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Putin Unleashes His Fury Against Chechen Guerrillas

Putin Unleashes His Fury Against Chechen Guerrillas

Author: Elaine Sciolino
Publication: The New York Times
Date: November 12, 2002
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/12/international/europe/12RUSS.html

In an outpouring of vitriol and insults, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia today accused rebels in the breakaway province of Chechnya of being international terrorists who believe that all non- Muslims deserve to die.

The verbal assault was unusual, not only because of what Mr. Putin said but also because of where he said it - at a staid summit meeting of the 15-nation European Union.

"They talk about the need to kill all non-Muslims, all cross-bearers," Mr. Putin told a joint news conference with European Union leaders, referring to his Chechen opponents. "If you are Christian, your life is threatened. If you reject your religion and become an atheist you are also in danger. If you will decide to become Muslim, even this will not save you because traditional Islam is from their perspective hostile to their purposes and goals."

Mr. Putin, who was speaking in Russian through interpreters, added: "If you want to become an Islamic radical and if you'd like to get your circumcision, please come to Moscow. We are a multiconfessional, multiethnic nation. Please come. You are welcome and everything and everyone is tolerated in Moscow."

But in a more accurate translation, as heard on NTV in Moscow and translated by The New York Times, his words sounded far more menacing. "If you want to become a complete Islamic radical," he said, "and are ready to undergo circumcision, then I invite you to Moscow. We're a multidenominational country. We have specialists in this question as well. I will recommend that he carry out the operation in such a way that after it nothing else will grow."

Mr. Putin's remarks were carried in some Russian newspaper and television reports but did not immediately provoke outrage, or even draw comment.

The summit meeting today was supposed to be a day of celebration. Russia and the European Union reached agreement on travel rules for Kaliningrad, a small wedge of territory of about 900,000 people that is part of Russia but geographically separate from it. The problem for Russia is that Kaliningrad will be surrounded by European Union territory once its neighbors Poland and Lithuania join the group in 2004.

Under the deal, Russian citizens will be able to travel between Kaliningrad and Russia proper after receiving either a multiple re-entry transit pass or a so-called light document that will permit single return trips only by train.

Still, the arrangement represented a retreat for Russia, which had long objected to its citizens effectively needing the permission of outsiders to travel from one part of their country to another. Mr. Putin himself had said he would never accept a division of Russian territory. The European Union placated the Russians by agreeing to a feasibility study next year on nonstop trains between Kaliningrad and Russia that would avoid the need for transit documents.

Russia also desperately wants to enhance its relationship with the European Union, particularly in trade and investment. In 2001, only 4.6 percent of the European Union's imports came from Russia while 2.8 percent of its exports went to Russia.

The deal on Kaliningrad was marred by deep divisions between the European Union and Russia over Chechnya. So great were the disagreements between Mr. Putin and the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the meeting's host who holds the presidency of the European Union, that the gathering ended with no overall communiqué.

"We of course support Russia in the fight against terrorism," Mr. Rasmussen told Danish radio before Mr. Putin's arrival. "But I also want to say that it is not a long-term solution to the Chechnya problem to launch a military action and bomb the country to pieces."

The European Union has long urged Russia to negotiate with responsible Chechen leaders to try to find a political solution.

The meeting was Mr. Putin's first foray into Western Europe after the 57-hour takeover last month of a Moscow theater by Chechen guerrillas. The siege ended with the death of 128 hostages and 41 Chechen rebels, with most of the hostages killed by a gas used by Russian forces.
 

The siege has emboldened Mr. Putin and his defense minister, Sergei B. Ivanov, who has halted a planned troop pullout from Chechnya and vowed to intensify the Russian offensive against Chechen separatists. On Sunday, Mr. Putin said he was no longer willing to negotiate with Chechnya's elected president, Aslan Maskhadov, whom he branded a "murderer" in the wake of the hostage crisis.

Mr. Putin's rage during the news conference was set off by a provocative question from the correspondent from Le Monde about whether in trying to eradicate terrorism he was also going to eradicate the civilian population of Chechnya.

On a side street outside the conference center, about 200 demonstrators gathered behind police barricades to protest the Chechen war.

"Putin is a terrorist," read one banner. "Gas, the new form of killing," read another, a reference to the assault by Russian security forces to end the seige at the Moscow theater.

"The war in Chechnya is a colonial war," the French philosopher André Glucksmann told the group. "Stalin carried out action to deport the Chechens and the Russian Army is once again exterminating the Chechen people."

The summit session had originally been planned for Copenhagen. But the site was changed to Brussels in response to Russian protests over a conference of Chechen rebels in Copenhagen just days after the end of the Moscow siege.

After a separate meeting with Mr. Putin today, the NATO secretary general, Lord Robertson, expressed support for Russia's military clampdown on Chechen guerrillas, acknowledging that there are international terrorists in Russia.

"Russia has a right to deal with breaches of law and order on its own sovereign territory," he said. "And the desperate and criminal acts used by the hostage takers in Moscow a few weeks ago underlines the seriousness of the situation faced by Russia."

He added, "It is also becoming increasingly clear that there are international terrorist elements involved in the insurrection in Chechnya."
 


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