Should we trade away human rights for backing Russia? This article was published in Czech daily MF Dnes on Nov 7, 2001. Prague Watchdog re-publishes the article as a part of our monitoring of the international political reaction to the conflict in Chechnya in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the U.S.A.
In February 2000, the US Senate issued a resolution urging the Russian Federation government to stop immediately its military campaign in Chechnya, to enable the international missions to enter the North Caucasus republic, and investigate atrocities bringing those responsible to justice. In particular, the senators drew attention to bombardments of civilian targets resulting in thousands of dead innocent people and 250 thousand others forced to leave their homes, to large-scale looting, extra-judicial executions, arbitrary detentions and violations of civilians’ right for safe departure as well as tortures and rapes committed by Russian soldiers. But after September 11, the White House spokesman, on behalf of the United States, called on the Chechen officials to cut immediately ties with international terrorist organisations such as Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Moreover, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, after the talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, advocated “a more differentiated approach” to the situation in Chechnya.
On his visit to Prague, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov reacted flatly to the question concerning human and civil rights abuses in Chechnya stating that Russia fights terrorism there with no desire to accept any other view of the campaign. So, the question is: what made it possible to change the perception of the protracted Chechen-Russian conflict that has culminated in two wars during the last ten years? Most probably, the reason is that the international antiterrorist coalition, in need of having Russia on its side, is willing to turn a blind eye to an apparent state terrorism causing massacres of civilians.
However evident the presence of religious and political extremism members among Chechen guerrillas seems to be, nobody has so far brought about a single piece of reliable evidence of links between the Chechens and Islamic terrorist groups. Moreover, such contacts are resolutely denied by Chechens themselves. International human rights organizations have called on the European Union to insist on the principle of human rights protection as the basis for EU – Russia partnership and thus strictly refuse Putin’s attempts to misuse the current situation and continue human rights abuses in Chechnya. “The EU must not trade human rights for the Russian support. There is a universal right to justice for innocent victims everywhere, whether they are buried under the rubble in New York, Grozny or Moscow,” reads the statement of Amnesty International.
Chechnya is going through second war. Obviously, it is disputable whether the war is an armed conflict in which the nation fights against colonial domination, alien occupation or racist regime in the exercise of its right of self-determination, as defined by the international law, or any other type of an internal conflict within the Russian Federation. However, what is unquestionable, the Russians have completely failed to comply with any rules, international conventions as well as fundamental humanity. Like Nazis in WW II, they use civilians as hostages in their fight against Chechen armed formations. Witnesses' testimonies are indeed horrible. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has recently accused Russia of concealing atrocities committed by Russian soldiers. As the HRW’s report says, over fifty bodies have been found near the Chechen capital Grozny. Allegedly, these were bodies of Chechen men and women killed in a mass execution by federal soldiers. Russian authorities have identified only 19 bodies out 51 with the rest being buried without a proper identification procedure. “Russian authorities have literally buried evidence of extra-judicial executions in Chechnya”, says the Human Rights Watch report.
Chechnya is in the throes of a large-scale corruption, plundering, detentions of civilians and trading them back to their relatives (the ransom makes as much as 1,000 US dollars or three machine guns) and killing of inconvenient witnesses. Although in July Russian authorities informed about an arrest of 19 federal soldiers suspected of atrocities against civilians, all the servicemen were released after questioning. The Novaya Gazeta newspaper reporter Anna Politkovskaya wrote that Russian forces, KGB’s successor Federal Security Service (FSB) in particular, have established a commercially oriented concentration camp in the Chechen Republic where kidnapped civillians are held and later sold for ransom. Politkovskaya described current tortures and arbitrary imprisonment of civilians in a cold pit in the village of Khatuni. The soldiers serving in this area are mentally ill people. “The officers need a serious psychological and psychiatric treatment. They must be withdrawn from there”, writes Politkovskaya, herself facing threats of being killed.
With the aim of suppressing similar eye-witnesses of atrocities in Chechnya, Russian forces cut the whole country from international watchdogs. The roots of terrorism reside in the lack of freedom and democracy, xenophobia and contempt for otherness. Wherever we back down from freedom and human rights, potential for terrorism grows, albeit state, group or an individual one.
What Russia tries to do is to force the international community to accept its interpretation of crimes committed by federal forces in Chechnya. It is true that Chechen authorities and local individual armed groups lack unity. Besides, military actions, like the invasion to Dagestan, bear a strong resemblance to Jihad. However, that does not make the Russians clear of their responsibility for barbaric treatment of civilians and 300 thousand displaced Chechens. Turning a blind eye to this fact just because Russia “shares the same boat” tells a lot about our vision of future. And I say, like it or not, unless Russians terminate the war against civilians, do their best to launch negotiations and find courage to assume responsibility for thousands of dead, tortured and humiliated Chechen people, they cannot board the boat of the civilized world. Moreover, should the civilized world stay silent making the Russian violence legitimate, there will be no such a boat anymore.
Jan Ruml is Vice-Chairman of the Senate and former Interior Minister of the Czech Republic.
Reaction of G. Askaldovich of the Russian Embassy in the Czech Republic published in MF Dnes on November 15.
Ruml’s Comparison of the Russians to Nazis is offensive
The Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Czech Republic has noticed an article published in MF DNES and written by the Senate Vice-Chairman Jan Ruml. The press service of the Embassy considers it useful to again remind that large scale military operations have not been taking place in Chechnya for a long time, local administration authorities are working again, the infrastructure and life in general is returning to its normal. The progress in the restoration of everyday life was also noted by the Council of Europe. Prosecutor’s office is working actively in the republic investigating – among others – crimes committed by soldiers, and the Russian side does not conceal the fact. Everyone really interested in the current problems of Chechnya can easily verify this information. Comparing Russians to the Nazis, as written by Mr. Ruml, is unacceptable and vituperative to us. The world community is nowadays more than ever aware of the necessity of united approach. However Mr. Ruml rather exhorts to mistrust not only to Russia but also to its main partners in the antiterrorist coalition. Mr. Ruml accuses the members of this coalition of a plot and cynical trade. Neither Russia nor our main international partners trade with human rights. The antiterrorist coalition, of which Russia is one of the most important members, does not fight against nations, nor against Islam, but against international terrorism whose metastases proliferated in the whole world. And who else than the former minister of interior Jan Ruml should know that.
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