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the Chechens to participate.
474
 This made the Assembly primarily an organization 
of the Circassians, i.e. Adyge and Abkhaz peoples with the participation of the 
Chechens. 
The Assembly, in its initial phase emerged as an anti-Georgian 
organization, but the tone of the first documents adopted was rather restrained. 
Thus, at the end of the Congress, while the Assembly was calling on the Abkhaz 
and the Georgians to shake hands, it submitted a petition to the Supreme Soviet of 
the USSR complaining about the attitudes of the Georgians to the Abkhaz and 
appealed to Moscow to intervene.
475
 
In short, the new initiative of the Mountaineers to establish a unified 
structure was, from the outset, free from the idea of establishing a unified 
independent North Caucasian State. They objected to the creation of a unified body 
solely to defend the Abkhaz people and to secure their existence, within the 
sovereignty of Russian Federation. 
 
3- The Activities of the Assembly: 
During its first year, from its foundation Congress to the declaration of 
Russian sovereignty in June 1990, the Assembly focused its activities mainly on 
the Abkhazian problem. This was seen as a means of winning support from the 
neighbouring republics of the North Caucasus and Georgia, who were defined as 
                                                 
474
 Related with this limited membership, Yandarbiyev asserted that, the Chechens, especially the 
Bartists opposed the idea of restraining the membership only with the Mountaineers of the 
Caucasus. Nevertheless, because of the clashes between the Abkhaz and Georgians, the other 
groups took the decision to name the Assembly as the Mountaineers. Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, 
1996. Bağımsızlığın Eşiğinde, (trnsl.) Prof. Dr. Ö. Aydın Süer, Ankara: 19. 
475
 “Kafkas Dağlı Halkları Kongresi”, 13-14 and; www.kafkas.org.tr/TARIH/daglihalklarkonkar. 
html. 

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187 
 
the sole ‘ugly force’ against the Assembly and the peoples of the North Caucasus, 
in that period. 
On 31 May 1990, the Assembly, in cooperation with the Aydgylara, 
organized its first meeting to protest to the Georgian government. It was attended 
by over 30-thousand people. At the end of the meeting, the Coordination 
Committee issued a declaration, signed by Y. M. Shanibov and the president of the 
Aydgylara, S. M. Shamba, to the UN General Secretary, Peres de Cuellar, Mikhail 
Gorbachev and Turgut Özal, the presidents of the USSR and Turkish Republic 
respectively.
476
 
In this declaration, the leaders of the AMPC and the Aydgylara, outlined the 
policies of the Russian Empire on the Mountaineers and their anti-Colonial 
struggle. They made the following demands: 
“1-21 May 1864, the date of the end of the Caucasian War, should be 
proclaimed as the day of ‘Caucasian War and remembrance of the victims 
of the exile’. 
2-The international program allowing the Mountaineers to set up cultural 
and scientific relations with the kinsmen living the outside the North 
Caucasian territory should be prepared. 
3-The suitable conditions for the return and the integration of the 
mountaineers in exile into their homeland must be arranged.”
477
 
 
This declaration was the first document of the Assembly establishing 
contacts with the international environment. 
Meanwhile, the Supreme Soviet’s adoption of a decree ‘on the recognition 
as illegal and criminal all acts against those who have been forcibly resettled, and 
on safeguarding their rights’, in November 1989, caused the intensification of 
                                                 
476
 For the Russian and Turkish texts of the declaration see, Kafkasya Gerçeği, January 1991, 3: 4-5. 
477
 “Kafkas Dağlı Halkları Kongresi,” 10. 

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188 
 
ethnic disturbances in early 1990 regarding the land problems. Then, despite the 
fact that the Abkhazian question had priority in its October and November 1989 
sessions, the Assembly’s Coordination Committee at last turned its attention to the 
problems in the region. In order to strengthen and enlarge its area of influence, the 
Assembly had to deal with these land problems thoroughly. The claims of 
Shapsugs, the clashes between the Chechen-Auxhovs (Akkintsy) and Laks in 
Dagestan, and the problems and demands of the Ingush were all taken into account. 
These activities increased support for the Assembly among the other peoples of the 
region and enhanced its reputation among the masses. 
 
The Russian declaration of independence in June 1990 and President 
Yeltsin’s invitation ‘to take as much sovereignty as you can swallow’ changed the 
course of events for the leaders of the Assembly. For the first time, since the 
establishment of the Soviet Union they had a chance to establish a unified 
structure, which was to encompass the entire North Caucasus. Thus the leaders of 
the Assembly decided to revise the Assembly’s policies. 
On 22 September 1990, the First Congress of ‘the Representatives of All-
Former Autonomous Regions and Areas’ was convoked in Moscow. The AMPC 
took an active role in this Congress and Musa Shanibov was elected chairman. 
“The main objective of the Congress was to work out how to deal with the 
autonomies and ‘peoples having no statehood of their own’ in case the new 
democratic authorities were unwilling to sign the Union Treaty and attempted to 

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