[Senate Hearing 106-500]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-500
THE WAR IN CHECHNYA: RUSSIA'S CONDUCT, THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS, AND
UNITED STATES POLICY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 1, 2000
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
63-578 CC WASHINGTON : 2000
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri BARBARA BOXER, California
BILL FRIST, Tennessee ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island
Stephen E. Biegun, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Abuzayd, Karen Konig, Regional Representative to the U.S. and the
Caribbean, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees....... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Bouckaert, Peter, Investigator, Human Rights Watch............... 11
Dine, Thomas, President, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty......... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 21
Appendix
An Additional Statement by Senator Biden......................... 41
Senate Resolution 261............................................ 42
Senate Resolution 262............................................ 47
Maps............................................................. 51
(iii)
THE WAR IN CHECHNYA: RUSSIA'S CONDUCT, THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS, AND
UNITED STATES' POLICY
----------
Wednesday, March 1, 2000
U.S. Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations
Washington, D.C.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:45 a.m., in
Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Hon. Jesse
Helms, chairman of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Helms, Wellstone, Feingold, Kerry, and
Biden
The Chairman. I am going to bring the Committee to order.
All Committees are meeting this morning, and it is sort of a
round robin. Senators who intend to be here are not here yet,
but they will be here. And, this is the way it is in the early
part of the year, when everybody is trying to get legislation
going, including us.
Well, we certainly have a distinguished panel this morning.
Mr. Thomas Dine, whom we all know, president of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty; and Mr. Peter--
Mr. Bouckaert. Bouckaert.
The Chairman.--Bouckaert, an investigator for the Human
Rights Watch, Washington D.C.; and here we go with Ms.--Ms.
Karen Konig AbuZayd.
Ms. AbuZayd. AbuZayd.
The Chairman. Well, I--I was not even close, was I?
Well, we are glad to have all three of you. You are very
prominent in your fields and uniquely qualified to discuss the
war in Chechnya, the reprehensible conduct of the Russian
government in that conflict and the implications of this
conflict for the United States.
Now, then, Tom Dine, as I mentioned earlier is president of
Radio Free/Liberty Radio Europe, which has a substantial
presence in Russia. And Mr. Dine has worked tirelessly in
recent weeks to ensure the safety and welfare of the
distinguished Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter, Andrei
Babitsky. I sure appreciate your coming.
And Peter--I am not--I am going to leave your surname
alone. I--we are--we are good friends, so you first-name me,
and I will first-name you, and we will both come out ahead.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Peter, who is with Human Rights Watch, just
arrived from Russia, where for the past three months he has
been investigating the atrocities committed in the ongoing war
in Chechnya. We welcome you, sir.
And, we are pleased to have this delightful lady, who puts
up with my mangling her surname, AbuZayd. I did better that
time.
Ms. AbuZayd. That is good.
The Chairman. Good. She is--and she is the regional
representative to the United States and the Caribbean of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The UNHCR has
also been examining the tragic state of human rights in
Chechnya. And, we welcome you.
Now, before Mr. Dine begins his testimony, he has a brief
five-minute film on the Russian assault on Grozny, a horrifying
portrait of Russia's brutality against the inhabitants of that
city.
And I believe it is important for this Committee to view
this film. I wish that the world could see it, because it
brings home for us the enormous human suffering caused by
Russia's brutal campaign in Chechnya, a war that most of the
world seems perfectly content to ignore.
Now, let us just for the record say that more than 100,000
Chechen were killed in the first Russo-Chechnya war of 1994 to
1996--100,000 out of a population of fewer than 1 million.
Today the Kremlin is trying to undo its military defeat of
four years ago with indiscriminate use of force that, again,
has left countless thousands of innocent men, women and
children dead, and hundreds of thousands homeless.
The capital city of Chechnya is Grozny. And it has been
subjected to a destruction unseen in Europe since World War II.
A photo of that city has been blown up to show precisely what I
mean. And indeed, what has been done to Grozny surpasses even
the havoc that Milosevic has wrought upon the towns and cities
of both Bosnia and Kosova.
At a time when Western governments have turned a blind eye
to this conflict, the ability of journalists to report
objectively on this war and its horrors has become all the more
important.
The Russian acting president, Vladimir Putin, appears to
recognize this only too well. Freedom of the press is another
victim of his war.
Nowhere has this war against the press been more blatant
than in the case of Andrei Babitsky. For his unfavorable
accounts of the Russian military's conduct, he was detained by
Russian authorities, and then he disappeared. Today, I am
relieved that he is alive and now with his family.
Our ability to help Russia evolve into a stable democracy
cannot be effective if we ignore such systematic repression of
the press and the brutal campaign of terror Russia has
conducted.
Nor is it helpful for Western governments to portray this
as a legitimate battle against terrorists, and certainly not
for the President of the United States to call this a war--and
he used the word ``liberation,'' in the recent essay for Time
Magazine. This premise was not only extremely misleading. It is
morally flawed and short-sighted.
And I am proud that while the rest of the world has sought
to ignore or pretend that the war in Chechnya is legitimate,
Congress has stepped forward and condemned Russia's brutality
there.
Now, let us look at the film.
[Video.]
The Chairman. Well, that makes me even prouder that this
past Thursday, the Senate passed unanimously Resolution 261
condemning the detainment of Mr. Babitsky and called for his
safe return and demands an end to the systematic harassment of
the press in Russia.
The Senate also passed Resolution 262, authored by Senator
Wellstone, to repudiate the notion that the Chechen people are
terrorists and underscore their right to defend themselves
against the indiscriminate use of force. It also urges
President Clinton to promote negotiations between the Kremlin
and the Chechen government.
Now, it is no small coincidence that the day after these
two resolutions were passed by unanimous consent, the Kremlin
suddenly found Andrei Babitsky. I do not know where he was
hiding, but they found him.
Now, imagine what could have been accomplished if the
administration had addressed this conflict as more than a
rhetorical priority in our relationship with Russia.
Now, Senator Biden will make his opening statement when he
gets here, but the Senator from--from the distinguished State
of Minnesota has asked for a couple of minutes to make a
statement too.
Senator Wellstone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very
brief, and I just want to thank each of you for being here
today to testify.
I want to say I am not surprised to see Senator Feingold
here, who has been a consistent strong voice for human rights.
And I would like to especially thank the human rights community
for their concern.
In that film, Mr. Chairman, I noticed that one of the women
said, ``What is the world doing?'' And that just sent chills
down my spine. I would like to thank you for leadership on
this.
The only reason I asked for one minute is that I was
disappointed because--although we did pass these resolutions,
we did this work together, and I know it has been important to
people in Chechnya, and others have taken this resolution and
it has been circulated--I do not feel like there was as much of
a focus as I think there needs to be.
And I want to very briefly just repeat some of this
resolution, and note especially for the Administration that I
am disappointed, very disappointed, that we do not have a
panelist here representing the Administration.
I know we asked them to come. My understanding is we will
get somebody in a separate hearing, but frankly my view as a
Senator is there ought to be somebody here from the
administration at this very, very important hearing.
I just want to mention a couple of aspects of the
resolution referred to by the Chairman, S. Res. 262. It called
on the government of the Russian Federation to ``allow into and
around Chechnya international missions to monitor and report on
the situation there and to investigate alleged atrocities and
war crimes; allow international humanitarian agencies immediate
full and unimpeded access to Chechen civilians, including those
in refugee, detention, and so called `filtration camps' and any
other facility where the citizens of Chechnya are detained; and
investigate fully the atrocities committed in Chechnya . . .
and initiate prosecutions against those officers and soldiers
accused.''
It called on our President to ``promote peace negotiations
between the government of the Russian Federation and the
leadership of the Chechen government, including President Aslan
Maskhadov, through third-party mediation by the OSCE, United
Nations or other appropriate parties; endorse the call of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for an
investigation of alleged war crimes by the Russian military in
Chechnya; and . . . take tangible steps to demonstrate to the
Government of the Russian Federation that the United States
strongly condemns its brutal conduct in Chechnya and its
unwillingness to find a just political solution . . ..
Every day the reports are horrifying. And the reason that I
mention this is this resolution for--for journalists and others
that were here, was passed unanimously by the--the Senate, in
part because of your help.
This was meant to be a strong message. And I would suggest,
Mr. Chairman, that those of us here--Senator Biden and others--
may want, next week, to reword this and put together yet
another strong resolution, bring it to the floor of the Senate,
and have some discussion on the floor of the Senate, because I
think we must put a focus on this.
I think we are going to have to speak up, Mr. Chairman,
more and more and more so.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Russell, how about some words from you?
Senator Feingold. Just very briefly. And--and the most
important thing is to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
Senator Wellstone for the leadership on this.
We have to speak out on these kinds of human rights
violations wherever they occur in the world. And I believe this
hearing is especially important because I fear that the United
States government has accepted a dangerous assumption about the
violence in Chechnya.
I fear that the administration believes that in order to
pursue a cooperative relationship with a formidable power like
Russia, the United States somehow has to accept the terrible
human costs of the Chechnya campaign.
And I think that assumption is wrong. And I am sure the
Chairman does as well. The assumption is wrong, because the
lives of civilians cannot be bargained away in the pursuit of
engagement. That is simply too high of a price to pay.
And also it is just as important to say that the assumption
offers a false promise. History has proven that there can be no
lasting order without justice.
I do share the Administration's desire to see a stable,
prosperous, democratic Russia take shape. But that will never
happen as long as grave human rights abuses like those
perpetrated by the Russian military in Chechnya continue to be
a part of Moscow's policy.
It will never happen as long as the Russian government
denies international rights groups and non-governmental
organizations access to the terrible humanitarian catastrophe
of a place like Chechnya. And it will never happen while
independent journalists are muzzled and the Russian people are
denied the truth.
So what is being done by Russia, Mr. Chairman, in Chechnya
is not a liberation struggle. It is not an acceptable or
understandable response to domestic terrorism, as terrible
terrorism is. It is abhorrent.
And if we seek a mature post-Cold War relationship between
the United States and Russia, one that aims at a stable and
meaningful relationship, the United States has to speak out and
condemn such practices at every opportunity as Senator
Wellstone has said, including, I would add, within the
international financial institutions.
So I look forward to the hearing. And I, again, thank very
much the Chairman and the Senator from Minnesota.
The Chairman. I will say to my two colleagues that the
witnesses and I have agreed that I can first-name them, because
I have difficulty with pronunciation.
And before the media gets too interested in that, I will
remind them for a year after Kofi Annan became Secretary
General of the United Nations, they were still saying ``Kofi
Annon.'' Right?
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Karen, you may proceed, ma'am.
STATEMENT OF MS. KAREN KONIG ABUZAYD, REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVE
TO THE U.S. AND THE CARIBBEAN, UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER
FOR REFUGEES
Ms. AbuZayd. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
Senators.
I am going to concentrate on the humanitarian activities in
the north Caucasus, particularly in Ingushetia. This is where
UNHCR works with a number of U.N. and voluntary agencies to
provide assistance and protection to Chechens outside Chechnya,
mainly in Ingushetia, where we have about 200,000 persons, but
also in Dagestan and in Georgia.
Seventy percent of these displaced persons and refugees are
in host families. Twenty percent are spontaneously settled, and
only ten percent in camps set up by the international
community. Around 100,000 of those displaced have returned to
Chechnya, though many are shuttling back and forth.
At this time, about twice as many people are leaving than
those returning each week. And only a quarter of those who go
back into Chechnya are remaining there for good.
On the assistance side, emergency needs are being met
outside Chechnya, but there are sectoral and locational gaps.
Our movements are escorted for security reasons, and at our own
insistence, by Russian security forces.
Since mid-September UNHCR has delivered 5,000 tons of aid
worth $4 million on 42 convoys to the North Caucasus, 34 to
Ingushetia; 5 to Dagestan, 1 to North Oseetia, 1 to Karachaevo-
Cherkessia, and 1 yesterday finally, 29 February, to Grozny
itself.
Yesterday's ten-truck convoy provided and escorted by our
Russian implementing partner, EMERCOM, arrived in the center of
Grozny at midday and offloaded for distribution today through
local hospitals, soup kitchens and bakeries.
Three UNHCR local staff, Chechens, accompanied the convoy
and will monitor the distribution of the 45 metric tons of
food, as well as plastic sheeting, soap, mattresses and
blankets.
The convoy is something of a pilot project to allow us to
evaluate security and logistic possibilities for a future aid
operation. We also hope to get a better idea of how many
civilians remain in Grozny, estimated now at between 10,000 and
20,000.
We did have a first report back from our monitors who are
having to use the telephone of the Russian general who runs the
EMERCOM office in Grozny, and this is as much as he has been
able to tell us so far. When we get more information, we will
provide it to you as we are updated.
In terms of our protection concerns, our immediate concerns
come from the accounts from displaced persons who report
widespread displacement from the villages in the Argun Valley,
the site, we believe, of continuing military activities.
Some reports say that thousands of villagers are fleeing in
advance of the military offensive as it moves southward.
Accounts describe direct shelling of some villages and intense
fighting around others. There are maps attached to my testimony
that you can see.
According to the Ingush Migration Service, some 1,800 new
internally displaced people arrived in Ingushetia last week
from Chechnya, and 763 returned for good.
Most of the new arrivals are women and children from some
of the most heavily destroyed locations in Chechnya. Many say
they would like to return home, but are afraid to do so,
because of lawlessness and reports that all males are being
temporarily detained for identification purposes.
The internally displaced persons told UNHCR monitors that
in the Argun district, all males aged 15 and older are detained
by the local police, the Ministry of Interior Affairs, for
purposes of establishing their identity. And they said that
some of these men remain in detention.
