Russia incurred much international criticism for its conduct during theSecond Chechen War, which started in 1999. The governments of the United States and other countries condemned deaths and expulsions among civilians. TheUnited Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) passed two resolutions in 2000 and 2001 condemning human rights violations in Chechnya and requiring Russia to set up an independent national commission of inquiry to investigate the matter. However, a third resolution on these lines failed in 2004. TheCouncil of Europe in multiple resolutions and statements between 2003 and 2007 called on Russia (a member of the Council) to cease human rights violations. TheEuropean Court of Human Rights (ECHR) between 2005 and 2007 conducted legal cases brought by Chechens against the Russian government, and in many of these cases held Russia responsible for deaths, disappearances and torture.
There had been strong international condemnation ofRussia's threat tocivilians to get out of the Chechencapital,Grozny, or be considered an enemy target and destroyed. TheUnited States and theEuropean Union denounced the move. There had been speculation about possibleeconomic sanctions.[1]
US PresidentBill Clinton said Russia would "pay a heavy price" for its current tactics, facinginternational isolation. The EU also urged Russia to end what they called disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya.[2] TheUnited KingdomSecretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth AffairsRobin Cook has "wholeheartedly condemned" the Russianultimatum to the people of Grozny to flee or die. "We condemn vigorously whatMilosevic did inKosovo and we condemn vigorously what Russia is doing in Chechnya," he said.[3]
On November 18, 1999, then presidential candidateGeorge W. Bush strongly criticised Russia over itsmilitary campaign in Chechnya, sayingforeign aid to Russia should be suspended if Russian policy did not change. "I think Russia has stepped over the bounds," Bush said.[4]
The United States statement in response to Human Rights Commission Resolution on Chechnya in 2000 noted:
As SecretaryAlbright noted in her March 24th speech to theCommission, "We cannot ignore the fact that thousands of Chechen civilians have died and more than 200,000 have been driven from their homes." Together with other delegations, we have expressed our alarm at the persistent, credible reports ofhuman rights violations by Russian forces in Chechnya, includingextrajudicial killings. There are also reports that Chechenseparatists have committed abuses, including the killing of civilians and prisoners. ... The war in Chechnya has greatly damaged Russia's international standing and is isolating Russia from theinternational community. Russia's work to repair that damage, both at home and abroad, or its choice to risk further isolating itself, is the most immediate and momentous challenge that Russia faces.[5]
On December 9, 1999, at a meeting withLi Peng, China'slegislative chairman and theChinese Communist Party's mosthard-line leader,Boris Yeltsin told reporters he wanted to send a message to Clinton, who had criticized Russia for causing civilian casualties in Chechnya. "It seems Mr. Clinton has forgotten Russia is a great power that possesses anuclear arsenal. We aren't afraid at all of Clinton's anti-Russian position. I want to tell President Clinton that he alone cannot dictate how the world should live, work and play. It is us who will dictate," Yeltsin said. Yeltsin andGeneral Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyJiang Zemin discussed and both criticized U.S. global dominance. "Jiang Zemin completely understands and fully supports Russia's actions in combattingterrorism andextremism in Chechnya," RussianForeign MinisterIgor Ivanov said afterwards. Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China "understands and supports the efforts made by Russia in safeguarding national unity andterritorial integrity."[6]
On 26 September 2002, afterSaddam Hussein's meeting with the Chechen pro-Moscow PresidentAkhmad Kadyrov,Iraq's Foreign MinisterNaji Sabri stated the country's position with regard to Chechnya, namely that Chechnya is an integral part of Russia. "Iraq is firmly against any manifestations of separatism in Russia."[7]
On 30 September 2001, Georgian PresidentEduard Shevardnadze offered mediation in talks between the Chechen leaderAslan Maskhadov and Russian PresidentVladimir Putin. Georgian Interior Minister Kakha Targamadze ruled out that Georgia and Russia would conduct the joint operations against Chechen rebels in the Georgia'sPankisi region, where the rebels allegedly had been hiding according to Russian officials.[8]
Council of Europe Resolutions and Recommendations on 'Thehuman rights situation in theChechen Republic':
In June 2005, theParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) examined Russia's progress in honoring the obligations and commitments it undertook on joining the Council of Europe in 1996. PACE passed a resolution which stated that there had been very little progress in relation to the obligation to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations. The resolution called on the Russian authorities to "take effective action to put an immediate end to the ongoing'disappearances',torture, arbitrarydetention in illegal and secret facilities, and unlawful killings" reported in Chechnya.
The June 9, 2006 PACE report byDick Marty said "It is hardly possible to speak of secret detention centers in Council of Europe member states without mentioning Chechnya. Mr Bindig's very recent report also notes not only numerous cases of forced disappearance and torture, but also the existence of secret places of detention."[9] It quoted "Damning recent accounts by witnesses."
