ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 27, 1995 TAG: 9512270124
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MOSCOW
TYPE: ANALYSIS
SOURCE: SERGEI SHARGORODSKY ASSOCIATED PRESS
RUSSIANS AND REBELS can either look for a compromise or fight it out to the bitter, bloody end.
After a new surge of violence in Chechnya, Russia and Chechen rebels have two choices to end their year-old war: compromise on self-rule instead of independence, or fight to the bitter, bloody end.
Either option could mean still more months of bloodshed. The guerrillas have regrouped and appear to be well-equipped for winter, and neither side appears willing to settle for anything but complete victory.
Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin says there is no military solution to the conflict that began Dec. 11, 1994, when Russian troops marched into Chechnya to crush its drive for independence.
Even as Russian troops were trying to pound the rebels into submission in some of the heaviest fighting in months, Chernomyrdin insisted Monday that his government wants to make peace.
The Kremlin signed an agreement Dec. 8 with the government installed by its troops in Chechnya, giving the republic expanded control over its internal affairs and the right to open representative offices abroad.
But the rebels weren't involved in negotiating the agreement, and President Boris Yeltsin's government appears unwilling to resume negotiations that collapsed in October.
Instead, Russia insisted on elections Dec. 17 to legitimize its handpicked leader for the republic, Doku Zavgayev, ignoring rebel demands for Russian troops to withdraw before the vote.
If talks with Russia resume, a key demand by the rebels is likely to be new elections.
The rebels so far won't accept either Zavgayev's government or expanded self-rule under the control of Moscow.
That has led to some of the fiercest fighting in months.
A 10-day battle for Gudermes, Chechnya's second-largest city, killed at least 600 Chechens, half of them civilians. According to Chechen officials, one-third of the city, which was spared in earlier fighting, is in ruins.
Gudermes might be only the beginning.
``The situation in many areas again looks like a puff-pastry pie stuffed with gunpowder,'' the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote Tuesday.
The rebels appear to dominate the areas southeast of the Chechen capital of Grozny and are harassing Russian troops elsewhere.
The Kremlin's strategy appears to be based in part on the belief that the majority of Chechnya's residents are tired of the war.
But so far, the Kremlin and its Chechen supporters have failed to win the public's loyalty by delivering on promises of massive aid.
At least 30,000 families remain homeless, according to official figures, and there is no economic activity besides limited agriculture and market trade.
The rebels also have demonstrated they can easily return. Trying to thwart the elections and remove Moscow loyalists, armed separatists recently seized key buildings in several cities.
Russia could go after the rebels with its full military might, but that wouldn't be easy.
During talks with the rebels in the summer and fall, Moscow made a key mistake by letting the rebels leave their hideouts in the southern mountains and spread through Chechnya. Now they're in a position to fight.
And if full-scale hostilities resume, some rebel commanders could be prompted to make good on their promises of new terrorist attacks in Russia's heartland.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB