February 12, 2002	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 28, 1422

MOSCOW, Feb 11: Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov said on Monday that evidence should soon emerge that Russian secret services staged a wave of deadly apartment bombings to start the war in Chechnya and propel Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin.

Maskhadov said that charges aired by Russia’s self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky should prove to the public that Chechens were victims of a sinister war staged by Moscow insiders for their personal political gain.

“I hope that Mr Berezovksy, as he has promised to do, at the end of February will open everyone’s eyes” by broadcasting a documentary linking the Federal Security Service (FSB, ex-KGB) to the September 1999 blasts that claimed nearly 300 lives,” said Maskhadov.

“I think that then it will be understood that the secret service tried to create a cause for launching this barbaric aggression against the Chechen people, after accusing the Chechens of staging the bombings,” he said.

“This will be an extraordinary revelation to the international community.”

Maskhadov, who is considered a fugitive by Russian authorities, answered questions in person on condition that his whereabouts not be released.

Moscow officials have discouraged the Russian media from airing interviews with Chechen separatist leaders including Maskhadov, whom they consider a terrorist.

President Putin accuses Chechen separatists of staging the apartment block blasts in Moscow and southern Russian cities which shocked the country and made people deeply suspicious of the mayhem that ruled Chechnya following the end of the first, 1994-96 war there.

That war left the republic with de facto independence which it claims to this day, but which has not been recognized by any other government.

The Chechens denied any involvement in the attacks, and Russia has so far failed to deliver any proof linking the rebels to the bombings.

This year Berezovsky, a prominent Putin critic who once held a senior government post in which he had dealings with Chechen rebel representatives, announced that he had evidence linking the FSB to the incident.

Some have suggested that the government may have organized the bombings in order to justify a war in Chechnya, which stirred public patriotism, boosted Putin’s popularity and helped him storm to the presidency in March 2000.

Berezovsky, who is facing criminal charges in Russia linked to his business activities, said he held no proof linking the alleged government plot to Putin, who once headed the FSB.

Both the FSB and Putin have brushed off the charges.

The agency has also opened its own investigation into terrorism allegations against Berezovsky.

Maskhadov, meanwhile, appeared as strident as ever on Monday in his view that separatist fighters would continue their resistance to the Russian forces indefinitely.

However, as before, he said the 28-month war will one day end, and that he was willing to lead negotiations with Russia — on his own terms.

“Negotiations are inevitable, both sides need them, and our active resistance will only encourage these talks,” Maskhadov said. “If the Chechens show their weakness, they will destroy us.”

He said that the first direct negotiations that were held between both sides’ representatives in November in Moscow were initiated by the Kremlin, and that he was willing to conduct them again.

“Only the Russian leadership’s reluctance to admit that they have made a mistake, and accept the guilt, is prolonging this war,” he said.

“I think the Russian army is the only army in the world that does not count its losses,” Maskhadov added.

More than 3,500 Russian soldiers and up to 20,000 rebels have been killed in the fighting according to the official toll, although those figures are disputed. The civilian toll of the war has never been reported.—AFP