On March 13, 2007 the new Council of Europe report said"resort to torture and other forms of ill-treatment by members of law enforcement agencies and security forces continues, as does the related practice of unlawful detentions." The Council said it felt forced to make public its findings in light of the Russian authorities' "failure to improve the situation" despite detailed recommendations following the torture committee's visits to Chechnya the previous year.
In October 2004, theEuropean Court of Human Rights (ECHR) agreed to try cases brought by Chechen civilians against theRussian government. As of November 2007, 35 cases were decided.[10]
The firsttrial concluded in February 2005. The Court ruled that the Russian government violated several articles of theEuropean Convention on Human Rights, including aclause on the protection ofproperty, a guarantee of the right to life, and a ban ontorture and inhumane or degrading treatment, and ordered the Russian government to paycompensation to the sixplaintiffs of the case.[11] The cases concerned the Russian federal forces' indiscriminateaerial bombing of a civilian convoy of refugees fleeingGrozny in October 1999; the "disappearance" and subsequent extrajudicial execution of five individuals inGrozny in January 2000; and the indiscriminate aerial andartillerybombardment of the village ofKatyr-Yurt in February 2000. The compensations were not paid,NGOs claim that applicants to the court are met with repressions, including murders and disappearance.[12] In the most dramatic period of 2000-2002 five plaintiffs died.[13]
In summer 2006 the European Court on Human Rights decided the first cases concerningforced disappearances in Chechnya; it was accepted the decisions by the European Court might play an important role in changing Chechnya's terrible human rights situation, as more than 100 disappearance cases related to Chechnya are pending in the court.[14] The cases included one where the court ordered Russia to pay 35,000euros to the mother ofKhadzhi-Murat Yandiyev for violating her son's "right to life" as well as failing "to conduct an effective investigation" into his February 2000 disappearance. Key evidence in the case, according to court documents, wasvideo footage filmed by a reporter forNTV andCNN television showing Colonel-GeneralAlexander Baranov, ordering soldiers to "finish off" and "shoot" Yandiyev; Baranov has since been promoted and awarded aHero of Russia medal and made responsible for allDefense Ministry forces in the North Caucasus.[15]
On October 12, 2006, the Court heldRussian state responsible for the summary execution of the Estamirov family during the February 5, 2000Novye Aldi massacre by theOMON forces. "Russian and Chechen security forces should take this decision as a warning that the abuse and murder of innocent civilians cannot be met by impunity," said Europe and Central Asia director atHuman Rights Watch.[16] At least 11 other incidents of summary executions committed on the same day in the same region of Chechnya are pending before the Court.
On November 9, 2006, the Court ruled the Russian government complicit in the murder and abduction of three Chechen civilians, including a case on the disappearance and presumed death of two Chechens from the same family. The court sided with Marzet Imakayeva, a Chechen woman who fled Russia two years ago to seekasylum in the United States; it also said the way Imakayeva's complaints were dealt with by Russian authorities constituted "inhuman treatment." The bodies of Imakayeva family members have never been found; in the other ruled case the abductee,Nura Luluyeva, turned up in amass grave eight months later.
On January 8, 2007, the Court has condemned Russia in the first torture case from Chechnya to be heard by the ECHR. In itsjudgment,[17] the Court held that the applicants Adam and Arbi Chitayev had been held in unacknowledged detention, that they had been subjected to torture, and that the Russian authorities have not properly investigated their allegations.
A resolution adopted in April 2000[18] by theUnited Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) called for Russia, among other things, to establish a "national broad-based and independent commission of inquiry" into abuse, with a view to bringing perpetrators to justice and preventingimpunity.[19] It was the first time in the UNHCR history it had criticized a permanentUnited Nations Security Council member.[20] However, Russia has not fulfilled the resolution's requirements.
On April 20, 2001, the UNHCR adopted another resolution[21] condemning human rights violations in Chechnya perpetrated by federal forces, citing "forced disappearances, extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, torture, and otherinhuman and degrading treatment." The resolution called on Russia to "ensure that both civilian and military prosecutor's offices undertake systematic, credible and exhaustive criminal investigations and prosecutions" of all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. It reiterated its requirement, also made in 2000 resolution, for Russia to establish a national commission of inquiry to investigate crimes in Chechnya; despite Russia's failure to create such a commission or ensure effective prosecutions after the 2000 resolution, the commission declined to call for the creation of an international commission of inquiry.[22]
In April 2004 the Commission rejected another resolution on Chechnya. 23 of 53 countries voted against the resolution, while 12 countries voted for the resolution—mainly European Union countries. Russian Foreign MinisterSergey Lavrov said "all attempts to depict the situation in Chechnya as a human rights problem have been unrealistic."[23]
On February 22, 2006,UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,Louise Arbour, said she was deeply shocked by accounts of torture andkidnappings in Chechnya. She recommended the creation of an independent body to investigatecrimes committed during the war.
On March 30, 2006,Manfred Nowak, the United Nations investigator on torture said that Moscow had agreed to let him visit Russia, including the troubled region—the first such trip by a UN torture envoy in more than a decade.