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Council Of Europe Presses Russia To Punish Soldiers In Chechnya
STRASBOURG, June 28 (News Agencies) - The Council of Europe on Thursday threatened to withdraw its human rights experts in Chechnya if Russia failed to show serious progress in taking action against soldiers accused of atrocities.
"I must be harsh in my judgment on the follow-up given by the Russian prosecutors to the complaints lodged against the federal forces, " the council's secretary general, Walter Schwimmer, told the parliamentary assembly.
"Hardly anything has been done at all. This is both sad and unacceptable," he said.
The 18-month mandate to assist the Russian human rights envoy for Chechnya, Vladimir Kalamanov, is due to expire on October 4th.
"I sincerely hope that the Russian authorities will provide me with the demonstrable progress" necessary for the Council to continue working in Chechnya.
On Wednesday, Schwimmer said that "without our presence in Chechnya, more than 300 illegally detained people would not have been released, 300 missing people would not have been found and 16,000 people's complaints would not have been heard."
"But that is not enough for us. We expect the Russian authorities to follow up on complaints - particularly the military prosecutor," he added.
Meanwhile, Russian troops were "mopping up" Thursday after inflicting heavy losses on a Chechen separatist group trapped in a gorge on Russia's border with Georgia during a two-day operation, military spokesmen said.
An army spokesman quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency said massive shelling and strikes by Mi-24 helicopters had left the group in Chechnya's Sharo-Argun gorge with "significant" losses and dispersed them into small knots that were fleeing into the mountains.
Late Wednesday, federal officials said at least 21 Chechen separatists and one Russian soldier had been killed in the two days of fighting.
Early Thursday ITAR-TASS quoted officials as saying "up to 25" separatists had been killed.
The Russian military has changed its tactics and is using mortar strikes to weaken the guerrillas and then moving in to mop up, a spokesman said.
"Fighting the bandit groups in this way is safer and more effective," he said.
Army and border guard reinforcements have been moved to the gorge, ITAR-TASS reported.
Georgia's President Eduard Shevardnadze conceded for the first time Wednesday that "several hundred" Chechen fighters were currently based on Georgian territory near the border with Chechnya.
Moscow has long accused Shevardnadze of supporting the Chechen resistance.
The Georgian leader, however, says his country is only offering humanitarian assistance to Chechens displaced by, or injured in, the fighting.
The fighting in the southeastern Argun gorge has been among the fiercest reported this summer, suggesting that Chechen separatists are preparing a new wave of assaults some 20-months into the brutal Russian campaign.
Over the previous 24 hours Chechen separatists carried out five explosions and fired on police and interior ministry forces nine times, killing one policeman and wounding five local residents, the military news agency AVN reported.
Though Russian forces have taken control of much of Chechnya, including Grozny, armed separatists launch daily attacks on Russian soldiers and pro-Moscow administrators whom they consider traitors.
The Kremlin has so far refused offers to negotiate from Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, and claimed its biggest success of the war with the announcement Monday of the death of field commander Arbi Barayev - one of the most feared leaders of the separatist campaign.
Russian troops stormed into Chechnya in October 1999 in a self-declared "anti-terrorist operation".
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