Clinton Calls On Russia to Negotiate Peace in Chechnya

Making a rare personal appeal before an audience of 53 world leaders, President Clinton on Thursday urged Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin to seek a negotiated peace in Chechnya. Yeltsin, defiant and defensive, said the West’s criticism is unacceptable while Russia is trying to end “the cancer of terrorism.”

In a raw public display of their differences over Moscow’s war in the separatist republic, which has produced a large number of civilian casualties, the two leaders showed little room for compromise.

“Nobody,” Yeltsin said, “should be under any illusions on this score: There will be no negotiations with bandits and murderers.”

Faced, however, with expressions of support for the U.S. position by one speaker after another at the summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, he agreed in the end to allow the head of the OSCE to visit Chechnya to assess the situation there.

Seeking to answer the Russian leader’s argument that the war in Chechnya is a domestic matter, Clinton spoke of the moment in 1991 when Yeltsin turned back an attempted coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

“President Yeltsin,” Clinton said, looking directly at the ailing leader and pointing a finger, “one of the most thrilling experiences of my life as a citizen of the world, before I became president, was when you stood up on that tank in Moscow, when they tried to take the freedom of the Russian people away. And your standing there on that tank said to those people, ‘You can do this, but you’ll have to kill me first.’ ”

Using words he had written by hand shortly before his speech, Clinton continued: “If they had put you in jail instead of electing you president, I would hope that every leader of every country around this table would have stood up for you and for freedom in Russia and not said, ‘Well, that is an internal Russian affair that we cannot be a part of.’ ”

The tenor of their public and, later, private exchanges during an hourlong meeting suggested a great gulf between the two leaders.

Nevertheless, their two delegations made progress on a summit-ending statement on Chechnya acceptable to Moscow and Washington, U.S. officials said. And Yeltsin awarded Clinton a bearhug greeting, White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said.

Speaking in a ballroom of Ciragan Palace, Clinton sought to convince Yeltsin that none of the assembled leaders disapproved of the goal the Russian had set out: an end to the Chechen rebellion.

“What they fear is that the means Russia has chosen will undermine its ends--that if attacks on civilians continue, the extremism Russia is trying to combat will only intensify, and the sovereignty Russia rightly is defending will be more and more rejected by ordinary Chechens who are not part of the terror or the resistance,” Clinton said.

He warned that “an endless cycle of violence” threatens to undermine Russia’s strength.

Instead, Clinton advocated isolating and undermining the Chechen fighters--he called them “terrorists,” the term Yeltsin used--by seeking a political settlement.

Clinton recommended that the OSCE play a leading role. The group was founded during the Cold War and is trying to adapt to the demands of maintaining peace within nations staggering under ethnic unrest.

In Moscow, some news media--and Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov, speaking from Istanbul--portrayed Clinton’s remarks as support for the Russian campaign.

“It is very significant that President Clinton was among those who pointed out that in Chechnya we are talking about fighting international terrorism,” Ivanov said.

In the renewed fighting to produce an independent Chechnya, Yeltsin said, “terrorists” have killed 1,580 people, including more than 300 who died in apartment bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities in September. Russian authorities blame the bombings on Chechens but have not presented any proof.

On Thursday, Russian troops, without firing a shot, were reported to have taken control of the Chechen city of Achkhoi-Martan, near the border with the Russian republic of Ingushetia.

Yeltsin, demanding “a respectful dialogue” rather than “reproaches or sermonizing” directed at Russia, defended his Chechen campaign, saying: “We simply are obliged to put an end to the spread of the cancer of terrorism, to prevent it from metastasizing far beyond North Caucasus and even spreading beyond the border of the Russian Federation.”

In addition to Clinton, many other leaders used their brief speeches at the two-day summit, which ends today, to criticize Russia’s actions in Chechnya.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said his country condemns terrorism, “but war is no way to eliminate terrorism. The massive use of force that hits the civilian population before anyone else must be ended.”

Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari called for “a dialogue between the Russian government and the elected leaders of the North Caucasus, including Chechnya, to seek a political settlement.” Russia no longer recognizes the elected president of Chechnya, Aslan Maskhadov, even though Yeltsin signed a peace accord with him in 1997 formally ending the 1994-96 Chechen war, which Russia lost.

Maskhadov sent a letter to the summit appealing for help in stopping what he termed “the genocide” of the Chechen people.

Shamalu Deniyev, chairman of the Humanity Political Movement in Chechnya, which opposes Maskhadov’s rule as well as Russia’s military campaign, said in Istanbul: “Even if we don’t approve of the criminal Maskhadov regime, the ‘pinpoint’ blows Yeltsin is talking about are nothing but a massive destruction of all [the] Chechen economy and civilian houses. We see that these blows kill a lot of peaceful people while making a lot more rally behind Maskhadov and other gangs.”

Among the agreements on which the OSCE delegations are working is one that would give the organization a stronger role in addressing regional conflict, including the rapid deployment of experts and ultimately peacekeeping forces. It also would broaden the definition of human rights to include the autonomy of minority groups, a proposal that would undermine Russia’s stance in Chechnya.

Also Thursday, Clinton watched as the leaders of Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia signed a series of agreements to build a $2.4-billion oil pipeline to bring Caspian Sea oil to world markets.

Moscow had tried to scuttle the deal, which will weaken its influence in the region. On Thursday, Russian officials dismissed the project as economically unsound.

Video of President Clinton’s remarks Thursday on Russia’s military actions in Chechnya is available on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/clinton.

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Anti-American fever runs high in Greece ahead of President Clinton’s arrival today. A12