Col. Stanislav Lunev
Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2001

With very little or no attention from the free world, the Kremlin continues the genocidal war against the Chechens, characterized by crimes against humanity, as thousands of new refugees flee Chechnya in terror. The war in Chechnya began two years ago following terrorist incursions from Chechen territory into a neighboring region and bombings that killed about 300 people in Moscow and two other cities. The Kremlin accused Chechen terrorists of these bomb attacks, but until now has provided no real evidence of Chechen involvement. Lately, however, it has become known that Russian special services, then headed by Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Vladimir Putin, were connected with the bombings that triggered the war in Chechnya. Putin came to power in Russia last year partly as a result of his handling of the Chechen situation in 1999, which sealed his tough-guy reputation and led to the once obscure KGB official's stunning election in March 2000. Previous public support of this war has sharply declined in recent months, and according to a July public opinion survey only 30.7 percent of Russians back Putin's aggressive war. With casualties mounting on both sides every day, and with no end in sight to the conflict, public support has fallen dramatically since last March according to the pollsters. However, Putin recently told reporters he had no intention of changing his Chechnya policy. Continuing the pattern of tough talk, the Russian president announced last month that he opposed the use of death penalty - except for Chechens. After almost two years of war, Russian government troops largely control the region but have been unable to subdue determined Chechen guerrilla groups or impose political or security control on Chechnya. According to independent press reports, currently almost all Chechnya is under Chechen control at night, but in the daytime, just half of it. The war in Chechnya has become a deepening humanitarian crisis that has claimed 100,000 lives and driven 400,000 in the republic from their homes. Because the international community does not recognize Chechnyan independence, those displaced inside Chechnya and in neighboring states are not given the status and protection granted to refugees under international law. As NewsMax.com has reported, at the beginning of Putin's war against Chechnya the Kremlin erected a firewall of secrecy around the battle area and did its best to black out all information that could damage Moscow's international image. At the same time, incendiary air bombs, cluster bombs and containers were being extensively used by Russian troops to torch Chechen facilities and to destroy manpower concentrations, along with other air-delivered incendiary weapons, including so-called "vacuum" or "fuel" bombs. At time of these bombings by incendiary weapons there were several thousand Chechen fighters in Grozny, and up to 100,000 civilians. The true number of civilian casualties among the Chechnya civilian population in not known and actually is one of Moscow's best kept secrets. But there is some concrete evidence from independent observers that tens of thousands civilians, including women and children have been killed by incendiary weapons alone. The 1980 Geneva Convention, signed and ratified by Russia, says that "it is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons." It wouldn't be realistic to believe that Russia's leaders do not know that the use of prohibited incendiary weapons in violation of international agreements is an extremely serious war crime. It is a legal fact that by using incendiary weapons Russia, as a state, committed a war crime, and Russia's leader, praised by some Western politicians as a "friend", is a war criminal, who should be punished by the international war tribunals. Russian troops are also heavily involved in crimes against civilians in Chechnya, where the military is acting as if it were in the occupied territory of a hostile and aggressive country. On March 21, the New York-based Human Rights Watch issued a new report accusing Russian military and security forces of a string of kidnappings for ransom, tortures, and massive civilian killing in Chechnya - charges Moscow has strenuously denied. However, in June, Russian authorities officially announced 19 servicemen have been detained on accusations of killing civilians in Chechnya. The detention appeared to be connected with an accident in which the Russian media reported that seven or eight civilian people were killed by military without any explainable reason near Pobedenskoye, a village outside Grozny. Russian troops in Chechnya routinely seize men, women and children as suspected rebels or sympathizers from their homes and from the streets, and international human rights groups say many have been tortured for ransom or killed. Chechen rebel commanders said they hope President Bush would press Russian President Putin to stop the abuses, but were deeply disappointed when the issue got little or no at all attention when the two leaders met in June and July. The war in Chechnya is unwinnable. Disaster is imminent, and currently Russian officials are scrambling to get out of the line of command to avoid responsibility for defeat and the mounting daily casualties. Last month, the Kremlin stopped "until further notice" the partial withdrawal of troops from Chechnya that had been announced by President Putin last spring as part of a peace plan. The troops that left Chechnya have either returned or been replaced, and the overall military strength of Russian forces in the area is the same as it was at the time of the invasion. There is no doubt, that this brutal war cannot be stopped without the involvement of the international community, especially without direct involvement of the Free World's leaders, who have promised to protect human rights and democracy worldwide.

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