Lebed the Peacemaker?

The agreement that Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed signed in Khasavyurt contains nothing that should not have been agreed on before the war.


Last February, when the Chechen insurgents were still outside Grozny, the president of the rebel Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev, said he agreed that the status of Chechnya should be put off for several years. At that time, de facto recognition of Ichkeria, the separatist name for Chechnya, would have been enough for him.


But like many others before me, I was unable to convey this to President Boris Yeltsin, who did not want to listen. Instead, it took a river of blood and tears for Yeltsin to finally understand what was necessary from the very beginning. The victims of Vietnam and Afghanistan provided no lessons. Fresh ones were needed.


General Lebed does not have the reputation for being a democrat, and democrats -- as his own recent statements imply -- are not counted among his friends. Neither respect for a people's right to self-determination nor the belief that it is immoral to use massive force for the sake of establishing constitutional order enter his way of thinking.


Despite his pre-election declarations that he intended to give the Chechens the opportunity to decide on the status of their republic, the general announced after the July vote that the Chechen people had made their choice when they voted in Doku Zavgayev for president. It didn't bother him that the Dec. 17 Chechen elections hardly took place at all and resulted in open falsification.


With the Security Council secretary's blessing, the federal forces violated the Nazran pre-election agreements and attacked the rebels in the mountainous regions for yet another last and decisive battle. If they had managed to finish off the insurgents, there would not have been any question of the republic's postponed status, meddlesome commissions or referendums, and Lebed would not now be talking of Zavgayev as a liar and someone from whom one does not need to take power, since he does not have any.


So has the general turned into a peacemaker? What made him act according to the solutions that had been worked out by democrats even before the war began? It was the military catastrophe that ensued after the recapture of Grozny by the rebels. In a word, Russia was confronted with military defeat and its own powerlessness.


The deputy commander of the Russian forces in Chechnya, Konstantin Pulikovsky, issued his ominous ultimatum saying he intended to bombard Grozny (together with the federal soldiers who were blockaded there). And Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin demanded, for no practical reason, that a state of emergency be declared.


Lebed, on the other hand, recognized that the army -- divided, hungry, poorly equipped, marauding and constantly drunk -- had been defeated. He witnessed officers who led successful battles only against unarmed people. As for the army's opponents, they were sold Russian arms and let through everywhere, just to avoid unnecessary confrontation. Such an army is capable only of suffering losses, and no other kind of army is likely to arise in the near future in Russia.


A year ago, after the seizure of Budyonnovsk by terrorists under Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, agreements were signed between delegations from Russia and Chechnya. Dudayev then decided to sacrifice the leader of the delegation, Usman Imayev, arguing that the agreement went against the interests of the Chechen side. Dudayev told me last August that every member of the delegation said in turn at a Defense Council meeting, "Usman, you are a traitor." Indeed, Imayev was dismissed, but the Chechen side continued to fulfill the terms of the agreement.


Meanwhile, in Russia, the communists and supporters of ultra-nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky in the State Duma raised hysterical cries, as they are doing now, over the betrayal of Russia's interests. Yeltsin made threatening gestures toward the separatists and fired the head of the Russian delegation, Arkady Volsky.


Lebed has said he was given the task of settling the Chechen conflict so that he would break his neck. While leaking information about his poor state of health, Yeltsin refused to meet with the general and for a long time refrained from expressing his approval of the agreements with the separatists. He knew very well during this time that the military aspects of the accords had already been carried out, and irrevocably so: The federal troops abandoned Grozny, leaving behind a token number of personnel; the mountainous regions, where fierce fighting had brought great losses, were evacuated; and almost all of Chechnya was handed over.


Having reserved the right to criticize the agreement, the president has managed to escape bearing responsibility for Lebed's actions.


Yeltsin and those close to him will be endlessly uttering inadequate and empty words about the legitimacy of Zavgayev, the constitution of the Russian Federation and the inviolability of its integrity -- words that have not been agreed on in the documents with the separatists -- thus giving the illusion that there is someone who is standing by these principles.


But despite the fact that Lebed has already been loudly accused of treachery, he is unlikely to share the fate of Imayev or Volsky. He is very much needed. The confidence that he has managed to instill in Chechens should be used to encourage them to voluntarily reintegrate into Russia within five years or, what is far more important, to allow for internal stability in Chechnya and peaceful relations with Russia. Unfortunately, the chances that this will occur are fewer than if peace had been established a year earlier.





Anatoly Shabad is a member of the party leadership of Russia's Democratic Choice. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.