Chechnya's Disappeared
Monday, April 4, 2005; Page A20

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23869-2005Apr3.html

WHEN RUSSIAN forces killed Chechen leader Aslan
Maskhadov last month, they also eliminated the best
remaining hope for a negotiated settlement between
Russia and Chechen separatist forces. The strongest
surviving Chechen leader, Shamil Basayev, is a
terrorist who favors the slaughter of Russian
civilians and with whom negotiations are unthinkable.
Mr. Maskhadov, by contrast, the elected leader of the
breakaway region in Russia's south, was a secular
Muslim who repeatedly called for a political solution
to the grinding conflict -- and who was just as
repeatedly rebuffed by President Vladimir Putin.

Now a new report from Human Rights Watch illuminates
some of the human costs of this conflict without
apparent end. In the capital of Grozny, the nonprofit
advocacy group reports, full-fledged combat no longer
takes place, but what remains is "worse than a war,"
according to many residents. The city remains in
ruins, without running water or electricity, but what
makes life truly unbearable there and throughout the
Connecticut-size province is the constant threat of
"disappearances." According to the respected Russian
human rights group Memorial, between 3,000 and 5,000
civilians have "disappeared" since 1999, when Russian
troops moved into Chechnya for a second time in the
decade. Official government statistics acknowledge
more than 2,000 disappearances.

During a January reporting trip to Chechnya, Human
Rights Watch investigators found that the vast
majority of abductions are carried out by Russian or
pro-Moscow Chechen security forces. Most of the
victims are men, but increasingly women are being
taken also. Security forces, often armed and hooded,
sometimes drunk, typically come to a house and take
someone away without explanation. Some bodies, showing
signs of torture, have been recovered; in most cases,
relatives have no idea whether their loved ones are
dead or alive. "According to a Chechen official, 1,814
criminal investigations were opened into enforced
disappearances, yet not a single one has resulted in a
conviction," Human Rights Watch reports.

For the most part people outside Russia don't speak
much about these crimes. U.S. officials are reluctant
to press Mr. Putin on Chechnya while seeking his
cooperation elsewhere in the world; the Bush
administration's vulnerability to charges of human
rights abuse in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere also may be
an inhibiting factor. Most European officials face no
comparable charge of hypocrisy but, driven often by
commercial considerations, are even less willing to
offend Mr. Putin by discussing his crimes against
humanity in Chechnya. And the conflict seems so
intractable, and many of the Chechen fighters
themselves are so unsympathetic, that there is a
tendency to shrug and move on to other issues.

Meanwhile Chechen civilians continue to fall victim to
fighters on both sides of the conflict. The population
once numbered 1 million; though no one knows exactly,
probably hundreds of thousands have been killed,
wounded, "disappeared" or forced to move during two
wars with Russia (the first lasted from 1994 to 1996).
No one can force Mr. Putin to negotiate an end to the
war, and for now perhaps no one can conjure a
negotiating partner. But the U.N. Human Rights
Commission could insist that disappearances be
investigated and that responsible officials be held
accountable.
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For complete coverage on Chechnya see:
http://www.islamawareness.net/Persecution/Chechnya/


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