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POLEMICAL NOTES ABOUT THE CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM IN CHECHNIA: WAS IT ANOTHER KHASAVIURT?
Sergey MARKEDONOV
Sergey Markedonov, Ph.D. (Hist.), head, Department of Ethnic Relations Problems, Institute of Political and Military Analysis (Moscow, Russia)
The so-called Chechen question has already produced mountains of books and other writings the authors of which, their diverse theoretical, methodological, and political positions apart, are driven by the common aim—to find the best way out from the Chechen impasse. They all concentrated on the transfer from the military to the political stage of crisis settlement in the “mutinous republic.” I have undertaken to discuss the problem using as an example President Putin’s initiative to introduce democratic procedures in Chechnia (the referendum on the constitution and elections of the republic’s head and to the representative body of power). This was the Kremlin’s most important step toward political settlement since the Khasaviurt agreement that completed the so-called first Chechen war. This agreement between the federal center and the Chechen insurgents signed in 1996 was destined to become a symbol of Moscow’s failure to bring peace to Chechnia by purely political means. Will Putin’s initiative become a breakthrough in the process of political settlement or will it turn out to be another Khasaviurt, this time in the legal sphere?
When dealing with the Chechen issue the Russian leaders have to adequately respond to the challenges of separatism, terrorism, nepotism, privatization of power by certain Chechen teips, promotion of narrow corporate (teip) interests through official decisions and norms, teip squabbles, corruption and embezzlement, legal particularism, domination of customary law over the laws of the state, and continued separation of the Chechen society from the all-Russia political, legal, and sociocultural expanse.
This prompts several questions: Can the Kremlin initiative to introduce democratic election procedures in Chechnia help improve the situation if not resolve the problems enumerated above? Can that part of the Chechen elite that calls itself pro-Russian, if given legal powers, at least diminish the wave of terror and cement Chechen society with the idea of…………………….
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