G-8 Fails to Slow Russian Attacks on Chechnya

Despite warnings of an impending blood bath, foreign ministers of the world’s most powerful nations conceded Friday that they could not convince Moscow to halt its bombardment of the Chechen capital, Grozny.

Top diplomats from the Group of Eight industrialized nations were told by a senior security envoy just back from embattled Chechnya that an immediate cease-fire was essential to rescue 45,000 civilians trapped in Grozny, and that special evacuation corridors proclaimed by Moscow were grossly unsafe.

Refugees who used the corridors Thursday said they were shot at as they escaped. Reports from the region Friday said Russia had set up additional roadblocks elsewhere in Chechnya in an attempt to limit movement of people in and out of the republic.

“We urgently need a cease-fire; otherwise there will be a blood bath,” Knut Vollebaek, chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as well as Norwegian foreign minister, told reporters. “There will be major fighting. Grozny will not fall easily.”

But Vollebaek concluded before his departure from Berlin that his fact-finding tour of the Caucasus and his appeal to the foreign ministers had made little, if any, headway toward improving the plight of Chechen civilians.

“There is no willingness, as I see it, for the Russian side to include the international community in the process,” said Vollebaek, who toured refugee camps in Chechnya and in neighboring republics this week.

With Russia now a full-fledged member of the club of wealthy democracies, the foreign ministers were unable to wrest any concessions from Moscow and unwilling to impose sanctions for fear of further damaging relations.

The forum is essentially hamstrung by its inclusion of Russia in its ranks, because decisions and proclamations in the name of the wealthy democracies, which are known as the G-8, must be approved by all members.

“It’s very clear that it is in our national interest to maintain relations with Russia,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said of the group’s reluctance to punish Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov deflected the calls for an immediate cease-fire and negotiations with Chechen leaders, and dismissed suggestions the war was harming Russia’s international standing.

“On some issues, our opinions coincide. On others, they diverge. What is important is that such differences should not lead to our drawing further apart from each other,” Ivanov said as he settled down for separate talks with Albright. “I have never felt isolated among my colleagues in the G-8.”

Russian leaders have cast the assault on Chechnya as an anti-terrorist action after deadly bombings in Moscow and other cities in northern Russia. They have blamed the bombings on Chechen extremists but provided no evidence.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, host of the meeting that had been intended to discuss measures to prevent conflicts, suggested that the chances of convincing Russia to ease off in Chechnya might improve after Sunday’s parliamentary elections. But he, too, warned Moscow that nothing excused reckless attacks that endanger civilians.

“The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by indiscriminately fighting against cities and the whole population,” Fischer said. “This war is a serious threat to partnership and cooperation between Russian and all of us.”

Much as they did at last weekend’s summit of European Union states in Helsinki, Finland, European diplomats cautioned against alienating Russia and losing what little influence the West still has.

“What I think has been evident at this meeting, frankly, is that the Russians, through their actions, are self-isolating from the rest of the international community,” Albright said. But she disputed that sanctions would have any better effect.

“We are all united in saying to the Russians that this is unacceptable,” Albright said of the military actions in Chechnya. She added that the Russians “are being dramatically excluded from the kind of international dialogue that we have had with them for the last 10 years.”