#3 - JRL 6597
Pro-Moscow Chechens talk peace without rebels
December 11, 2002
By Clara Ferreira-Marques
GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - The Kremlin launched Wednesday a new phase in its campaign to impose a peace plan on war-battered Chechnya, with pro-Moscow Chechens debating the scheme at a conference that excluded separatist rebels.
Critics of the plan -- which includes a referendum on a new constitution and elections for president -- say that only the resumption of talks with Chechnya's rebels can bring an end to a decade of conflict in Russia's mostly Muslim southern province.
About 500 delegates met in Chechnya's second-largest city of Gudermes after the venue was switched at the last minute from the regional capital Grozny due to a security scare.
But many ordinary Chechens, forced to leave their unheated homes to seek warmth around street fires, dismissed the event as a waste of time.
"This constitution and referendum are just a farce," said Alvi, a 50-year-old trader selling chocolates and magazines just outside a Russian military base in the regional capital.
"Before they hold a referendum let them build my house, let them give me a job and then we can hold a referendum and choose a president."
Russian forces have been fighting Chechen separatist guerrillas on and off since 1994. An agreement in 1996 gave the province de facto independence, but Russian troops went back in 1999 and the elected president, Aslan Maskhadov, was ousted.
Akhmad Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya's Moscow-installed administration who is expected to run for president, praised the congress as a landmark step toward ending the bloodshed.
"The congress expresses the will of the Chechen people, which is eager to get its own constitution and elect a president and a parliament," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. "The only way out of the current crisis is a civilized way."
NEW CONSTITUTION READY
Kadyrov told the conference the draft constitution -- which will define Chechnya as part of Russia -- had been finalized and was ready to be put to a referendum scheduled for March.
Conference delegates adopted a resolution declaring their loyalty to Moscow, Interfax said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has come under renewed pressure to reach a peaceful settlement after October's mass hostage-taking by Chechen guerrillas in a Moscow theater.
Putin opposes talks with Maskhadov, saying he is linked to the theater siege, and is seeking the extradition from Britain of Chechen peace envoy Akhmed Zakayev on terrorism charges. A London court Wednesday set a new hearing for next month.
Igor Plotnikov, an aide to Russia's main spokesman on Chechnya, said Moscow saw no reason to deal with the rebels. "There are no talks," he said. "Why should there be talks? There is a constitutional process under way."
Analysts said the peace conference would achieve little.
"I don't think that anything is going to change after this congress," said Vyacheslav Nikonov of the Politika Foundation think tank. "But I see the importance of people getting together once in a while, which is quite rare in Chechnya."
Nikonov said it would be politically impossible for Putin to negotiate with Maskhadov after the theater siege, in which 129 hostages died. Almost all were killed by a gas used by special forces to knock out the rebels as troops stormed the building.
The Kremlin says life in Chechnya is returning to normal and the military phase of the conflict is over, but its 80,000-strong force there suffers almost daily losses from rebel attacks.
Foreign reporters in Grozny on a rare trip permitted by authorities heard rockets, artillery and gunfire overnight, evidence of continued resistance to Russian rule.
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