RUSSIA-CHECHNYA: U.S. Representative Is Confident of Unity

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Jan 27 1997 (IPS) - Regardless of the victor, Chechnya’s elections on Monday will pave the way for national unity and international recognition, the Chechen rebel movement’s U.S. representative says.

Mohammed Shashani, an engineering professor at Pennsylvania State University, said the results of the Monday vote are likely to be close, with three main leaders of the rebellion to Russian rule in a tight race. But any of the candidates, he added, will be able to lead Chechnya to greater recognition and, ultimately, to independence.

“Any of the main candidates will be acceptable to the Chechen people,” Shashani contended. But the professor noted that, before the vote, the top three candidates were acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, Prime Minister Aslan Maskhadov and famed rebel leader Shamil Basayev.

All three are committed to Chechnya’s independence from Russia, although an agreement signed last year between Maskhadov and Russian Gen. Alexander Lebed effectively freezes any demands for independence until the year 2001.

However, not all the main contenders are equally acceptable to Russia. Although both Yandarbiyev and Maskhadov are viewed by Moscow as acceptable negotiators in the effort to lower the heat in Chechnya, Basayev — who led a 1995 raid on the Russian town of Budyennovsk and the 1996 assault on the Chechen capital, Grozny — is hated by the Russians.

Diplomatic sources in Russia say privately that Basayev’s election could end the shaky truce that has reigned in Chechnya since the peace agreement. They note that a Russia warrant against Basayev remains in force, accusing the rebel leader of terrorism for his actions during the ultimately bloody hostage crisis in Budyennovsk.

But Shashani remains confident that any of the three will hew to the same path of negotiations with Russia on the Caucasian republic’s status. He dismissed talk that the rebel leaders could begin fighting against each other if the election doesn’t go their way, arguing, “This is not going to be like Afghanistan…The Chechens will not fight against each other.”

Shashani also doubted Russia will return to war following its costly, and ultimately futile, two-year effort to crush the resistance that ended with the Lebed-Maskhadov pact last Aug 25. “I don’t think Moscow is going to change its policy on Chechnya,” he said. “The Russian people themselves were against (the war).”

Instead, Shashani envisioned a relatively peaceful period of “long and tough negotiations” with Russia, during which time many of the Muslim countries which have been sympathetic to Chechnya may begin to give it diplomatic recognition and funds. Not a single country recognises the Chechen rebels’ 1992 declaration of independence, while the rebels remain hard-pressed to obtain some 100 billion to 120 billion dollars needed to reconstruct Chechnya, Shashani noted.

Still, the elections also offer an additional problem: the prospect that divisions among the rebels, particularly over their varying interpretations of Islamic law, could come to a boil.

Yandarbiyev, who is not favoured to win given his marginal public image, has placed a premium on Islamic themes in his campaign platform, which liberally includes Muslim concepts that are likely new to many Chechens, such as ‘Umma’ (honour), and ‘tarikat’ (the way of faith). Much of his election rhetoric seems designed to capture the rise in religious feelings that the war has brought in Chechnya, a Muslim-majority region with a largely secular tradition.

The incumbent’s platform vows to uphold the traditions of Sufism, but adds that “only the people will decide whether we need a secular republic or a Muslim state, whether we need capitalism or socialism”. It also straddles the divide between Islamic fundamentalism and respect for secularism: “Those who come to us with a sword shall die by the sword. But those who come to us with the words ‘Assalam Aleikum’ (peace be upon you) will receive a traditional Chechen response: ‘Marsha Vogila’ – Be free.”

Other candidates have embraced one side or another of that split. The two favourites, Maskhadov and Basayev, hew to preserving Chechnya’s secular traditions, with Basayev openly worrying about too great an Islamic influence on a republic that contains significant non-Muslim Russian and Armenian populations. Other trailing candidates, however, have latched on to the popular call for ‘sharia’ (Muslim law) as an antidote to Chechnya’s current disorder.

Those splits may become wider if the elections require a second round, which would be needed if no candidate gains 51 percent in the Monday vote. But Shashani said he was confident the election will be decided in the first round.

The other main question is how long the Chechen people are willing to wait for formal independence from Russia if the current election — monitored by some 100 observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and other groups — gives the republic added legitimacy.

Certainly Russia’s preference is for a substantial waiting period to cool off tensions between Moscow and Grozny. Lebed, Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s former national security chief and a candidate-in-waiting for Yeltsin’s own seat, told reporters here last week that discussions on Chechnya’s status should wait.

“Today, when the pain is so acute, when there have been so many victims, so much destruction…I think it is detrimental to try and solve this problem now,” Lebed said. He added that, after a cooling-off period, he envisioned Chechnya’s autonomy being handled akin to Bavaria’s existence as a largely autonomous ‘free state’ within Germany.

That vision may not appeal to the Chechens after two years of fighting in which at least 100,000 people were killed. “Chechens want independence — they have paid in blood for their independence,” Shashani said. But he added on a conciliatory note: “I don’t think there is a need to proclaim independence.”