Additional protection concerns outside Chechnya for us are
the lack of legal status and necessary documentation for IDPs
to access state provided assistance and to be able to move
about freely; and the continuing fear that in some instances,
IDPs are being forced to return to Chechnya against their will.
We have been working on this problem, and we think we may have
it solved.
Persuasion to leave Ingushetia is accomplished sometimes by
refusal to register new arrivals, particularly those from the
Russian-controlled areas of Chechnya, for assistance, by de-
registering them, or by cutting the levels of assistance
provided to them.
Reports by human rights organizations--which we will hear
more later--and from journalists about atrocities and gross
human rights violations in Chechnya, both in the detention
camps set up by Russian troops and in the towns to which
Chechens have tried to return, appear to be corroborated, at
least in part, by the daily interviews carried out by UNHCR
monitors. We are putting some mechanisms in place to check out
the reports more systematically.
An officer devoted entirely to what we call protection
issues was sent to the area last week and is in the process of
training 18 protection monitors to be able to tell us what is
really happening.
UNHCR, however, as in similar conflict situations has
certain reporting constraints in order to preserve its
impartial presence, protect the IDPs, our staff and the
assistance program itself.
We deal with this by sharing verified reports with those
agencies whose mandated task it is to monitor human rights
conditions.
The appointment of the former head of the Federal Migration
service to investigate alleged human rights abuses in Chechnya
and the opening up of a passport service in Chechnya, which has
not been available for the past four years, has given rise to
some hope that the situation may begin to improve shortly.
In terms of the future of the operation, following an
inter-agency assessment mission to Ingushetia and just inside
the northern Russian-controlled Chechnya, in the first week of
February, which found conditions in the established camps
reasonable, but much below standard in the spontaneous
settlements and only slightly better in the host families, an
appeal for funds should be issued later today or tomorrow
covering the period through 30 June.
Continuing emphasis will be placed on water and sanitation
with the intention to upgrade and rehabilitate a failing
Ingushetia infrastructure.
Much more emphasis will be placed on shelter, with the main
aim being to repair and improve the host family living
compounds. In addition, some food assistance will be required
for the host families.
For the first inter-agency appeal the first part of this
year was for $16.2 million and we raised a total of $14.1
million from the United States, Canada, European governments,
Japan and the Czech Republic.
Particularly since the fall of Grozny, since when the
Russian claim to control the major part of Chechnya, we have
been asked whether we have an intention to function inside
Chechnya.
Our opinion is that the situation is not safe yet for the
majority of Chechens to return and we would, therefore, not
encourage them to return at this stage. The recent human rights
reports make us even more cautious.
The second concern is that we cannot yet mount an
assistance operation of significant scale, since we cannot send
international staff into Chechnya yet, even on mission, to
ensure proper control of the implementation of such an
operation--due to the omnipresent and undiminished security
risks, not only as a result of the war, but also from
criminals.
For the time being, UNHCR and its partners are setting up a
system to provide assistance in Ingushetia for those who elect
to return. And we have developed plans to run our convoys
across the borders into Chechnya, depending upon the feedback
in the coming days from yesterday's first convoy.
The U.N. Office of the Coordination for Humanitarian
Affairs is also sending a mission to Moscow this afternoon to
enter into discussions about setting up a possible assistance
operation in Chechnya.
I thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. AbuZayd follows:]
Prepared Statement of Karen Konig AbuZayd
humanitarian activities in the north caucasus
Introduction
UNHCR works with a number of UN and voluntary agencies (OCHA, UNDP,
UNICEF, WFP, WHO, UNFPA, IOM, DRC, ACF, NRC, MSF, Salvation Army,
Islamic Relief, World Vision, CARE) to provide assistance and
protection to Chechens outside Chechnya, mainly in Ingushetia
(200,000), but also in Dagestan (12,000) and Georgia (5,000). Seventy
per cent of these displaced persons and refugees are in host families,
while 20% are spontaneously settled and only 10% in camps set up by the
international community. Around 100,000 of those displaced have
returned to Chechnya, though many are shuttling back and forth. At this
time, about twice as many people are leaving than those returning each
week, but only a quarter of those going back appear to be remaining in
Chechnya.
Assistance
Emergency needs are being met outside Chechnya, but there are
sectoral and locational gaps. Our movements are escorted, for security
reasons and at our own insistence, by Russian security forces. Since
mid-September, UNHCR has delivered 5,000 tons of aid worth $4 million
on 42 convoys to the North Caucasus, including 34 to Ingushetia, five
to Dagestan, one to North Ossetia, one to Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and
one yesterday, 29 February, to Grozny. Yesterday's 10 truck convoy,
provided and escorted by our Russian implementing partner, Emercom,
arrived in the center of Grozny at midday and offloaded for
distribution today through local hospitals, soup kitchens and bakeries.
Three UNHCR local staff accompanied the convoy and will monitor the
distribution of the 45 metric tons of food (flour, millet, peas, sugar,
barley), as well as 900 pieces of plastic sheeting, 20,000 bars of
soap, 230 mattresses and 1300 blankets.
The convoy is something of a pilot project to allow us to evaluate
security and logistic possibilities for a future aid operation. We also
hope to get a better idea of how many civilians remain in Grozny,
estimated now at between 10-20,000. Some of this information should be
available later today, at which time we shall share our updated news.
Protection concerns
Our immediate protection concerns come from accounts from displaced
persons who report widespread displacement from villages in the Argun
Valley, the site of continuing military activities. Some reports say
thousands of villagers are fleeing in advance of the military offensive
as it moves southward. Accounts describe direct shelling of some
villages (Shatoy and Bolshie) and intense fighting around others
(ItumKali). (See the maps beginning on page 51.)
According to the Ingush Migration Service, some 1,800 new
internally displaced people arrived in Ingushetia last week from
Chechnya and 763 returned for good. Many of the new arrivals are women
and children from some of the most heavily destroyed locations in
Chechnya, including Katar-Yurt and Khikhichu. Many say they would like
to return home, but are afraid to do so because of lawlessness and
reports that all males are being temporarily detained for
identification purposes. IDPs told UNHCR monitors that in the Argun
district, all males aged 15 and older are detained by the local police
(the Ministry of Interior Affairs) for purposes of establishing their
identity. The IDPs said some of these men remain in detention.
Additional protection concerns outside Chechnya are the lack of
legal status and necessary documentation for IDPs to access state-
provided assistance and to be able to move about freely; and the
continuing fear that in some instances, IDPs are being forced to return
to Chechnya against their will. ``Persuasion'' to leave Ingushetia is
accomplished sometimes by refusal to register new arrivals
(particularly from the Russian-controlled areas of Chechnya) for
assistance, by de-registering them, or by cutting the levels of
assistance provided to them. (We also are monitoring the situation of
around 150,000 IDPs from Chechnya--the majority of whom are non-ethnic
Chechens--displaced to non-contiguous provinces, since, although
``recognized,'' they are mostly unable to register and therefore have
consequent difficulties such as entering their children in school.)
Reports by human rights organizations and from journalists about
atrocities and gross human rights violations in Chechnya--both in the
detention camps set up by Russian troops and in the towns to which
Chechens have tried to return--appear to be corroborated at least in
part by many of the daily interviews carried out by UNHCR monitors. We
are putting some mechanisms in place to check out the reports more
systematically. An officer devoted entirely to protection issues was
sent to the area last week. UNHCR, as in similar conflict situations,
has certain reporting constraints, in order to preserve its impartial
presence and protect the TOPs, staff and the assistance program itself.
We deal with this by sharing verified reports with those agencies whose
mandated task it is to monitor human rights conditions.
The appointment of Mr. Kalamanov, the former head of the Federal
Migration Service, to investigate alleged human rights abuses in
Chechnya, and the opening of a passport service in Chechnya (none
having been available for the past four years) has given rise to some
hope that the situation may begin to improve shortly.
Future of the operation
Following an inter-agency assessment mission to Ingushetia (and
just inside northern, Russian-controlled Chechnya) in the first week of
February (which found conditions in the established camps reasonable,
but much below standard in the spontaneous settlements and only
slightly better in the host families), an appeal for funds should be
issued today, covering the period through 30 June. Continuing emphasis
will be placed on water and sanitation, with the intention to upgrade
and rehabilitate a failing Ingushetia infrastructure. Much more
emphasis will be placed on shelter, with the main aim being to repair
and improve the host family living compounds (sheds, garages, etc.
offered as shelter). In addition, some food assistance will be required
for host families. For the first inter-agency flash appeal of $16.2m, a
total of $14.1m has been pledged.
Particularly since the fall of Grozny and the Russian claim to
control the major part of Chechnya, questions have been asked about our
intention to function inside Chechnya. Our opinion is that the
situation does not appear to be safe for the majority of Chechens and
we would therefore not encourage return at this stage. The recent human
rights reports make us even more cautious. A second concern is that we
cannot mount any assistance operation of significant scale, since we
cannot send international staff into Chechnya, even on mission, to
ensure proper control of the implementation of such an operation--due
to the onmipresent and undiminished security risks, not only as a
result of the war, but also from criminals.For the time being, UNHCR
and its partners are setting up a system to provide assistance in
Ingushetia for those who elect to return, and we have developed plans
to run convoys across the provincial borders into Chechnya, depending
on the feedback in the coming days from yesterday's first convoy.
The U.N. Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs is also
planning to send a mission to Moscow this week to enter into
discussions about setting up a possible assistance operation in
Chechnya.
Humanitarian Assistance in the Northern Caucasus (Russian Federation)
information bulletin: as of 11 february 2000
Visit of the Secretary-General to Moscow
The United Nations Secretary-General visited Moscow from 27 to 29
January 2000 and had meetings with senior Russian officials. The
situation in Chechnya was one of the topics discussed. The Secretary-
General reiterated his concerns about the fate of civilians in the
Republic. While the international community fully understands the need
for States to combat terrorism, the Secretary-General stressed that the
use of force should be proportional and not endanger civilians. He
noted that for the time being, UN humanitarian assistance is being
provided to IDPs outside Chechnya but he looked forward to the day when
UN assistance could be extended to those within Chechnya when
circumstances permit.
Flash Appeal Review
The United Nations deployed a team of international staff to
Ingushetia during the first week of February to review programme
implementation, assess priority needs, and plan future programmes in
the region. The findings of the mission will provide the basis for the
extension of the United Nations Consolidated Inter-agency Appeal which
is being proposed to cover the period 1 December 1999-30 June 2000.
The team comprised representatives from UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF,
UNSECOORD, WFP, WHO, OCHA, UNSECOORD, TOM, and the Danish Refugee
Council (DRC). Representatives of the Russian Government (EMERCOM and
the Federal Migration Service) accompanied the team. The main findings
are cited below:
There are approximately 185,000 internally displaced persons
(IDPs) in Ingushetia. (UNHCR/DRC, working in close cooperation
the Regional Migration Service and local administrations was in
the process of completing a registration exercise during the
review mission.) About 70% of IDPs are living with host
families, 20% in spontaneous settlements, and 10% in camps.
While an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 IDPs have returned to
Chechnya, population movements into and out of Chechnya
continue.
On the whole, Emercom of Russia, UN agencies, ICRC and NGOs
are meeting the emergency needs although gaps still exist.
Agencies are continuing to provide emergency food rations,
medicines, warm clothing, water and sanitation. They will also
now start to focus on programmes such as education, income
generation, and psycho-social rehabilitation. The UN appeal,
due to be issued on 1 March 2000, will describe possible
scenarios, priority requirements and specific ways to address
them.
The security situation throughout the northern Caucasus
continues to hamper humanitarian action. Staff movements and
presence has to be limited, complicating management and
monitoring of aid operations.
Exploratory Mission to Chechnya
During the review of the UN flash appeal, the opportunity arose to
conduct a one-day exploratory mission inside Chechnya to gain a first-
hand indication of the overall situation and to help the UN agencies
carry out contingency planning.
The four-person UN team comprised members of UNHCR, UNICEF, OCHA
and UNSECOORD. Two officials from Emercom accompanied the team. The
team visited Garagorsk and Znamenskoye in the Nadterechnii district
(central-northern Chechnya). It has 50,000 residents and an additional
35,000 IDPs. 30,000 IDPs are hosted by residents or live in spontaneous
settlements. 5,000 IDPs live in two camps, managed by Emercom and the
Federal Migration Service. The security environment in that particular
district appeared relatively stable but remains volatile.
While conditions in camps appeared to be reasonably good thanks to
the assistance provided by Emercom and the Federal Migration Service,
the situation in the spontaneous settlements is grim. The district
infrastructure is in deplorable shape but basic services such as
electricity, gas and water are working. The team was struck by a fairly
steady flow of cars, buses, and trucks along the district's roads. The
information gathered by the team will help the UN in its contingency
planning activities.
The Humanitarian ResponseIn total, UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) has sent 28 convoys to Ingushetia and 5 to Dagestan.
The last convoy to Ingushetia comprised 30 trucks which carried
more than 300 MTs of food items and 163 double-tier beds.
UNHCR's previous convoy included winterized tents and 1,105
double tier beds. Over 4000 MT of food have been delivered.
UNHCR, which has been supplying food commodities to DRC for
distribution, has now exhausted its food budget and the last
commodities will be distributed next week. UN World Food Programme
(WFP) commodities have now began to arrive to cover food requirements
for 150,000 persons. The division of labour between agencies targeting
IDPs and agencies targeting host families has been complicated by the
fact that population groups are intermingled and are located in over
261 places. The Russian Ministry of Emergencies (Emercom), WFP, UNHCR,
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and DRC are
working out new arrangements to address this issue.
