MASKHADOV “IMPEACHMENT” CLAIM IS DENOUNCED

MASKHADOV “IMPEACHMENT” CLAIM IS DENOUNCED

In a counterblow directed at the recent announcement of Aslan Maskhadov’s supposed “impeachment,” the pro-Maskhadov Chechenpress website published on September 30 a statement rejecting that announcement as having “no legal force.” The pro-Maskhadov statement appears over the names of twenty-five specifically identified members of the separatist parliament elected in 1997. This number would constitute a majority of the parliament’s original forty-nine members if all twenty-five of these did indeed endorse it. (This majority would be even wider than might seem at first glance, since seven of the original forty-nine are now dead.)

The earlier announcement of Maskhadov’s “impeachment” had come from Isa Temirov, a member of the separatist parliament who has now turned anti-separatist. According to that announcement, forty-two of the body’s forty-three living members had voted in favor of impeachment. Temirov, however, failed to specify where the parliament had met to conduct this vote, and which deputies had been present (see Chechnya Weekly, September 26). Akhyad Idigov, a pro-Maskhadov deputy, told Novaya gazeta that he had contacted more than half of the deputies who might have taken part in such a vote, and that all of them had responded that they knew of no such parliamentary session.

The September 30 statement released by Idigov and others states that: “On 12 September, 2003, the illegal motion to declare the impeachment of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Maskhadov, was spread widely by the Russian media. This treacherous act was carried out by several deputies of the Parliament of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in order to give an appearance of legitimacy to the ‘election’ of a puppet president on 5 October, 2003. We declare that the question of a declaration of impeachment of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Maskhadov, on 5 September, 2003, wasn’t discussed with our participation in the session of the Parliament of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, and therefore it has no legal force.”

The pro-Maskhadov statement also declared that “no elections can be held on 5 October, 2003, on the territory of the sovereign and independent democratic legal state of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, in connection with the military occupation of our state territory by the criminal troops of the Russian Federation–Russia. Under the muzzles of automatic weapons, under the threat of death, there can be no voluntary elections!”

In addition to Idigov, the September 30 statement includes the following deputies’ names: Adaev V., Ahmatov I., Alungiriev R., Amagov D., Bakaniev U., Batsuev H., Beloev B., Beshaev S., Bustaev S., Dadaev R., Dazhadaev B., Ediev S-A., Hiryaev D., Iskhanov H., Izhiev B., Kaimov T., Magomadov A-B., Mumaev R., Sadulaeva Z., Saralyapov L., Shahgiriev A., Shovhalov Z-H., Yangul’baev H., and Yusupov A. Not surprisingly, it has received little coverage in the mainstream Russian media.