Noticeably,
the information mentioned in the report was approved by the
Russian-backed Chechen administration which itself issued another
report worded by its officials.
Seventy
civilians were executed, 145 abducted, 25 bodies found with clear
signs of severe torture this year, read the second report.
It
cited, an example of these crimes, an attack by four U.S.-made armored
vehicles which drove into a house of Aischat Meschijewa in Grozny at a
January dawn.
The
Russian forces abducted Meschijewa, her husband and two sons after
being severely beaten by the buts of their machine-guns.
The
German newspaper quoted Russian Emergency Ministry officials as saying
that they discovered new 49 mass graves in Chechnya with 2,879 bodies
buried inside.
The
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) denounced in its latest report
the Russian government for such acts.
But
Abdul-Khakim Sultygov, Putin's envoy for human rights in Chechnya,
denied the existence of such government reports and denounced HRW.
"Rather
than a human rights organization, it is an extremist organization
spreading totalitarian notions about Europe's democratic values,"
Interfax quoted him as saying.
"Legally
Established"
In
the meanwhile, the Russian opposition daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta
presented another report on Wednesday, April 16, supposedly compiled
by Chechen Prosecutor General Vladimir Kravchenko and presented to a
secret meeting of Chechen security forces in early March.
"The
fact that dozens, if not hundreds, of Russian soldiers and police
officers systematically break the law in Chechnya has been legally
established," the report says, according to Nezavisimaya
Gazeta.
The
report says that prosecutors had opened 1,178 investigations into the
disappearance of 1,663 civilians in Chechnya since Russian forces
pushed into the republic in October 1999.
In
2002, prosecutors opened 565 investigations into repeated cases of
abduction, the report says.
"Out
of this total, 300 include evidence implicating representatives of
Russian federal forces," the report said.
There
are clear evidence that Russian intelligence bodies FSB and GRU are
involved in these military crimes through special assassination units
they had formed for carrying them out, according to the Russian human
rights group Memorial.
"The
Russian leaders are even proud of these crimes, as the commander of
the GRU assassination unit said in press reports that the best way to
secure victory in this war is kill the Chechen 'dogs' in the
dark," said chief of the group Alexander Tscherkassow.
He
said that the current Russian "terrorism" does not as much
differ from crimes committed, upon orders from Stalin, against the
Caucasus Republic in 1937-1938.
The
Grozny administration's commission of missing said that 2800 Chechens
disappeared since the first Chechen War, 46 in every 10,000
inhabitants, while the number stood at 44 in every 10,000 at the
Russian dictator's era, he added.
International
human rights groups expressed disappointment with the failure of the
United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), meeting in Geneva
Thursday, April 17, to approve strong condemnations of the Russian
government for ongoing rights abuses in Chechnya.
A
resolution introduced by European Union (EU) countries that urged
Russia to address serious abuses, including summary executions,
torture, and disappearances in Chechnya was rejected in a 15-21 vote.
Amnesty
International said it was "profoundly disappointed" by that
result, charging that serious abuses take place "on a daily basis
in Chechnya."
The
UNHRC's lack of action on this situation is a "blatant disregard
of the suffering of the victims of such abuses and their relatives,
and the risks to which civilians continue to be exposed," Amnesty
stressed. The U.S. decided against co-sponsoring the resolution.
"Tribunal"
Joining
the wave of condemnation, the Council of Europe, a pan-continental
human rights body, called for the creation of an international
tribunal to try war crimes committed in Chechnya.
Such
a tribunal should be set up to try war crimes and crimes against
humanity committed in Chechnya "if the current climate of
impunity continues to prevail," the Council's Parliamentary
Assembly said Wednesday.