The Council of Europe in disgrace.

A criminal blind eye to the crimes against Humanity committed in Chechnya.

In the opinion of the Comitê Tchêtchênie, the decision taken by the Ministerial Committee of the Council of Europe on 11 May 2000 to refrain from engaging in suspension procedures against Russia is shameful. The decision was a grave error, and the arguments put forward to mask this backward step are fallacious and inadmissible.

The war in Chechnya has now been going on for nine months. Tens of thousands of civilians have died, and the war is still producing hundreds of dead and wounded. Even in the zone ostensibly under the control of Russian troops, no village or town is safe from renewed combat. The "cleansing operations" are always accompanied by violence and murder. Theft, plunder and extortion are the rule. Hundreds of people are kept hostage and tortured in the filtration camps. The authorities have done nothing to improve the lot of the people in refugee camps.

Russia has fulfilled none of the demands set forth in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's Recommendations 1444 and 1456. The Russian government refuses all political negotiation with the elected Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov, although the latter has on several occasions declared himself open to negotiation and ready to respect the Council of Europe's demands. No cease-fire has been envisaged by the Russian government.

Under these circumstances, it is simply scandalous to consider the holding of seminars or the creation of parliamentary commissions as an advance toward the establishment of the rule of law and the respect of human rights in Chechnya. The agreement reached with V. Kalamanov 's Office of Human Rights have yet to yield any result. And believing President Vladimir Putin's promise to "try the guilty" is a demonstration of wilful blindness, since Mr Putin is the person most directly responsible for the criminal war in Chechnya.

Extremely grave also is the fact that the Ministerial Committee of the Council of Europe was able to call the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Chechnya "presumed human rights violations". These violations are real, as is shown by the numerous reports by the International Federation of Human Rights, Memorial, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and confirmed by decisions of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly and the UN Human Rights Commission.

By refusing to instigate a procedure for Russia's suspension, the Ministerial Committee of the Council of Europe has betrayed the Parliamentary Assembly's Recommendations, not only textually but in their spirit, because the decision of 6 April 2000 to suspend the Russian delegation's powers was intended as a call to action. This present backward step discredits the Council of Europe and deprives Europe of any future means of influencing events in the Caucasus. More importantly, it has betrayed hundreds of thousands of Chechens and Russian democrats who pinned their hopes on this Council of Europe -- which now flouts the very democratic values and Human Rights which it pretends to guarantee.

Comitê Tchêtchênie

comitetchetchenie@hotmail.com

phone: +33 6 14 02 74 52

Comitê Tchêtchênie c/o AEC

21 ter rue Voltaire

75020 Paris -FRANCE