MOSCOW: Moscow: Moscow officials rejoiced yesterday over a vote that they said inextricably tied restive Chechnya to the Russian Federation, but rebels in the war-torn republic immediately vowed to continue their fight for independence.
Russian election officials announced that about 95 per cent of voters in Chechnya's referendum on Sunday had approved of a new constitution for the devastated region, in a poll that President Vladimir Putin said should put an end to almost a decade of conflict between separatist rebels and federal forces. "We have resolved the last serious problem regarding Russia's territorial integrity," Mr Putin said yesterday on Russian television.
"The people of Chechnya did this directly and in a most democratic way," he said, insisting that rebels who still ambush Russian soldiers every day in Chechnya had now been stripped of any claim to popular support.
Mr Putin pledged last week that a "positive" outcome in the referendum would lead to broad autonomy for Chechnya, payment of compensation to thousands of people made homeless in two wars since 1994, and to a major rebuilding programme for the region's shattered infrastructure.
Mr Sergei Yastrzhembsky, a senior Kremlin aide on Chechnya, said Moscow should now offer an amnesty to most of the region's rebels.
"Now the moment has arrived when it is necessary to be brave enough to declare the broadest possible amnesty in Chechnya, because the federal centre has the power, the possibility and the moral right to be magnanimous," he said.
Moscow officials said elections on a Chechen parliament and president would follow in a few months' time.
In a statement on their website, kavkazcenter.com, Chechnya's rebels called the vote "a farce" that would change nothing.
"Armed opposition to Russian aggression and occupation of the Chechen state will continue, until the aggressors are driven from the territory of Chechnya and the full legal power of the Chechen people and state are restored," the statement said.
Most Western countries re- fused to send observers, saying the security situation was too un- stable. Observers from former Soviet states said the poll was fair but monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said they would deliver a separate report.
