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Maskhadov "Key Person" In Chechen Peace: UNHCR Chief
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| Chechen refugees spend their third winter in giant tents, too fearful to return to homes wrecked by 28 months of a Russian onslaught. |
MOSCOW, Jan. 18 (IslamOnline & News agencies) - The U.N. refugee chief rejected Friday Russia's view of Chechen President, Aslan Maskhadov, as a terrorist, describing him as a "key person" for a peace settlement in the war-torn republic.
"Maskhadov is certainly not a terrorist," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, told a news conference after talks with Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Friday, January 18, 2002.
"One might criticize him that he was not always able to stop certain acts of violence," the former Dutch Prime Minister said. "But if I speak about the Chechens looking for a way forward, excluding foreign elements and excluding new acts of violence, then Maskhadov has to be a key person in that."
Russian and Chechen envoys held their first direct peace talks since the beginning of the brutal 27-month-long Russian onslaught in November, when a Kremlin envoy met a Maskhadov representative at Moscow's international airport.
But Moscow has since poured cold water on the prospect of further talks, saying it is only interested in negotiating the Chechen activists’ disarmament and surrender, and fighting has carried on in the southern republic.
Maskhadov refuses to renounce his claim for independence, while Moscow says it will only negotiate with him if he accepts that Chechnya is part of Russia, BBC’s online news service.
Russia describes Maskhadov as a terrorist and ceased to recognize him as Chechen president following the entry of Russian troops in the breakaway republic October 1, 1999 to again enforce Moscow's rule there.
Maskhadov was elected president of Chechnya in 1997 just months after Russia suffered a humiliating defeat in a 1994-96 war of independence, in a poll overseen by the OSCE pan-European security body.
Russia has consistently tried to establish a link between Chechen independence fighters and international terrorism, including Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization, especially since the September 11 deadly attacks.
Lubbers insisted that Chechen fighters based in the republic's southern mountains could take part in building a peaceful Chechnya.
"For the Chechen population, in the Chechen tradition, there is no place for foreign elements who came there trying to mingle in and carrying out acts of violence and terrorism," said the U.N. official.
"The Chechens themselves must agree with their own society, elders, their own systems, to decide we want to stop imports of violence and build a peaceful Chechnya.
"Many who are now hiding in the mountains are not terrorists," he said.
Lubbers urged Russia Thursday, January 17, to turn over police duties in Chechnya to Chechen officers and slash the number of federal checkpoints to encourage frightened refugees to return home, news agencies reported.
After touring refugee camps in the Russian republic of Ingushetia Wednesday, Lubbers held talks in Moscow on Thursday with officials from the Emergency Situations Ministry and with Interior Minister, Boris Gryzlov.
Gryzlov is in charge of Russia's police and several troop units in Chechnya.
 “Persuading the tens of thousands of Chechen refugees to return home will require fewer federal (Russian) troops and more Chechen police in the province,” Lubbers said.
“They are too scared,” he told reporters.
He said he had urged Gryzlov to reduce the checkpoints manned by Russian forces.
Many residents say they are forced to pay bribes to pass the checkpoints even if their documents are in order.
There are reports that young Chechen men disappear at checkpoints and are detained and tortured on suspicion of being independence fighters.
Media coverage of the recent conflict is also far more restricted.
That means the Russian military is free to act with much greater brutality.
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