Chechen Rebels Ignore Peace Plan

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s much-trumpeted peace plan for Chechnya failed to spur any immediate easing of the conflict Monday, with federal authorities reporting a huge increase in casualties and signs that rebel fighters were poised for new attacks.

A day after Yeltsin ordered a unilateral cease-fire and partial troop withdrawal, 28 deaths and 75 injuries from overnight skirmishes were reported by the federal army command in the Chechen capital, Grozny.

Russian media also claimed that guerrillas loyal to fugitive Chechen leader Dzhokar M. Dudayev were massing by the hundreds in the rebel-held villages of Goiskoye and Vedeno and that they had attacked federal troops in at least two other districts.

Political pressure continued to mount against Yeltsin over the Chechnya crisis, with his former human rights commissioner denouncing the election-season peace plan as “belated and insufficient” and announcing that he is backing a Yeltsin rival in the race for president.

Sergei A. Kovalev, who resigned in protest against Yeltsin’s Chechnya policy in January, joined Yelena Bonner, the widow of human rights champion Andrei D. Sakharov, and three other prominent liberals in endorsing noted economist Grigory A. Yavlinsky in the June 16 election.

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Yavlinsky has organized a nationwide series of antiwar demonstrations this week in a drive to keep this most distressing of social issues foremost in the minds of voters.

Yeltsin’s latest strategy for ending the war he started nearly 16 months ago appeared spurred by concerns that the conflict could cost him reelection. The plan he laid out in a nationally televised address Sunday night contained nothing new except an offer to negotiate through mediators with Dudayev.

The Chechen warlord has so far not responded to Yeltsin’s acknowledgment that he remains the force to be reckoned with, and a Dudayev spokesman told Moscow’s Independent Television by satellite phone that rebel retaliation will continue.

“The tension has not subsided. On the contrary, the intensity of the fighting has only increased,” Dudayev spokesman Movladi Udugov said in the broadcast, adding that the only change since the cease-fire had been a less pronounced use of air power by the federal forces.

The commander of federal troops in Chechnya, Lt. Gen. Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, confirmed that he had carried out the president’s order to cease all combat operations. But soldiers said they would fire back if engaged by Dudayev’s forces.

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“If we are shot at, we will undoubtedly retaliate,” one masked Russian petty officer defiantly declared on state television. “We don’t want to be cannon fodder.”

Yeltsin’s announcement that he was calling off the war effort won praise from foreign leaders, including members of the Clinton administration.

“Widespread and indiscriminate use of force has spilled far too much innocent blood and eroded support for Russia,” Anthony Lake, President Clinton’s national security advisor, said in Washington.

“We welcome President Yeltsin’s decision to begin withdrawing army units and intensify the search for a settlement,” Lake said. “We call on the Chechens to respond in a similar spirit.”

Previous appeals from the Kremlin and from abroad, however, have failed to compel the rebels to lay down their arms, and the brutality of a recent federal offensive to once and for all rout the insurgents stirred fresh sentiment for revenge and resistance.

Russian Public Television carried an interview with a Chechen field commander saying that the rebels are distrustful of Yeltsin and remain on a war footing because “we are still expecting the worst.”