Russia Accused Of Killing 20,000 Chechen Civilians

Ananova ^ | 11-15-2002

[blam]

Russia accused of killing 20,000 chechen civilians

European human rights groups claim Russian forces have killed up to 20,000 Chechen civilians over the past three years.

The non-governmental organisations believe Russia deliberately targets civilians in its campaign against separatist rebels.

Russian president Vladimir Putin says the rebels are terrorists and likens Russia's campaign against them to President George Bush's "war on terror."

Though Russia agreed to a ceasefire with the rebels in the mid 1990s, they resumed fighting in Chechnya in 1999, after rebels were blamed for several bombings and attacks in the region.

Present at a conference over the Chechen crisis were representatives of Human Rights Watch, Russian rights group Memorial, the German-Caucasian Society, and Lord Judd, who reports on Chechnya to the Council of Europe.

"Our job now is to build concern over Chechnya in the political community," said Lord Judd.

He said he would work both with members of the Russian parliament and other European countries to pressure the Russian government to reform.

Lord Judd said he was disappointed at the lack of protest from European governments.

Story filed: 17:12 Friday 15th November 2002

[joesnuffy]

good start

[dennisw]

I support Russia 100% in Chechnya. No quarter for the Jehadis.

[Bogey78O]

20,000? I have a hard time believing that.

[dasboot]

The Chechens are the authors of their own oppression: They have this nasty new tradition of videotaping their soldiers sawing through the necks of living Russian policemen (after shooting them in the hands to prevent them from resisting the blade), then posting the clips on the internet.

Oh yeah: then there are the clips of Russian POW's being tortured by having electric current passed through their genitals and anuses. Very pathetic watching those living skeletons just sobbing, being kept just alive enough to bear the pain. Those films were run on 60 Minutes a few years ago. Then there are the bombs and murders inside Russia.

If I were there, I might be inclined to scorch earth.

[Burkeman1]

While I empathize with Russia and her situation in Chechnya I don't disbelieve this figure. The Russian army is horrendous in both training and leadership. It's soldiers are not even properly supplied. The Red Army conduct in Afghanistan was despicable and I have no trouble believing it is even worse today in Chechnya. While we should support Russia in this conflict we shouldn't fool ourselves either.

[Burkeman1]

I have seen such a clip on the Internet- it made me sick. But Russian troops have done the same- even adopted the practice of kidnapping for ransom and sending videos of torture to families.

[dasboot]

True. I'd say the troops have devolved to using the tactics of their enemies. As was stated above, those soldiers and police aren't well supervised; barbarity begets barbarity....

I think the only plausible solution is for Vlad to win the territory with overwhelming force and subject it to martial law.

The Chechens must be prevented from obtaining independence for the sake of global security. There is no reclaiming that culture to civilized existence. The Russian forces, however, can be repatriated, their vices withheld.

[stalin]

Inb the first war the civilian deaths came to over 100,000 in one year. 20,000 in the last three years is easy to believe.

Their war in Chechnya is nothing like the war on terror.

It would have been nice to have seen the US kill 20,000 Taliban and AL Q. but not woman and children.

[stalin]

I think the only plausible solution is for Vlad to win the territory with overwhelming force and subject it to martial law

That happened three years ago. It's been martial law ever since. The 20,000 dead civilians has been durring the martial law period. You can bet that the Russians are doing even worse.

[Burkeman1]

I have mixed feelings about Putin. He is a paradox. He comes from the KGB and by the 70's and 80's the KGB was little more than an organized crime outfit (skimming profits from the black market and all of them had foreign bank accounts). But it also attracted the best and brightest. Putin is very intelligent. He is no intellectual by any means- more like an educated thug. But he has continued to surprise me. He institued a 13 percent flat tax which is currently driving the Russian economy and he has enforced tax collection. He also enacted the first real rural farming reforms- land can now be bought and sold on the open market (granted- only to Russian nationals) but that is a giant leap forward to getting rid of the old apparatchiks who still had a lot of power in Russia.

And yet he is hostile to a free press. I don't trust him but I also admire him.

[Woahhs]

And yet he is hostile to a free press.

And that's a problem?

