Moscow changes its attitude
to foreign observers in Chechnya
A month ago the Kremlin turned out the OSCE working group from Chechnya, and later,
banish a group of German human rights activists and writers from the country.
Now, on Tuesday, official representative of the Russian Internal Ministry Yakovenko
sang quite a different song: according to him, Moscow would welcome the attendance
of the international observers at the forthcoming 23 March Referendum of Chechen
constitution initiated by the Kremlin.
The same day, in Moscow, the journalists of Interfax vainly tried to get information
from the High Commissioner of the Council of Europe on Human Rights Alvaro Hill-Robles
on the possibility of sending international observers to Chechnya for the time
fixed by the Kremlin to hold the so-called referendum. No wonder, as the absence
of international observers at this kind of arrangements means that international
community refuses to recognize the legitimacy of its results. Hill-Robles, however,
managed to evade the questions of the Russian journalists, and made it clear that
it is beyond his competence to decide this kind of questions. Speaking with the
foreign colleagues on Tuesday, one of the leading representatives of the "Memorial"
Human Rights Center Tatyana Kasatkina emphasized that Alvaro Robles Hill, as before,
expressed his tough attitude to the numerous facts of crimes committed by the
Russia military in Chechnya. The observers suppose that this is the question
Robles is going to discuss with the Moscow-appointed Chechen Premier Anatoly Popov
in Grozny. Besides that Robles Hill is gong to examine the situation with respect
to human rights in the republic in dynamic, as High Commissioner of the Council
of Europe regularly visits Chechnya. As regards the position of the "Memorial"
Kasatkina noted that human rights activists of the organization intend to carry
out monitoring of the forthcoming Referendum, but they are not going to act wear
the shameful caps of observers. Tatyana Kasatkina as well as her colleagues are
convinced that under the existing situation of ongoing war, disappearance of the
civilians and retaliatory actions on the part of the Russian servicemen one cannot
carry out a legitimate referendum.