[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 23, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S709-S710]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                CHECHNYA

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have in hand an article, titled 
``Rights Group Reports Massacre in Chechnya.'' The first two paragraphs 
read:

       Moscow, Feb. 22--Russian soldiers went on a deadly rampage 
     earlier this month in a neighborhood of the Chechen capital 
     of Grozny, killing at least 60 civilians in the worst case 
     yet disclosed of Russian military atrocities, an 
     international human rights group charged today.
       During the attack, which began the morning of Feb. 5 in the 
     Aldi neighborhood, soldiers, ``systematically'' robbed and 
     shot civilians, raped women and looted and burned homes, 
     according to a draft report prepared by Human Rights Watch 
     and based on interviews with witnesses and relatives of those 
     killed.

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent this article be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Washington Post, February 23, 2000]

               Rights Group Reports Massacre in Chechnya

                           (By David Hoffman)

       Moscow, Feb. 22--Russian soldiers went on a deadly rampage 
     earlier this month in a neighborhood of the Chechen capital 
     of Grozny, killing at least 60 civilians in the worst case 
     yet disclosed of Russian military atrocities, an 
     international human rights group charged today.
       During the attack, which began the morning of Feb. 5 in the 
     Aldi neighborhood, soldiers ``systematically'' robbed and 
     shot civilians, raped women and looted and burned homes, 
     according to a draft report prepared by the Human Rights 
     Watch and based on interviews with witnesses and relatives of 
     those killed.
       ``Russian soldiers murdered their way through Aldi, killing 
     more than 60 civilians who were peacefully waiting for them 
     in the streets,'' said Peter Bouckaert, a spokesman for Human 
     Rights Watch who researched the events. ``These are war 
     crimes, and they must be investigated and punished as such.''
       Human Rights Watch has documented two earlier rampages by 
     Russian troops: in Alkhan-Yurt; where 17 people were killed 
     in mid-December, and in the Staropromyslovsky district of 
     Grozny, where 44 died in December and January. Russian 
     commanders have denied that their troops murdered civilians 
     but, faced with continuing criticism from Western 
     organizations and governments, acting President Vladimir 
     Putin recently appointed a new human rights commissioner for 
     Chechnya.
       The new commissioner, Vladimir Kalamanov, the former chief 
     of the migration service, promised in a news conference today 
     to check the reports, but refused to discuss specific 
     allegations.
       According to the Human Rights Watch report, witnesses 
     painted a consistent picture of the events in Aldi, when a 
     large group of soldiers, ``numbering in the hundreds,'' began 
     killing civilians. Witnesses said residents had been summoned 
     to the streets to have their passports checked when the 
     shooting started.
       The human rights group quoted witnesses as saying the 
     soldiers also extorted money from residents, allowing them to 
     buy their own lives with cash. One man who offered the 
     soldiers rubles was told to come up with dollars, and when he 
     offered $100 he was killed, Human Rights Watch said.
       At least two women were raped by soldiers during the 
     rampage, the group added. Russian soldiers warned witnesses 
     that they faced revenge if they spoke of the atrocities, so 
     some were unwilling to talk, the group added.
       Human Rights Watch said at least two sources had confirmed 
     the deaths of 34 people, but the group has obtained the names 
     of more than 60 people believed to have been killed in Aldi 
     on Feb. 5. Local witnesses have stated the death toll was at 
     least 82 persons, the group added.
       Meanwhile, Russian forces continued battling Chechen 
     fighters in the southern mountains, launching an attack on 
     the village of Shatoi, said to be a major rebel stronghold. A 
     battle also was underway near the Georgian border. The 
     Interfax news agency quoted Russian sources as saying that 
     three helicopter gunships were shot down today, an unusually 
     high single-day toll.
       Russian authorities also announced that they have clamped 
     down on the movement of all people and vehicles in Chechnya--
     and sealed the border with the neighboring region of 
     Ingushetia--in anticipation of the Chechen commemoration on 
     Wednesday of Joseph Stalin's mass deportation of Chechens 
     during World War II. Russian authorities have said they are 
     bracing for terrorist acts on Wednesday, which also is a 
     Russian military holiday.