UNHCR and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) are working together to
improve the water and sanitation situation. On 1 February, UNHCR and
the water and sewage organization of Ingushetia signed an agreement on
emergency water supply to IDP settlements. The agreement comprises
water trucking and installation of UNICEF's 14 water bladders. Other
activities in this sector include rehabilitation of the central water
distribution station, the laying of new distribution pipes, the
provision of water tanks, showers, sewage disposal, and garbage
collection.
UNICEF has arranged an air shipment of some 30 MTs non-food items,
which are expected to arrive in Vladikavkaz early next week. These
items, including cold chain equipment to support the Ingush Ministry of
Health to have an adequate immunization infrastructure throughout the
Republic, will be distributed to various UNICEF supported assistance
projects in Ingushetia.
In addition to programmes implemented by UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, WHO
and ICRC, some 20 NGOs are now working in Ingushetia. Some, such as the
DRC and World Vision (WV) have implementing arrangements with UN
agencies in addition to their own programmes.
As of 6 February 2000, DRC had distributed 80,000 winter jackets
and boots. Moreover, DRC expects to distribute some 300,000 hygiene
items to be supplied by UNICEF.
Islamic Relief is supplying clean drinking water to 8 IDP camps, as
well as providing food and non-food parcels to 4,100 families in the
camps of Sputnik, Severny and Karabulak. By the end of January 2000,
the NGO will have delivered 650 MTs of aid. Islamic Relief is also
operating 4 mobile clinics providing primary health care in the three
above-mentioned camps. The organization will start supplying its 4,100
beneficiary families with coal in the near future. Plans are under way
to expand the programme to additional 4,000 families.
The Centre for Peacemaking and Community Development (CPCD) now has
25 psychologists and trainee psychologists working for the
psychological rehabilitation of traumatized children in four IDPs camps
located in Severny, Sleptsovskaya and Karabulak. In addition, CPCD has
distributed food parcels, clothes, blankets, and hygiene packets in
Nazran and Sunzhe (Ingushetia), in Maiskii (North Ossetia) and in
Semovodsk (Chechnya). The organization is also establishing a bakery in
Sleptsovskaya.
Dorcas Aid International has distributed 109 MTs of food and non-
food items to 8,000 beneficiaries in Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia), 4,000
IDPs in Mozdok (North Ossetia), and to TOPs living with host families
in Sleptsovskaya and Nazran.
Action Contre la Faim (ACF) started distributing food and hygiene
products to 5,700 IDPs in Sleptsovskaya at the beginning of February
and plans to expand their distribution to 29,000 beneficiaries in
Karabulak.
The Salvation Army has distributed baby food to more than 8,000
children under three in Malgobek, Nazran and Sunzhenski districts. A
shipment of medicines will also be distributed shortly to vulnerable
population in these areas.
People in Need Foundation is currently providing some 3,000
children with food, school materials and basic medical care in 4
spontaneous settlements of Ingushetia.
The UN Inter-agency Flash Appeal: 1 December 1999-29 February 2000
As of end of January, the donor community had pledged US$14.1
million against the UN interagency flash appeal, compared to the US$
16.2 million requested. Whereas UNHCR, UNICEF and OCHA are completely
funded, UNFPA, WFP, and WHO still require funds.
The Chairman. Mr. Bouckaert.
STATEMENT OF MR. PETER BOUCKAERT, INVESTIGATOR, HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH
Mr. Bouckaert. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, it
is a pleasure to be here today. And I thank you for your
attention to the deepening crisis in Chechnya.
My name is Peter Bouckaert. And I am the Emergencies
Researcher at Human Rights Watch. I have just returned from
three months in Ingushetia, the Republic neighboring Chechnya,
where I have been documenting war crimes and other abuses in
the war in Chechnya.
Human Rights Watch researchers have been on the ground in
Ingushetia since the beginning of November, and we have
interviewed more than 500 witnesses in great detail about
abuses.
Because of our permanent presence in the region, we are
able to collaborate eyewitness accounts through independent and
consistent testimonies.
Our research findings on Chechnya are publicly available in
the form of some 40 press releases and two reports, and provide
detailed information about the abuses summarized in my
testimony. They are available on--on our website, and I have
brought copies with me today.
The evidence we have gathered in Chechnya is disturbing.
Russian forces have committed grave abuses, including war
crimes in their campaign in Chechnya.
In Grozny, the graffiti on the wall reads, ``Welcome to
Hell, Part Two,'' about as good a summary as any of what
Chechen civilians have been living through in the past five
months.
Russia talks about fighting a war against terrorism in
Chechnya, but it is Chechen civilians who have borne the brunt
of the Russian offensive in this war, as in the first Chechen
conflict.
Most abuses we have documented have been committed by
Russian forces, but we have also documented serious abuses by
Chechen fighters.
Mr. Chairman, since the beginning of this conflict, Russian
forces have indiscriminately and disproportionately bombed and
shelled civilian objects, causing heavy civilian casualties.
Russian forces have ignored their Geneva Convention
obligations to focus their attacks on combatants, and appear to
have taken few safeguards to protect civilians. It is this
carpet-bombing campaign, which has been responsible for the
vast majority of civilian deaths in the conflict in Chechnya.
The Russian forces have used powerful surface-to-surface
rockets on numerous occasions, causing heavy death tolls in the
hundreds in the Central Market bombing in Grozny and in many
smaller towns and villages.
Lately, Russian commanders have threatened to use even more
powerful explosives, including fuel air explosives, which could
have a disastrous casualty count if used against civilian
targets.
The bombing campaign has turned many parts of Chechnya to a
wasteland; even the most experienced war reporters I have
spoken to told me they have never seen anything in their
careers like the destruction of the capital, Grozny.
Russian forces have often refused to create safe corridors
to allow civilians to leave areas of active fighting, trapping
civilians behind front lines for months.
The haggard men and women who came out of Grozny after
their perilous journey told me of living for months in dark,
cold cellars with no water, gas or electricity and limited
food. The young children were often in shock, whimpering in the
corners of their tents in Ingushetia and screaming in fright
whenever Russian war planes flew over, reminding them of the
terror in Grozny.
Men especially face grave difficulties when attempting to
flee areas of fighting. They are subjected to verbal taunting,
extortion, theft, beatings and arbitrary arrest.
On several occasions, refugee convoys have come under
intense bombardment by Russian forces causing heavy casualties.
Currently, tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped in
the Argun River Gorge of Southern Chechnya, stuck behind
Russian lines, without a way out from the constant bombardment
and rapidly running out of food supplies.
For many Chechens, the constant bombardment was only the
beginning of their horror. Once they came into contact with
Russian forces, they faced even greater dangers.
Human Rights Watch has now documented three large-scale
massacres by Russian forces in Chechnya.
In December, Russian troops killed 17 civilians in the
village of Alkhan-Yurt while going on a looting spree, burning
many of the remaining homes and raping several women.
We have documented at least 50 murders mostly of older men
and women by Russian soldiers in the Staropromyslovski District
of Grozny since Russian forces took control of that district--
innocent civilians shot to death in their homes and their
yards. In one case, three generations of the Zubayev family
were shot to death in the yard of their home.
On February 5th, a few days after Secretary of State
Albright met with President Putin in Moscow, Russian forces
went on a killing spree in the Aldi district of Grozny,
shooting at least 62 and possibly many more civilians who were
waiting in the street and their yards for soldiers to check
their documents.
These were entirely preventable deaths, not unavoidable
casualties of war. They were acts of murder, plain and simple.
Refugees are returning to Grozny to find their relatives or
neighbors shot to death in their homes. And most disturbing of
all, there is no evidence that the killing spree has stopped.
In the past month, the Russian forces have begun arresting
large numbers of civilian men throughout Chechnya. These men,
numbering well over 1,000, and some women have been taken to
undisclosed detention facilities, and their relatives are
desperately trying to locate them.
I have spoken to men who have been able to pay their way
out of these detention camps, and they have given me consistent
and detailed testimony about constant beatings, severe torture,
and even cases of rape of both men and women.
One of the men I have interviewed suffered from a back
injury after being hit by a heavy metal hammer.
A second man had several broken ribs and suffered from
kidney problems from the severe beatings.
The constant attacks by Russian forces against the civilian
population have caused more than 200,000 Chechens to flee into
neighboring Ingushetia, overwhelming the local population,
which numbers only some 300,000.
Many more internally displaced persons are trapped inside
Chechnya, especially in the Southern Argun River Gorge, unable
to seek safety because of the refusal of Russian forces to
create safe corridors.
The conditions in the refugee camps are dire, with
inadequate shelter, food, clean water, heating and other
essentials. Only a minority of refugees are housed in crowded
tent camps or railway cars. The majority live in makeshift
shelter, in abandoned farms, empty trucking containers or
similar substandard shelter. Many are forced to pay large sums
for private housing.
Because the refugees are forced to rely on their own
limited resources for survival, they are often forced to return
to what is still a very active war zone when they run out of
money, putting their lives at renewed risk.
Russia is not allowing humanitarian organizations to
operate freely in Ingushetia and is virtually blocking any
direct assistance to needy persons inside Chechnya.
Refugee children in Ingushetia are not attending school and
medical needs often go unmet.
The contrast with the international response to last year's
Kosovo crisis is striking, although the security concerns and
Russian obstruction are certainly relevant factors.
Russian authorities have repeatedly attempted to force
refugees to return to Chechnya by denying them food in the
camps or by rolling their train compartments back to Chechnya.
Russia is attempting to relocate refugee populations to
areas of Northern Chechnya under Russian control, which would
place them beyond the direct reach of international
humanitarian agencies and under more direct Russian control.
The border between Chechnya and Ingushetia is regularly
closed, preventing refugees from fleeing to safety and often
splitting up families stranded on different sides of the
border.
Following the destruction of the capital, Grozny, and many
other towns and villages in Chechnya, and the widespread
looting and burning of homes, many refugees simply no longer
have homes to return to. Everything they owned in this world
has been destroyed.
As in all conflicts where we work, Human Rights Watch
documents violations by all sides to the conflict in Chechnya.
We have uncovered evidence of serious abuses by Chechen
fighters in the conflict.
Chechen fighters, particularly those among them who
consider themselves Islamic fighters, have shown little regard
for the safety of the civilian population, often placing their
military positions in densely populated areas and refusing to
leave civilian areas even when asked to do so by the local
population.
Village elders who tried to stop Chechen fighters from
entering their village have been shot or severely beaten on
several occasions.
In short, the Chechen fighters have added to their--to the
civilian casualty count in Chechnya by not taking the necessary
precautions to protect civilian life.
Some Chechen fighters were also responsible for brutal
abuses in the interwar years, including widespread kidnapings
and hostage takings.
And there is convincing evidence that Chechen fighters have
executed captured Russian soldiers in this conflict.
But without minimizing the seriousness of abuses carried
out by Chechen fighters, it is important to state that the
primary reason for civilian suffering in Chechnya today is
abuses committed against the civilian population by Russian
forces.
One of the most troubling aspects of the war is that the
Russian authorities have failed to--to act to stop abuses
perpetrated by their troops in Chechnya.
There is simply no indication that the Russian authorities
have taken any steps to prevent these abuses, to investigate
them when they do happen, and to punish those responsible.
As a result, a climate of impunity is rapidly growing in
Chechnya. Russian soldiers know that they can treat civilian--
civilian--Chechen civilians however they like and they will not
face any consequences.
Nowhere is the failure of the military authorities to stop
abuses in Chechnya more obvious than in the widespread looting
which has taken place in Chechnya since the beginning of the
war.
Soldiers are systemically looting civilian homes, carting
away the stolen goods on their military trucks and storing them
at their barracks in plain daylight. The looting is visible to
everyone, and it is occurring right under the noses of their
commanders. Yet nothing is being done to stop this and other
abuses.
The absolute failure of the Russian military command to
stop war crimes, particularly summary executions, in Chechnya
makes them highly complicit in these abuses. Instead of acting
to prevent abuses, the Russian military has continued to issue
blanket denials about abuses.
In the face of the overwhelming mountain of evidence about
abuses in Chechnya, these blanket denials are unacceptable.
Mr. Chairman, equally worrying is a lack of a strong
Western response to the abuses in Chechnya. Instead of using
its relationship with Russia to bring an end to the abuses in
Chechnya, the Clinton Administration has focused on cementing
its relationship with Acting President Putin, the prime
architect of the abusive campaign in Chechnya.
Secretary of State Madeline Albright traveled to Moscow
while bombs were raining down on Grozny, and chose to focus her
remarks on Acting President Putin's qualities as the new leader
of Russia, rather than on the brutal war in Chechnya.
U.S. officials continue to understate the level of
atrocities in Chechnya, talking about abuses in the war rather
than calling those abuses by their proper name, war crimes.
The administration is understating the amount of influence
and power it has over Moscow, because the administration wants
to continue with business as usual and mend its ties with
Moscow in the wake of the NATO bombing campaign in the former
Yugoslavia.
To date, the international community has given the Russian
government no reason to fear any repercussions for its actions
in Chechnya.
The United States and its Western allies could be doing a
lot more to stop the brutal abuses in Chechnya.
Starting Friday at the trilateral EU-U.S.-Russia meeting in
Lisbon, they must call the abuses in Chechnya by their proper
name, war crimes, and must insist that there will be no
``business as usual'' with Russia while these violations
continue.
The West must insist on accountability for the crimes
committed in Chechnya, and an end to the rapidly growing
climate of impunity developing in Chechnya.
An immediate international monitoring presence should be
established to document war crimes and other abuses in Chechnya
and to provide the international community with accurate and
reliable information about abuses in Chechnya.
The U.S. should push the World Bank and the IMF to
explicitly suspend pending loan payments until the Russian
Federation takes steps to rein in its troops, beginning a--and
begin a meaningful process of accountability for abuses, and
fully cooperates with the deployment of an international
monitoring presence in the North Caucasus.
