have become so vast, it's almost impossible to imagine a negotiated peace at all.

CAN: Just to clarify, Sinn Fein is free to campaign for independence politically?
A.L.: They're free to campaign for it politically, but they had to give up the military struggle and accept that from now, independence can only be pursued by political means and under the law of the United Kingdom. If the Chechen separatists had at any stage accepted that, given up the military solution and had declared that they would simply campaign peacefully, within Russian institutions, for independence, the entire history of the past 15 years would have looked very different.
Moreover, the IRA never committed atrocities on the same level as Shamil Basayev and company did; they killed a lot of civilians, but by far the greater part of their attacks were at least related to military targets, and when they did go after civilian targets, they went after property, not meaning to kill as many people as possible. Anyway, the IRA is one end of the spectrum, the other end of the spectrum is a range of places where peacemaking has either been imposed from the outside by military force as in Bosnia, or has basically failed, as in Kosovo.
The Tamil Tigers however are a very interesting case. They have, in a sense, done what the IRA has, basically agreeing to remain inside a Sri Lankan state, but in effect, unlike the IRA but like the Chechens between 1997 and 1999, they carved out for themselves a de-facto independent chunk of that state. That's the kind of deal one could have imagined coming out of Khasav-Yurt; in fact, Khasav-Yurt was exactly that.

CAN: One thing I wanted to follow-up on is that yesterday, after the elections, Chechnya's president Alu Alkhanov announced that he would go to Brussels and other European cities and start a conversation with Chechen separatist leaders who are in exile there. Would the latter be ready to enter into such a conversation, what would they seek in it and is this a promising initiative in your opinion?
A.L.: Well, it is certainly promising. It is promising also that the Russian government has allowed this. Presumably this could not have happened without the Russian government allowing it. What it will lead to is another matter. Neither these negotiations nor anything else is going to lead to “a solution” of this conflict. Most of the people fighting will go on fighting regardless. I mean there is no way that Alkhanov is going to meet with Shamil Basayev! But as far as the moderate Chechen separatist forces are concerned, the question is whether there is enough cohesion, plus the desire for compromise, for these people to do a deal as some kind of group; whether this “Chechen government” (as they call themselves) could actually do a deal with Alkhanov. That I think is highly unlikely because they're much too split up. They don't have a unified command or political authority in that way.
So I suspect what may happen is that he will win over a certain number of individuals, who will basically accept that Chechnya remains part of the Russian Federation and will be given an amnesty and allowed to participate in politics, plus maybe a share of money or patronage, and in return will come back to Chechnya or Moscow. But that is what Moscow has been doing for 13 years now, since people first started breaking away from the Dudayev regime in 1992. Since then, Moscow has been picking away individuals, clans and groups from the separatist camp. Over the years, the Russian side has gained a considerable number of even distinguished figures to join the Russian side, like Ramzan Kadyrov's father. But, of course, that doesn't end the conflict.

CAN: Earlier this year, you co-authored a policy brief together with Fiona Hill and Tom de Waal on what a promising political strategy in Chechnya should look like. Since then, there have been numerous developments such as Aslan Maskhadov' s death, Shamil Basayev officially re-joining the separatist leadership, etc. Has this in any way changed the recommendations in your report?
A.L.: I don't think so. We very much supported the parliamentary process; we called for parliamentary elections. But we also called for serious reduction in the power of the Kadyrovtsy, and of course an end to their criminal activities. And we called for the elections to be truly free and open. Not in terms of bringing in separatists, but in terms of having a genuine competition among other groups in Chechnya. I haven't talked to Fiona and Tom lately and can’t speak for them; but my own response to these elections would be to welcome them, but very, very cautiously, with many qualifications and criticism. It's a much smaller step than what we hoped for.
Something else we talked about in our policy brief is that the war in Chechnya has been greatly reduced; these elections would simply not have been possible four years ago. The fact that the elections have taken place peacefully is one sign that within Chechnya the separatist fighters have been cut down very severely. But on the other hand, we said that this success within Chechnya in no way indicated that Russia was solving the problem, because of course the violence and instability is spreading further and further through the North Caucasus as a whole. The attack in Nalchik some weeks ago shows that fact. Of course, if you have violence, unrest and extremism spreading to more and more areas, Russia could ultimately be faced with a terrible terrorist threat, but also an unsolvable political dilemma.

CAN: So in your opinion, the fact that the security services are actually very effective in Chechnya means that they have crowded out fighters who are now seeking easier targets outside of Chechnya?
A.L.: Yes, I think that's probably true, that the Chechen fighters are seeking easier targets, but even more importantly, as we've seen from the last two attacks [Beslan and Nalchik], they are able to recruit more and more people from other Caucasian Muslim minorities. This is an indication that radicalization, and also the deep social tensions and economic misery that produce radicalism, are spreading. After all, all this was stated extremely clearly in the leaked report by Dmitri Kozak to Putin, which – not for the first time- the Kremlin appears to have shrugged off, or they may have taken a look at it and thought...

