Blogging on Meds

The Caucasus region has long been an area of strategic importance.

Flanking both the Black and Caspian Seas, not only does it have its own generous resource endowment (statistics put the region’s oil reserves at anywhere from 17 billion proven to 95 billion potential barrels), but acts as a vital transit corridor for energy coming to and from Russia (sound familiar?).

For this reason, and a number of others, the region has been consistently volatile. It’s also populated mainly by — yep, you guessed it — Muslims. But two recent presidential elections — in Russia and Armenia, respectively — and a row with Azerbaijan have spotlighted both the importance of the Caucasus and its potential for further violence.

Dmitry Medvedev came to power in Moscow on Sunday as a well-groomed Putin successor. And just as the war in Chechnya in the North Caucasus defined Putin’s presidency, so will the handling of the growing conflict in the adjacent provinces mark Medvedev’s.

The violence has all but dissipated in Chechnya with the installation of Putin “strongman” Ramzan Kadyrov, and, The Economist lauds in its February 28 issue, “You can fly to Grozny, take a taxi and go to a restaurant.”

But while Grozny rebuilds from 13 years of ferocious war, a spate of violence has recently plagued Chechnya’s North Caucasus Muslim neighbors.

“The true legacy of Russia’s war on Chechnya is that its violence has spread to other Muslim republics, notably Dagestan and Ingushetia,” writes The Economist.

Dagestan borders the Caspian Sea, while Ingueshetia is wedged between Chechnya and North Ossetia. Both are ripe with energy and oil resources. Both are now the scene of routine bombings, ambushes and politically and ethnically motivated murder.

The latest attack included twin bombings on policemen in Dagestan coordinated for Medvedev’s election day.

The Economist writes:

“The Russian army has resorted to brutal mop-up operations involving methods little different from those of the terrorists. The result: a republic that was mostly peaceful at the beginning of Mr Putin’s presidency now resembles a war zone. ‘Instead of solving problems, they suppress them,’ says Ms Sokiryanskaya [of Russia's largest human rights group]. Inevitably, they re-emerge.”

On the Caucasus’ south side, Armenia’s February presidential election set-off days of protests in the capital in which eight people were killed. Demonstrators decry the victory of another of the region’s hand-picked replacements, Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian, who won the poll said to have both widespread irregularities and serious flaws.

A 20-day state of emergency was called in the mainly Christian Caucasus republic, and Putin expressed his support for the state crackdown on demonstrations this week.

AP reports on March 6: “Putin ‘expressed certainty that the efforts made by the Armenian leadership will serve to provide for constitutional order,’ the Kremlin said.

The bloodshed was the worst political crisis to hit this strategically located, volatile former Soviet land in nearly a decade. Armenia has close ties with Russia, which maintains a military base in the Caucasus Mountain nation.”

Also this week (Reuters):

“Azerbaijan accused Armenia of deliberately stoking unrest in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, following a shootout there in which Azerbaijan said 15 soldiers had been killed.”

The death toll would mark the worst clash in recent years between the two Caucasus nations that are still technically at war with eachother.

Nagorno-Karabakh is home to a majority ethnic Armenian population, and broke off from Azerbaijan in the late 1980s sparking a war that killed over 35,000. It remains a part of southwestern Azerbaijan, but has since been put under mainly ethnic Armenian control.

Azeris claim the move to stoke violence was intended to deflect international attention from Armenia’s political debacle.

Reuters is sure to emphasize:

“Azerbaijan is a major oil producer and home to important gas and oil pipelines carrying energy from the Caspian Sea to world markets, which pass close to the border with Armenia. Armenia has no oil production or pipelines running through its territory.”

Check out “Oil and the Battle for Chechnya” which does an exceptional job of tracking the region’s burgeoning geostrategic significance through media and institutional reports.

TAGS: attack, Crack, election, HBO, Muslim, political, putin, russia, war

RELATED POSTS:

• Guitar Hero / Gibson Charity Art Auction at SXSW
• Ian MacKaye = Jesus?
• Neighborhood Festival fun in LA September 9th
• Today’s Reads
• Today’s Reads