Chechen Crisis to Top Bill as Duma Reconvenes

The State Duma will reconvene Wednesday for what promises to be a stormy emergency session devoted entirely to the war in Chechnya, a Duma spokesman said Monday.


With two factions prepared to put forward a motion of no-confidence in the government and the Duma's biggest faction proposing several legislative measures to limit severely the government's freedom of action in Chechnya, the legislature appears determined to end its prolonged inaction in the crisis.


The Duma Council, which includes the speaker, his deputies and the leaders of all factions and committees, met Monday to approve the session's agenda. It includes a report on the human rights situation in Chechnya, which human rights commissioner Sergei Kovalyov will deliver either in person or in writing.


Kovalyov is known for his emotional denunciation of the war. But his fellow members of Russia's Choice, the leading reformist faction in the legislature, have prepared several legislative proposals to back up Kovalyov's zeal with tough, specific action.


One is an amendment to the constitution giving the Duma control over the government's actions with the right to pass binding resolutions. In the previous session it was supported by the Communist Party, the reformists' most fierce opponents in the Duma.


Another bill, proposed by Viktor Pokhmelkin and Georgy Zadonsky of Russia's Choice, bans military action on the territory of Russia. A third one, proposed by Zadonsky, would forbid the government from budgeting any money for the Chechen operation.


These bills, which underwent preliminary discussions in factions and committees before the Duma broke for a short Christmas and New Year recess, received the support of most anti-war forces in the legislature, ranging across the political spectrum.


But even if the bills are defeated -- or vetoed by President Boris Yeltsin -- a growing number of deputies have expressed a desire to put forward a motion of no confidence in the government. Such a motion was first proposed by the Democratic Party of Russia in October, but it fell 32 votes short of the required majority of 226 votes. Most reformers backed the government or abstained.


Now, the chances that the motion will pass look stronger, since the Duma's most radical reformist faction was the first to propose a no-confidence vote.


"We demand that the State Duma unconditionally vote no confidence in the government," Boris Fyodorov, leader of the December 12 Union faction, said in a statement last week. "The obvious incompetence of the authorities threatens the very existence of the Russian Federation."


Fyodorov, who initially supported the invasion of Chechnya, now says the government and Yeltsin have bungled the operation. The faction controls roughly 30 votes in the Duma which were not cast against the government in October.The Democratic Party faction, according to its leader Sergei Glazyev, is willing to propose a no-confidence vote again.


"If the State Duma had supported our faction's no-confidence motion in October, the Chechen conflict would have been resolved differently, without mass casualties," Glazyev said in a written statement. "Until we have replaced this government, problems will continue to be resolved by force rather than by intelligence."


Neither of the two factions have formally proposed the no-confidence motion, according to top Duma spokesman Viktor Cheryomukhin. Fyodorov was absent from the Duma Council meeting Monday. But Cheryomukhin said it was likely that the question would come up Wednesday.