Council of Europe parliamentarians call for an end to the ''climate of impunity'' in the Chechen RepublicStrasbourg, 02.04.2003 - If the efforts to bring to justice those guilty of human rights abuses are not intensified, and the climate of impunity in the Chechen Republic prevails, the international community should consider setting up an ad hoc tribunal to try war crimes and crimes against humanity in the republic, according to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.
In a resolution adopted today by a majority, the Assembly - which brings together parliamentarians from 44 European democracies, including the Russian Federation - said that so far everyone involved had "failed dismally" to protect the people of the Chechen Republic from human rights abuses, and said the main reason why both Russian soldiers and Chechen fighters went on committing such abuses to this day was that "they nearly always get away with them".
"Criminal investigations of gross violations by Russian forces and Chechen fighters are (…) few and far between, depressingly ineffective and mostly fail to secure convictions in court - if they reach that stage, which is rare," the parliamentarians said, debating a report by Rudolf Bindig (Germany, SOC) on behalf of the Assembly's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. They warned that without a tangible improvement in human rights, all attempts at pacifying the region were "doomed to failure".
Among other recommendations, the Assembly called on Council of Europe member states to lodge inter-state complaints against the Russian Federation before the European Court of Human Rights and to exercise "universal jurisdiction" for the most serious crimes committed in the Chechen Republic. Russian forces should be better controlled, discipline enforced, and all relevant military and civilian regulations, constitutional guarantees and international and humanitarian law fully respected. Chechen fighters should immediately stop their terrorist activities and renounce all forms of crime, while any kind of support for them should cease immediately.
Source: Council of Europe. (T) |
