Seventeen prominent Russian human rights activists called on President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to take up Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov’s call for negotiations to bring an end to the fighting that has raged in southern Russia for the better part of the past decade.
Maskhadov has ordered his fighters, including radical warlord Shamil Basayev, to observe a ceasefire this month and renewed his repeated call for talks with the Russian leadership, which has consistently turned them down.
In an open letter, the rights activists called negotiations with what they called the moderate branch of the rebels ”practically the only way of stopping Chechnya’s transformation into yet another front in the confrontation between radical Islam and Western civilisation”.
They said that the Chechen war is turning into an ”eternal conflict” and is in danger of igniting the whole North Caucasus region.
Putin and other Russian officials have branded Maskhadov an international terrorist and see no difference between him and Basayev, who has claimed responsibility for some of the most deadly terrorist attacks to have hit Russia over the past several years.
The signatories, including veteran activists Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Sergei Kovalyov and Father Gleb Yakunin, said that Maskhadov — a separatist field commander who was elected president of Chechnya in 1997 — has proved his moderate credentials by publicly censuring Basayev and calling for him to be tried by an international tribunal.
Though Basayev is formally Maskhadov’s subordinate, he is believed to command far greater authority among the rebels.
The Itar-Tass news agency reported on Wednesday that rebel attacks against Russian positions were continuing. An official in the Russian commandant’s office in Chechnya said it was registering 15 to 20 attacks a day, and Lieutenant General Grigory Fomenko, the military commandant, said the attacks prove that ”Maskhadov does not control the situation in the republic, the majority of bands are not subordinated to him”.
The Kremlin sent troops into Chechnya in 1994 in a bid to crush its separatist leadership, but they withdrew after a devastating 20-month war that left the southern Russian region de facto independent.
Russian forces returned in 1999 following a rebel incursion into a neighbouring province and apartment-building explosions blamed on rebels.
Motion could threaten ministers
Meanwhile, the small opposition in Russia’s Parliament was due on Wednesday to deliver a bloody nose to the Kremlin by holding a vote of no confidence in the government, which has little chance of passing but could threaten the posts of top ministers.
The censure, over the government’s handling of social reforms that sparked nationwide street protests last month, stands almost no chance of toppling Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov’s team.
But there has been widespread speculation in the media that the row over the reforms could cost several ministers their posts.
The United Russia party that is run from the Kremlin controls two-thirds of votes in the State Duma Lower House of Parliament, and analysts expect the motion to win support of no more than 150 members in the 450-seat Chamber.
But Fradkov will appear before the session as it opens for the vote to give an account of his government — deputies have agreed to keep the speech off the country’s state-controlled national television.
Speculation has run wild in the media that some of Putin’s ministers may fall in the first restructuring of the government since the president won re-election to a second term last March.
The measure has been supported by the Communist Party as well as the nationalist Rodina (Fatherland) bloc. But the ultra-nationalist LDPR faction, led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has refused to support the vote and is going along with the Kremlin.
”A removal of the government will probably not take place,” Moscow Echo radio reported in its morning news dispatch.
Fradkov was due to appear before the chamber at 12.30pm local time and the vote was expected at about 3.30pm.
One the main targets in the Russian government appears to be Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov, who Putin charged with the social reforms.
But Putin this week also dressed down reformist Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin, sparking further speculation about the liberal camp’s fate in the Kremlin.
Russian state television this week showed Putin berating Kudrin at a Kremlin meeting and then turning to Minister of Defence Sergei Ivanov for positive news about reforms in the armed forces.
A hawk who comes from Putin’s native city of Saint Petersburg, Ivanov has long been mentioned as potential future prime minister, which would launch him on to a path for the presidency, with Fradkov seen as an interim figure.
When pressed by United States reporters, Ivanov last month was forced to deny while on a visit to Washington that he would run in the 2008 presidential elections.
The three-page no-confidence measure for which the Duma votes on Wednesday says ”in a year of work, the government proved itself completely incapable”.
It lashed out at the Fradkov administration for leading a policy that it said is letting the rich get rich at the poor’s expense.
”According to official income statements, the richest 10% of the nation earn more than 14,4 times as much as the poorest 10%. The difference stood at 13,8% in 2003.” — Sapa-AP, Sapa-AFP