by ISHR Germany

On 12 December 2002 President Putin signed in Moscow the Ukaz on the referendum in Chechnya, scheduled for the 23 March 2003. The referendum was to deal with two things: a vote on the new constitution of Chechnya and a vote on draft laws concerning parliamentary and presidential elections.

One did not need to have been a fortune-teller to predict a "above average participation" in the referendum, with a broad majority voting for a new constitution. In the last census in 2002 - already completely unrealistically - more than one million inhabitants were "counted" in Chechnya. On the voting list of the election commission in March 2003 appeared 540,445 eligible voters, as if were possible to deliver exact numbers in the middle of a raging civil war. Just above 80% of the eligible votes are said to have participated in the referendum, 95% of them are supposed to have voted in favour of all three questions.

According to information of the (mere!) 28 international observers and local authorities, the balloting went according to the rules with only minor irregularities. According to Russian observers, who are sufficiently familiar with "election technologies", massive election fraud has taken place, especially in the villages.

Information about the elections in the southern part of Chechnya were, for example, transmitted to Grozny by the military and the police, because the local election commission did not have any means of data transmission. And, strangely enough, it was exactly in these regions, which traditionally are considered to be irreconcilable, that the turnout was allegedly higher than in the northern parts. In the refugee camps in Ingushetia the turnout reached 190%. There were 2,900 eligible voters registered in the lists, but 5,500 people supposedly cast their vote!

Stalin is said to have once remarked: "It is not important who votes. Important is, who counts the votes". This referendum had to take place, there had to have a high turnout, and the result had to be the right one. Moscow could not afford to lose again.

Moscow's actual aim in both Chechen wars was and is not the fight against "Chechen bandits" or - as it was claimed later on - of "international terrorism", but Chechnya remaining part of the Russian Federation. However, the Russian leadership nearly exclusively sought to bring about this result by military means. Finding a political solution has so far never been sufficiently tried, not even in face of waning public support for the cause of war.

The military conflict in Chechnya has been dragging on for more than eight years, the current second war for more than three years, and there is no end in sight. The large-scale military operations with air strikes and heavy artillery have been replaced by a wearing and cruel partisan war. Presumably, Moscow will never, at least not in the near future, come out of this conflict victoriously. Most Russian soldiers do not die in open warfare, but are victims of landmines - Chechen or their own - which are scattered in great numbers all over the Chechen territory, or otherwise are killed in one of the frequent ambushes. the leadership in Moscow has reached a military and political dead end, and it quite obviously very much aware of it.

Unfortunately, by now a peaceful solution to the conflict is hardly thinkable for different reasons. Moscow will not be able to or will not want to take up negotiations with either Maskhadov or Bassayev who are the ones with the actual power – this would amount to a admission that the second attempt to solve the problem militarily has failed as well. Furthermore, negotiations at this current moment would almost certainly mean the loss of Chechnya, which is an even more serious reason not to enter negotiations. With presidential elections coming up in spring 2004, Putin will not enter such negotiations for political reasons.

Moscow's solution is clearly defined: no negotiations, only unconditional surrender is acceptable. Neither Maskhadov nor Bassayev will be able to or want to accept such a solution.

Half-hearted attempts of various influential groups within the Kremlin to win the politically, and, even more so, economically important Chechen Diaspora in Moscow to build up a front against the rebels failed. In June 2002 Maskhadov, too, tried to build a coalition of peace-loving Chechen political forces with the help of Khasbulatov, the most famous Chechen politician in Moscow. However, neither within the Russian leadership nor the Chechen Diaspora in Moscow was it possible to find a common denominator for all the different opposing interests of the various groups of influence.

Because of this, Moscow and Kadyrov, the current chief of administration in Grozny appointed by the Kremlin, pursue now a kind of propagandistic shift in the ways of looking at the situation. By means of a referendum and subsequently scheduled elections a so-to-speak "legitimisation" of the Kremlin loyal administration in Chechnya is to be achieved and the conflict is to be portrayed as a merely internally Chechen problem. In doing so, it would be possible to reduce the resistance movement to simple "terrorist activities" against the "public will" as manifested in the referendum. Thus the war in Chechnya would become only a small, locally limited conflict, of which there are so many in this world... as President Putin confirmed after the referendum: "All those who have to put down their weapons by today, from now on not only fight for their so-called ideals, but also directly against their own people".

The fact that even this cynical assumption is hardly more than wishful thinking in Moscow is connected to the actual power relations in Chechnya. In Chechen towns and villages currently governs nothing but the force of arms: during the days executed by the Russian armed forces, at night by Chechen rebels. Considering the complicated mosaic of different interest groups in Chechnya, the referendum presumably will only harden the positions and lead to an even more cruel civil war. Thus, since 1999 more than 500 employees of the Moscow loyal administration have been executed by Chechen execution commandos after the highest "Sharia" court sentenced them for "collaboration with the Russian occupiers". In summer 2001, the "Military Headquarters of the Armed Forces of Chechnya" has furthermore issued a warning to all "national traitors". Those who co-operate with Moscow, would be sentenced and could be killed by any Chechen fighter who "expresses the wish to do so". The numerous Chechen fighters are not all under the command of Maskhadov who is considered to be a moderate. There are radical groupings for whom a doctor in a hospital or a teacher in a school already counts as a "national traitor".

In addition, there are still approximately 80,000 Russian soldiers stationed in Chechnya. It is not to be assumed that they will withdraw after the referendum or that the so-called "zachistkas" ("cleansings") will stop. Rather, it is to be expected that they will continue to interpret in their own way their task to maintains "security". Every day, people, often unarmed, are killed by them. According to the human rights organisation Memorial in January 2003 alone, the number was 72.

Even if, as it can be heard now and again nowadays, today's "anti-terrorist operation" will be renamed "peace-building operation", this will not change. Why would the military and the police force behave after the referendum differently towards the civilian population than before?

The Kadyrov administration has its own armed security forces which – at least according to official parlance – is supposed to gradually replace Russian police forces. However, they do not enjoy the trust of the Russian military command in Chechnya. Own confessions by Chechens confirm that this police force consists to 50 % of young men who do their job with the permission of the resistance groups. Another part is said to consist of criminals.

Yet S. Stepashin, former Prime Minister of Russia, was completely right when he said: "Not Moscow's puppets should gain power, but those who have the trust of the people in Chechnya". However, in an atmosphere of terror, such a choice is not possible. In such circumstances only the escalation of the violence, claiming even more victims, is possible. Not the election turnout or the election result makes is decisive. Decisive is the "armed man", the Russian military and the radical forces amongst the Chechens who will continue this war, whatever the cost. The "new order" will take place on paper, reality will continue to be determined by arms.

Only the public in Russia can push through a solution to the conflict, as it has already done once: namely to end the first Chechen war, when the unpopular war threatened Yeltsin's chances to be re-elected president. A referendum in the midst of armed fighting will definitely not.