Kremlin lashes out at EU
over criticism about Chechnya
April 09, 2003
MOSCOW - A top Kremlin aide accused the European Union of "hysteria" on Wednesday
after the EU and seven other nations submitted a resolution to the U.N. Human
Rights Commission criticizing the human rights situation in Chechnya.
The 15-nation EU and seven other European countries submitted a draft resolution
Tuesday that accuses Russian forces of forced disappearances, summary executions
and torture, and calls on Moscow to investigate.
The draft resolution came less than a week after the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights body, voted for a proposal
to set up an international war crimes tribunal for Chechnya.
Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an aide to President Vladimir Putin and Russia's top spokesman
on Chechnya, said the two proposals were a response to last month's referendum
in Chechnya, in which voters overwhelmingly approved a constitution firmly binding
the region to Russia.
The Kremlin says the vote was the beginning of a peace process, but human rights
advocates question its fairness and say it cannot replace negotiations with rebel
President Aslan Maskhadov - something Western governments have long urged but
Moscow has rejected.
"When the referendum proved the rightness of Moscow and Chechen society, showing
that there can be other political solutions of the Chechen problem, this caused
hysteria among those who were counting on different methods of involvement in
Russia's affairs, in order to constantly keep Russia on a hook," Yastrzhembsky
said in remarks shown on TVS television.
Akhmad Kadyrov, Chechnya's Moscow-appointed administration chief, said the authors
of the EU resolution had drawn hasty conclusions based on one-day trips to the
region.
"The European Union should focus on ending the war in Iraq. Hundreds of civilians
die there, and cities and villages are being destroyed," Kadyrov said, according
to the Interfax news agency.
The March 23 referendum in Chechnya has failed to curtail violence in the region,
where Russian troops continue to suffer daily casualties. Last week, a passenger
bus was blown up by a remote-controlled mine, killing eight.
Over the past 24 hours, six Russian troops were killed and five wounded in rebel
attacks, an official in the Moscow-backed administration said on condition of
anonymity.
A pro-Moscow policeman and his brother were gunned down by masked assailants in
the capital Grozny, the official said. Another police officer was killed and one
wounded in a clash with rebels in the Shaami-Yurt village. Two rebels were also
killed in the clash, the official said.