Met

Parliamentary hearings on Chechnya took place in Moscow

In the capital they made another attempt to figure out how to develop Chechnya. This time the initiative came from a State Duma commission with a long name - to promote the normalization of the socio-political and socio-economic situation and the observance of human rights in the Chechen Republic. The commission wrote several recommendations to President Putin, Duma deputies, the government and ministers. They do not contain anything fundamentally new: they still recommend adequate use of force, not inciting ethnic hatred, saving refugees and monitoring financial flows. Nevertheless, it was decided to submit these recommendations for parliamentary discussion.

Almost all politicians who had at least some connection to the situation in the republic agreed to take part in the discussion. As in many previous forums, when Moscow tried to find support for its course in the form of a consolidated Chechen public, the assembled “moderates” were not going to listen to each other and each spoke about his own. More precisely, each outlined his own vision of the chaos that, admittedly, reigns in present-day Chechnya. The initiator of the hearings, the head of the above-mentioned commission, Alexander Tkachev, recalled, for example, the arbitrariness of the military, which, in his opinion, occurs because it is unclear who is making arrests in the republic, people continue to go missing, resistance leaders were never caught, and yet again Winter is approaching. Mr. Tkachev, by the way, considers negotiations with Aslan Maskhadov probable (even if not as the legitimate president, but at least as the head of the opposing side), if only he dissociates himself from the extremists. Tkachev’s co-rapporteur turned out to be Akhmad Kadyrov, in whose opinion such negotiations are completely excluded. Although the former mufti’s tone lacked conviction - he even sympathetically recalled how “Maskhadov succumbed to politicians who do not have the right to be called believers, who began to exploit the deep religiosity of the Chechen people.” The former mufti also mentioned the chaos in Chechnya: it turned out that he still does not know what powers he personally has, what powers the presidential envoy in the Southern District Viktor Kazantsev has, and what powers the commandant of Chechnya Ivan Babichev has. But, according to Mr. Kadyrov, the two main problems were and remain terrorism and human rights violations in the fight against this terrorism. The fight against terrorists, he said, is correct, because everything is led by “Vladimir Putin, a pragmatist, a supporter of the dictatorship of the law and a consistent democrat.” And the fact that citizens’ rights are violated “we do not hide and will not hide.” But, according to Akhmad Kadyrov, while hostilities are ongoing, costs are inevitable.

Yesterday's hearings also had their own peculiarity: they were attended by PACE delegates, whose statements sometimes sounded even more optimistic than the speeches of Russian representatives. The speech of Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Umberto Ranieri was full of “hope for resolving the contradictions between the Council of Europe and one of its most respected members.” CE Secretary General Walter Schwimmer praised Putin's representative for human rights in the republic, Vladimir Kalamanov, for the work, noting, however, that it was time to start searching for 18 thousand missing civilians (by the way, Kalamanov has his own figure - only 450). The words of the State Duma deputy from Chechnya, Aslambek Aslakhanov, that instead of a meaningless spat with Russia, Europeans should think about more serious targeted assistance to the affected Chechens and the reception of destitute refugees, it seems, went unnoticed.

As a result, all the documents discussed were approved, although it is unclear how they might affect the fate of tens of thousands of residents of the republic who will have to survive the approaching winter in destroyed houses and cold tents in refugee camps. However, it seemed that those gathered in the Small Hall of the State Duma were discussing with greater interest not this, but the likely development of the conflict between Akhmad Kadyrov and Bislan Gantamirov. Yesterday they both found themselves in the same room, although on different rows. Gantamirov sat through the entire event indifferently and did not speak in the debate. And then he told the correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper that in the conflict around the Grozny municipal leaders he managed to defend his positions: “The people removed by Kadyrov continue to fulfill their duties.” Gantamirov also said that he does not intend to stay in Moscow for now and is going to return to Chechnya. True, Mr. Aslakhanov allowed himself to doubt this recently. According to him, the conflict is close to resolution, since Bislan Gantamirov finally agreed to leave the republic.

Ivan SUKHOV