[Burkeman1]

I have mixed feelings about this war in Chechnya. But after 9/11 I must side with my country. Those rebels have Al Queda in their ranks. I admire the Chechyans for their resistance to the Soviet regime and I am well aware of what happened to them under Stalin. But at the same time the Chechyan culture became a criminal culture during Soviet Rule (and maybe we can't blame them for that)- but facts are facts. I wish the Russian Army was better behaved- but as the Russians themselves are now just emerging from 70 years of atheist rule and have no moral culture or bearings either- I will side with the culture that is at least nominally western and Christian.

[dasboot]

The natural result of half-measures. I mean OVERWHELMING force, with high-level command on-site....fresh troops.

The old Vlad was, maybe, experimenting with 'Third Way', Clintonian, U.N.-approved machinations--lord knows we've engendered our own series of limp-wristed clustf***s in troubled regions for the past eight years. But there's a new paradigm at work--the necessary result of pirates with national ambition: someone must win, or the bad stuff continues.

I'm on the side of Western powers. An empire of radical Arab states bodes ill for the human race: the Golden Rule supplanted by......

[Objectivism USA]

Take a look at the history of this conflict over the last 85 years. The Chechen people took advantage of the communist revolution to try and gain their independence and for that crime Stalin targeted the entire Chechen population for extreme persecution. With the fall of the Soviet Union the Chechens again sought independence. In the Chechen people you had a group that was primarily secular although if pressed they would probably claim to be Muslim. They were Muslim in the same way as many Americans might be considered Christian even though they never attend church never read the bible and if pressed would not acknowledge really knowing Christ as their Savior.
The Russians by intentionally targeting the Civilian population in an attempt to intimidate opposition actually created more of it. Being outgunned the Chechens sought assistance in their struggle and the Extremist Muslims of Osama bin Laden were only too happy to oblige. The Russian military finding it easier to fight Civilians than to try and find and fight armed rebels simply made matters worse.
Look at Afghanistan where the Taliban was created by Russian oppression and subsequent withdrawal leaving a population with no Government and a radicalized group of Rebels willing to accommodate Osama and his training camps. Without the Russian brutality Afghanistan and the rest of Central Asia would simply be a backward society posing no threat to the rest of the world.
Osama would likely still seek control of the Muslim world and then to use the Muslims to control the world. Without Central Asia Osama would have based his operation in Yemen Somalia and parts of the Arab World where a mixture of oil wealth and corrupt Governments would still provide fertile ground for his radical ideas.
Right now most of the Chechen people would support peace but Russia needs an enemy in order to divert Russian attention from the many problems plaguing Russian society. There are a number of Radical Chechen rebels that also want to keep the fight going but the Russian military is incapable of and possibly unwilling to fight and eliminate the threat so they target civilians and continue to make things worse.

[cake_crumb]

ACCUSED of killing 20,000 CIVILIANS??

Where's the BS-meter graphic??

Accused with what proof?

Now the Russian government is put into the position of defending itself against outlandish accusations worthy of Pali Muslim propagandists.

Oh...my apologies to the Pali propagandists...I know you only pad casualites by a hundred here and a hundred there, so you've only got about a thousand more dead people than you do dead people. You're just the only ones I have hard numbers on. And the Afghans, but they didn't last long enough, and they're worse at it than you.

I digress.

'Scuse me if I don't take this BASELESS accusation at face value. Mr. Putin, though I don't like you, I hope you fight this and win.

[dasboot]

I think Vlad has thoroughly erased Communism and Third Way Socialism from his playbook. Inspired by the success of his free-market ukase, he continues, with caution, toward our American system. And, thus, he has become the target of deposed Communists who use the Chechens as mercenaries to undermine him so they may retake and remold the USSR.

According to Golytsin, that was generally the plan; I think they assumed Putin would follow through in patriotic fashion; he, the KGB party-animal. He is a traitor to them, as best I can surmise.

In sum, I think Vlad has experienced the intoxicating effect of being a leader beloved, rather than one feared. I can't say I trust anyone, but Vlad has my full respect, so far. I hope he remains tough, resolute, and safe....from his old "friends".

[dasboot]

Exactly.

The CPI is working overtime to spew dirt on all the leaders of the Western world who seek to defend against the international Islamic terrorists--their useful clients.

[cake_crumb]

"And yet he is hostile to a free press. I don't trust him but I also admire him."

I was very upset when he effectively reinstated Soviet style, state controlled media as well. I RESPECT some of the things he's done for his country, but haven't gotten to the point of admiration. He's still a Clintonista Third Way Buddy, and not to be trusted.