On November 9, the Kavkaz-Tsentr website posted a video entitled “Address of Chechens Living Abroad to Organizers of fitnaht al-mujahedin”, showing unidentified people, one of whom was speaking in Chechen. He delivered a message connected to the recent split among Chechen rebels and the renunciation of the bayat (oaths of allegiance) to North Caucasus rebel leader Doku Umarov by rebel leaders in Chechnya. This video has been interpreted as signaling that Chechens abroad have aligned with Umarov and the jihadi faction in opposition to the national faction in the recent rift between the two parties. However, the long-term influence of Chechens settled in Europe on the conflict is likely to assume quite a different form.

BACKGROUND: The message delivered on November 9 criticized the leaders of the national faction, considering what they had done a “very serious thing and a very big sin”. The message disputed the argument that “Western and Arabic countries will help us to gain victory on Russia if we leave Doku” and said that “even if it is so…[t]hese infidels and hypocrites never help mujahedin if it is not useful for them. When Muslim people started to establish Shari'ah in Afghanistan, these infidels, hypocrites and murtadeen [apostates] gathered and stood against Muslim people. We do not need democratic states under NATO and other infidels like in Kosovo and Bosnia. We went out to establish Shari'ah, by God’s will”.

The Russo-Chechen conflict is a protracted armed conflict by any definition; it has resulted in mainly three movements of Chechen migration, the first of which was in the nineteenth century. By the end of Imam Shamil’s (1797–1871) Murid Wars (1834-1861), Chechens had migrated to what was then the Ottoman Empire and dwelled in the areas known today as Turkey, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. Chechens today live in these countries as citizens, and they have preserved their own national identity (language, customs, traditions, etc.) relatively well.

The second wave of migration was linked to the deportation of the Chechen people, among others, by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who accused Chechens of collaborating with the Nazis in 1944. The deportation memories still serve as one of the fundamental components of the independence-seeking Chechen national movement. Most of those displaced returned to Chechnya in the early Sixties, although there are several Chechen families left in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The third wave of migration is linked to the outbreak of the two recent Chechen Wars, in 1994 and 1999. After each war, a migration movement took place out of Chechnya toward neighboring states within the Russian Federation, the Middle East, and to the European Union, which received the largest flow of humanitarian asylum seekers.

The bulk of migrant Chechens of this “third wave” who moved to the EU arrived after the second Chechnya war erupted, while most Chechen refugees hosted by Middle Eastern countries, such as Jordan and Turkey, were those who left Chechnya after the first war.

IMPLICATIONS: The registered number of Chechen refugees in the European Union was in 2006 estimated at around 37,000, distributed in a number of states, including Austria, France, Belgium, Norway, Poland, and the Czech Republic. The highest estimated number is in Austria (about 10,000). The number of Chechens is almost equal in Poland and France (6,000), with Belgium (5,500), and Norway (3,000) not far behind. The real figures are higher than those stated, since these figures are just for those who registered as asylum applicants. Moreover, some EU states, such as Belgium and France, had two waves of Chechen migration: after the first war from 1994 to 1997, and after 2002. These numbers relate only to the second migration. The number of Chechens applying for asylum in Austria increased by 70 percent between 2003 and 2007, with 2,000 applications made per year. Furthermore, the tribal nature of Chechen society played a major role in creating a network that aimed to bring relatives from Chechnya to reunite with their relatives, especially since many of them fear staying in Chechnya if their relatives are linked, in one way or another, to the Chechen independence movement or to the Caucasus Emirate.

According to Martin Hofmann and David Reichel, the “positive response”, or the percentage of acceptance for these applications, was 9 out of 10 in 2006, which means that a considerable number of Chechens have been settling in Europe and establishing a Diaspora of communities that are relatively similar in size, if not larger, than those in the Middle East. The Chechens who migrated to the Middle East in the “first wave” of Chechen migration, have always been considered an extension of the Chechens in their homeland. The relations between exiled and native Chechens re-emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mutual visits and communication between relatives has increased. This unique relationship played a significant role during the first Chechen war. The Chechens in the Middle East provided humanitarian support for their relatives and advocated the cause of the Chechen uprising in local media.

Such relations also allowed the movement of ideas, especially at a time when some leaders of Chechnya’s independence movement redirected the republic towards Islamic circles, either by creating alliances with local Islamists instead of the Soviet elites or by increasing visits to the international Muslim world. By then, notably during the second Chechnya war in 1999, the concepts of jihad, Caliphate, Islamic state, etc., were very common in Chechnya.

The increasing numbers of Chechens in the EU are likely to play a similarly important role in the protracted Chechen-Russian conflict.

CONCLUSIONS: Obviously, the flow of ideas that might feed into the Chechen-Russian conflict will be different from those that flowed from the Middle East in 1990s, some of which are obvious in the above-mentioned video.

The largest proportion of Chechen refugees in the EU is settling down, meaning that the younger generation of Chechen migrants is reconciling with the surrounding societies in Europe and in the West in general, despite some extradition cases and occasional experiences of xenophobia. At the same time, however, they are still connected to their homeland and national identity, either throughout the sub-communities to which they belong in the Diaspora or through the Internet.

In this context, it can be expected that the next generation of Chechens, who will grow up in Europe and have access to better education opportunities, will assimilate to the European political culture, which is associated with certain concepts, such as democracy, human rights, nation-state, transparency, accountability, etc. With such concepts, this generation will influence the protracted conflict in Chechnya in the coming decades, especially since the roots of this conflict still exist, the daily violence continues, and the danger remains of renewed escalation.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Murad Batal Al-Shishani is a London-based analyst. He holds an M.A degree in Political Science, specializing in Islamic Movements in the Middle East and the North Caucasus. He is author of the book "Islamic Movement in Chechnya and the Chechen-Russian Conflict 1990-2000, Amman 2001 (in Arabic).