Ruslan Khasbulatov: Chechen war "Not a simple mistake, but a crime"

15 March 2002


Miriam Lanskoy, Novaya gazeta

In the second of a series of interviews with Novaya gazeta, Ruslan Khasbulatov, the former speaker of the Russian parliament, became perhaps the first from among the Russian political elite to come out with scathing criticism of Putin's leadership and the Chechen war. ...

Khasbulatov drew comparisons with the trial of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic now underway in The Hague and raised serious doubt that Chechens were responsible for setting the bombs in Russian cities. "I was told how the fighters left Dagestan. No one was giving them chase, no aviation was used. They left like a parade". Prime Minister Stepashin said at the time that the aggressor must be punished but there will be no war. Then he was removed. It seems, I can presume, that the war was programmed. Only public opinion stood in the way. And then the explosions: Buinaksk, Volgodonsk, Moscow," he said.

To find a way out of the war, Khasbulatov suggests full-scale political dialogue, which would involve Chechen society along with the representatives of the Chechen government. "People hate them both. I think that in Chechnya there needs to be an anti-terrorist coalition of authoritative, informal representatives who would become the main participants in the talks," he said. Chechnya's status would have to be defined in a way that would provide international security guarantees against another "total war aimed at the destruction of the entire nation."

source: http://www.ichkeria.org/