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Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 March 2000 Issue No. 471 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 2 - 8 March 2000 Issue No. 471
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Interview Features Focus Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Chechen endgame
By Abdel-Malik KhalilLast week BBC Television transmitted what was widely regarded in the West as indisputable evidence of Russian atrocities and human rights violations in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The film, which was described as "the first reliable visual evidence of war crimes" committed by Russian forces in war-torn Chechnya, may turn Western public opinion further against Russia.
Pictures taken in villages to the west of Grozny, the Chechen capital, showed Russian soldiers rounding up young Chechen men, and bodies being dumped in a mass grave, some of which clearly showed signs of mutilation and torture.
The BBC said that allegations of atrocities against Chechen civilians, including rape, executions and torture, had been dismissed by Moscow as "concoctions, unsupported by fact or proof". Shots showed Russian soldiers entering a Chechen village and rounding up men for interrogation. Chechens claim that many of them were innocent civilians.
Other footage showed the body of a young man, wrapped in an old carpet, being dumped in a mass grave. Various bodies were mutilated; some with ears missing, while many others had obviously been tortured, the BBC stated.
The footage was taken by a German journalist for the N24 network and aired on both the BBC and Russia's independent NTV television.
Moscow has stubbornly refused to admit the actions of its soldiers. Russian officials, preparing to hold talks with the Council of Europe's human rights envoy Alvaro Gil-Robles, rushed to deny the accusations of war crimes, claiming that an erroneous impression was conveyed by the photographs. The Kremlin's new human rights spokesman Vladimir Kalamanov, remarked, "We cannot say how reliable these pictures are."
Doing the rounds: Chechen prisoners of war pace away the hours under the invisible eyes of their Russian captors (photo:AFP)
Russian security spokesman Alexander Zdanovich firmly denied that there had been any mass executions, saying that those buried had been the victims of a battle in the five-month war. He suggested that the pictures were "propaganda" intended to put pressure on Russia, while it is welcoming the Council of Europe human rights commissioner.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch claims that it has corroborated testimony from hundreds of Chechen refugees that Russian troops massacred innocent civilians in the Grozny suburb of Aldi, earlier this month. Survivors spoke of rape, torture and cold-blooded murder in detention centres where the Chechen civilian population was held.
Meanwhile, the war has continued unabated. Russian forces have thwarted attempts by Chechen rebels to break through federal lines and tightened their grip on the last rebel bastion deep in the Republic's southern mountains.
Russian artillery pounded the town of Shatoi in the Argun gorge and the surrounding villages of Kharsenoi, Selmentauzen, Ulus-Kert and Nikhaloi early last Saturday.
Interfax reported that Russian forces were gradually closing in on Shatoi and had taken two strategic positions above the town, where, they say, some 3,000 rebels are still entrenched. Federal troops had also taken control of the Itum-Kale region between Shatoi and the southern frontier with Georgia.
Russian military sources claimed that 40 Chechen fighters had been killed in the previous 24 hours and that the rebels had splintered into small guerrilla bands and were mining roads in the region.
In another development, the missing Russian journalist Andrei Babitsky showed up at the Dagestan interior ministry, after being arrested on Friday while on his way to a meeting with a journalist of the French news agency AFP.
Babitsky, who works for the American-sponsored Radio Free Europe, was accused by Russia of collaborating with Chechen separatists. He was first arrested by the Russian military on 16 January as he was leaving Grozny, where he had been covering the conflict from behind rebel lines.
Despite announcing on 31 January that he would be tried for collaborating with the Chechen separatists, Russia alleged on 3 February that he had agreed to be handed over to the rebels in exchange for three captured soldiers. The authorities later released video footage showing the exchange taking place.
However, this version of events has been questioned by friends and colleagues of Babitsky. His arrest and subsequent disappearance had earlier triggered an international outcry.
