CHECHNYA: MOVING BACK TO NORMAL LIFE

By Abdul-Khakim SULTYGOV,

a special presidential envoy for human rights in Chechnya

On March 23, Chechnya will hold a referendum on the republic's constitution and bills to elect president and parliament. This will indeed be a historic landmark in the life of the Chechen people.

20 district election commissions have already been formed. 414 polling stations are to be opened. The Russian budget has allocated about 60 million roubles to finance the event. The progress of the referendum will be monitored by representatives of international humanitarian and human rights organisations.

Following the adoption of Chechnya's fundamental law presidential and parliamentary elections will take place. According to the Chechen draft constitution, the parliament will consist of two chambers - the Council of the Republic (21 deputies) and the National Assembly (40 deputies). This will give the Chechen people the possibility of electing their own power base.

But let us hark back to recent history. In 1991, with the Soviet Union collapsing, Chechnya in effect rebeled, bringing destructive and separatist elements to power. The so-called "parade of sovereignties" was at that time sweeping over some other of Russia's regions as well, but it was in Chechnya that this phenomenon assumed the most distorted and anti-constitutional form. The regimes of Dudayev and then of Maskhadov, as well as their "legislative acts," were openly of an illegitimate nature.

Suffice it to say that the so-called 1997 "presidential Election," in which separatist army chief of staff Maskhadov virtually imposed himself on the people as the commander of illegal armed formations, fully neglecting the election rights of Chechen opposition and the non-Chechen population, was not a democratic procedure of general ballot, but a formal poll of a small part of Chechnya's dwellers.

Things were worsened by the Maskhadov regime evolving from a separatist to an openly terrorist one. The core of its "war machine" was made up of 5,000 to 6,000 mercenaries, including foreigners, who were ready to commit any violent acts, including kidnappings and murders, and brutal sabotage outside the republic. Influenced by religious radicals, Chechnya set course towards cultivating in the country medieval customs and external expansion with the wild idea of creating a "caliphate" in the North Caucasus - from the Black to the Caspian Sea.

In 1999, matters reached a climax, with Chechen militants directly invading neighbouring Dagestan. Faced with this situation, the federal centre was forced, or rather felt obliged, to mount a counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya. And the Russian army, even if with inevitable losses, discharged its duty. The para-military separatist formations were destroyed.

The past three years have seen a lot done in Chechnya to restore a normal life. This is indicated by tens of thousands of forced migrants returning to their native land. Chechnya's war-ravaged housing and economy, including oil wells and power facilities, began to be rehabilitated. All the three institutions of higher education resumed classes and practically all children of school age went back to studies. Helped by the federal centre, legitimate power structures began to be re-instituted and the republic started to move back towards Russia's constitutional umbrella.

Chechnya currently has a republican administration, government and its interior ministry has been re-established. Units of the Russian army and interior troops are to stay permanently in the republic, as in any other Russian region. Over recent years Chechnya has normalised its budgetary financing, and is now engaged in carrying out a special federal programme of economic and social rehabilitation.

I wish to emphasise once more that if the referendum is a success, and there is every precondition for that, the way will be opened for the full normalisation of Chechnya's legal status.

At the same time, the counter-terrorist operation against the rump bandit groups, which are in effect a component of the "terrorist international," should be brought to a logical close. (That these bandit groups are part of international terrorism is shown by extensive documentary evidence of their organisational and financial links with Al-Qaeda). In this way, Russia will also fulfil its commitments towards the international anti-terrorist coalition formed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 tragic events in the United States.

Now all parties to this process need to consolidate their efforts in order to close all channels of supplies and finance for terrorists. This is especially important because, as Chechnya's example demonstrates, extremists do not stop efforts to come in possession of weapons of mass destruction and destabilise the situation in different parts of the world. It is appropriate to recall here that ancient Rome did not fall from a higher civilisation, but was overrun by barbarians.

Exclusive to RIA Novosti