The IMF and the World Bank should not be financing a
government bent on a policy that is so destructive and contrary
to their institutional mandates as the Russian military
operation in Chechnya.
The U.S. should encourage its European allies to bring a
case to the European Court of Human Rights, charging Russia
with the blatant violations of its International Treaty
obligations in the conduct of the Chechen war.
The conduct of the Chechen war and the creation of a
Commission of Inquiry should be a prominent item for discussion
at the upcoming U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting, and the
U.S. should--must insist on a discussion of the Chechen
conflict at the U.N. Security Council, because the conflict in
Chechnya has major implications for international peace and
security.
Mr. Chairman, please allow me to end my testimony with an
expression of thanks and a plea. I will be returning to
Ingushetia soon. And I want to bring a message of hope to the
victims of this war, the Chechen civilians who had nothing to
do with why this war started, yet who are suffering the
greatest.
I want to be able to tell them that the West cares about
their suffering, and that they have not been forgotten.
I will take copies of the Senate resolution adopted last
week. Thank you for that expression of concern. But my plea is
that your engagement not begin and end there, but that you
exercise sustained leadership towards establishing U.S. policy
towards Russia that insists on accountability and an end to
violations.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Well, I thank you. And I have tried in the
nearly 28 years that I have been here to let politics stop at
the water's edge, but I am ashamed of our government in this
regard. I am ashamed of comments that have been made in defense
of Russia, and that is what it amounts to.
But I--the two of you who have already testified have been
great. And Tom Dine is going to be equally great, because I
know him. Tom.
STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS DINE, PRESIDENT, RADIO FREE EUROPE/
RADIO LIBERTY
Mr. Dine. Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for this
hearing. I thank the members of the Committee who have been
with you in expressing yourselves so forcefully.
Each one of your messages, starting with your letter, Mr.
Chairman, with Senator Biden on the 31st of January was a shot
across the bow of the Putin Presidency and the Putin policies
that have just been articulated here so eloquently. So I join
with everyone in thanking you personally, thanking the
Committee, thanking the Senate.
The articulation of the centrality of freedom of the press,
the articulation of the violations in Russia of the freedom of
press, and what has been going on in Chechnya, are critical.
I believe that your letters, your resolutions have had
impact. We saw it for sure in your first letter in--in
expressing a sense of urgency, and it played a key role, I
believe, in Moscow's decision to finally release Andrei
Babitsky this past Friday and return him to his wife and family
and colleagues in Moscow.
Mr. Chairman, he is still not free, however. He is under a
ruling of the Ministry of Interior to stay in Moscow as the
charges against him are worked out through the Russian judicial
system.
So this odyssey, this illogical, horrible, tragic odyssey
in violation of all that we stand for as global citizens, as
well as American citizens, is still going on.
The title of the film that you showed excerpts of, ``The
Dark Side of the World,'' is an understatement in terms of what
is taking place.
The Czech journalists who made this film showed it to us in
Prague just a couple of weeks ago, to all of our journalists
who assemble every morning at 11:00 o'clock for what is called
the editorial board meeting.
And all of us were just horrified. The fact that Andrei
Babitsky participated with those who made that film made it
even more telling and more stinging for all of us.
Just a little housekeeping--I have a much longer statement.
If you would, sir, I would appreciate it if it would be
included in the record.
The Chairman. Well, in the case of all of you, if you have
additional statements, we will include those in the printed
record of this meeting.
Mr. Dine. Thank you.
The Chairman. And you may proceed.
Mr. Dine. Across the post-Communist world, media freedom is
under attack from governments who do not want a free press, the
very press that monitors what governments do and inform their
citizens about what governments do. And because media freedom
is the basis of all other freedoms, all freedoms that we
cherish are now at risk as well.
As you know, over the past six weeks, we have had a
dramatic demonstration of this in the Russian detention and
mistreatment of our correspondent, Andrei Babitsky.
As you know from the most recent news report, we are elated
that he is still alive; and as I have just indicated, he is
still, however, is not totally free. So the struggle continues.
Today, I would like to mention three things: First, to tell
you about the case and the lessons we have learned from it; to
outline some of the broader challenges we face across this
region that we broadcast to; and to tell you something about
what we at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are doing to meet
those challenges.
First, about Andrei Babitsky. He is an accomplished veteran
correspondent. Most of his coverage has been about violent
conflict and war.
The Chairman. Right.
Mr. Dine. He is only 36 years old. During the first Chechen
war from 1994 to 1996, and, again, since November 1999, Andrei
was on--on the scene providing accurate and even-handed
reporting about this endless, terrible conflict. He was
criticized by both sides, but only one, the Russians--the
Russian side took action against him.
The Russian Media Center in the North Caucasus on December
27th lambasted Andrei for his reporting about the large number
of Russian casualties and of the even larger number of civilian
deaths Russian forces had caused.
That Russian act of intimidation did not work, nor did the
short-term arrest of other journalists or the harassment of
Andrei himself. He continued to report honestly and accurately,
often at the risk of putting himself in danger.
In early January, Mr. Chairman, his wife was then harassed.
He had come home to Moscow for the holiday break and had
brought film footage with him that he had taken in Chechyna,
gone to the local photo store in the neighborhood he lives in,
and then he went back to Chechnya to continue reporting.
His wife, Lyudmilla, went to pick up the film. When she was
inside the shop, the entrepreneur picked up the phone and
called whomever, probably Ministry of Interior people, and two
authorities of the Russian government came into the store, took
the film, intimidated Mrs. Babitsky, and that film has never
been seen again. Their apartment was then violated as well.
On the 16th of January, Andrei was detained in Chechnya and
put into a Russian filtration camp. And we have just heard the
horrors of several of those which are in Chechnya and the
particular institution Andrei was put into.
And in my prepared testimony that is now part of the record
is a chronology of all of what happened to Andrei Babitsky,
and--and it is quite graphic.
What have we learned from this case? First of all, media
freedom is far from guaranteed in Russia. In fact, what we are
witnessing is regression. And in a previous position, I have
been before this Committee heralding democracy in Russia. But
that that was then, Mr. Chairman. I am afraid to tell you now--
I admit what I said then, but I am telling you forthrightly now
what I know from our own journalists, that Russia is a country
that knows not what its future is and impulsively wants to
return to its past.
The Chairman. Yes.
Mr. Dine. There is intolerance. There is intolerance of an
outspoken and critical press. And no society that is worth
itself can do without such an outspoken and critical media.
Second, Russia officials under Putin far too easily slip
back into Soviet era patterns. We have--we have witnessed on
the film, on what Human Rights Watch has reported time after
time, what our correspondents--and we have had three in the
Chechen war zone, including Andrei Babitsky--all of them report
totalitarian tactics, harassment, threats, violation of the
human being, the human body, the human spirit.
We have seen the re-centralizing of authority in Moscow,
and that is not good for all of us.
Today, Andrei Babitsky held a press conference at Radio
Liberty in Moscow. This is the first time he has gone public
since he returned from a long stay in Chechnya and a shorter
stay in Dagestan.
He opened by thanking his colleagues, the Russian press, so
many of whom have been so valiant, so outspoken and so
courageous and so much on the side of press freedom. He
described in detail his odyssey. I do not have all his words
yet. He began his press conference just as I got out of the
taxicab to come inside this building.
If we can get a copy of everything, of what he said and get
it translated into English, we will certainly share it with you
and your colleagues.
But he made a persuasive presentation that he was in the
hands throughout this torturous five and a half weeks of
Russia's security services, which includes the FSB (or the
former KGB), and the Ministry of Interior, known as the MVD.
And he was in the hands of pro-Moscow Chechens.
He described his captivity in many ways. And he said, to
make his point at the end of his statement, that on February
23rd when he was taken across borders, he knew he was in the
hands of the Russian government authorities, because at a time
of great tension and great security along the borders, he was
driven right through. So he was in the hands of people who knew
what they were doing.
The Chairman. Yes.
Mr. Dine. Third, about the Russian government, the Putin
regime has sent a signal that it is prepared to play fast and
loose with the truth. In the Babitsky case, we have only
experienced duplicity, tactics that have tried to be confusing
to all of us, and to keep us off the scent of where Andrei
Babitsky was.
And--and the good news is, of course, we finally caught up
with him, and he has returned to Moscow.
Many in both Russia and the West are trying to portray this
as an exceptional case, as a bump on the way to a better
future. We believe, however, that we know something more
factual about that.
The situation in Russia and Chechnya is distressing.
Harassment of journalists, playing favorites with newspapers,
pressure on the only independent television network, NTV,
tightening control over regional media, all of this with little
or no regard to legal niceties.
But in other countries it is even worse. For instance,
Belarus is a disaster. Belarus is now in the hands of a
dictator that wants to be the president of a reunified Russia/
Ukraine/Belarus. Ukraine has been pressuring journalists,
particularly during the presidential election held in December.
The Caucasus show few bright spots. But the worst situation
of all is in Central Asia. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan impose
censorship daily in the Soviet style. They arrest and harass
journalists.
The case of Nurberdy Nurmamedov this past week is an
example. He was assigned to jail for five years. Why? He talked
to Radio Liberty's Turkmenistan correspondents in Prague over
the telephone. He was critical about the government in
Ashkhabad, Turkmenistan. So he and his son have now been thrown
into the clinker, and God only knows what is going to happen to
them.
Tajikistan and Kazakhstan are slipping backwards. And
Kyrgyzstan, which was so--for--for many of us, our hope-- and I
think I am on record as testifying somewhere on Capitol Hill
that it was the oasis of democracy in the Central Asian desert.
And now we see Kyrgyzstan going retrograde as well.
One of the lessons about this general picture of the region
to which we broadcast to, Mr. Chairman, is privatization did
not by itself guarantee media freedoms.
The privately owned press is the object of government
intimidation. One of the owners of NTV, the independent--the
only independent television network station in Russia--is here
this week.
Mr. Guzinsky intimidated by one of his stockholding
partners, Gasprom. Two weeks ago, the chairman of Gasprom said
publicly that what NTV was showing about the--the horrors of
Chechnya, the dark side of the world, was not in the interest
of Russia.
Second, post-communist governments in this part of the
world control the electronic media on which most depend, far
more than the print media, on which these countries are
typically evaluated by Western observers.
If you control the television, if you control radio, you do
not have to worry about the newspapers in this part of the
world. And, third, all of these countries are going to need a
lot of help from the outside for a long time to come if they
are going to reform their basic institutions and become modern,
open societies.
And I would include in my use of the word ``help,'' the
pleas that I have heard from all of you today, that is,
``pressure.''
That brings me to my final point, the continuing mission of
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Today, we broadcast to 24
countries in 26 languages. These countries are in Central and
Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Iran and Iraq. All
of these areas, in one form or another, are in political and
economic trouble.
We broadcast daily. That amounts to 900 hours a week of
language programming in the vernacular--we do not broadcast in
English--to all of these countries.
Also, Mr. Chairman, we have more than 10 million visitors
to our websites every month. And publications such as our daily
``Newsline,'' which goes to every office on Capitol Hill, and I
know is used up here--is something that is worthy and keeps all
of us informed.
Overall, the events that we have been through over the last
five and half weeks with finding and hopefully freeing finally
Andrei Babitsky, demonstrate the relevance of our mission, the
promotion of democracy.
The telling of truth as we know it, so that people can make
their own decisions in their own way in their own societies.
Like so many of you, who are on the front lines of the battle
for freedom, we know we have to continue the fight, but we are
not going to fall into pessimism.
What is our reason for hope? The response of so many
Russians, the response, especially, of Russian journalists. And
I believe you have behind this, the horrible picture of Grozny,
the blowup of a publication that came out two weeks ago,
``Obshchaya Gazeta.''
This is a document of four pages that was distributed on
the streets of Moscow, 180,000 copies were distributed. Down
the left column, you see the sponsors, 32 of them, from the
Russian press. RFE/RL is one of those sponsors.
This was Russia's journalists showing their solidarity with
Andrei Babitsky and their fear of the regression taking place
in Russian society about their press freedoms.
On this score, Mr. Chairman, I promise you and others of
this Committee that we at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,
myself personally, will do everything possible to see Andrei
Babitsky finally, finally freed, to make sure that this horror
hopefully never occurs again, and when it does, whether it is
in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, or some other place, we
are going to do everything we can to get our person out and to
uphold the value of freedom of the press.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dine follows:]
Prepared Statement of Thomas A. Dine
keeping the window open: rfe/rl and media freedom in post-communist
countries
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing and for inviting
me to appear.
Across the post-communist world, media freedom is under ever-
increasing attack from governments who fear the free flow of
information.
Just as the appearance of glasnost almost 15 years ago helped to
spark the drive toward democracy and freedom in Central and Eastern
Europe and in the former Soviet Union, so now this government-sponsored
attack threatens to close the window not only on freedom of the press
but to close freedom's windows on the possibility for open societies in
places which have known too little freedom in the past.
Over the past six weeks, we at RFE/RL have experienced this renewed
government effort to control the media first hand. Russian authorities
arrested our correspondent Andrei Babitsky just because he reported
honestly about the Chechen war and more recently have claimed to have
handed him over to a Chechen group. Even though Andrei is now at home
in Moscow with his family, this saga is not over because charges are
still pending against him.
