November 16, 2002	Saturday	Ramazan 10, 1423

THE HAGUE, Nov 15: Russia has played into the hands of militant groups in Chechnya by murdering and torturing civilians in a campaign “bordering on genocide” in the rebel region, a human rights watchdog said on Friday.

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), which says it has evidence of murders, torture and rape by Russian forces in Chechnya, urged Moscow to find a political solution to the long-standing conflict.

Russia denies its troops have been involved in systematic abuses and says excesses are investigated and punished. It says life is returning to normal in Chechnya despite fresh clashes between its troops and rebels.

The watchdog condemned last month’s three-day hostage seizure in Moscow by Chechen rebels but said Russia’s campaign in the region had only hardened Chechen militancy.

“The campaign is driving people into the arms of extremists. The campaign is not a campaign against terrorism. It is a campaign that is generating terrorism. It’s a source of terrorism,” IHF executive director Aaron Rhodes told a news conference in the Netherlands.

The IHF, an alliance of human rights groups in 37 countries, said Russia’s Chechen campaign was killing many civilians.

“We have characterised this as a process which borders on genocide,” Rhodes said.

One Moscow-based human rights group, taking part in a two-day IHF general assembly at The Hague, estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 Chechen civilians had been killed by Russian forces since 1999.

Moscow’s troops are regularly accused by Western governments and human rights groups of looting houses and killing civilians during raids aimed at rooting out rebel fighters.

Fewer than 40 servicemen charged with rights violations have been convicted since the present campaign began.

A decree issued in March this year by the commander of Russia’s forces in Chechnya ordered servicemen to identify themselves and take local officials with them during raids on suspected separatist hideouts, in a bid to curb possible abuse.

“The crisis is one of impunity. There is no success in bringing those responsible for human law violations to justice. None at all. Russian institutions have been categorically incapable of undertaking this job,” Rhodes said.

Russian forces withdrew from Chechnya in 1996 after 20 months of fierce fighting which cost thousands of lives.

President Vladimir Putin sent troops back in 1999 after attacks in Dagestan and bomb attacks in Russian cities that Moscow blamed on the rebels.

In Brussels this week, Putin pointed to a planned referendum on Chechnya’s new constitution to deflect European charges that he was banking all on solving the crisis by force of arms.

APPEAL TO UKRAINE: Russia repeated on Friday its demand for Ukrainian authorities to shut down a Chechen rebel information center operating from the southern port city of Odessa, the Russian embassy here said.

The Chechen information center has been running for several years with support from Ukraine’s nationalist Rukh party, which often takes a hostile view of Moscow and argues that the rebels’ information counter-balances biased reports on the war coming from Moscow.

Russia and the Chechen guerrillas have been engaged in a bitter propaganda war throughout the three-year conflict in the separatist republic, with Russian security services frequently trying to crack down on rebel Internet sites operating from other regions.

The activities “of the information center of the republic of Ichkeria (Chechnya), through its links with the regional Rukh party ... are aimed at giving political and propaganda backing to the terrorists,” the Russian embassy statement said.

Russia has been repeating its demands for the center to be shut down since last month’s terrorist attack on a Moscow theater which 128 civilians died.

Ukrainian authorities however respond that no such information center has been officially registered in the republic, and are thus unable to act on Russia’s request.

REFUGEES: Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said Friday that the problem of Chechen refugees who have asked for sanctuary in Kazakhstn was a Russian internal affair and should be dealt with by Moscow.

Questioned about a written request by 300 Chechen refugee families in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, bordering Chechnya, in which they asked him for refuge in Kazakshtan, Nazarbayev said Astana had “not received any official letter.”

The families said their plight in being forced to return from Igushetia to their homeland in Chechnya as “worse than deportation,” and urged the Kazakh leader to “save our people from genocide.”—AFP