Russia is accused of backing rule by terror in
Chechnya
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
17 February 2005

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=611775

Russia has been accusedof presiding over an orgy of
kidnapping, torture and murder in the breakaway
republic of Chechnya and of forcing the region's cowed
inhabitants to live in a climate of "fear and
intimidation".

Chechen civilians were being abducted at the rate of
two a day by the authorities for interrogation
purposes, Human Rights Watch alleged yesterday, and,
in many cases, simply disappeared without trace.

In the past the kidnap targets were young men but now
they are said to be society's most vulnerable: the
old, young women and teenagers. Some civilians are
simply dragged from their homes and shot in the
street, it was claimed, while others are drugged and
tortured.

The shocking allegations will enrage the Kremlin and
Chechnya's Moscow-backed government which fiercely
denies any involvement in the daily abductions. The
official line is that life in Chechnya is getting back
to normal, that federal money is being poured into its
difficult renaissance and that law and order - of some
sort - prevails.

Russian celebrities recently attended a ceremony there
to mark the construction of a water park for the
republic's long-suffering children and Moscow is on
the brink of handing over far-reaching autonomy to its
government, which professes loyalty to Russian
President Vladimir Putin.

But Human Rights Watch, which has just carried out a
two-week investigation in Chechnya and interviewed
dozens of people, painted a very different picture.
Anna Neistat, the head of the group's office in
Moscow, said people's already blighted lives were
actually getting worse.

"It's really difficult to believe that the situation
there could get any worse than it has been in the past
couple of years but that is what we heard from a
number of witnesses," she said.

"At least during the wars [federal forces entered the
republic in 1994 and 1999] they knew what to expect
but now they live in constant fear because anything
could happen at any moment."

Ms Neistat said Russian federal forces and militia
loyal to the republic's Moscow-backed Deputy Prime
Minister Ramzan Kadyrov were to blame for two-thirds
of all kidnappings.

"We've talked to people who have been released. Their
fingers were broken, they were detained with a bag
over their heads and were drugged and starved. They
were severely tortured ... and then dumped in a forest
in a state of shock," she said. People were kidnapped
to have information beaten out of them, she added, or
because they were suspected of having some connection
with the separatist rebels.

Those who live to tell the tale are too scared to
complain.

Ms Neistat said: "People are absolutely scared to
talk. They believe that if they say a single word
their relatives will be kidnapped the very next day."

The human rights group Memorial said recently that
about 1,000 civilians had gone missing in Chechnya in
the past five years. Last year alone it recorded
almost 400 abductions including those of 24 people who
were later found dead with signs of torture.

Ms Neistat said US President George Bush should raise
the issue when he meets Mr Putin next week at a summit
in Slovakia. "It's time for the international
community to stop ignoring what is going on in
Chechnya. International law is not being respected,"
Ms Neistat said.






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