Chechen Rebel Dispute

The Chechen rebel movement is in uproar after the acting speaker of its parliament alleged that pro-independence leader Aslan Maskhadov had been removed from office.

Other deputies from the rebel assembly, which was elected in 1997, are accusing the man who made the allegations, Isa Temirov, of being a stooge of Moscow, performing a propaganda stunt on behalf of the Kremlin ahead of next week's presidential elections in Chechnya.

The row erupted on September 12 when Temirov, who is based in Moscow, told a press conference that Maskhadov, elected president the same year the assembly was constituted, had been removed from office in a parliamentary vote.

"This resolution has been adopted in accordance with Article 62 of the Constitution of Ichkeria [the name for unrecognised independent Chechnya]," said Temirov. "Starting from 1997, Maskhadov repeatedly violated the constitution. He usurped power and introduced sharia law in Ichkeria, thus changing the constitutional system of the republic.

"Maskhadov's criminal actions have caused untold misery to the people of the republic and pushed the country into murderous wars."

He said that in adopting the resolution, the parliament took heed of the results of the constitutional referendum held by Moscow in Chechnya on March 23.

The row goes to the heart of the issue of who is the legitimate leader of Chechnya. In 1997, Maskhadov was recognised by both the Kremlin and European governments as the legally elected leader of the republic. Many people still regard him as such.

But since then Moscow has held its own constitutional referendum and wants to see its own preferred candidate, Akhmad Kadyrov, elected leader in an election scheduled for next week.

So it was to be expected that Temirov's statement rejecting Maskhadov was immediately broadcast by Russian television and stirred debate both in Russia and Chechnya. Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Moscow's chief spokesman for Chechnya, called the demarche "a true political sensation".

"After the decision taken by the so-called parliament of Ichkeria, Maskhadov turned from a virtual president of Ichkeria into just one of many field commanders," he said, adding that the decision had "turned the page in the history of separatism".

Yastrzhembsky argued that the parliamentary resolution had "an international subtext" because "in Europe, at such organisations as the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, as well as in international media, there are people who to this day entertain certain political hopes pinned on Maskhadov's return to the political arena; they are people who have either open or thinly disguised sympathies for him".

Chechnya's acting leader, Kadyrov, also welcomed the resolution, calling it a "belated but appropriate decision". "At least today there is no more Ichkerian 'president' who has been constantly forced upon us to negotiate with by representatives of PACE, the Council of Europe, and other international organizations," he told ITAR-TASS in an interview the following day.

However, critics of the resolution immediately began to question its legality. Some Maskhadov supporters said that it was illegal to remove a leader "in time of war". They also pointed out that Article 74 of the same pro-independence constitution stipulated that parliament can initiate proceedings to remove the president from office only by "the majority of no less than two thirds of the votes".

Chechnya's 1997 parliament was supposed to have 63 members (although six were never finally elected), so a successful impeachment motion needed 42 votes.

Temirov received the public support of a small group of his colleagues. However, a larger number, 27 deputies, issued a statement dismissing the decision as a Moscow-inspired plot. Akhyad Idigov, former speaker of another pro-independence Chechen parliament and a leading member of the 1997 one, called the impeachment motion "absolutely illegitimate actions that contravene the constitution of the republic".

Idigov said that seven deputies had died in the recent war and nine were now living abroad. That would have made it almost impossible for Temirov to gather the requisite number of votes in Moscow.

One deputy opposed to Temirov, Ibrahim Akhmatov called the resolution to impeach Maskhadov "a sham and an act of political fraud". "Temirov and his henchmen from former deputies of the Ichkerian parliament -Tsomayev, Atayev, Dudayev, and a few others who were stripped of their mandates from 1998 to 2003 - have no right to say anything on our behalf. They are effectively impostors who stole other people's authority," he said.

According to Akhmatov, a further twist in the tale is that Temirov took place in the notorious mass hostage-taking of 1995 carried out by Shamil Basayev in the southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk. That should lay him open to prosecution in Moscow. He further alleged that another of the impeaching deputues, Khassan Atayev, was investigated by Maskhadov's government for kidnapping and stripped of his parliamentary mandate.

"If Russian leaders try to deceive the international community by striking deals with terrorists and kidnappers, they won't succeed," said Akhmatov.

Murad Nashkhoyev, co-chairman of the Chechen public organisation the Independent Consultative Council, called the whole episode a crudely devised propaganda exercise.

"Imagine a situation in which, say, Molotov who for some reason finds himself in Berlin in the autumn of 1944, signs a document in Hitler's den on removing Stalin from office," he said. "It's complete nonsense!"

In Chechnya itself, the row has provoked bewilderment more than anything else. "And where were they before, all these Temirovs and other deputies?" asked 58-year-old Grozny resident Taus Nasukhanov. "The war has been going on for four years, and now they're coming up with this impeachment. But will this end the war? What will it change? Will Maskhadov lay down his arms and return home? It's just another farce that will result in nothing."

Umalt Dudayev is the pseudonym of a Chechen journalist.