AP: US official warns: excessive force in Chechnya
could sow Chechen extremism
US official warns force could sow Chechen extremism
Dec 10, 2002 Posted: 14:18 Moscow time (10:18 GMT)
MOSCOW - A U.S. official warned Monday that excessive force by Russia in
Chechnya would only sow Islamic extremism.
Kent Hill, assistant administrator for Europe and Eurasia of the U.S. Agency
for International Development, said that the brand of Islam found in Chechnya
and other parts of Russia is moderate, and extremist branches are not native.
However, human rights violations could create fertile ground for extremism,
said Hill, an expert on religious freedom in Russia.
"Unfortunately, any government that is excessively harsh, violent and violates
human rights in its conflict with a people is going to actually create an
atmosphere in which there are going to be more extremists," Hill told The
Associated Press during a visit to Moscow.
"If the Russian government is really opposed to Islamic extremism, the best
thing it can do, in addition to dealing with real extremism when they encounter
it, is to do everything in their power to be just and to conduct themselves
in a manner fully in accordance with international standards on human rights."
Russia says it is fighting terrorists and Islamic extremists in separatist
Chechnya. Human rights groups say the three-year military campaign has been
rife with abuses by Russian troops, including looting, rapes and killings,
and that such treatment drives many young men are driven to the rebel cause.