RUSSIAN BRUTALITY IN CHECHNYA BACK IN SPOTLIGHT

February 19, 2002 – (Pacific News – Chechnya) Western nations initially ignored Russia's ruthless military campaign in Chechnya to gain Moscow's support for the war on terrorism. Now, as reports of human rights abuses in the region stream in, Europe and America are losing patience.

Recent Amnesty International reports describe in gruesome detail the Russian military's role in the rape and trafficking of Chechen women. A 2001 U.S. State Department report on trafficking in persons described Russia as "a source country for women trafficked for prostitution." Many of those women come from war-torn Chechnya.

Amnesty details the case of Irina, a 14-year-old who died in detention at the Chernokozovo detention facility after "being ill-treated and tortured, including being repeatedly raped, by guards."

Another young girl, Kheda (Elza) Visaevna Kungaeva, aged 18, was taken from her family home by the commander of a tank regiment and his soldiers. Colonel Yury D. Budanov "took Kheda Kungaeva to his tent, reportedly to interrogate her, but instead he strangled her. A Russian army medical expert later concluded that, before she died, Kheda Kungaeva had been raped by several men."

There are also reports of Russian soldiers using Chechen civilians as human shields to storm hideouts of Chechen militias.

These dreadful war crimes speak volumes to the moral bankruptcy of the Russian military establishment, and continue to fuel the Chechen yearning for independence.
Shortly after Sept. 11, President Putin may have convinced the West to look the other way. But the tide is beginning to turn.

At a January meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, Germany, a special session was included to address the crisis in Chechnya, much to the chagrin of the Russian delegation. Russian delegates mocked Chechen representative Ahmed Zakaev, calling him a representative of Osama bin Laden.

During the same period, a meeting took place between Chechen diplomat Ilyas Ahmadov and representatives of the U.S. State Department.

These high-profile meetings between delegates of the Chechen resistance leadership and Western leaders seem to signal the end of short-lived Western silence.
The Russian government's diplomatic failure to win legitimacy for its war in Chechnya and to equate it with the war in Afghanistan was also matched by a series of military blunders committed by its forces on the ground.

Recently, the Russian military announced the conclusion of a sweeping crackdown on "terrorists," and claimed to have killed over 90 Chechen rebels.

Shortly after the announcement, The Independent, a London- based paper, accused the Russian government of fabricating the news of the military crackdown to cover up the deaths of 15 Russian soldiers killed by friendly fire.

Soon after, 14 senior Russian officials, including a deputy interior minister, were killed when their military helicopter crashed during a flight over Chechnya. The death toll included General Mikhail Rudhenko, who is in charge of security in southern Russia.

One thing is certain: the bloodletting in Chechnya is not over yet.

It may seem as if the plight of the Chechen people has no end in sight. But their determination to be free is unmistakable. Russia's atrocities in Chechnya go back to the 19th century, when the diminutive but oil-rich region was annexed to the Czarist Empire after a bloody campaign of colonization.

Since then, the Chechens have endured mass deportations and massacres, and have stared genocide in the face. Of the 1.1 million Chechens, more than 10 percent may have perished in the Russian campaign to subdue the tiny population.
It's time for Russia to let go of Chechnya, peacefully.

From: http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=862