This morning, I would like to discuss with you some of the
significant lessons we believe that the Russian government's actions
have for the future. But before doing that, I want to take this
opportunity to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and this entire Committee, for
the role you played in this case and especially for the Senate
resolution you authored and pushed through in support of Andre
Babitsky. That document played a major role in the progress we've seen
so far, and on behalf of Andrei Babitsky and all of us at RFE/RL, I
want to express our gratitude for your efforts
But my subject is broader than Andrei Babitsky, whose case has
received enormous attention from the media and human rights groups
around the world and about whose fate I am sure you are broadly
familiar. It is also the disturbing pattern we now see in one
postcommunist country after another where governments which profess to
be democratic are in fact seeking to turn back the clock to a time when
rulers decided what those living under their control could know and
when they could know it.
But there is another part of this story, one in which we at Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty are playing a major part and one that gives
some basis for optimism about the future. And that is the struggle of
journalists and ordinary citizens in these countries to maintain and
expand freedom. As was the case in the worst times of the Cold War, we
are helping them to do so. Not only do our programs send a powerful
signal that they are not alone as they struggle against post-communist
tyrannies, but in many countries, our broadcasts help to provide the
information and analysis that the people of these countries cannot yet
or can no longer get from their own domestic news outlets.
In that battle to keep freedom's window open, we are winning
victories every day over those who would deny to their own people
freedom of the press. And because a free press is the guardian of every
other right that free peoples prize, this is a fight that we must all
wage and that we are confident that we will win.
Moscow's Mistreatment of Andrei Babitsky
All of you have heard about the case of Andrei Babitsky, about his
detention by Russian authorities, his purported transfer to the
Chechens, his reappearance in Daghestan at the end of last week, and
his return to Moscow. But allow me to give you some details about what
has happened to him throughout this period. (I have attached to my
testimony a complete chronology of this saga.)
Andrei is 36 and already a prize-winning war correspondent. He won
praise for his accurate and even-handed reporting during the first
Chechen war in 1994-96 and won it again for his coverage of the second
Chechen war since the fall of last year. Indeed, at the time of his
detention, he was virtually the only independent journalist in
Chechnya, criticized by both sides for his reporting.
Between January 15 when we last spoke to Andrei before his
detention by Russian officials and February 25 when he reappeared in
Daghestan, neither we at RFE/RL nor any other independent organization
had contact with him. And throughout that six-week-long period, Russian
officials regularly issued contradictory, false, and duplicitous
statements about Andrei Babitsky's whereabouts and condition.
Initially, Russian officials even denied that they had arrested
Babitsky and only acknowledged his detention after we and other media
outlets began asking questions. Once they did acknowledge that he was
under their control, Russian officials violated Andrei's rights as a
Russian citizen by denying him contact with his family and lawyer and
repeatedly changed their stories as to why he was being detained.
Then on February 3, Russian officials produced a film clip that
purported to show Babitsky being handed over to Chechen fighters, an
action that if true clearly violates not only Russian law but the
Geneva Convention as well.On that occasion too, Russian officials could
not decide what the truth was. Some said that Andrei had volunteered to
be exchanged. Others, including Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo,
claimed that the exchange was entirely legal and proper. And still
others asserted that with this exchange, Moscow no longer bore any
responsibility for Babitsky's fate.
Such Russian claims and the obvious defects in the film itself--
defects which suggested to many people that the entire exchange had
been staged for the cameras--sparked a firestorm of criticism by media
and human rights groups in the Russian Federation and abroad as well as
demands by international organizations and some Western governments
that Moscow find Babitsky and restore him to his family and colleagues.
Then, the Russian authorities produced another film clip purporting
to show Babitsky in Chechen captivity on February 6. But that film too
was not without problems and in fact raised more questions than it
answered. Obviously, pro-independence Chechen officials, who would have
had every interest in producing Babitsky to the world and thus
embarrassing Moscow, repeatedly denied that any exchange had taken
place or that he was in an area under their control.
In the face of this criticism and mounting fears for Babitsky's
life, Moscow changed its line once again, asserting--completely
implausibly--that Russian officials knew that Babitsky was alive but
they did not know where he was. Obviously, if these officials knew he
was alive, they had to know where he was, and if they didn't know where
he was, then they could not possibly know whether he was alive. A kind
of newspeak that reflects the worst of old times.
On February 15, acting Russian President Vladimir Putin became the
latest and most senior official in Moscow to make that claim and to say
that he had askedi Russia's security services to ensure Babitsky's
safety.
Speaking to journalists on that date, Putin said that he was in
constant contact with officials in the Russian security services and
the office of the prosecutor general. and that these officials were
doing ``all they can'' to ensure that Babitsky remains alive and is set
free. But the acting president then undercut his own claims by
suggesting that ``as far as I understand the situation, [Babitsky]
already feels free.''
Putin's decision to get involved in the case initially raised hopes
that Babitsky might soon be released, but with each passing day, the
acting Russian president's words appeared to be nothing more than
another example of the Russian government's obfuscation and delay in
this case.
Then, last Friday, Andrei Babitsky resurfaced in Daghestan, brought
there in the trunk of a car from an unknown location. Russian officials
subsequently charged him with passport violations after he used a
document that had been forced upon him. He was then flown to Moscow and
was released on his own recognizance while Russian government
investigators continue to examine his case.
Lights Going Off Windows Being Closed
We are elated that Andrei is alive and back with his family, and we
expect that all of the trumped-up charges against him will be dropped.
But we remain concerned about something else: Russian officials and
some Western observers have attempted to portray the Babitsky case as
an isolated incident, a bump on Russia's road to a better future. That
view is becoming ever harder to sustain not only for Russia. but for
many of the other post-Soviet states as well.
The situation in Russia itself is distressing enough. In Chechnya,
the Russian authorities have harassed and even arrested other
journalists throughout the conflict. Moscow has set up a press bureau
to ensure that Russian officials and not journalists will determine
what Russians read and hear about the conflict. The private owners of
the one independent television network have been subjected to pressure
by the government and they in turn have put pressure on NTV to tow the
government's line on Chechnya or face the loss of the owners' financial
backing.
Russian officials now routinely play favorites among journalists,
giving interviews only to those who toe the pro-government line. A
Kremlin press officer, for example, said last week that acting
President Putin would never give an interview to the editors of
``Segodnya'' that has maintained some independence in the face of
earlier pressure. And Duma deputies in the faction which supports Putin
have told our correspondents that they will, no longer talk with us.
Moreover, Russian officials are doing this with little regard for
legal niceties. Two weeks ago, the media minister annOunced that Moscow
was moving to put the regional press under the control of the central
authorities--even though he publicly acknowledged that there was no law
allowing the government to do so. Instead, the minister fell back on
the line that he was acting on the basis of secret ``internal
directives.''
Not surprisingly, both the high profile Babitsky case and these
other government actions have frightened and even intimidated some
journalists and their audiences. The leader of one Russian media
watchdog group even said last week that ``this is the beginning of a
tragic epoch for the Russian press.''
But Russian journalists are trying to fight back. Two weeks ago, a
special edition of the weekly newspaper ``Obshchaya gazeta'' featured
appeals by 32 editors and writers condemning what the authorities have
done to Babitsky and to the media. ``This is a fight for a normal
climate,'' one of them said. ``I don't expect that after this, [the
authorities] will stop pressuring newspapers and magazines. No. But
society will at least evaluate the conditions in which it lives.''
Most of these recent expressions of concern about media freedom
have focused on the printed press, the only portion of the Russian
media that had generally gained some real independence from the
government. The domestic electronic media `` radio and especially
television--remain under far tighter central control. And since it is
through these channels, rather than via newspapers, that the
overwhelming majority of Russians now get their news, the state of
press freedom in Russia was already dire even before the Babitsky case.
More recently, the Russian authorities have moved to increase their
ability to,monitor and control the Internet, a channel of communication
many had hoped could escape such government supervision.
But if things are distressing in the Russian Federation, they are
even worse elsewhere. The director of our Belarusian service--the only
Western Belarusian-language broadcaster to that critically important
country--told me just before I came to Washington that ``the game of
press freedom in Belarus is one of few rules and even fewer winners,
but the main loser is the audience.'' Alyaksandr Lukashenka bans state-
run firms from advertising in the independent media, the information
ministry--a current-day replica of Orwell's ministry of truth--not only
tries to regulate content but even the grammar of articles. And
Belarusian society is subjected to an unceasing Soviet-era style anti-
Western propaganda campaign.
The situation in Ukraine is somewhat better, but in recent months,
officials there too have sought to pressure both domestic and foreign
broadcasters into avoiding criticism of the country's leadership and of
the rising tide of corruption there.
In the Caucasus, all three countries have a mixed record, allowing
some freedom but using a variety of means to discourage certain
critical reporting. Azerbaijan is almost certainly the worst offender
in that region. Its government has sponsored raids on journals and
television stations that carry criticism of senior officials. It has
confiscated equipment and taken other steps to prevent newspapers and
electronic media to do their jobs. And it now has a new press law that
imposes draconian penalties on anyone who criticizes the president or
his entourage.
But the worst situation in the post-Soviet space is to be found in
Central Asia. There are no bright spots there anymore, a sad commentary
on the retreat Kyrgyzstan has made from its earlier and much-praised
commitment to democracy and freedom. In Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,
the governments not only impose tight censorship over all publications
but they regularly harass our correspondents and even those who speak
with our correspondents. Indeed, a few weeks ago, Uzbek President Islam
Karimov lashed out at foreign journalists for their coverage, pointedly
suggesting that they were serving foreign masters at high pay.
Tajikistan remains a country torn apart by war. To speak of media
freedom there is to speak about something that does not really exist.
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan appear to be bellwether countries. The state
of press freedom in Kazakhstan is deteriorating rapidly. The government
has not only harassed journalists, it has used its fmancial clout to
force newspapers and journals to be sold to those close to President
Nursultan Nazarbayev who can then control them even though they remain
nominally private.
Over the past year, Kazakhstan's government has prohibited several
papers from going to print or bringing in their publications from
abroad, thus effectively killing most of them. The offices of some
papers even have been firebombed. And at the end of last year, Astana
created a new telecommunications billing center to monitor the use of
the Internet by Kazakhstan citizens. To support that effort, the
government pushed through a new law allowing the KGB successor
organization there to monitor email messages, fax transmissions and
telephone conversations without any involvement by the courts.
Such arrangements have sent a chill through that society.
Kyrgyzstan, in which so many had placed so much hope, appears to be
drifting off in the same direction, President Askar Akayev has
appointed a former communist ideology secretary to oversee the
country's radio and television corporation. His courts have imposed
punitive fines on newspapers and journals which have carried critical
articles. And last September, the authorities forced the editor of the
independent ``Vecherniy Bishkek'' to resign after he published
interviews with opposition politicians and a series of articles
containing restrained criticism of the government.
All of these developments offer several lessons to those of us
concerned about this region: First, privatization has not been by
itself a guarantee of media freedom. Governments continue to possess
the clout to get their views accepted. Second, all the governments in
this region continue to have far greater control over the part of the
media--radio and television--which the population listens to most. Just
because you can find alternative views in the press does not mean that
people can afford to buy them if they live in capital cities or that
people in the regions ever see such publications. And third, for these
countries to have a chance to establish press freedom and democracy,
they are going to need a lot of outside help for a long time to come.
That is where our station comes in, and that is what I want to talk
to you about next.
For almost 50 years, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been
broadcasting to the nations of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union,
and now for the past two to Iran and Iraq as well. Our 22 services beam
more than 900 hours of vernacular language programming to these
countries, the largest number ever. More than ten million people visit
our website every month. And our publications, including our flagship
RFE/RL Newsline, are essential reading around the world. And we do all
this with only one-quarter of the staff and one-third of the resources
we had only five years ago.
In the aftermath of the collapse of communism in Europe and the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, many thought that our radio station
had lost its raison d'etre. They believed that with communism out of
the way and the Soviet empire in ruins, there was no need for what some
called a ``relic'' of the Cold War. But the last few years and
especially the last few months have demonstrated to everyone's
satisfaction that our reinvented communications company will have a
role to play well into the 21st century. And last fall, I am proud to
say, the Congress eliminated 1994 language calling for the end of
government funding for our company, and now, as we fight for Andrei
Babitsky, we are learning just how many allies we have across the
world.
But our role today is both different and larger than it was in the
past. Until the late 1980s, we broadcast to a region under tight
communist and Soviet control, and we performed the only role many
people still think we have to play: as a surrogate broadcaster to
countries whose populations lack a free press.
More recently, we have acquired two additional roles: as a kind of
insurance policy for countries making the first halting steps toward
democracy and a free media and as a model for how journalism should be
conducted. With regard to the first, our very existence tends to
moderate the behaviour of officials inclined to censorship. They know
that if they try to silence someone, he or she can turn to us. And that
possibility works against a return to the past. And with regard to the
second, our journalists work closely with journalists in many
countries, showing them what professional journalism is all about and
helping to give them the courage to practice it in the face of enormous
odds.
When I became president of RFE/RL just over two years ago, I
thought that our surrogate role would decline over time. I still hope
that will prove to be the case, but I know now that such a happy future
is still a long way off in many countries.
Indeed, the horizon for that iLs ever more distant in many of the
countries we deliver news to. But such retreats cannot be an excuse for
doing less; they must be the basis for redoubling our efforts. You on
this Committee know that better than most that the path toward human
freedom has never been without its twists and turns, its retreats as
well as its advances. And I pledge to you that we at Radio Free Europe/
Radio Liberty will continue the fight.
A Final Hopeful Thought
A decade ago, most of us in this room were confident that Russia
and her neighbors would move quickly in the direction of democracy and
freedom. Indeed, it was the people of these countries who did the most
to stand up for these values and to give freedom a chance. But now
unfortunately, Russia and her neighbors appear to be retreating from
the kind of media freedom that democracy requires. And to the extent
that happens, all of us, Russians and non-Russians, will be the losers.
