#11 - RW 3-18-05 - RW Home
Moscow News
www.MN.ru
March 16-22, 2005
Chechnya without Maskhadov
By Sanobar Shermatova

Aslan Maskhadov's death raises the question: Has international terrorism in Chechnya really been beheaded now or has the Kremlin made a fatal mistake by eliminating a potential negotiating partner?

From Presidents to Terrorists

It'll take me half an hour to end the confrontation in the republic," Maskhadov promised shortly before his death, calling on the Russian president to sit down at the negotiating table. As is known, history is impervious to hypothesizing on what would have been. We may nevertheless fathom a guess. What would Vladimir Putin and Aslan Maskhadov have talked about, had the meeting taken place?

Russians were asking such questions almost 10 years ago, when Dzhokhar Dudayev proposed meeting with Boris Yeltsin. The president of the unrecognized Republic of Ichkeria claimed that he would stop the imminent war if only he could talk with Yeltsin.

Two years later Dudayev was killed, while Boris Yeltsin sat down at the negotiating table with his successor - Aslan Masikhadov. The context had changed: Yeltsin was going to run for a second term in office. His approval rating could only have been boosted by ending the highly unpopular Chechen campaign. There was a pressing need for a peace treaty.

Yet, as people in the corridors of power said at the time, the Russian president categorically refused to have anything to do with Dudayev. At that time the first Ichkerian leader made many comments against Yeltsin. Besides, the two leaders were separated by the blood of Chechen civilians and Russian servicemen. A new negotiating partner was needed to start from a clean slate.

Today the situation has recurred: The incumbent Russian president was unhappy with Aslan Maskhadov as a negotiating partner. Not only because Maskhadov had been put on an international wanted list as an al-Qaeda member and a rebel. The warrant issued by the RF Prosecutor General's Office was not a cause preventing the president from sitting down at the negotiating table but, rather, an effect of the decisions that had been made in the Kremlin.

The two politicians had had a bumpy relationship. Here is a fact that is little known to the general public: The possibility existed that Russian troops would not be introduced in Chechnya in 1999. Had Maskhadov stepped down as president, everything could have been limited to a police operation. The proposal to the Ichkerian leader was conveyed by representatives of the Moscow Chechen diaspora through his wife, Kusama, who was specially invited to Moscow for the purpose. Maskhadov, however, put his honor as president and army officer above all else, deciding to defend the republic.

The attempt to organize negotiations with Akhmed Zakayev, Maskhadov's envoy, in September 2001, ended in failure (the blame for that lay with the military). According to informed sources, up until then the Ichkerian leader had not been on the Kremlin's blacklist. Moreover, Maskhadov's family was protected by Russian special task forces. Later it became clear who within the Russian political elite had staked on Maskhadov and peace negotiations - Yevgeny Primakov, former head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and former prime minister; and Arkady Volsky, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and participant in the previous negotiations with Ichkeria (1995-96).

The turning point came in 2002, in the wake of the Nord-Ost hostage drama. Maskhadov was accused (without any proof) of masterminding the terrorist attack and put on a wanted list. The chances for peace negotiations were reduced to zero. The Kremlin set a course for the elimination of the Ichkerian regime.

What's the West Going to Say?

That decision was predetermined not only by Putin's electoral pledges and the inflexibility of the Ichkerian politicians themselves (who were late to notice the change in the situation around the rebellious republic), but also by the international community. After September 11, the United States, and then Russia, assumed the banners of fighting international terrorism. The criminal and political causes of the two military campaigns were completely forgotten. Ichkerian politicians, militants, and kidnappers were indiscriminately proclaimed terrorists. Aslan Maskhadov ended up in the same camp with Wahhabite Movsar Barayev, who had seized the Dubrovka theater center in Moscow.

The West, however, applied different standards and separated politicians from terrorists who were killing innocent civilians. From time to time the West, pursuing its own political objectives, urged Moscow to open negotiations with the separatists.

The Ichkerian side demanded the withdrawal of federal troops and the introduction of international peacekeeping forces under UN aegis - a fantastic plan, to put it mildly. It irked the Kremlin, arousing the suspicion that certain forces in the United States were out to take control of Russia's Caucasus region. It was after the plan was made public that its author, Ichkerian Foreign Minister Ilyas Akhmadov, was called a CIA agent.

Obviously, Moscow could not negotiate with Maskhadov who had officially backed the plan. On the other hand, Maskhadov also understood that armed resistance led to more civilian casualties, and that could not last much longer. Thus, the two sides were driven into a trap.

And then Maskhadov was killed.

Peace Jitters

The first international reaction to the death of the Ichkerian leader was not entirely unexpected. The United States reiterated its commitment to the political methods of resolving the Chechen problem. Nor has the EU changed its position. Amadeu Altafaj, a spokesman for the European Commission General Press and Communication Directorate, said on March 9 in Brussels that the liquidation of Aslan Maskhadov would not affect the EU's plans for sending a human rights mission to the North Caucasus, while PACE Chairman Rene van der Linden regretted the fact that Aslan Maskhadov could not be brought to justice in accordance with the CE principles.

Van der Linden also reminded that PACE is committed to creating a broader base for dialogue aimed at a political solution to the Chechen problem. The EU official was referring to a roundtable scheduled for March 21 in Strasbourg - the very same meeting that the Maskhadov side refused to take part in because its participation was predicated on the recognition of Russia's territorial integrity. Maskhadov may thus have made his last diplomatic blunder: He must have realized that Russia would not leave Chechnya. It was no accident that Maskhadov and his representative, Umar Khambiev, reiterated in their last interviews that independence was not an end in itself and that there were other problems that had to be addressed without delay - for example, stopping terrorist attacks and ensuring security of Russian and Chechen civilians.

Moscow saw Maskhadov's appeal to Putin for a personal meeting as yet another ploy. But who knows. Had they met at the negotiating table, the two former Soviet military officers might have unexpectedly found much in common - for instance, the ability not to lose face even when they lost.

Note: The FSB has paid out the $10 million bounty for information that led to the killing of Aslan Maskhadov, it was announced Tuesday. Several people, who remain unidentified, were paid the reward, and offered to have free plastic surgery to protect them as witnesses. The FSB had announced the bounty in September.