The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe says it will send an observer
team to the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya to see if conditions are right
for a constitutional referendum.*
The announcement in Moscow Tuesday by OSCE chairman-in- office Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
comes at a tense time in relations between Russia and the European security body.
Moscow refused to renew permission for an OSCE mission in Chechnya at the beginning
of the year. Moscow wants the mission confined to humanitarian work, while the
OSCE has taken up human rights issues.
Russian officials see the proposed referendum as a first step toward a political
solution to the Chechnya conflict. But critics of the plan say the violence
there is still too widespread to hold the referendum as scheduled March 23.
Some information for this report provided by AFP, Reuters.
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* Comment by Norbert Strade (Chechnya Yahoo mailing list administrator): Even
the idea that a referendum >might< be o.k. is a breach of OSCE's previous
recognition of the Maskhadov government, which of course was elected according
to the constitution of the ChRI. This move means that the OSCE has changed its
line on Chechnya without explaining why it doesn't recognize the existing Chechen
constitution any longer. Has the OSCE begun to follow Putin's autocratic and illegal
acts without asking questions? Perhaps they want to replace PACE as Putin's favourite
appeasement tool? N.S.