One Russian commentator summed up the situation we now face far
better than I ever could. Speaking on independent Russian television,
he noted that one of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's first
steps after the failed August 1991 putsch was to allow Radio Liberty to
open a bureau in Moscow. One of Moscow's first steps under acting
Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration, this reporter
continued, was to arrest Andrei Babitsky, a Radio Liberty journalist.
The way the Russian authorities have treated Andrei Babitsky and
the way they and other governments are attacking media freedom across
this region are very real cause for concern. But the remarks of this
Russian commentator, along with the outpouring of support RFE/RL has
received from ordinary Russians and from you and others around the
world, give a basis for hope--as long as we who enjoy the advantages of
media freedom and democracy don't give up the struggle to extend them
across the world.
a chronology of events surrounding the disappearance of rfeirl
correspondent andrei babitsky
29 February 2000
Babitsky says he was beaten with a truncheon while being
held in a Russian detention camp in Chechnya.
A U.S. State Department spokesman says that Washington
continues to urge Moscow to conduct a ``full investigation''
into the ``alleged exchange of a civilian journalist'' for
Russian prisoners of war in Chechnya.
28 February
An RFE/RL correspondent in Makhachkala reports that Babitsky
was put on a special flight from Daghestan to Moscow this
evening. Neither Babitsky's wife nor his attorney was informed
about this move in. advance.
Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin says he does not
believe there is any need to continue holding Babitsky. He says
that he believes that Babitsky was ``more than covering
information'' in Chechnya and that his job was to ``market a
certain type of product.''
Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo says that pro-
Moscow Chechen leader Bislan Gantimirov had ``nothing to do''
with the exchange of Babitsky for Russian prisoners in early
February and that ``Babitsky was kept by Chechen terrorists''
after that time.
Ludmila Babitskaya meets with her husband in Makhachkala and
says that ``Thank God, I found Andrei alive and well, in
reasonably good condition.'' She says he has begun a hunger
strike because ``he doesn't agree with the decision to detain
him.''
Babitsky's lawyer, Aleksandr Zozulia, says that he will
challenge the decision or the Russian authorities to continue
detaining the RFE/RL correspondent. He notes that Babitsky is
in poor health and mentally exhausted.
27 February
Babitsky's lawyer Aleksandr Zozulya says that his client is
under arrest on charges of carrying a falsified passport.
Zozulya says that Babitsky had this passport ``forced upon
him.'' He adds that Babitsky has refused to sign the protocol
of charges against him.
Babitsky is no longer at the interior ministry press center
in Makhachkala. He is now at an interior ministry lockup in
that city.
Babitsky's wife Lyudmila arrives in Makhachkala but has not
been allowed to see her husband.
26 February
Babitsky tells RFE/RL correspondent Oleg Kusov that he had
agreed to be exchanged for Russian prisoners of war but changed
his mind when he saw that he was about to be handed over to
unknown masked men. Babitsky said this while still in detention
in the Daghestani capital of Makhachkala.
Babitsky is shown on Russian television being interrogated
by a Russian officer in Makhachkala.
25 February
Babitsky makes telephonic contact with his colleagues from a
Russian interior ministry detention center in Makhachkala, the
capital of Daghestan which neighbors Chechnya. Lyudmila
Babitskaya then telephones her husband from Prague. She reports
that he sounds well but is still under detention. He told her
that he hopes to see her in Moscow or Makhachkala on February
26.
Viktor Kozin, senior advisor to the Russian foreign
ministry's European Department, says in ``The Moscow Times''
that RFE/RL alone should be held responsible for Babitsky's
fate and suggests that Moscow should consider whether RFE/RL
operations on Russian soil should be ended
24 February
The US Senate passes unanimously a resolution calling on
Moscow to provide information on the fate of Babitsky.
Alberto Mora, a member of the US Broadcasting Board of
Governors, proposes the establishment of a new RFE/RL broadcast
service to Chechnya.
Latvian Foreign Minister Indulis Berzins issues a statement
expressing concern about Babitsky's fate and noting that ``the
story of Andrei Babitsky is a plain message. What happened to
him could happen to any person who investigates what is really
happening in Chechnya.''
23 February
Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin tells visiting
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook that Babitsky is alive and
in the hands of Chechen civilians. Cook says this is ``welcome
news, but we would also welcome direct contact.''
In a letter released to the press, Babitsky' s lawyers say
that the Russian authorities have not allowed them to review
written materials in the criminal case initiated against
Babitsky or explained why prosecutors continue to claim that
Babitsky has lost the right to counsel.
22 February
Nikolai Kovalyev, former Federal Security Service chief and
deputy chair of the Duma Security Committee, says that the
Babitsky case is ``absolutely incomprehensible,'' adding that
``it raises a multitude of questions.'' He noted that the
reported exchange of Babitsky for Russian prisoners ``does not
fit into the framework of existing legislation.''
18 February
``Komsomolskaya pravda'' carried a report that Babitsky is
alive and ``probably'' located in the Chechen village of Duba-
Yurt with Chechen field commander Rizvan Chitigov.
US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Evelyn
Lieberman visits RFE/RL's Moscow Bureau ``to express once again
the United States government's serious concern about the fate
of Babitsky.''
Russian Press Minister Mikhail Lesin says that he is not in
favor of any limit or ban on RFE/RL broadcast to Russia. ``Ban
or not ban, they will listen anyway'' to that station, Lesin
adds.
Russian human rights activist and Duma deputy Sergei
Kovalyev says that Russian actions in Chechnya are ``close to a
genocide'' and that press freedom in Russia is increasingly at
risk.
The Russian PEN Club admits Babitsky as an honorary member.
17 February
State Department spokesman James Rubin cites the United
States' ``profound concern'' about the fate of RFE/RL
Correspondent Andrei Babitsky, whose condition and whereabouts
in Chechnya are still unknown. He also reiterates that
Secretary of State Madeleine Aibright made clear in recent
talks with acting President Vladimir Putin that Russia would be
held responsible for Babitsky's fate.
The U.S. State Department says Russia would be ``well
advised'' to provide the necessary accreditation to journalists
to report freely from Chechnya. Rubin says the U.S. regards it
as ``unacceptable'' to treat working journalists as if they
were prisoners of war.
International humanitarian organizations react with
scepticism to acting President Vladimir Putin's appointment of
an official to safeguard human rights in Chechnya. Amnesty
International says naming of Vladimir Kalamanov is unlikely to
result in ``investigations and prosecutions'' of Russian human
rights violations in Chechnya. Human Rights Watch says
allegations of torture and indiscriminate bombing by Russian
forces should be investigated as war crimes.
16 February
Russian journalists sound alarm over what they say is a
growing threat to press freedom following the disappearance of
Radio. Liberty reporter Andrei Babitsky in Chechnya. They made
their statement in a special black-and-white edition of the
Obshchaya Gazeta newspaper, only published when Russia's press
freedom appears endangered.
The Russian Interior Ministry says that ``no search for
Babitsky has been initiated.'' Such a search, the Ministry
says, will take place ``if the investigators issue an
appropriate warrant.. But we have not received any document of
this kind so far.''
Oleg Mironov, Russia's human rights commissioner, criticizes
the Russian government for turning over Babitsky to Chechen
rebels. ``We don't know'' where he is, Mironov says. ``The
situation with Babitsky causes bewilderment and indignation,''
he says. ``It comes as a signal that the same thing may happen
to every reporter.''
Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights, issues a statement noting that Babitsky's release
``into the hands of people the Russian authorities consider
terrorists would be in contravention of the provisions'' of the
Geneva convention. She calls for increased monitoring of the
human rights situation in Chechnya.
15 February
Adrian Karatnycky, president of Freedom House, says that
Russia's treatment of Babitsky is ``a litmus test in the way
the Dreyfus case was in turn-of-the-century France--a major
case involving an individual which reveals all sorts of hidden
problems within the broader political system and society.''
Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin tells journalists
that Russian officials handling Babitsky's case are doing ``all
they can'' to ensure his safety. But Putin adds that from what
he knows, Babitsky already considers himself ``free.''
14 February
Lyudmila Babitskaya has filed a missing persons report about
her husband with the Moscow department of the Russian interior
ministry. She asks that the authorities investigate his
disappearance. The interior ministry officials accepted her
request.
The Glasnost Fund, a Russian human rights organization, says
it plans to file a complaint against Russian presidential
spokesman Sergei Yastrzhemsky over Babitsky's treatment.
13 February
Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo defends as
``correct and justified'' a decision to trade Babitsky for two
Russian prisoners of war. Speaking on Russian television,
Rushailo says that Babitsky is still alive.
11 February
U.S. Senators Edward Kennedy, Patrick Leahy and Mitch
McConnell send a letter to acting Russian President Vladimir
Putin asking him to ``do all you can to ensure Mr. Babitsky is
safety.''
More than 2,000 people demonstrate in Moscow's Pushkin
Square to demand the release of Babitsky.
Moscow's ``Dos'e na tsenzuru'' launches an Internet appeal
for Babitsky's release.
10 February
Ambassador David Johnson, U.S. representative to the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, calls on
Moscow to reveal the truth about Babitsky.
Amnesty International issues another appeal to the Russian
government to ``immediately make public the whereabouts and
order the release'' of Babitsky
European Commission President Romano Prodi said that the
conmuission wants to send a mission to Chechnya to gather
information about missing RFE/RL journalist Andrei Babitsky.
The EU commissioner for enlargement, Guenter Verheugen, said
the commission supports the demands of the OSCE that acting
Russian President Vladimir Putin disclose Babitsky's
whereabouts.
Bislan Gantemirov, the head of a pro-Moscow Chechen militia,
said his group is not involved in the detention or
disappearance of Andrei Babitsky, saying such reports are ``a
total invention.''
The U.S. State Department demanded a full and candid
accounting from Russia about the fate of missing correspondent
Andrei Babitsky. Russian officials claim Babitsky is alive and
well but they have offered no proof. In another development, at
least 20 members of the U.S. Congress demanded Babitsky's
release in a letter to acting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
9 February
Russian television broadcasts a second video showing
Babitsky who is heard saying that it is February 6 and that he
wants to go home. The clip provides no information about his
exact whereabouts. Meanwhile, a former spokesman for Chechen
President Aslan Maskhadov says that Chechens are holding
Babitsky, an assertion Maskhadov's current spokesman reiterates
is not true.
Reporters sans Frontiers again appeals to ``all actors in
the Chechen conflict to guarantee the safety of journalist
Andrei Babitsky.''
State Duma today voted down a proposal to summon the
Interior Minister (Vladimir Rushailo) and the acting Prosecutor
General (Vladimir Ustinov) to discuss the Babitsky case.
The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists
has faxed an open letter to acting Russian President Vladimir
Putin saying Babitsky's alleged exchange for POWs is
unacceptable and a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
8 February
RFE/RL Moscow bureau purchases a video tape late at night
from an unidentified man that shows Babitsky expressing wish to
go home. In it, he says the recording was made on Sunday,
February 6. That is after he was purportedly turned over to the
Chechens in exchange for two Russian soldiers.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
demands that Russia give proof by tomorrow that Babitsky is
alive.
The Foreign Correspondents' Association in Moscow calls for
Babitsky's release, describing his treatment at the hands of
the Russian authorities as ``a gross violation of human
rights'' and a clear threat to all journalists working in
Russia.
7 February
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says that the
United States is ``very unhappy'' over the Babitsky case and
that it ``holds the Russians responsible for what happens to
him.''
The International Federation of Journalists called on the
Russian government to ``come clean'' on the fate of Babitsky
and noted in its statement that there were serious problems
with the film clip Russian officials released that purports to
show Babitsky being handed over to the Chechens.
Russian Federal Security Services chief Nikolai Patrushev
said Babitsky is ``alive'' but that he does not know where
Babitsky is staying. ``That is not our business.''
Sergei Prokopov, a spokesman for the office of the Russian
prosecutor general said that a summons had been issued for
Babitsky to appear and answer questions about new evidence in
his case.
6 February
John Podesta, White House chief of staff, said that the
United States was ``very concerned'' about Babitsky's fate.
``We have made our view known to the Russian government; we've
pressed them on this issue.''
5 February
Russian human rights activist Yelena Bonner issues a public
appeal to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) asking it to meet in extraordinary session to discuss
the Babitsky case.
Chechen President Asian Maskhadov tells RFEIRL in a
telephone interview that his government has no information
about the fate of Andrei Babitsky.
4 February
Ludmila Babitskaya says that she has not heard from her
husband for more than 24 hours after the Russian authorities
said they released him or alternatively said they handed him
over to Chechen forces in exchange for Russian prisoners of
war.
Chechen Foreign Minister Ilias Akhmadov says that no
exchange of Russian prisoners of war for Babitsky took place
and that the Chechen leadership has no news of Babitsky's
whereabouts.
Russian General Valery Manilov says at a press conference
that ``everything would be all right or even good, and maybe we
could even speak of gratitude [to Babitsky] and even of an
award, if it weren't for the shady side of the question--
Andrei's efforts to return to the embrace of the bandit
formations and to be with them.''
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Broadcasting
Board of Governors Chairman Marc Nathanson, and the World Press
Freedom Committee add their names to the growing list of
individuals and groups calling on the Russian government to
provide information about the fate of Andrei Babitsky.
3 February
Russian news agency APN Novosti accuses Babitsky of
``intimate relations'' with a Chechen field commander.
Russian Presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky says
that Russian officials have exchanged Babitsky for three
Russian prisoners of war. Later Yastrzhembsky says that a film
of the incident is making its way to Moscow.
RFE/RL issues a press release condemning this reported
exchange.
US State Department spokesman James Foley says that if these
reports prove to be true, it ``would raise very serious
questions'' about Moscow's commitments to the rule of law.
