Moscow Times

November 25, 2000

EDITORIAL: Chechnya: Time to Say Enough

If the world needed yet another reminder of the scope of horror and suffering

being inflicted daily in Chechnya, it received one Wednesday in the form of

"Chechnya, the Politics of Terror," a report by the Nobe Prize-winning group

Medecins sans FrontiÅres.

"Despite the illusion of normalization upheld by the Russian authorities and

the resignation of the international community," the stark report says, "the

violence against civilians is ongoing." MSF says the war has resulted in

about 300,000 displaced persons who are now entering their second winter "in

appalling conditions."

MSF's report comes less than a month after a Human Rights Watch book,

"Welcome to Hell," which documented cases of torture and bribe-taking by

Russian military authorities at detention camps in Chechnya. Both reports

argue that a reign of terror the Russian military has established throughout

the republic is the main barrier preventing refugees from returning to their

homes.

And both reports criticize the international community f especially the

Council of Europe, the United Nations and the Organization for Security and

Cooperation in Europe f for doing so little to confront the Kremlin.

On Tuesday, The Moscow Times reported on a Chechen administration report

condemning the Russian military for "looting" the republic. That report

estimates that more than $2 billion in damage has been done to the Chechen

energy sector in the last year.

It claims that shipments of metals and oil regularly leave the republic on

military transport. It even documents an instance in which Russian troops

fired on Chechen authorities who were trying to stop thieves from siphoning

oil from a well.

While the Russian army is richly profiting from the reign of terror described

in the MSF report, the European Union has announced it will provide an

additional $4.8 million in food assistance to refugees who want to return

home but cannot.

Surely the world can come up with a better solution than this.

In a meeting this week with leading generals, President Vladimir Putin urged

"the anti-terrorist operation must be followed through to the end." When

asked what comes next, he answered, "Chechnya's formal status is not so

important today."

From this and many other statements, it is obvious the Kremlin has no plan

for Chechnya other than continued warfare and official terror. The Russian

public, which has no access to the truth about Chechnya and little influence

with the authorities in any case, is in no position to demand an accounting.

Only the international community can. Why does it not act?