| European courts
remain silent over the right of citizens of Chechnya to receive compensation KV commentary on the right of citizens of Chechnya to receive compensation (Internet) Kavkazskiy Vestnik WWW-Text in Russian 1000 GMT 18 Aug 03 Excerpt from report by Russian Kavkazskiy Vestnik web site on 18 August The deadline for submitting documents confirming the right of citizens of Chechnya to receive compensation for their lost houses and property has been extended until 1 September. [Long passage omitted: RIA-Novosti report]... The Chechens are also well aware that they can receive full compensation through international courts, but their hopes for justice are ebbing away by the day. The blame for this unlawfulness totally lies with international courts, which, to their shame, have not yet considered a single (!) [exclamation mark as given] Chechen case. In the meantime, many people in the world are aware of war crimes committed by Russia in Chechnya. Suffice to mention "the crime of the century in Chechnya", including the bombardment by tactical missiles of the Chechen capital and other settlements since 21 October 1999. And what about the shelling of "humanitarian" corridors on 29 October 1999? Soon it will be four years since these crying crimes against humanity have been committed but the courts are still silent... [ellipsis as given] Interestingly, Chechen victims of these monstrous crimes have filed suits to the tune of 1m dollars, but instead of this amount the cunning Russian government decided to get off with hand-outs, with a maximum payment of R240,000 [7,915 dollars] which is not even 10,000 dollars. Can you see the difference? The Russian authorities decreased the average amount of Chechen compensations almost by a factor of 100. Some Chechen victims are asking themselves a question: "Maybe international courts want bribes? If so, can we go halves." What if the Chechen victims are really right, and there is room for bargaining here? If this is not so case, the silence between European structures and the Russian authorities about the slaughter in Chechnya can be explained as some sort of bargaining? After all, how else can one explain the protracted silence of international courts which exceeds all boundaries? http://www.kvestnik.org/cgi-bin/newssite4/news_look_inside.cgi? newstime=2003/08/17/13_02_46&newslang=l2 |