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Moscow Times
March 26, 2002
Plan Put Forth for Bringing Peace to Chechnya
By Yevgenia Borisova
Staff Writer
A new plan for a peace settlement in Chechnya presented Monday by several Moscow-based institutions said the first steps should be to stop the brutal cleansing operations, which turn Chechen civilians against the federal troops, and to eliminate the shadow military economy that reigns in the region.
"The situation in Chechnya is a trap now," said Valery Tishkov, director of the Ethnology and Anthropology Institute with the Russian Academy of Sciences, one of the authors of the plan. "Fighting rebels by means of cleansing operations is not effective any more. Because of big losses among peaceful civilians it only leads to an increase in distrust and hatred of the federal troops.
"If a new strategy is not applied in Chechnya, the situation can only get worse," he added.
The plan, two years in the making, was prepared by Tishkov's institute; the Peace-Making Mission headed by General Alexander Lebed, which has worked for the release of hostages; and Non-Violence International, a Moscow-based NGO, in cooperation with the Moscow branch of the Forum on Early Warning and Early Response.
Tishkov presented a 19-page outline of the plan and said that it offers "mechanisms and tools" to help settle the conflict.
The plan includes:
dismantling the shadow military economy that is based on illegal trade in arms and oil by creating jobs, restoring the economic infrastructure and creating a positive investment climate in the republic;
fighting corruption by making the Chechen economy transparent;
fighting impunity by establishing effective law enforcement and judicial systems;
creating a sizeable Chechen police force and transferring to it the responsibility for fighting the rebels;
addressing the distrust of federal authorities by developing civil society institutions;
changing the image of Chechens as the enemy throughout Russian society.
The plan also calls for holding negotiations with armed separatists.
The authors said the plan was to be provided to Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov; Viktor Kazantsev, presidential representative in the Southern Federal District; Vladimir Yelagin, minister in charge of Chechnya; and Akhmad Kadyrov, head of the Moscow-appointed Chechen administration.
But the authors said they had little confidence that their ambitious plan would soon be taken up.
Tishkov said they wanted their plan to be coordinated by the Advisory Council that was created last week in Strasbourg to operate under the working group on Chechnya of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the State Duma.
The working group is headed by Lord Frank Judd of PACE and Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Duma's foreign affairs committee, but the Advisory Council is yet to get its leaders.
"We hope the council will get three co-chairs -- one from [Chechen rebel leader Aslan] Maskhadov's side, one from Kadyrov's side and one from the Chechen community in Russia," said Dzhabrail Gakayev, a professor in Tishkov's institute. "I hope the council will become a body to consolidate Chechen society."
Rogozin was not available for comment, but his spokesman Sergei Butin said Maskhadov's involvement would be acceptable. "It would be wise to get all prominent Chechens together so that they can work out a way to settle the conflict and to build their republic."
But to get Chechens to talk to one another is a tough job. Some of the groups have already announced they do not recognize the Advisory Council.
Ruslan Badalov, head of the Nazran-based Committee for National Salvation, which backs Maskhadov, said Monday that he would not participate in the work of the council because many of the members of its organizing committee "support the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya."
Kadyrov's administration also was staying away, according to Gakayev.
Gakayev said the council had no plans to bring top rebel commanders such as Shamil Basayev and Khattab into the negotiations, but was hoping to attract "rebels of the middle level who would like to leave the battlefield but are afraid to do so, seeing what federal troops do with the innocent civilian population during cleansing operations."
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