CAN: ...too difficult?
A.L.: Yes, And it is difficult. When I'm asked what I would do there, I usually reply something along the line of fruit-bottling plants or refrigeration units, things that get local agriculture and small industry started again. Because after all, that's what's required to get people into work and to get local economies working again, which they haven't since the end of the Soviet Union. That's very undramatic stuff, but I think that it's by far the most important. The problem is now we know from our own bitter experience in Iraq and Afghanistan that it is extremely difficult to do this kind of thing in circumstances of increasing insecurity.

CAN: I would add that it's not just because of the insecurity, but because Russia is a market economy today and the government can't open factories anymore. Those days are over.
A.L.: Yes, exactly. I'd say there are certain parallels here to what's been going on around Paris in recent weeks or even in decaying former cities of Britain. Again and again and again we're told that the problem here is jobs; these Muslim kids don't have jobs. They feel humiliated, they have time on their hands, they obviously suffer racism as well, as Caucasians do when they go to Moscow or elsewhere in Russia. But the problem is that globalization's impact in the world, the West as well as Russia, has meant that States have just given up their economic powers that in the past would have been used or were used, by the Soviet Union and the West, to try to stimulate decayed areas. So many things we have heard about over the years in terms of urban renewal, creating new city centers and architecture, tourism, aren't applicable in the North Caucasus, but equally, they aren't applicable in Issy-sur-Seine or Bradford or Leicester, because nobody in their right mind wants to go there on holiday!

CAN: This is obviously a conversation that could go on for a long time. There are a number of experts who blame the end of the communist economy for what is happening in the North Caucasus. But let's turn to the last question. You have spent a lot of time among Chechens. In your opinion, if genuinely free and fair parliamentary elections were to take place in Chechnya, who would Chechens vote for? What kind of personality profiles, political views and professional resumes are attractive to today's Chechen electorate? How strong a role would considerations such as local and regional loyalties, clan, religious credentials etc. play?
A.L.: It's very difficult to say. I had a much better sense of this when I was traveling there before the first war, before society had been smashed up, as it is now, after there has been so much terrible suffering, and so much intimidation by all sides. It must also be said, of course, that 50% of the Chechen population will not be allowed a free say in whatever happens, by definition, because they are women. I have always said – as a joke, you understand – that a very positive step towards creating civilized politics in Chechnya would be to disenfranchise all the men and only let women vote, because I have always found that they were much more sensible and much more focused on practical needs, on questions of economics, education, safety. But they are going to be ordered to vote, whatever happens, so – and this is not just true in Chechnya – in a certain sense, elections in Chechnya will always be rigged, as far as half of the population is concerned, but rigged by husbands, fathers and brothers, not by the government or armed groups.
Beyond that, in the past and this is also the indication you get from much of today's journalism, I have the impression that a majority of Chechens, if asked, what really motivates them, they would above all name a desire for peace, security and then everything that comes with peace and security, their economic life, jobs and education. And that cuts both ways. On the one hand, I believe that certainly in 1994, given free choice, a majority of Chechens would have voted for a compromise with Moscow, along the lines of the union treaty signed by Tartarstan. But the point about that is it wasn't just a desire for a quiet life, but also a desire for what Tartarstan got, which was – and still is – the ability to run their own state and not to have Russian soldiers and police sitting on their necks. Today, it is very difficult to say, because so much of the insecurity and crimes committed by the side of the state in Chechnya are not being committed by the Russian soldiers or police, they're being committed by Russia's Chechen allies, the Kadyrovtsy and other groups. How many people in Chechnya truly support the Kadyrovtsy or any other pro-Russian forces and how many don't, is just impossible to say given Chechen circumstances. All one can say on the basis of the evidence of most journalists is that the majority of Chechens, it seems, greatly dislike most of the leaders of political groups on both sides, on the pro-Russian side and on the separatist side, and regard them both as criminal, violent and aggressive. Who specifically they would vote for in a truly free and fair election I just can't say.

CAN: It truly is difficult to say and I only get bits and pieces of information in conversations with Chechens, but it seems that there is great disillusionment with everyone who has ever been involved in politics, so much so that even people who are now starting as politicians are distrusted. People don't expect anything good from politicians and there is a sense of overwhelming cynicism and fatalism in the region.
A.L.: You're quite right there. I have always felt that about the former Soviet Union as a whole. It's understandable, given the miserable quality of most of the political leadership on all sides. But it’s also counter-productive and bad for democracy, because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ordinary people avoid politics, they refuse to participate not just in parties but in NGOs, they treat all information as suspect. And this too breeds a climate of cynicism in which all too many of the people who are engaged in these fields are either crooks or fanatics. So it’s a sort of vicious circle, which unfortunately can last a very long time indeed, as it has in Africa, parts of Latin America and so on.