Strongman Demands Full Secession for Russia’s Chechen-Ingush Region : Breakaway: That would be a serious defeat for Yeltsin, who has called upon autonomous states to stay in federation.

The strongman who now controls the predominantly Muslim Chechen-Ingush region of southern Russia went a step further Sunday by saying that only full secession will satisfy him. Russian Federation lawmakers, meanwhile, debated President Boris N. Yeltsin’s decree imposing a state of emergency in the region.

“Now we can speak only about complete secession (from Russia) and the beginning of building our relations as equals,” Gen. Dzhokar Dudayev, a Chechen nationalist who seized power a month ago, said at a news conference in Grozny, the region’s capital. “This, however, does not mean breaking relations between us and Russia.”

After he was elected president last month, Dudayev declared the sovereignty of a Chechen republic within the Russian Federation but separate from Ingushetia. Now, however, he is saying that his republic must leave the Russian Federation. About half of the region’s 1.3 million people are ethnic Chechens; the rest are Ingush and Russians.

Secession of the Chechen republic would be a serious defeat for Yeltsin, who has repeatedly called for the 20 small autonomous regions in the republic to remain in the Russian Federation.

Leaders of the Chechen nationalists sent a letter Sunday to Yeltsin, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and Ruslan I. Khasbulatov, chairman of the Russian Federation Parliament, calling for an end to the state of emergency, which Yeltsin declared Friday in an attempt to strip power from Dudayev.

Dudayev has countered Yeltsin’s move by declaring martial law in the mountainous southern republic and has defied each of Yeltsin’s attempts at overriding his rule.

Although Yeltsin banned demonstrations, Dudayev supporters have rallied by the tens of thousands since Yeltsin’s decree was made public. The Interior Ministry troops Yeltsin sent to the area were forced out by Dudayev’s national guard. And Yeltsin’s envoy to the region, Akhmed Arsanov, resigned his post in protest of Yeltsin’s measures, according to Rezvan Ibragimov, a spokesman for the Chechen-Ingush Parliament.

Russian lawmakers, meeting in an emergency session Sunday, said they feared that unless they can get the crisis in the Chechen-Ingush region under control, Russia will start breaking up.

After more than six hours of debating whether to endorse Yeltsin’s decree, the Russian Supreme Soviet, or legislature, suspended its debate until today.

The legislators appeared to be torn by two conflicting thoughts: They do not want to undermine Yeltsin by attacking his handling of the situation, but they fear that a Moscow-enforced state of emergency in an area where the local national guard is well armed could lead to great bloodshed.

Dudayev, 46, a retired Soviet air force general, has called on all men 15 to 55 years of age to join his national guard, and he claims to have raised 62,000 volunteers. He said bluntly that he will not shrink from using his troops if pushed.

“I boldly state that any provocative acts of state terrorism against our people will not go unavenged,” Dudayev said. “There are many mechanisms for this, very many, and we will inflict as much suffering as it (Russia) inflicted on this land. Everything is prepared.”

Semyon A. Natapov, a lawmaker who has traveled to Chechen-Ingushetia, said the only way to “preserve the Russian Federation” would be to cancel the state of emergency.

Natapov and other lawmakers cautioned that failure to strike down Yeltsin’s decree would simply enhance Dudayev’s popularity in the region.

“We will only help his image,” Natapov said. “We will make him into a national hero.”

Dudayev’s popularity is already formidable. He won election as president last month with 90% of the vote. As soon as news spread of Yeltsin’s attempt to end his rule by declaring a state of emergency, people started flocking by the thousands to Freedom Square in Grozny to show their support.

Many more people traveled to the region’s capital in trucks, buses and cars from the rest of the country, prepared to take up arms to support Dudayev. Barricades were erected on all streets in the city of 400,000, Chechen spokesman Ibragimov said.

“All of the people of the republic have united in the face of the threat of Russian intervention and are ready to defend the republic’s independence to the last,” Ibragimov said.

In an apparent setback for Yeltsin, about 600 Interior Ministry troops sent to Chechen-Ingushetia under Yeltsin’s decree left the region under pressure from Dudayev’s men, Ibragimov added.

In Moscow, Chechen nationalists held a vigil outside the Russian Parliament building to try persuade lawmakers to override Yeltsin’s decree.

But Khasbulatov, the chairman of the Parliament and an ethnic Chechen, said support for Dudayev is not as unanimous as it seems.

“People call me and ask me to do something to stop this insane man,” Khasbulatov told the legislature.

Khasbulatov, in one of the strongest denunciations of the Chechen strongman heard by the legislature, called Dudayev’s armed force “a group of bandits--people without conscience and honor.”

“I’m even ready to quit rather than enter negotiations with any of them,” he said.