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HRW Blasts West's "Deafening Silence" Over Chechnya
MOSCOW, May 22 (News Agencies) - An international human rights watchdog denounced Tuesday the West's "deafening silence" over the discovery in Chechnya of a mass grave containing the bodies of civilians allegedly killed by Russian troops.
A report published by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), drawing on material gathered by the Russian rights group Memorial, declared that of the 51 bodies found in the grave near the Russian military's headquarters in Chechnya in February, at least 16 had been identified as civilians.
HRW also accused pro-Russian authorities of not carrying out a full investigation which would have identified the remaining bodies and helped to track down those responsible for the killings.
"For the most part, the international community reacted to the discovery of the mass dumping ground and botched investigation with a deafening silence," the report said.
"The Council of Europe missed an opportunity to use its unique position as the only international organization with a field presence in Chechnya to press authoritatively for an effective organization," HRW added.
The Council's secretary general, Walter Schwimmer, is due to begin a two-day visit to Moscow Wednesday, with Russia's human rights record in the breakaway southern republic likely to dominate the agenda of talks with top officials.
But HRW criticized the Council's human rights commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, and three senior envoys, all of whom visited Chechnya in February, for neither visiting the site of the grave, near the Chechen capital Grozny, nor examining the corpses.
HRW also claimed in the report that the 16 bodies identified as those of civilians reported missing after their arrest by Russian forces, and bearing signs of torture and summary execution, were "typical of hundreds of other 'disappearances' in the current phase" of the 20-month Chechen war.
The rights group argues that Russian military prosecutors routinely "bury" investigations into human rights atrocities allegedly committed by federal troops in Chechnya.
The republic's pro-Russian prosecutor denied last week that federal troops could be implicated in the death of the Chechens, whose bodies were discovered less than one kilometer (mile) from the main military base at Khankala.
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