CHECHNYA LINKS LIBRARY

European Commission to promote “export of democracy” in the Caucasus

NAZRAN, Ingushetia – The European Commission intends to promote the development of civil society in Chechnya and Ingushetia through projects of local public organizations, announced Guillermo Martinez, a member of the Delegation of the European Commission to Russia, during his April 5-7 visit to Ingushetia.

According to him, the EC, in making human rights a priority, is going to develop democratic initiatives in Russia. “It will be kind of an export of democratic values,” said Martinez.

Two projects have been already underway since February 1. One is the Chechen Committee of National Salvation’s “Responsibility for human rights violations in the Northern Caucasus”, and the other is the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society’s coverage of the human rights situation in Chechnya and Ingushetia.

One of the aims of Martinez’s trip is to examine the initial results of these projects. “I visited the offices of these organizations and talked with their teams. Work has successfully begun, but of course there are some difficulties, particularly in connection with the safety of the project members,” he added.

He spent a lot of time studying human rights violations in Ingushetia, meeting with representatives of the republic, with the ombudsman and with members of human rights organizations. And while meeting with families of the people who have been abducted, he received a list of 160 names of those who disappeared in the past two years.

Martinez also visited some refugee camps that house people from the Prigorodny district in neighbouring North Ossetia, and said the conflict there “lacks international attention. After Beslan, ethnic relations in that area have greatly deteriorated.”

He also met with members of civic organisations in Chechnya and Ingushetia and presented them with a new project within the European Union's program “European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights”, one of the priorities of which is the battle against human rights violations in the Northern Caucasus.

“We would like to receive grant proposals from NGOs who are not based in Moscow but are actually here, so they can work independently in the future,” Martinez added.

(MG/E,T)