In case CTO regime is cancelled, 20,000 soldiers will leave Chechnya

About 20,000 militaries men of Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of the Russian Federation will be removed from Chechnya, should the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime is cancelled in the republic; the remaining soldiers will get much smaller salaries and travel allowances.

On March 25, President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov stated that the multi-year counterterrorist operation will be officially over in Chechnya in late March. This initiative was met by pros and cons. However, President of Russia Dmitri Medvedev has instructed the head of the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC) of Russia to consider the issue at the NAC session on March 31.

The counterterrorist operation in Chechnya was launched in October 1999.

"The servicemen's salaries will be halved, equal to what they get in 'peaceful' regions," a spokesman of the Military Commandant's Office of the republic said to the "Caucasian Knot"  correspondent.

Employees of Chechnya's MIA, in their turn, are also afraid of cut in their salaries.

"Should the CTO regime be cancelled, the militaries and special agents, first of all, the commanders, will lose a lot. It refers to increased salaries of generals and senior officers and the so-called 'combat bonuses', and accelerated career promotions, when a year of 'hot spot' service was recorded as three," said a local observer who preferred to remain anonymous.

Earlier, Alexei Malashenko, expert for Northern Caucasus and a member of the Scientific Board of the Moscow-based Carnegie Centre, had stated that plans to stop the CTO in Chechnya may have something to do with the economic crisis.

In his opinion, the crisis could give rise to the plans to decrease funding of the grouping of federal forces in Chechnya.

Alexander Cherkasov, a member of the Board of the Society "Memorial", said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that if we address the law on fighting terrorism of 1998, we can see that a CTO is something short-term and local.

"Suppose we have a terror act, and we have no time to apply to parliament for a sanction to use force, introduce some special legal regime or the state of emergency," said Mr Cherkasov. "Therefore, they have invented a certain legal regime that can be introduced without parliament's sanction."

In his opinion, introduction of CTO created a man-made zone of legal vacuum, where through the efforts of domestic "death squadrons" thousands have disappeared - from 3 to 5 thousand persons are still missing, according to the "Memorial".

According to the human rights activist, now they plan to cancel this legal regime, which is not intended for such long use. Ingushetia and Dagestan live without it. "If we take statistics of disappearances or statistics of casualties among law enforcers, the latter probably better reflecting the activity of the underground movement, we'll see that Chechnya is equal to Dagestan and below Ingushetia. Thus, what's the sense to hold this regime in Chechnya?" Alexander Cherkasov has noted and added that in Ingushetia and Dagestan the CTO regime is announced, if necessary, for a short time locally in some village or district.