Vladimir Ustinov, acting Russian prosecutor general, says
Babitsky was exchanged, then changes his story and says
Babitsky was released and went over to the Chechens.
2 February
Committee to Protect Journalists expresses alarm at
Babitsky's detention and concern about his current condition.
Russian forces detain London Times bureau chief in Chechnya.
Acting Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov travels
to Chechnya to probe the Babitsky case.
Moscow's Rublev Museum contacted by prosecutors to evaluate
icon reportedly in the possession of Babitsky at the time of
his arrest.
Moscow officials said that Babitsky would be transferred
from Naursky district to Gudermes and then to Moscow. Once in
Moscow, these officials said, he would be released on his own
recognizance.
1 February
Ryazan committee to defend Babitsky issues an appeal on
Babitsky's behalf. Other organizations across the Russian
Federation issue similar statements.
31 January
US Senators Jesse Helms and Joseph Biden send a letter to
acting Russian President Vladimir Putin calling for Babitsky's
release.
Reporters sans Frontiers calls on Russian Federation justice
minister to explain the Babitsky case.
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says that she
discussed Babitsky case with Russian Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov.
RFE/RL issues a press release saying that Moscow is dragging
its heels on releasing Babitsky and thus raising questions
about his physical well-being.
Andrei Korotkov, chief of the Russian government's
information department, says in Davos that he hopes Babitsky
will be released. He blames Babitsky's detention on local
officials and says Moscow was not involved.
Russian Presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky says
that Babitsky is being held in pretrial detention in Chechnya's
Naursky district.
30 January
Evgeniy Kiselev says on NTV's Itogi program that one of
former Russian president Boris Yeltsin's first acts after the
August 1991 coup was to give RFE/RL permission to open a bureau
in Moscow while one of current acting Russian president
Vladimir Putin's first actions was to arrest an RFEIRL
correspondent.
Prosecutors call Ludmila Babitskaya in Moscow to say that
her husband is alive and well in the Naursky district of
Chechnya.
29 January
Yuri Biryukov, head of the main department for the North
Caucasus of the Russian Federation prosecutor general's office,
goes to Chechnya on acting President Vladimir Putin's behalf to
clarify the case of Babitsky.
Presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky says that he
first learned of Babitsky's arrest from a news story on 28
January. ``Before that moment, nobody knew Babitsky's
whereabouts.''
ITAR-Tass reports former RFE/RL staffer Vladimir
Matusevich's statement that the entire Babitsky story was ``a
fabrication'' by RFE/RL to attract attention and keep the
station in operation.
28 January
Russian media officials tell RFEIRL that Babitsky will be
released with apologies.
Russian Federation Interior Ministry spokesman Oleg Aksyonov
says that Babitsky had been arrested on 23 January for lacking
accreditation.
Russian security officials told Interfax that Babitsky had
been charged with participating in ``an illegal armed
formation'' under the terms of Article 208, par. 2 of the
Russian criminal code.
27 January
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Freimut Duve
sends a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on
behalf of Babitsky.
US State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin notes Babitsky's
disappearance, expresses ``concern,'' but notes that reporters
had been warned of the dangers of going into an area where
military actions were taking place.
Babitsky reported by RFE/RL reporters to be in detention in
Urus-Martan
Wire services break story that Babitsky is missing.
Babitsky reportedly formally charged on this date.
26 January
Russian Presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky says
that Babitsky ``left Grozny and then disappeared. As far as we
are concerned, his security is not guaranteed.''
Russian security services say they, have no information on
Babitsky's whereabouts.
Russian Union of Journalists issues an appeal for Babitsky's
release.
Ludmila Babitskaya says she believes her husband is in the
hands of the Russian authorities.
25 January
RFE/RL receives reports that Babitsky has been detained.
24 January
Russian officials return photographs they had confiscated to
Ludmila Babitskaya.
18 January
Babitsky reportedly detained. Other reports suggest he was
detained on 16 or 17 January. But later reports say he was not
formally arrested until 27 January.
15 January
RFE/RL has last telephone contact with Babitsky.
13 January
Babitsky files report on heavy Russian bombing of Grozny.
8 January
Russian security agents raid Babitsky apartment in Moscow
and confiscate several items. Earlier, Ludmila Babitskaya is
called to militia station after she tries to pick up
photographs that had been developed.
29 December 1999
Russian forces detain seven international journalists near
Grozny in Chechnya.
27 December
Russian Information Committee in Chechnya accuses Babitsky
of ``conspiracy with Chechen rebels'' after Babitsky broadcast
a story the day before on Russian military actions there that
the RIC found objectionable.
The Chairman. Thank you. First, I want to get Andrei
Babitsky here to testify before this committee, and I have an
idea that these gentlemen with the television will not be the
only ones here to cover that.
Mr. Dine. I wish I could produce him right now, but he went
from the press conference to the hospital, so he can have a
thorough medical examination--
The Chairman. Right.
Mr. Dine. --which I personally have ordered that--
The Chairman. We can take him any time we can get him.
Mr. Dine. I will do what I can to get him here as soon as
possible.
The Chairman. Thank you. Secondly, I am instructing,
respectfully, the staff for the majority on this committee, and
I know that they will be joined enthusiastically by the
minority, or the Democrat, I want an updated resolution
prepared to be presented to the Senate and to be voted on, and
I want it to be complete, with as much information as you can
work out from testimony here today.
I would like that to happen as quickly as possible, and I
know you will do that.
Thirdly, I want to get a transcript of what each of you has
said this morning, and I think we ought to use that every time
the Senate has a quorum call, but no business to conduct. I
think we ought to read part of the testimony. We would do that
with careful selection, of course, and so we will begin on
that.
Now, let me ask some quick questions. Most of them are
answerable. I was going to ask you about Babitsky, the question
of who held him, the Russians, the pro-Russian Chechnya group,
or the Chechnya resistance, and I know the answer to that.
How would you assess the Clinton Administration's efforts
to ensure the safety and release of Andrei Babitsky?
Mr. Dine. From the beginning we tried to keep the U.S.
embassy in Moscow informed, as well as the embassy in Prague.
Almost everyday I was on the phone to our ambassador in Prague,
John Shattuck, who is very helpful keen on human rights issues.
We welcomed those times that the administration met Russian
officials and spoke out about the regression taking place in
that society and by the Putin administration.
There were times when I urged more, and I am not bashful,
as you know, and I have said that several ways and in several
phrases. But overall, the good news is, the man was found and
is nearly free. I do report to you, sir, that your letter of
the 31st of January, the two Senate resolutions that passed on
the 24th of February, had an impact in Moscow.
I am the only one on our Prague staff who has had
experience on Capitol Hill; and I tried to tell them that this
is a co-equal branch of government, and take every word
seriously.
The Chairman. Good.
Mr. Dine. So those were shots in the arm, if you would
like. I've switched my medical words, because I had said
earlier it was a shot to the bow of Russia's policymakers, but
in our bureau in Moscow, in our Prague headquarters, this was
seen as real encouragement--
The Chairman. Good.
Mr. Dine. --and it counts. It counts.
The Chairman. I want Mr. Bouckaert to comment on that same
question.
Mr. Bouckaert. Well, I am not as familiar with specific
actions that the U.S. government took in the case of Mr.
Babitsky, but I do think that in terms of the more general
abuses in Chechnya the administration should know that the
Russian media pays a lot of attention to what the U.S. says,
and when Ms. Albright was in Moscow, and when Clinton spoke out
here about the abuses in Chechnya, about their general
relationship with the Russian government, it would certainly
seem as an endorsement for the Russian government, or for Mr.
Putin in particular.
The administration has to be careful about what it says,
because oftentimes their comments get interpreted as support,
not just for Mr. Putin, but also for this war in Chechnya, and
the fact that they have not spoken out stronger makes that an
easy message to pass on.
The Chairman. By the way, let us do seven minutes, and
then, of course, set it for--so I will not overrun the seven
minutes. Ms. AbuZayd, your comments on that.
Ms. AbuZayd. Well, from the humanitarian side, I have to
say that we have very good support from the U.S. government,
both in terms of the things that they give us for our program,
but also the pressure that they put on the Russian government
for us to have access in Ingushetia and inside Chechnya.
That being said, I think we should acknowledge that this is
often the easier part, and something that we have to go beyond,
because we often feel, as the humanitarian actors, we are put
out in front to say we are doing something, salving the
conscience of people who want to do something, so that they do
not have to attack the real political problems and the real
root causes of the problem.
So we very much appreciate what we are able to do, but it
is not enough. It is addressing the symptoms, and the other
actors have to be there to solve the other problems.
The Chairman. Mr. Bouckaert, do you think the United States
government has adequately addressed the need to stop the
indiscriminate killing and atrocities in Chechnya?
Mr. Bouckaert. That is an easy question. No, I do not think
they have. They mince their words oftentimes when they talk
about abuses, they talk about abuses by both sides, suggesting
that this is kind of a very cruel conflict, but the fact is
that the vast amount of abuses in this war have been committed
by Russian forces.
The U.S. government has not spoken out strongly enough
about the abuses in this war, and it certainly has not taken
the actions needed, the actions it can afford to take to stop
these abuses.
Mr. Dine. Mr. Chairman, can I just add one more thing to
that?
The Chairman. Sure. Sure.
Mr. Dine. There is an assumption in this city that during
the first Chechen war and during this one, that somehow or
another Yeltsin, and now Putin, was what Lincoln was during our
particular civil conflict. This has nothing to do with South
Carolina or nothing to do with our Civil War. This is an
uncivil war.
I just want to reinforce what these two have said today. We
are dealing with the most venal of behavior that we have seen
in a long, long time, and it has to be addressed in those
terms, and those terms only.
The Chairman. Right. Now, I want to ask you, how many
civilians do you think have been killed in the conflict over
there?
Mr. Bouckaert. Well, that is a very difficult question to
answer, because the human rights watch is not allowed to go
into Chechnya, and neither are international journalists.
We know that the Russian government has understated the
number of civilians as well as the number of Russian soldiers
killed, but it is certain that the number of Russian soldiers
killed is somewhere in the region of 3,000, and I would imagine
that the number of civilians killed is at least--
The Chairman. How about resistance, how many have they
killed?
Mr. Bouckaert. I think that the number of Chechen fighters
killed is probably smaller. We have not documented any large-
scale killings by the Chechen fighters, but we have documented
many other abuses committed by them.
The Chairman. Do you think the Russian commanders are
involved to whatever extent, or any extent, in the atrocities
that have been documented thus far?
Mr. Bouckaert. I have interviewed many people who informed
the Russian generals of ongoing abuses, including ongoing
killings, and we have no evidence that those Russian generals
took any steps to stop those killings. At the very least, their
failure to act in the face of these vast abuses in Chechnya
makes them complicit in the abuses.
In terms of the bombings that are taking place, the
indiscriminate and disproportionate bombings, that certainly is
a decision made by the military command.
The Chairman. Well, how about your investigation, has there
been any interference with those investigations?
Mr. Bouckaert. Well, we have to be very careful about our
security. We are not allowed to go into Chechnya itself. We are
denied access to Chechnya by the Ministry of Defense, and in
the face of what happened to Babitsky, we have to be very
careful.
My Russian colleague has repeatedly been interrogated by
the FSB, the intelligence service of the Russian government.
The Chairman. Have you folks looked into these so-called
filtration camps? Have you been granted access to any of them?
Mr. Bouckaert. No, we have not been granted access. I
interviewed a significant number of people independently from
each other about the filtration camps, and we know that there
is well over a thousand men in those filtration camps now that
have suffered severe beatings, torture, and we have documented
several cases of rape from independent witnesses who have given
us the identify of the people who were raped in those camps.
There was a visit arranged a few days ago for journalists
to one of the filtration camps. We have strong evidence to
suggest that that filtration camp was cleaned up for the visit,
and it was newly repainted, and just a few carefully selected
prisoners were paraded in front of these journalists, and
clearly told what to say.
The Chairman. How about prisoners of war, what has happened
to them?
Mr. Bouckaert. It is very unclear what has happened to
prisoners of war. We have evidence that Chechen fighters have
executed Russian soldiers during this campaign, but there
certainly are a large number of men, both prisoners of war, as
well as civilians, who are unaccounted for to date.
The Chairman. My time has expired. We started late, so I am
not going to spend any more time on mine.
The Senator from Minnesota.
Senator Wellstone. I will defer to the Senator from
Wisconsin, because I had to go to a markup in another
committee. I apologize. Then I will follow Senator Feingold.
Thank you.
Senator Feingold. I thank the Senator from Minnesota.
The Chairman. You have seven minutes.
Senator Feingold. Yes, sir. I will not even use all of it,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bouckaert, we all read reports indicating that the
campaign in Chechnya is extremely popular in Russia. Apart from
the journalists Mr. Dine was talking about, have any prominent
Russian figures, policymakers, intellectuals, non-government
activists condemned the violence in Chechnya and the abuses
occurring there? What sort of picture of that can you give me?
Mr. Bouckaert. Well, there are two NGOs which we work
closely with, the one is Memor Yau, who is a Russian human
rights NGO; the other one is the Committee of Soldiers'
Mothers, and they have both spoken very strongly about these
abuses in Chechnya, and about the conduct of the war in
general.
Unfortunately, most of the Russian media has given a very
slanted presentation of this war. They have barely documented
the kind of abuses that are taking place in the war, and they
only contact us when we talk about abuses by Chechen fighters.
There is a lot of public support in Russia for this war, partly
because the abuses are not being discussed.
Senator Feingold. What about prominent artists, writers, or
intellectuals?
Mr. Bouckaert. I have been in Ingushetia for the last three
months, so I have had limited access to the media there. I will
pass that question on.
