| MOSCOW (AP) - Liberal Russian lawmakers called Sunday
for an end to abuses
by Russian forces in Chechnya and for talks aimed at bringing peace
to the
region, where deadly violence has persisted despite the Kremlin's
efforts
to defeat rebels and enhance stability.
Speaking during a weekly news show on TVS television, Itogi,
legislator
Boris Nemtsov said Russian authorities should enter negotiations
with armed
separatists in Chechnya, an idea President Vladimir Putin has
rejected.
"It is perfectly clear that without a dialogue there will
be no calm or
peace," said Nemtsov, leader of the liberal Union of Right
Forces party.
Pointing to two separate suicide attacks that killed a total of
at least 78
people last week, he said Russia's policy of maintaining a massive
military
force in Chechnya has been ineffective.
Nemtsov said that in the most recent war in Chechnya, which began
in 1999,
tens of thousands of civilians have been killed and that "many
of them
disappeared without a trace" in security operations and raids,
suggesting
that Russian forces were to blame. "This bacchanalia must
be put to a
stop," he said.
Nemtsov spoke two days after Putin confidently predicted in his
annual
address to the nation that Russia will defeat rebels in Chechnya,
a sign
the Kremlin intends to continue military operations while also
pursuing
other ways to establish stability. Thursday, Putin offered a partial
amnesty to rebels who agreed to put down their weapons.
The Kremlin has hailed a March constitutional referendum that
cemented
Chechnya's status as part of Russia as a major step on the path
to peace in
the region, where separatists have been fighting Russian forces
for nearly
a decade.
Another guest on Itogi, lawmaker Sergei
Ivanenko of the liberal Yabloko party, said ending human rights
abuses that rights groups and civilians widely accuse Russian
forces of carrying out must be the first step on any road to a
settlement. The next step would be a conference to discuss peace
that would be led by Putin, he said.
He said Yabloko had presented its Chechnya settlement plan to
Putin and
discussed it with him, but that the president has pursued a different
policy.
A lawmaker from a pro-Putin party, Georgy Boos of the Fatherland-All
Russia
faction in the State Duma, Russia's lower parliament house, said
he
believes the Kremlin is on the right track in Chechnya but that
the
bloodshed won't end soon.
He praised the constitutional referendum and plans for parliamentary
and
presidential elections in Chechnya. But he said he fears that
"for long
years to come, terrorist acts...will shake not only the land of
the Chechen
Republic itself but unfortunately also the rest of Russia ."
"Unfortunately, one can begin a war quickly and easily,
but it is always
hard to end one," he said.
Russian forces pulled out of Chechnya in 1996 after a devastating
20-month
war, leaving the region in separatist control. They returned in
1999 after
rebel attacks in neighboring Dagestan and after about 300 people
died in
apartment-building explosions that Russian officials blamed on
militants
from the region.
See also:
War
in Chechnya
| 