Moscow Chechens appeal to Putin to end war

"Citizens must understand what a Chechen settlement means," Putin said. "The issue here is maintaining the integrity of the Russian state."

Critics say that leaves only Chechen forces already allied to Moscow, such as the Kremlin's handpicked Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov, to write the republic's constitution and be elected to its new legislature.

"You can't have talks with people you nominate yourself instead of those you're fighting with," says Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the independent Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow. "This plan is a blind alley."

Some of the pro-Moscow Chechen leaders who attended the Kremlin meeting with Putin sound a bit more hopeful. "Ninety-nine percent of Chechens are exhausted with war and will welcome any move to peace," says Dzhabrail Gakayev, head of the Chechen Cultural Center in Moscow and one of the signatories of the appeal to Putin. "But Putin is mistaken in such a narrow approach. He must broaden the process and invite in all forces who want peace."

Says Aslambek Aslakhanov, Chechnya's sole deputy to the State Duma: "This chain of war and hatred has to be broken, and I'll support anything that leads to this. A referendum may be a good idea, but not if it's going to be held at gunpoint."

Last month's hostage crisis formed one of the bitterest chapters in Russia's conflict with Chechnya. On Oct. 23, 50 heavily armed and explosives-laden Chechens, demanding that Russian troops withdraw from Chechnya within a week, seized Moscow's Na Dubrovke theater and more than 800 hostages. Security forces stormed the building after three days, shooting dead all the Chechens but also inadvertently causing most of the 128 hostage fatalities with an experimental knockout gas used to subdue the rebels.

The attack sent shivers through many in the Chechen community, who fear a breakdown of the relative ethnic peace that has prevailed in Moscow, despite two savage wars in Chechnya.

"When terrorist acts occur, Chechens, wherever they are, will be blamed," says Mr. Aslakhanov. "There is a big possibility of more terrorist strikes. No one knows what will happen then."

"Ethnic splits are growing in this country, and the war is feeding the prejudices of average Russians against Chechens and people from the Caucasus in general," says Mr. Gakayev of the Chechen Cultural Center.

Though they are Russian citizens, the huge Chechen diaspora in Russian cities have led precarious lives since the first war to crush a separatist movement in Chechnya began in 1994.

Chechens are regularly subjected to "special procedures" by police, such as fingerprinting, and are sometimes singled out for violent treatment by Russian nationalist and skinhead groups.

Gakayev says that in the wake of the theater attack, there has been sporadic persecution of individual Chechens – but nothing like the wave of arrests, police beatings, and deportations that occurred in Moscow following a series of still-unsolved apartment bombings that killed hundreds in 1999. "This time authorities are keeping things under control, but Chechens are still regarded as enemy aliens," he says.

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