POLITICS-RUSSIA: Diplomatic Offensive Against Chechens

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, Oct 31 2002 (IPS) - The arrest of the official foreign emissary of Chechen separatists in Denmark has come as a diplomatic victory for Russia, analysts say.

Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov’s envoy Akhmed Zakayev was detained by Danish authorities after Russia claimed he may have been a party to the hostage taking in Moscow.

Russia accuses Zakayev of staging armed rebellion, forming an illegal armed group, and plotting to kill law enforcement officers. Russian police claim that Zakayev has also formed a "Jamaat" battalion of Chechen separatists.

It is significant that Zakayev was detained by Danish authorities. The arrest corrects what Mikhail Margelov, head of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, called the "colossal" mistake in allowing a Chechen congress to begin in Copenhagen on October 28, the day Russia was officially mourning the hostages who died in the Moscow theatre.

Guennady Seleznyov, speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, has called for Zakayev to be extradited to Russia. He said that the timing of the opening of the Chechen congress was "outrageous".

Russian leaders had accused Denmark of "solidarity with terrorists" because Danish authorities allowed the Chechen World Congress to go ahead only days after the bloody end to the hostage crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled a state visit to Denmark scheduled for next month over the Chechen Congress on October 28 and 29. Putin was due in Denmark for an European Union-Russia summit on November 11 and an official state visit the following day.

Denmark refused to cancel the congress, demanding that Moscow provide proof of involvement of participants in terrorism, and citing a constitutional right to freedom of assembly. Denmark reportedly offered to move the European Union (EU) summit with Russia to Brussels.

The Chechen congress was organised by Akhmed Zakayev and Prof Ruslan Khasbulatov, former chairman of the Russian Parliament. The congress ended with an appeal to President Vladimir Putin to halt the war in Chechnya. Delegates called for a negotiated solution of the Chechen war and for an international war crimes tribunal to investigate alleged abuses in Chechnya by Russian troops.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the Congress was organised and financed by Chechen terrorists, their accomplices and their backers from al-Qaeda. Russian officials claimed there were "terrorists" among delegates, including Chechen activists from both Russia and Chechnya.

Chechnya’s chief administrator Akhmad Kadyrov said Wednesday that "all Congress delegates with Russian passports should be arrested" on their return to Russia.

The delegates included British actress Vanessa Redgrave, founder of the International Campaign for Peace and Human Rights in Chechnya. Her presence at the congress was little reported by the Russian media.

The hostage crisis started when some 50 armed Chechens seized a Moscow theatre on October 23, and took an audience of some 700 people hostage. They demanded that federal troops pull out of Chechnya immediately. All captors and 119 hostages were killed after Russian commandos injected "sleeping gas" into the theatre to knock out the Chechens. But the gas proved lethal for many because the hostages were weak after their 57-hour ordeal.

In a televised address to the nation on October 26, President Putin argued that by saving hundreds of lives, "we demonstrated that Russia will not be brought to its knees." He asked forgiveness from the relatives and friends of the hostages who died.

Putin came to power three years ago riding the success of tough military actions against terrorists in the southern Caucasus region of Chechnya. With this reputation of the "strong man" Putin could not afford a Chechen success in taking hostages only five kilometres away from the Kremlin, the seat of Russian government.

Russian authorities have been keen to establish links between separatist violence in Chechnya and the U.S.-led war on terrorism. President Putin strongly backed the war on terror after last year’s September 11 attacks on the U.S.

Putin ordered his General Staff this week "to review plans of armed forces deployment." Terrorists threaten to deploy means comparable to weapons of mass destruction, and Russia will respond adequately "in all places where terrorists and their ideological and financial backers are based," Putin told RIA news agency.

Far from becoming a step towards a negotiated settlement in Chechnya, the hostage crisis is leading to a foreign policy offensive against Chechen separatists.

POLITICS-RUSSIA: Diplomatic Offensive Against Chechens

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, Oct 31 2002 (IPS) - The arrest of the official foreign emissary of Chechen separatists in Denmark has come as a diplomatic victory for Russia, analysts say.
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