Mr. Dine. During the Babitsky saga, Elena Bonner, the
famous human rights activist and outspoken human rights leader,
spoke out, and she also nominated Babitsky for awards for his
war correspondence journalism.
Certainly, the democrat, Mr. Yavlinsky has also spoken out,
but I think fewer and fewer people are listening to him, and
that is part of the problem. So yes, the mainstream is
definitely in line, highly approving Putin policies in
Chechnya.
Senator Feingold. For any of you, how credible is the
investigation into abuses in Chechnya as being conducted by
President Putin's representative? Is it adequately staffed by
human rights professionals?
Mr. Dine. I have asked the same question, Senator, and
everybody tells me that he is just for show.
Senator Feingold. Mr. Bouckaert.
Mr. Bouckaert. I think that we should realize that there
are stretchers in place in the Russian government who are
supposed to address these abuses, such as the military
procurator. They have taken no action to investigate the war
crimes committed in Chechnya, so we are quite skeptical about
this new appointment.
Regardless of what the new appointment does, I think it is
important that an independent international monitoring presence
is established, and that these abuses are investigated at the
international level. The international community must monitor
what the Russian authorities are doing, in terms of
investigating these abuses, but they also have to establish the
body of evidence to make sure that these people are held
accountable for their abuses in Chechnya.
Senator Feingold. Ms. AbuZayd, did you want to respond?
Ms. AbuZayd. I would just add, as I mentioned in my
statement, that we have had dealings with the new appointee,
who is the director of the Federal Migration Service, which is
our main interlocutor in Russia, and we are hopeful that he
might do some of the right things, if, as you say, he gets an
adequate staff, and the independents still need to be added to
this whole process, as Mr. Bouckaert said.
Senator Feingold. Thank you all for your testimony, as the
Chairman said. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Wellstone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want
to thank you for your leadership. We were just talking to one
another, and I really want to work with you in drafting another
resolution, and raising the temperature here, and really
putting the focus on this.
I think we can do that together with many other Senators,
Senator Biden, and I hope the whole committee.
I am going to use first names as well. Peter, I just think
you do heroic work.
Mr. Bouckaert. Thank you.
Senator Wellstone. I admire the work that you do. You may
have said this, but I want to make sure that I understand it,
or that it is repeated again: has the infrastructure--homes,
schools, hospitals--in Chechnya been specifically targeted?
Mr. Bouckaert. Yes. We have documented several attacks on
hospitals. I remember driving through one town in Chechnya, and
the two buildings that were the most destroyed, were the school
and the mosque in the one town. There has been a tremendous
destruction of the infrastructure in general, but it seems that
schools, mosques, and hospitals were specifically targeted on
numerous occasions.
Senator Wellstone. How difficult is it to collect the
evidence and is some of the evidence destroyed?
Mr. Bouckaert. Certainly, we are concerned that evidence of
war crimes in Grozny is being destroyed at the moment. The city
has been completely shut off from the local residents, as well
as from the international community.
We have been told by witnesses that they have been
specifically told not to talk to the international community
about war crimes, and because of our lack of access, evidence
has been destroyed just because it deteriorates, and it is
buried in many cases.
Senator Wellstone. Karen, how important is it to get human
rights monitors into the area around Chechnya, and is the
Russian military capable of investigating itself?
Ms. AbuZayd. I do not know about the capability of the
Russian military. I would say that we need, as Peter has said,
independent people looking at this. We have put human rights
monitors in, we hope. We hope that the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights will now take this on as well, and try to get to
these people.
Just to say, though, even with our work, with our
humanitarian work, we are truly well escorted at all times, and
there are places we never are shown--
Senator Wellstone. Because you need to be escorted for your
own security and safety.
Ms. AbuZayd. We have asked for that ourselves, but we are
not sure, even in Ingushetia, that we really have reached all
the people there, because our movements are controlled.
Senator Wellstone. In other words, you have depended on the
military, because you cannot go in without them, but on the
other hand, by going in with them--
Ms. AbuZayd. Yes.
Senator Wellstone. --it puts some restriction on where you
go.
Ms. AbuZayd. Yes.
Senator Wellstone. And then finally, Tom, with the fall of
Shatoi yesterday, the Russians claim that the Chechens have
been defeated. Do you think that is true, or do you think the
Chechens have the capacity for effective guerilla war? In other
words, do you think this war is going to continue?
Mr. Dine. I think this is an endless war, as history shows.
The Russian-Chechen conflict has been going on for 400 years or
so. It took on great intensity with Peter the Great in the
early part of the 18th century. There was a general in 1818,
Senator, who wrote a letter to the czar and said he would not
be at peace until every Chechen was killed. That policy has
basically continued up to the present.
Mr. Bouckaert. If I could just add to that. It has been a
consistent policy strategy by the Russian government to suggest
that this war will soon be over, because they are trying to
limit international criticism of their mopping-up operation.
After they announced again that they killed the rebel
commander Raduyev, there was a headline in the Russian
newspaper saying, ``Russia Kills Raduyev Again,'' because they
have claimed three times now that they have killed him. I think
that is just one more example of you laugh or you cry. We are
laughing, but--.
I think it is important to understand that the brutal
campaign of the Russian government in Chechnya has led to a
radicalization of the opposition. It is much more difficult to
bring people back to the table, and there certainly are enough
fighters left to continue this war for a long time.
The international community needs to keep its attention. We
cannot just say this war is going to be over soon, let us just
wait a few more months.
Senator Wellstone. Well, I want to thank each of you. I
have such respect for your work. Mr. Chairman, I think it was
Camus who once said murder is never legitimate.
So I do not defend the actions of all of the Chechens and
what has been done, but given now what we now see, this is just
a--a human rights question is too mild of a way of putting it.
I mean this is really a systematic slaughter and murder of
people, and I think it is very important that the Senate depict
a profile on this in a major way. Thank you.
The Chairman. Next is Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for
being so late. This is obviously a very important hearing.
Unfortunately, we all have more than one duty, and I am on the
judiciary committee, and there is a major crime bill that I
have introduced. I was asked to speak to the National Sheriff's
Association downtown, and I committed to do that, and I
apologize for being late.
My staff briefly has told me almost all the questions I
would want to ask, and your testimony was graphic and
compelling. I have two questions, one of which may not have
been asked, I hope. If it has, just tell me, and I will
literally read it in the record. I do not want to trespass too
much more on your time.
Is there anything that, from a broad policy perspective,
the next United States president should read from Putin's
pursuit of the war in Chechnya, and does it have implications,
if you are prepared to speak to it, for how Russia will deal
with other parts of what is still the territory of Russia and
former republics of the Soviet Union, where the Islamic faith
predominates?
Tell me a little bit about how much of this relates to the
attitude of Putin, in your view, and the Russian military,
towards Islam. I find an incredible dichotomy between the way
in which the Russian agencies, and possibly the Kremlin itself,
will promote and deal with Iran in terms of missiles and
missile technology, and yet deal so brutally with Chechnya. I
do think you are dead right, though, Tom, that these old wounds
run centuries deep.
But is it just that? Is there something unique about
Chechnya alone, or is there something more that relates to the
present Russian leadership's attitude toward Islam? Is that a
fair question?
Mr. Dine. I will try to address what you have just said. I
like the way you addressed the question, so it allows us to
talk about the future.
First of all, I do not think the United States policy
should be fitted for just one set of issues. They are
complicated issues, such as the future of the ABM Treaty.
I think we have to have a comprehensive policy toward
Russia. A comprehensive policy is not just political-military
issues, but the very issues we have been discussing here today.
As Senator Wellstone just said, we need to start with human
rights.
These are issues that are critical to us. If we do not
address basic values, then who are we? That is what has been so
important for all of us at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The issue is not just Babitsky the human being, and a
colleague, and a father, and a husband, but it is freedom of
the press, and the freedoms that go with the freedom of the
press, and it's the future of a relationship of a nation that
wants to, as I said earlier Senator Biden, not to deal with the
future, that wants to go back to the past. I urge you to think
of these things comprehensively.
One other thought. Tolstoy wrote a short story in 1842
about the Chechen war at that time entitled ``Haji Marat.''
Today's war and cruelties are summarized there. There is an
intensity in Moscow for Chechens that is not seen towards
Uzbeks, Tajiks, or Georgians. There is something about the
Russian-Chechen relationship that is offbalance, that brings
out the worst in human behavior.
Senator Biden. Do you all agree with that?
Mr. Bouckaert. Well, I think there is some anti-Islamic
element to this war, but I think there is a lot more about the
new willingness by Russia to use abusive powerful military
options. I am concerned about the rights of this new
nationalism in Russia, which has come along with Putin in this
war.
Russia feels like a small world power now that wants to
regain its role in the world stage, and I hear a lot of people
saying in Moscow when I am there that we need a strong leader
like Putin to regain our place on the world stage, and suddenly
it is not just Chechnya, and Ingushetia, and the other Islamic
republics in the region who are concerned about this, but
Georgia, a Christian country, which is certainly as much
concerned about the new assertiveness and militarialism in
Russia.
Senator Biden. Thank you. Karen?
Ms. AbuZayd. Yes. This is outside my humanitarian scope,
your question, but I certainly would say that Islam is not the
main feature of the problem, and that we all have to watch our
governments on satanizing Islam.
I think even when Peter spoke about the Chechen fighters,
the ones he was saying were the worst were the Muslim Chechens.
Well, they are all Islam Chechens. So it is something we all
need to be aware of.
Mr. Dine. There is an issue that we discussed internally at
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty about what does this mean for
Russia's near abroad policy. Russia's neighbors do have doubts
about Putin's foreign policy thinking. It was graphically
summarized by one of our Central Asian service directors, when
he said, ``There is a new man in power. We can saw it at the
CIS gathering in early January in Moscow that if Putin wears a
striped tie today, then all the other leaders of the near
abroad countries will wear a striped tie.
There is caution and deep-seated fear about Russian power
creating a new sphere of influence over them.
So as I said, human rights is part of our policy approach,
so are missiles and arms sales, and how Russia behaves toward
its neighbors.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, if I could take 30 more
seconds.
The Chairman. Sure. Sure.
Senator Biden. Let me tell you the one part that I worry
about in terms of the Administration's policy. I am not asking
you to comment. I think the way in which, my observation, the
State Department handled the dramatization of the capture and
the disappearance of the press representative was wrong.
I think they were so worried about affecting other aspects
of the relationship that are being negotiated now, that they
tip-toed around what they should have done.
I will not be overly specific here, but literally, in terms
of not letting press in the country know until ten minutes
before that they are going to be on. I mean that is malarkey.
But I have seen that sort of thing in every administration,
and everybody gets clientized in this process, and their little
piece is the piece that they want to make sure does not get
rolled, and if there is something else important, they are
afraid to act.
I think we have to have a franker relationship with Russia.
I predict to you, for what it is worth, my predictions are
usually wrong, but I predict to you that Putin is going to
cooperate with us more on the big ticket items, but he is going
to become more oppressive and anti-democratic as he moves on.
We are going to be faced with sort of a China dilemma here,
in a broad sense, where you going to have a circumstance where
the Chinese are cooperating with us on trade, there is
liberalization, there are a lot of things that make sense for
us, and at the same time they are still cracking down on the
free press, they are cracking down on any dissidents.
I think the next president is going to be faced with an
interesting dilemma here. You may very well get cooperation on
nuclear weapons, while at the same time they are crushing
democratic movements in other places, or limiting what is
thought to be, by the West, democratic institutions.
I think we are in for an interesting ride here, but I think
the controlling feature of it, Tom, should be frankness. I do
not mean demagoging, I mean just frankness, frank confrontation
on the places we don't agree.
Where I might or might not disagree with the other two
witnesses, I didn't hear your testimony, so I do not know, is I
do not think that the way to respond is to cut off all other
intercourse with Russia on, for example, START II. I am not
suggesting you said that. I am just trying to make the point
that we should be frank.
Let me conclude by--Dr. Haltzel, who is one of the main
reasons I love having him on my staff, he is so knowledgeable
about history, he passed me the following note. ``On the other
hand, the 19th century writer Lermontov romanticized the people
in the Caucasus.''
So it is nice to have, well, I always kid him, my double
PhD behind me here. He does not really have two PhD's, but he
has the drawback of having gone to Harvard and Yale, and it
worries me, but it is one of these things. So I am going to
have to read both to find out where the truth lies.
Anyway, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for the good work you are doing, and for not relenting on--
The Chairman. We all feel that way about it. It has been a
stimulating morning, and it has given us some guideposts about
what we should do further in the Senate.
This is one time that I am very proud of the Senate for its
having undertaken this. We have not gone far enough, but if I
have anything to do with it, we will go much farther.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, may I ask that my statement be
placed in the record?
The Chairman. You bet.
Senator Biden. Thank you.
The Chairman. Without objection, it certainly will be.
[An statement by Senator Biden appears in the Appendix.]
The Chairman. The Senators who had to go to other committee
meetings and were not able to be here may want to file some
questions in writing, and I know you-all will accommodate them
to the best of your ability.
If there will be no further business, I thank you very,
very much. Have a good day. We stand in recess.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
An Additional Statement for the Record by Senator Biden
At the time of the hearing on March 1, 2000, I was unaware of
certain actions that the Department of State had taken with regard to
the detention of Mr. Babitsky.
In fact, Secretary Albright, Undersecretaries Pickering, Lieberman,
and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Collins had repeatedly approached the
Russian Government, urging in the strongest terms that Mr. Babitsky be
freed.
In addition, Undersecretary of State Lieberman had visited the
Moscow office of Radio Liberty, had met with Mrs. Babitsky, and had
subsequently made a strong statement to the press.
Maps