Musa Shanibov, Former president of the Confederation of Peoples of the Caucasus, has died at 84

Born 29 December 1936 in the city of Nalchik in the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR, he graduated from the Law Faculty of Rostov University, a Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, Doctor of the Chair of Political Science of the Kabardino-Balkar State University. He worked in the post of Secretary for Ideology at the Kabardino-Balkar Regional Committee (VLKSM: All-Union Youth Communist League of Lenin). Founder and Scientific Director of the Centre for Sociological Research of the Kabardino-Balkar State University. Doctor of Sociology of the International Personnel Academy (Kiev, The Ukraine); Doctor of Sociology of the International Open University (California, USA); Honorary Professor of the Abkhazian State University. From August 1989 he was Chairman of the Coordinating Council of the Assembly of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus; from 1992 First Deputy-Chairman of the Congress of the Kabardian People. In September 1992 he was arrested on a charge of inciting inter-ethnic strife, which gave rise to disturbances in Kabarda; on 27 September he fled and from October 1992 found himself in Abkhazia. For his part in the war he received the title Hero of Abkhazia.

Shanobov with volunteers | Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus. Abkhazia, 1993

On Shanibov's initiative, the headquarters of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus was set up in Gudauta for the provision of help to Abkhazia. According to his own statements, he felt himself secure only in Chechenia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He considered that it was the politics of Russia and Georgia which led to the Caucasian War.