WASHINGTON (Islam Online) - Two leaders of the Chechen Parliament gave testimony about Russia's onslaught in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday.
Seilam Bechaev, vice president of the parliament, and Tourpal Ali Kaimov, chairman of the Budget Committee of the parliament, gave testimony to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, presided over by commission Chairman Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ).
The witnesses warned of the potential of the Caucasus conflict to persist and one day explode like Kosovo in the 1990s. They decried the fact that Chechnya does not grab people's attention like Kosovo, and the world has left the Russians to continue with their atrocities of killing innocent civilian children and women.
"The situation in Chechnya illustrates that Russia is violating all international laws and continuing its genocidal war of ethnic cleansing of the Chechens," said Mr. Bechaev.
He said that in 1994 to 1996, the Russian aggressors, under the pretext of establishing "constitutional order" in Chechnya, destroyed the entire infrastructure of Chechnya and killed more than 120,000 civilians. More than 19,000 children were orphaned and approximately 14,000 children were made handicapped. About 2,000 young people held in "filtration camps" just disappeared without a trace. To date no one knows their whereabouts.
The witnesses accused the Russian Special Service of kidnapping and massive killings of innocent civilians, and blaming Muslim Chechens for those crimes. "Since the war began more than 120 population centers have been destroyed down to the ground. Grozny has been reduced to ruins, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed and approximately 35, 000 wounded," said Kaimov.
In neighboring Ingushetia alone, the number of refugees who are experiencing hardships has reached a staggering 200,000. And every day dozens perish from hypothermia, malnutrition and other diseases.
"The whole world community for four months witnessed a second war of ethnic cleansing of the Chechens by the Russians, who are claiming they are fighting against terrorism, and using all types of weapons against the civilian population, including weapons forbidden by international conventions," said Bechaev.
He discussed the Russian air artillery bombardment of storage locations of radioactive waste that have existed in Chechnya since Soviet days as testimony to the presence of an ecological disaster.
The Chechen Parliament representatives asked the U.S. administration, Senate and House of Representatives to do their utmost to stop the Russian massacre of Chechen women and children. They proposed economic sanctions against the Russian, and considering that Russia is a permanent member of the U.N Security Council, they urged that the United States use its influence in the U.N Security Council to facilitate an end to the random killing of Chechens.
The two said that if the west did not intervene, the public would be tempted to join the Muslim groups growing through the region.
According to Human Rights Watch, for the past three months, Russian forces have pummeled Grozny with aerial bombardments, shelling and artillery fire, even though tens of thousands of civilians remain in the former capital. Dozen of civilians fled Grozny at a critical time, in reaction to the infamous ultimatum to all Grozny residents to leave the city by December 11 or be "exterminated" by Russian forces.
HRW described the desperate situation those stranded in Grozny face with little food or drinking water, and with no medical assistance. They spend most of their days in cold basements with poor ventilation. The majority remained because they were either immobilized by fear, too poor to pay for transportation, too ill, or too elderly to make the trip out. Nearly every interviewee told Human Rights Watch of civilian deaths or injuries in their neighborhoods, the group said in a statement.
