Chechnya’s underground separatist leadership has announced a reshuffle of its exiled ministers in what rebel websites said on Monday was a step to consolidate their scattered forces.
The measures, announced in decrees by fugitive rebel President Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, target several of the best-known rebel figures, including London-based exile Akhmed Zakayev, who is sacked as deputy prime minister.
Sadulayev ordered the reshuffle ”so that our enemies’ propaganda does not speak of a ‘government in exile,”’ according to a statement on the rebel-run website.
In a smuggled audiotape message, Sadulayev also explained the changes as a crackdown on Zakayev and the now sacked information minister, Movladi Udugov, following a recent bitter exchange of statements by the two men on rebel websites, chechenpress.co.uk said.
More than a decade since the start of guerrilla war between Chechen separatists and Russian forces in the tiny North Caucasus province, the rebel leadership has gone into deep hiding.
Sadulayev, a former Islamic cleric, and his top military commanders, including Russia’s most-wanted man Shamil Basayev, are believed to be based in Chechnya’s mountains.
Others, such as Zakayev, a former actor who took part in fighting early on in the war, have won political asylum in the West — to the intense anger of Moscow, which has unsuccessfully attempted to secure their extradition.
Aslan Maskhadov, the former rebel leader elected president in elections backed by Moscow and the West as part of a peace deal in 1997, was killed during an attempt at his capture by Russian forces last year.
Moscow has also installed a loyal Chechen government in the devastated capital Grozny.
According to the decrees reportedly signed by Sadulayev, who is barely known to the outside world, all government ministers must now reside in Chechnya itself.
”Activities of all structures of the ministerial Cabinet … must move to Chechen territory,” one decree said.
Exceptions, the decree said, are the ministry of culture, which remains headed by Zakayev, and foreign ministry, which is headed by Ilyas Akhmadov, living in political asylum in the United States.
Udugov, long the rebels’ propaganda mastermind and living in hiding abroad, is no longer a minister, but named head of a ”national information service”.
Umar Khanbiyev, another longtime presence in the rebel hierarchy who now lives in exile in France, is sacked as health minister. – AFP
