[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 10 (Tuesday, February 8, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S478]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                CHECHNYA

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, yesterday I met with members of the 
Chechen Government. They discussed the horrific conditions currently 
facing their homeland. It is clear that the Russian Government must 
move to immediately allow into Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia an 
international monitoring force to monitor and report on the 
humanitarian situation. It must also immediately move to assist those 
persons who have been displaced from Chechnya as a result of this 
conflict and to allow representatives of the international community 
access to those persons in order to provide humanitarian relief.
  As many of you know, the Russian assault on the Chechen capital 
Grozny is only one more campaign in a long series of Russian military 
offensives in Chechnya. In September I expressed my concerns to Boris 
Yeltsin and Putin about the humanitarian tragedy that was--for the 
second time--unfolding in Chechnya. It is hard to imagine that after 
the use of force in Chechnya from 1994-1996--which left over 80,000 
civilians dead--the Russian leadership could again see the use of force 
as enhancing the prospects for a durable settlement to this conflict. 
Nonetheless, the Russian leadership has again chosen to use force and 
the current tragedy has now reached unimaginable heights.
  Russian forces have used indiscriminate and disproportionate force in 
their bombings of civilian targets. This has resulted in the deaths of 
thousands of innocent civilians and displaced over 200,000 others. But 
the suffering is not limited to Chechnya. The neighboring province of 
Ingushetia has been flooded with refugees. Mr. President, I remind you 
of the recent snow storm that swept the east coast. I need not remind 
you of how it compares to a Russian winter. A humanitarian crisis equal 
to that within Chechnya itself is beginning in Ingushetia.
  I implore President Putin to hold firm to his commitment made to the 
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Group last month to allow into 
Ingushetia an international monitoring presence to determine what is 
happening--to determine the best means of getting some immediate relief 
to the refugees and those trapped in Chechnya. And I urge the Russian 
Government to lift its press restrictions so that the citizens of the 
Russian Federation see the truth for what it is. For there is no doubt 
that if the people knew the full story of human suffering in Chechnya--
on both sides of the conflcit--they would devote every effort to its 
peaceful resolution.
  Russian authorities maintain a virtual ban on access to Chechnya by 
international and local journalists. Groups--such as the Soldiers' 
Mothers Committee can only monitor Russian casualties through their own 
sources, through word of mouth, and struggle to determine the fate of 
their sons in Chechnya. In the past few weeks Russia's main commercial 
television station was kicked out of the military's journalist pool for 
showing an interview with a Russian military officer describing troop 
losses, and Russian officials arrested Andrei Babitsky, a 10-year-
veteran reporter for the U.S.-sponsored Radio Liberty, who had been 
reporting from the capital Grozny. The Russian Government then 
exchanged the journalist for Russian soldiers held by Chechen rebels 
yet as of today, the journalist has not been seen or hear from.
  The stories of the refugees fleeing Chechnya are horrific: incidents 
of widespread looting, summary executions, detentions, and rape.

  Three weeks ago the Russian Commander for the North Caucasus Group of 
Forces blamed Russian ``mistakes'' on their ``soft-heartedness.'' He 
then ordered that only children under 10, men over 60, and girls and 
women would be considered refugees. Although the order was eventually 
repealed, teenage boys and civilian men had been in effect sentenced to 
die. Orders such as these are intolerable and must be condemned. It is 
fundamentally unacceptable to deny any civilian the right to flee the 
fighting--to trap them in this dangerous war. And where will these 
trapped civilians go? Into detention camps? No one needs to be reminded 
of the systematic torture that took place in detention camps set up to 
detail Chechens in the 1994-96 Chechen war. That event stains the 
memory of the Chechen people--and its happening again. Today adolescent 
boys are being ripped from their mothers arms at the border as they try 
to escape. Mothers remain in the war zone because they refuse to leave 
without their sons.
  Zura, a mother of three, told human rights monitors at the border 
that guards prevented a 59-year-old man from crossing over, and that 
two boys, aged 12 and 13, made it past border guards only by concealing 
themselves on the bus. Russian leadership are obligated under 
humanitarian law to do everything to avoid civilian casualties and 
allow civilians to flee to safety.
  Then there are the numerous reports of rape. In the Chechen town of 
Shali a six-months pregnant 23-year-old woman was raped and murdered. 
Her mother-in-law was executed in the same incident. And Mr. President, 
many incidents of rape and sexual abuse go unreported. For many women 
in towns and villages all over Chechnya the shame is simply too great--
they won't come forward to report these horrible crimes. Chechnya's 
culture and national traditions made it difficult to document cases of 
rape and sexual abuse--unmarried women who are raped are unlikely to be 
able to get married, and married women who are raped are likely to be 
divorced by their husbands. The effects of these rapes on Chechen 
society will be profound and long lasting. I remind the Russian 
leadership that rape is war crime.
  President Putin must move quickly to resolve this situation in a 
manner consistent with Russia's obligations to the international 
community. I urge my colleagues to join me in full condemnation of the 
use of indiscriminate force against the civilians in Chechnya and to 
remind the Russian leadership that the world is watching. The Russian 
Government must move to immediately allow into Chechnya and Ingushetia 
an international monitoring force to determine what is happening. It 
must immediately move to assist those persons who have been displaced 
from Chechnya as a result of this conflict and to allow representatives 
of the international community access to those persons in order to 
provide humanitarian relief. And the Russian leadership must begin now 
to investigate and prosecute those responsible for human rights abuses 
in Chechnya--it promised to do this after the last Chechen War but 
failed to do so. Those responsible for human rights abuses in Chechnya 
must be held accountable.
  President Putin must end this conflict and must devote every effort, 
including the acceptance of third party mediation offers made months 
ago by the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe, to its peaceful resolution.

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