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Rights Group Slams "Carnage" In Chechnya, Holds Out Hope In Balkans
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The international community failed to act to stop the "civilian carnage" in Chechnya and has done little to prevent the rise of authoritarian regimes in central Asia, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its annual report Thursday.
The report, published ahead of Human Rights Day on Sunday, painted a bleak picture of the overall human rights situation in parts of Europe and Central Asia.
But HRW said it held out hope for peace in the Balkans, following the ouster of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and the death of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.
"Milosevic's departure from power meant new hope for the rule of law and human rights protections in Serbia," the report said.
It issued a stinging rebuke, however, against Western governments for turning a blind eye to Russia's crackdown in breakaway Chechnya.
"The blatant impunity for war crimes in Chechnya cried out for accountability, but there was none," the report said. "The international community lacked the political will to exercise leverage with Russia to press for a halt to the massive abuses perpetrated by Russian forces in Chechnya."
It said that unlike the situation in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, where world leaders acted quickly to stem the conflict and help ethnic Albanian refugees, the civilian population in the Chechen capital Grozny has largely been left to fend for itself, with food, medical care and other needs provided haphazardly.
The rights group denounced the fact that Western governments failed to condition economic aid to Russia to halt the violence in the small north Caucasus republic.
Russia poured forces into breakaway Chechnya on October 1, 1999 in a bid to wipe out separatist fighters blamed for a series of apartment bombings throughout Russia and for incursions into neighboring Dagestan.
"The international community often lamented that it had no significant influence over Russia, but squandered real opportunities for leverage or sanctions in favor of political expediency," Human Rights Watch said.
The report noted that little had been done to prevent the further entrenchment of authoritarian governments in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
"Once again, the international community chose not to use available policy tools to effect change or take a principled stand," it said.
It lamented that torture was also still widely used in various European countries, including Uzbekistan, Russia and Turkey.
"Torture remained common in Turkey and was used to coerce testimony and confessions in both common criminal cases and security-related cases," the report said.
However, one positive development was the publication this year by the Turkish parliament's Human Rights Commission of several reports documenting the persistence of torture, the report said.
While it hailed positive political developments in Serbia and Croatia, it regretted that following the fall of Milosevic, the international community had wavered in its commitment to press for cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
It also pointed out that ethnic minority groups returning to Bosnia and Croatia had reported rights violations.
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