Moscow is aware that Russian forces in Chechnya are committing human rights abuses, says newly appointed Ambassador Georgiy Enverovich Mamedov.
But, he said, ongoing bloodshed and suicide bombings by Chechen separatists are reasons that Canada and other Western countries must support Russia's latest attempts to end the conflict in the embattled separatist republic.
"President (Vladimir) Putin is betting on a new political process," he told the Star yesterday. "It is imperfect, perhaps. But in the situation that exists today, there is absolutely no other choice.
"We know there are violations against the civil population (in Chechnya). But rather than criticizing us, it would be better to help us in our efforts."
Mamedov, one of Russia's most senior foreign ministry officials, was deputy foreign minister in charge of North American relations and disarmament issues before taking the Ottawa posting a month ago.
His suggestion came after another day of bloodshed and recrimination, during which a leading European human rights body condemned Russia for taking no steps to investigate allegations of torture by Russian forces, and explosives intended for a suicide bombing in a Moscow main street killed a 29-year-old bomb disposal expert.
Facing a presidential election next March, Putin has been trying to quell the rebellion in Chechnya with a peace plan that included a referendum on a new constitution to reassure Chechens they would enjoy autonomy under Russian rule, and the installation of a pro-Moscow Chechen leadership.
Putin has also ordered a new presidential election for Chechnya in October, which will sideline the Muslim republic's current president, Aslan Maskhadov — who has been in hiding since the 1999 war began, but is considered by most Chechens to be their legitimately elected leader. Putin has been sharply criticized for refusing to negotiate with him.
"Numerous approaches have been made to Maskhadov, but he isn't capable of controlling the lunatic fringe," Mamedov said.
Both the referendum held last March, and the planned election, have been widely condemned by human rights bodies as fraudulent, and they point out that Russia cannot hold democratic polls under conditions of martial law.
"Unfortunately we can't wait for ideal conditions," said Mamedov. "It won't be an ideal Canadian-style election, but it is better than just letting things go on as they are."
And, he said, human rights abuses by Russian forces have been investigated and some perpetrators punished.
But the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, part of the 45-state Council of Europe, said allegations of beatings, asphyxiation and other forms of torture have not been probed. After an initial warning in 2001, the watchdog body issued a rare second rebuke, citing interviews with detainees and medical evidence of torture.
Human rights groups have also reported increasing attacks on women, including beatings and sexual assault.
In Moscow, meanwhile, Putin condemned a spate of recent suicide bombings — all carried out by embittered Chechen women — as "terrorism," and vowed to root out and destroy the rebels who plan and carry out the attacks from "the cellars and caves in which they are hiding."
Although Putin's popularity is still substantial, measuring 53 per cent in a recent poll, it has slipped from its onetime high of more than 80 per cent, at the time when Putin began the second war of the 1990s against Chechnya.
Since then, hundreds of Russian troops have been killed in ongoing attacks, suicide bombings and hostage takings have struck the heart of the capital, and human rights groups say 60 Chechens a month are disappearing without a trace in retaliatory raids by Russian forces.
"The difficulty is that we're dealing with a generation of Chechens who grew up fighting against Russia," said Mamedov. "There is bloodshed, mixed with anger and frustration."
The longer it continues, Mamedov added, the more alarming the situation will be for Chechnya, which is destroyed and destitute, and Russia, which is increasingly traumatized by the suicide attacks and the prospect of chaos in its volatile southern region.
The struggle for Chechnya is of central importance to Putin because the rode to power as a strongman who could crush the separatist rebellion, pull Russia out of its political and economic slump and restore the country to a place of pride on the world stage.
Since taking power, the once-obscure former KGB official has become a charismatic figure, with new Russian cult of personality dedicated to him.
With demand for Russian oil jump-starting the flagging economy, Putin has seen an impressive 7 per cent growth rate, a 40 per cent rise in the stock market last year, and for the first time since communism crumbled, a net inflow of investment from Russians as well as foreigners.
But the darkest cloud on the political horizon is Chechnya — a republic of less than 900,000 that has resisted Russian rule for two centuries. In 1994, President Boris Yeltsin declared war on Chechnya when its leader, Djokhar Dudayev, declared independence.
Yeltsin's war ended in a stunning victory for the rebels in 1996. Putin launched another war three years later after Chechens were accused of bombing apartment buildings in Moscow and southern Russia, killing 300 people.
But the violence has continued unabated. There are now fears Putin's peace plan will lead to even greater bloodshed, as well as civil war in Chechnya, as pro-Moscow and pro-separatist factions battle for control.
"Whatever the risk, we can't afford the status quo," said Mamedov. "This is the smaller of two evils."
The New Republic December 2, 2002 Editorial A Separate War Why Putin's Chechnya war isn't America's fight.
All the evidence suggests that Vladimir Putin is about to retaliate against last month's terrorist attack on a Moscow theater with characteristic ruthlessness. His generals have halted a planned troop pullout from Chechnya and vowed a renewed Russian offensive. Putin himself has stepped up his rhetoric, vowing never to negotiate with Chechnya's elected president. And the Russian Duma has voted to amend media laws to further restrict press coverage of future military actions in the breakaway republic.
Given Russia's past forays into Chechnya, these developments ought to be a matter of some concern in Washington. Human rights organizations have documented Russian abuses in Chechnya in gory detail--including, in one recent case, the discovery of the burned remains of nine civilians killed by Russian forces. At least 140,000 Chechens have been forced to flee the province. Yet, so far, Washington has shown virtually no concern at all. President Bush has declared this a "'time of solidarity" with Russia. Speaking with European reporters earlier this week, the president explained that America's "good friend" Putin should "do what it takes to protect his people from ... terrorist attacks"--implicitly acceding to Putin's long-standing argument that his actions in Chechnya are of a piece with the U.S. war on terrorism. They're not. Russia clearly faces a threat in Chechnya, but, Putin's spin notwithstanding, that threat is secession, not global Islamic terrorism. Unlike the killers in Bali and at the World Trade Center, the Chechens have a specific, local grievance: They want autonomy or independence. According to Thomas de Waal, co-author of a comprehensive book on Chechnya titled Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus, most Chechens are liberal Sufi Muslims who have no sympathy for Islamic fundamentalism and whose decade-long campaign has focused on one goal: leaving Russia. (Chechens are far more likely to dress in leather jackets or traditional headscarves than chadors.) What's more, in part because the region is surrounded on three sides by Russian troops and on the fourth by high mountains, few Islamist volunteers have traveled to Chechnya from abroad.
Putin's American apologists say the United States can't afford to be squeamish about human rights in Chechnya because we need Russia's help in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond. But, in fact, it is precisely because of geostrategic concerns that the United States must distinguish Russia's actions in Chechnya from U.S. efforts against global Islamist terrorism. Giving Moscow a free pass in Chechnya--as the Bush administration seems strongly inclined to do--will further alienate moderate Muslims around the world from U.S. goals and interests. Indeed, Islamists have already begun using Russian atrocities in Chechnya as an issue with which to bludgeon the United States. On his latest audiotape attempt to reach his target audience--young Muslim men--Osama bin Laden explicitly refers to Chechnya. Islamic extremists in Britain have highlighted Chechnya in speeches, calling on followers to fight the United States and its allies to the death. Islamist leaders in Pakistan have made the plight of Chechen Muslims a central focus of their anti-Western diatribes.
Even the New Republic gets it.