The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus

ACPC Weekly News UPDATE
March 15, 2010 – March 21, 2010

Authorities claim Al-Qaida operative killed in Chechnya

On March 17, federal and local security forces carried out a joint counter-terrorist operation targeting a group of up-to twenty armed militants in the mountainous Vedeno region in Chechnya. During the intense gun battle that involved artillery and aerial strikes, authorities reported six militants were killed, including a “representative of al-Qaida” and personal bodyguard of Doku Umarov, the self-proclaimed leader of the North Caucasus Emirate that has sought to unite militant groups in Russia’s North Caucasus. The North Caucasus Emirate was recently outlawed in Russia as a terrorist organization. Two security servicemen were also killed during the operation, according to the authorities.

The next day, Radio Free Europe’s North Caucasus Service published an unconfirmed report that the militant leader Doku Umarov was killed in a separate gunfight between militants and security forces on March 10. The claim was made by an anonymous caller, who identified himself as a Chechen militant, but RFE/RL was unable to verify the information and there were no reports or statements from Russian media sources, authorities, or the official militant website confirming the claim.

Chechnya has witnessed a sharp surge in violence, including the revived tactic of suicide bombings by the militants, since the Kremlin’s decision last April to lift the nearly decade-long Counter-Terrorist Regime. The decision, as many experts suggested at the time, was an attempt by both the federal and Chechen authorities to portray Chechnya as a peaceful and prospering republic, despite the ongoing low-intensity conflict and reports of widespread human rights violations.

According to the head of the Russian delegation at Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), Konstantin Kosachev, Dick Marty, the Chair of PACE’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and Special Rapporteur on the North Caucasus, will visit Russia and the North Caucasus this week. Russian authorities have denied the Special Rapporteur permission to visit the region since 2008. Mr. Marty plans to meet with officials, human rights activists, and other individuals in order to collect material for a report on the human rights situation in the North Caucasus to be presented at the PACE session in June, 2010.

Related articles:

Dick Marty is headed to North Caucasus
RFE/RL, March 22, 2010 (in Russian)

Russian forces claim to have killed notorious warlord
Euronews, March 18, 2010

Unconfirmed report: North Caucasus insurgent leader dead
RFE/RL, March 18, 2010
Activist’s murder highlights ethnic tensions in Karachai-Cherkessia

The death of a young Circassian activist Aslan Zhukov on March 14 triggered protests and outrage among the Circassian minority in the Russian republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia (KChR). The 36-year-old Zhukov was a member of the youth wing of the Circassian public organization Adyghe Khase. He was shot dead by an unknown gunman in the capital, Cherkessk. His funeral was followed by a public protest in the capital’s centre demanding a proper investigation into his death. Although the republic’s authorities attributed Zhukov’s death to his business activity, his fellow activists and friends believe it was Zhukov’s political engagement that led to his murder.

Adyghe Khase, along with other Adygh and Circassian public organizations in the North Cauasus, has lobbied for the creation of an autonomous Circassian republic within the Russian Federation claiming the political marginalization of Circassian minorities by the power elite in the KChR, who are mainly ethnic Karachay.

Separately, the Circassian diaspora has appealed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to reconsider holding the 2014 winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, unless Russia apologizes for the deaths of their ancestors during a 19^th century tsarist campaign that wiped out 300,000 Circassians in and around Sochi.

The Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee responded by stating that it was not the committee’s responsibility to address “historic or political events or activity.”