Putin has promised a swift end to the conflict, but he could not deliver

MOSCOW, August 23 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - In an open letter, 33 Russian and Chechen activists, writers, historians, scientists and cultural figures have posed nine "questions to the President of the Russian Federation".

They called upon President Vladimir Putin to end the fighting in Chechnya, to start peace talks with Chechen rebel President Aslan Maskhadov and to address a few other thorny issues, according to Agence France Presse (AFP) Friday, August 22.

The activists enclosed in their open letter some important issues; topmost among which is why the Kremlin "denies all possibility of talks with the Chechen separatists, starting with Aslan Maskhadov who has never adhered to fundamentalist tendencies, a lay politician far more moderate than Yasser Arafat."

The letter was signed by rights defenders including Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Sergei Kovalev, Elena Bonner and Lev Ponomaryov, writers like Andrei Bitov, lawmakers including Yuli Rybakov, analysts like Andrei Piontkovsky, and Orthodox priest Yakov Krotov.

Among those thorny issues is why Putin "praises George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac or Bill Clinton for their mediation" of the Middle East crisis, yet "refuses to accept respected international mediators in resolving the decade-long military conflict in Chechnya ."

The open letter also states that warfare in Chechnya has killed "at the very least" 18,000 Russian troops, 8,000 rebel guerrilla fighters and 70,000 civilians since 1994.

A March referendum on the republic's future did not "halt either Russian troops or Chechen rebels," who continue their all-out war, complete with heavy artillery and air raids, the letter added.

"Why do you think that the Presidential elections you announced for October, which will be held in the same conditions as the referendum, will bring stability and an end to the war?" the letter wondered.

The signatories described the conflict as "a black hole" for Russia 's struggling finances, profiting only those who traffic in illegal arms and oil sales.

Russia resumed warfare in Chechnya in October 1999, after the first war, which began in 1994, ended in a peace accord in 1996.

Following the withdrawal of the Russian troops in 1996, Maskhadov was elected President in a poll monitored by the OSCE security body. However, since 1999 Moscow has denied his legitimacy due to alleged ties with “terrorists”.

Russia has repeatedly ruled out any sort of international mediation to solve the bloody conflict, insisting it was “an internal affair”.