American Committee for Chechnya

c/o Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe

2000 P Street, NW Suite 400, Washington DC 20036

Tel: (202) 466-7105, Fax: (202) 466-7140, Email: idee@idee.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MARCH 17, 2000

CONTACT: IRENA LASOTA

TEL: (202) 466-7105 No. Pages: 4

EMAIL: idee@idee.org

PRESS RELEASE

Three former officials responsible for United States foreign policy -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander M.Haig, Jr., and Max Kampelman -- today announced the establishment of the American Committee for Chechnya, a groupof nearly 100 distinguished U.S. citizens demanding a stronger American response to Russian military aggression against Chechnya. "We hope to generate policies and actions that will bring this terrible warto a peaceful end and begin a process of reconstruction and reconciliation", the three co-chairmen state. The Founding Declaration of the AmericanCommittee for Chechnya lists a series of policies and actions by the U.S., including suspension of World Bank and IMF loans as well as Russia's participation in G7+1 talks, support for appointing a UN Human Rights Commission Special Raporteur to investigate crimes against humanity, and pressuring Russia to open its borders to allow the mobilization ofhumanitarian and OSCE resources to relieve the suffering of the Chechen people. "We must act against

this brutal, inhuman war and try to help the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who have been targeted by Russian forces," Irena Lasota, the coordinator of the new Committee, said. Yelena Bonner, wife of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov and Russia's leading human rights campaigner, also signed the Declaration, restating in a letter to the Committee her testimony to the U.S. Congress that Russia's goal is "to annihilate a large part of the Chechen nation and to drive out those who survive from their native land. This is not just another routine violationof human rights. This is a crime against humanity. "The announcement of the American Committee for Chechnya is timed to coincide with a day of protests being organized in Moscow on Sunday, March 19 in Pushkin Square by an anti-war coalition of human rights and other organizations, including the Human Rights Center "Memorial," the Union of Soldiers' Mothers Committees of Russia, and the Youth Human Rights Center. The coalition called for a day of inter

national solidarity and actions against the war. In addition to Dr. Brzezinski, who served as National Security Adviser in the Carter Administration, General Haig, who was Secretary of State during the first Reagan Administration, and Mr. Kampelman, who was President Reagan's chief arms negotiator, the members of the American Committee for Chechnya include Morton Abramowitz, former President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former National Security Advisers Richard V. Allen and Robert C. McFarlane, the Jewish leaders Hyman Bookbinder and Rabbi David Saperstein, Paula Dobriansky who directs the Washington office of the Council on Foreign Relations, American Federation of Teachers president Sandra Feldman, former AFL-CIO president Thomas R. Donahue, actor Richard Gere, former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, and former CIA Director James Woolsey. Also on the list are Russia experts Eliot Cohen, Charles Fairbanks, Marshall Goldman, Richard Perle, Ri

chard Pipes, and Peter Reddaway, as well asauthors and editors William Kristol, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Norman Podhoretz.

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