Russia on Thursday accused the United States of using its annual human rights
reports for political ends, saying the assessments of other countries' rights
records were "overtly biased."
The reports are "overtly biased and lopsided - which is admitted by an overwhelming
majority of countries," the foreign ministry's office on Human Rights and
Diaspora Affairs said.
"This is just another indication of the fact that, unfortunately, our American
colleagues often make use of human rights issues for purely political reason,"
Interfax quoted the ministry as saying in response to a question registered on
a joint Interfax-foreign ministry website.
The US State Department issues its "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices"
every year, assessing respect for rights in countries around the world.
Its massive 2001 report on Russia, released in March of this year, noted a lack
of press freedom in the country, the prevalence of rights abuses by security services
and corruption, and the poor state of the country's prisons.
It also criticised Moscow for alleged widespread human rights abuses committed
during the war in Chechnya, now in its fourth year.
"Its record was poor in Chechnya, where the federal security forces demonstrated
little respect for basic human rights," the report said, adding that "there
were credible reports of serious violations, including numerous reports of extrajudicial
killings by both the Government and Chechen fighters."
"International relations in this field should be aimed at consolidating positive
trends to protect and promote human rights in certain countries, rather than gambling
on the human rights theme," Russia's foreign ministry said.*
Russia has often been accused of rights abuses in Chechnya, the southern republic
where its federal forces have been fighting a separatist insurgency since October
1999..
Comment by the moderator of the Chechnya mailing list, Norbert Strade:
*One wonders what the Russian Foreign Ministry considers a "positive trend"
in Chechnya - now that they are up at about 25% annihilation of the Chechen nation
in their program for a "final solution of the Chechen problem". Of course
the US will complain about "human rights abuses by both sides" until
the program reaches the intended 100% and a Chechnya completely with a Russian
constitution and a Russian president, but without Chechens, while the Russian
Foreign Ministry will continue to be annoyed about the foreign complaints...Or,
of course, the Russian fascists are thrown out of Chechnya before they have finished
their bloody work, and the US will have to find another target for their highly
effective human rights campaign. N.S.
One of the countless counterexamples
one can make to advance the suspect that there is no sincere and serious commitment
neither by the US nor by Europe to advance any critics against human rights
violations: before his recent meeting in St. Petersburg with Putin, Bush declared
that "Chechnya will be placed on the top of the agenda". Some expected
that finally the subject of human rights might have been discussed, just that
kind of topics which upset so frequently Putin. So far I'm not aware of any results.
Sure is however that the day after this summit, an unusually smiling and happy
Putin appeared, as if nothing serious about Chechnya had been debated.
It is once again clear that
these timid, unconvincing and too scarce denounces of human rights violations
of western governments are only an operation of "cosmetic surgery",
designed to restore a "humanitarian" outward appearance and are
primarily directed towards its own internal public opinion. The Russian foreign
ministry's has nothing to be worried about. Because truth on how things really
stand is very different: the Kremlin will continue to have free hand over minorities
and is allowed to practice its state terrorism in the name of the war against
"terrorism".