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I hope to have the opportunity to 
introduce a freestanding resolution on the floor of the Senate. I hope 
this resolution will receive unanimous support. It expresses the sense 
of the Senate that the Russian Federation should devote every effort to 
achieving a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Chechnya, allowing 
to Chechnya an international monitoring mission to monitor and report 
on the situation there and allow international humanitarian agencies to 
make sure there is immediate and full and unimpeded access to Chechen 
civilians.
  This is a question on which the Senate should not be silent. It does 
make a difference if we speak up. Two weeks ago, I met with members of 
the Chechen Government. They discussed with me the horrific conditions 
currently facing their homeland. I do not think any of us should be 
silent while this is happening.
  We in the Senate should express our distress over the escalating 
humanitarian situation in Chechnya, and we should urge the 
administration to enlarge its public demands on Russia to confront it.
  It is clear that the Russian Government must move immediately to 
allow into Chechnya an international monitoring force to monitor and 
report on the situation there. We need that. The world needs that. The 
people in Chechnya need that. It must also immediately move to assist 
those persons who have been displaced from Chechnya as a result of this 
conflict, and the Russian Government must allow representatives of the 
international community access to those persons in order to provide 
humanitarian relief.
  Russian authorities agree to permit the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe to engage in monitoring in Chechnya, yet it has 
not permitted OSCE's six monitors currently in Moscow to visit the 
region. The administration must demand that Russia permit the 
monitoring mission to go forward and take steps to expand it 
substantially.
  The administration must urge Russia to grant human rights monitors 
access to the region, including those from our own diplomatic missions 
in the area. The administration must engage Russian authorities at the 
highest levels to secure cooperation in addressing the humanitarian 
emergency in Chechnya and in its neighboring province. It must demand 
Russia assist those persons who have been displaced from Chechnya as a 
result of this conflict and grant humanitarian organizations access to 
Chechen civilians to provide some relief. The civilian population in 
Chechnya has been victimized to an extraordinary degree, and it is in 
desperate need of humanitarian aid. The Senate should not be silent on 
this question.
  Finally, the administration must urge the Russian Government to 
achieve a peaceful resolution and durable settlement in a manner 
consistent with Russia's obligation to the international community.
  We must strongly support the OSCE mediation process. The Russian 
Government acknowledged the OSCE's competence in serving as a mediator 
and achieving a political settlement to the conflict in Chechnya during 
the war of 1994 to 1996. However, to date, the Russians have rebuffed 
repeated efforts by the OSCE to mediate the current conflict. The 
administration must increase its efforts to persuade Russia to 
implement an immediate cease-fire and accept OSCE-mediated 
negotiations.
  As this conflict drags on and the number and intensity of human 
rights abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya increase, the 
administration must support the creation of a United Nations

[[Page S710]]

commission of inquiry to investigate serious violations of 
international humanitarian law by Russian forces.
  We must confront the suffering of the Chechen people. As many of my 
colleagues know, the recent Russian assault on the Chechen capital of 
Grozny was one more campaign in a continuing series of Russian military 
offensives in Chechnya. In September, I expressed my concerns to 
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 to 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. 
But the Russian leadership has again chosen use of force, and the 
current tragedy before us has now reached unimaginable heights, as 
evidenced by the piece today in the Washington Post.
  Russian forces have used indiscriminate and disproportionate force in 
their bombings of civilian targets. This has resulted in the deaths of 
thousands of innocent civilian and displaced countless other. Russian 
authorities maintain a virtual ban on access to Chechen civilians by 
media and international humanitarian agencies resulting in our having 
to rely on the personal testimony of refugees fleeing the fighting to 
determine the nature and extent of the crisis and best means to provide 
humanitarian relief.
  These testimonies are horrific: incidents of widespread looting, 
summary executions, detentions, denial of civilians safe passage from 
the fighting, torture, and rape.
  Many civilians report being detained at the Chechen border as they 
tried to flee the fighting. They tell of brothers and fathers who had 
simply been denied safe passage out. It is fundamentally unacceptable 
to deny any civilian the right to flee the fighting--to trap them in 
this dangerous war. And where do 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 detain Chechens in the 
1994-96 Chechen war. That event stains the memory of the Chechen people 
and it is happening again.
  One twenty-one-year-old tells of the horror in the camps:

       About fifteen or twenty soldiers were standing in two lines 
     with rubber sticks. . . . When I was running through the 
     corridor, each soldier beat me with the sticks. They made us 
     undress and started checking our clothes. They took away the 
     clothes they liked. . . . For a week, I had to sit in the 
     jail almost naked.

  In addition to this torture, young men report that in order to be 
released from the camps their family members must pay outrageous bribes 
to camp officers and upon release, must sign papers saying they 
suffered no harm in captivity.
  Then there are the numerous reports of rape. In one Chechen town a 
six-month pregnant 23-year-old woman was raped and murdered. Her 
mother-in-law was executed in this same incident. And Mr. President, 
many incidences 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 make it difficult to document case 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.
  Two weeks ago I sent a letter to acting President Putin expressing my 
deep concern over the deteriorating situation in Chechnya and the 
Russian government's response to the humanitarian tragedy there. I urge 
the Russian government to move quickly to resolve this situation in a 
manner consistent with Russia's obligations to the international 
community and urge the Russian leadership to 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.
  I urge my colleagues to communicate their own concerns to the 
Administration and the Russian government in whatever manner you think 
best. We cannot remain silent. We must fully condemn the use of 
indiscriminate force against the civilians in Chechnya and denial of 
humanitarian relief to Chechen civilians. We must remind the Russian 
leadership that the world is watching.
  This congress and this administration must express to the Russian 
government that it should devote every effort to achieve a peaceful 
resolution of the conflict in Chechnya, allow into Chechnya an 
international monitoring force to monitor and report on the situations 
there.
  That is what this resolution I have submitted to the Senate, on which 
I hope we will have a vote, calls for. We must call for allowing 
international humanitarian agencies immediate, full, and unimpeded 
access to Chechen civilians in order to provide humanitarian relief.
  This resolution, on which I hope we will have an up-or-down vote or 
it will be unanimously accepted by the Senate, calls for several 
things. It calls for the Russian Federation to devote every effort to a 
peaceful resolution, to allow into Chechnya an international monitoring 
mission to monitor and report on the situation, and to allow 
international humanitarian agencies immediate and full access to 
Chechen civilians. The people of Chechnya deserve no less.
  I have no illusions. I do not think adopting a resolution 
automatically turns the situation around, but I do believe the Senate 
should not be silent, that we must support this resolution, and we must 
send this message. We must stand up for human rights.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.

                          ____________________