MOSCOW. Dec 5 (Interfax-AVN) - Separatist leaders are trying to hamper the return of Chechen refugees from Ingushetia, the Interior Ministry's Federal Migration Service reports.
Representatives of Chechen elected president Aslan Maskhadov "are carrying our a propaganda campaign in the tent camps," Igor Yunash, the Federal Migration Service's first deputy chief, told journalists on Thursday. "They are paying money and trying not only to convince, but also to intimidate people in an effort to keep the tent camps open," he said.
"The influence of Maskhadov's representatives was particularly strong in Ingushetia's Aki-Yurt tent camp, which was closed a few days ago. It was located near the border with Chechnya," Yunash said.
According to the official, Chechen rebels received assistance from refugee camps in Ingushetia. "There is information that these camps served as a hide-out for rebel group members and raised funds for them."
Commenting on the criticism Russia's authorities have come under for their move to close the tents camps in Ingushetia, he said that "certain Western political circles are interested in having tent camps preserved in Ingushetia, as this would send a signal that not everything is normal in Chechnya, thus proving that the state is incapable of sorting out the problems of displaced people." Yunash noted that once Ingushetia's tent camps are close, humanitarian organizations would "lose a front for their activities."
He said the tent camps in Ingushetia, which are currently home to over 18,000 people, will be closed by early 2003. Yunash said that most refugees will return to Chechnya in December, before heavy frosts arrive.
About 12,000 refugees will be settled in private houses in Chechnya, while another 6,000 will be provided with accommodation in temporary settlement centers that are expected to open in the near future.
No one is forcing refugees back to Chechnya, Yunash said. He stressed "there is no place for the use of force. Neither the Federal Migration Service nor the prosecutor's office has received a single complaint that anybody was returned to Chechnya by force. Those who do not want to return will be settled in private houses in Ingushetia," he said.