Gathering
at Moscow Lubyanka for Chechen independence
Seven
members of the Russian Movement for Chechen Independence demonstrated
Saturday in central Moscow. The protest took place at the site of the
Solovetsky stone, a memorial to the victims of the Soviet Union situated
in front of the ex-KGB headquarters, the Lubyanka.
The participants in the protest carried banners with slogans such as
"Russia - freedom! Chechnya - independence!"; "Chechnya will become
free and sovereign! For our and your freedom!"; "Russian invaders: out
of Chechnya!"; "Chechnya - independence"; and "Dear Moscow residents:
we congratulate you on the anniversary of the independence of Ichkeria!"
(name for Chechnya synonymous with independence).
The action began shortly after 3 p.m. local time. The participants informed
journalists they had applied for a permit to hold a demonstration, but
the Moscow City authorities had turned the request down. City residents
reacted generally benevolently to the protesters. After 3.40 p.m. the
demonstration peacefully broke up. Members of the police occasionally
approached the protesters but did not speak with them.
The Moscow City Day is being celebrated this weekend. By coincidence,
the date coincides with the anniversary of the fateful declaration of
Chechen independence on 6 September 1991. On that day, the then Chechen
leader, Dzokhar Dudayev, declared Chechnya, up till then part of the
"Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic" (an entity within
the borders of the Soviet Russian Socialist Republic), independent of
the Soviet Union. Dudayev was killed towards the end of the first war
in 1996, and his elected successor, Aslan Maskhadov, is somewhere in
the Chechen mountains while the pro-Russian administration under Akhmad
Kadirov resides in Grozny.