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personal ambitions of the politicians or stability in the south of the 
country.”
539
 
 
Because of the complete disarray of the federal policy owing to the 
deepening conflict between Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet in Moscow, the 
situation in the North Caucasus remained relatively quiet and a decision on the 
Confederation was postponed. After the October crisis in Moscow, Yeltsin pushed 
forward his own version of the constitution and organized a referendum on 12 
December. Aware of the initial disturbances after the Federal Treaty of 1992, the 
chapters dealing with the delimitation of powers in the Russian constitution were 
rewritten and resubmitted to the republics and regions for approval prior to the 
referendum. The Confederation, as in earlier referenda, opposed the new draft 
constitution. In November, it appealed to the peoples of the North Caucasus to vote 
against the Constitution as it alleged that the article on the private ownership of 
land contained prerequisites for eliminating the traditional lifestyle of Russia’s 
people.
540
 
 
Before the referendum, Yeltsin with his team or the heads of the top 
Russian federal ministries and governmental departments visited the North 
Caucasus on 6-7 December, campaigning for the new constitution. During his visit, 
he attended a conference of all North Caucasian republican leaders in Nalchik and 
promised them more attention to their problems, which in essence meant more 
donations from the state budget. And, announced that on the day after the 
                                                 
539
 “Caucasus Confederation Chief on Dudayev, Chechnya,” FBIS-USR-93-161, p.46, 18 December 
1993. 

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referendum, and elections to the Federal assembly, a decree of the Russian 
President on the settlement of the long, protracted and tragic conflicts would be 
published.
541
 
Despite the words of support from the official leaders of the region, a 
number of republics that had initially signed the Federal Treaty, including Adygea, 
Dagestan and Karachay-Cherkess now rejected the constitution on the grounds that 
it violated the original provisions of the Treaty. Moreover, elections that were held 
at the same time as the referendum resulted in significant success for the Russian 
radical nationalists and communists. From then on, a new phase for the Russian 
Federation and of course for the Confederation began. 
                                                                                                                                        
540
 “Confederation of Peoples of Caucasus opposes draft of new constitution,” SWB SU/1850, B/14, 
19 November 1993. 
541
 “Statement on stabilization of North Caucasus signed in Nalchik,” SWB SU/1866 B/5-6, 8 
December 1993. 

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CHAPTER V 
REGIONAL DISPUTES AND THE CONFEDERATION 
 
In order to understand the Confederation’s growing influence among the 
peoples of the North Caucasus, the conversion of the regional problems from 
discord to military clash and the response of the Confederation to these clashes 
should be analyzed in detail. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the North 
Caucasus faced with several ethnically based clashes primarily in 1992 and 1993. 
These clashes determined the Confederations rise and fall. 
In this context, while the organization was functioning under the title of 
Assembly, the dispute between the Chechens of Dagestan, named as Chechen-
Akkintsy (or Auxhovs) and Laks emerged as the first test to understand its power 
over the peoples of the North Caucasus. 
When the Chechens were deported from their lands in what was taken 
Eastern Chechnya, the territory forming the Aukhovsky district was given to 
Dagestan. The Laks were forcibly settled with the loss of 2,500 lives to the lands 
left by the Chechens and this region renamed as Novolaksky. After the return of 
these Chechens from deportation, they claimed the rehabilitation and asked for the 
resettlement to their lands of pre-deportation period. As early as 1989, the clashes 
erupted and the Chechens attacked to the tent-city of Laks settled near the village 
of Leninaul and Laks reacted quickly together with Avars. 
The Assembly took this issue into its agenda and Shanibov issued a call to 
the parties to prevent the clashes. In this call the Assembly was giving the massage 

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to the parties that “who will open the fire to its brothers first, would be damned 
eternally by the peoples of the Caucasus”.
542
 The clashing parties took this call 
seriously and the commission for settling the problem established with the 
participation of the representatives from the Dagestani government. By the work of 
this commission and by the help of the April 1991 law on the rehabilitation of 
repressed peoples, the solution was found to the conflict. The Laks, in a rare 
concession, agreed to resettle elsewhere in Dagestan, and the funding for their new 
homes was to come from the central government.
543
 This was accepted by the 
Assembly and its leaders as the first real success of the Assembly on solving the 
problems in the region without participation of outside powers. 
 
In November 1991, when the Assembly converted itself to Confederation, 
one of its constituent members, the Chechens declared the independence of the 
Chechen Republic. In response, Yeltsin imposed state of emergency in Chechnya 
with a decree and decided to send Russian troops to Chechnya on 9 November. 
This was the first serious threat to a well being of newly established 
Confederation. Therefore, in order to discuss the situation, the Confederation’s 
Parliament, and Presidential Council together with the Chechen Parliament met in 
Grozny on 9 November. In this meeting, Confederation declared that territories of 
the North Caucasus and Chechnya the combat area and decided to recruit 
volunteers on the territory of the North Caucasus to show Confederation’s support 
                                                 
542
 Şenıbe, Birliğin Zaferi, 35. 
543
 Svante E. Cornell, 2001. Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in 
the Caucasus, Surrey: 278. 

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