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Council Of Europe Team Arrives In Moscow For Chechen Probe
MOSCOW (News Agencies) - A Council of Europe delegation arrived in Moscow on Saturday for a four-day visit to study Russia's human rights record in Chechnya ahead of a crucial debate at the 41-nation assembly.
The monitors from the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) are to prepare a report for the Strasbourg-based assembly's winter session, scheduled for January 22-26, which is set to debate whether to reinstate Russia's voting rights.
They will fly to Stavropol, in southern Russia, on Sunday and travel on to Grozny on Monday before returning to Moscow on Wednesday to meet Russia's interior and defense ministers.
The visit comes at a time when the kidnapping of Kenny Gluck, a U.S. member of medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), has caused non-governmental groups to withdraw from Chechnya.
Lord Frank Judd of Britain, who heads the delegation along with Rudolf Bindig of Germany, led two delegations to the north Caucasus last year and hinted during a trip to Moscow last month that it could still be too soon to reinstate Russia's voting rights.
Russia became the first member in the Council of Europe's 50-year history to be stripped of its voting rights last April because of human rights abuses committed by its troops in Chechnya.
In Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament, monitors said on Wednesday that Russia was blocking efforts to punish members of the military who were guilty of war crimes in Chechnya.
Judd, who heads the Council's committee on refugees and migration, and Binding said there was "a sort of coalition" between the Russian defense and interior ministries and the attorney general to prevent any effective effort to bring soldiers guilty of war crimes to court.
In a report last month, Bindig said that only 31 suspected war crimes cases were being pursued by Russian prosecutors out of a total of 540 cases cited by Russia's human rights envoy to Chechnya, Vladimir Kalamnov.
Of the 31 cases, only five soldiers were actually sentenced, six were given an amnesty and the remaining 20 cases were still being investigated, according to the report.
PACE has urged Russia to take immediate and effective measures to improve human rights in the breakaway republic by punishing military personnel guilty of war crimes, stopping illegal arrests and the abuse of detainees.
It has also called on Russia to begin political dialogue with Chechen civilians and field commanders as soon as possible and without preconditions.
Meanwhile in Chechnya, military sources said separatists were stepping up anti-Russian propaganda and preparing to carry out armed actions during the delegation's visit.
"The rebels are hoping that these actions will provoke a sharp response by the military that will hurt civilians, so that the PACE representatives will register human rights violations," Interfax quoted the sources as saying on the basis of telephone intercepts.
The separatists might organize civilian rallies both within Chechnya and in refugee camps in neighboring Ingushetia, security officials said.
Moscow has been fighting a 15-month war against the separatists in Chechnya since launching a self-styled "anti-terrorist" operation in the troubled republic on October 1, 1999.
It has said it will only negotiate if the separatists surrender.
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