Unofficial Translation
STATEMENT
BY OFFICIAL SPOKESMAN
FOR THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Yesterday in Geneva the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, made a statement on the situation in Chechnya, claiming "serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law" in the Northern Caucasus.
This statement by the High Commissioner testifies to her misunderstanding of the present situation in Chechnya. One gets the impression that Ms. Robinson has fallen under the influence of those forces which are trying to pressure Russia over developments in the Northern Caucasus.
Symptomatically, Ms. Robinson was silent when militants were perpetrating mass-scale gross violations of human rights in Chechnya, including hostage taking, arbitrary executions, slave trading, torture and murder. Nor did she react in any way to blasts in Moscow, Buinaksk and Volgodonsk. But now that the Russian authorities have to fight terrorists and bandits, the High Commissioner uses clearly biased information in order to issue statements.
The federal forces have been given the task of avoiding civilian casualties and destruction of peaceful communities to the maximum possible extent. Russian troops have explicit orders to deliver pinpoint strikes exclusively against the localities of militants' concentration and the infrastructure facilities used by them.
As is known, a UN interagency mission and an OSCE mission have already visited the Northern Caucasus. By agreement between the UN Secretary General and the Chairman of Russia's Government, Vladimir Putin, at present the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ms. Sadako Ogata, is visiting the region. ICRC officials have arrived in Moscow to look into the humanitarian aspects of the situation. In these circumstances we see no subject for a separate visit of Ms. Robinson's personal envoy to the Northern Caucasus.
The UN mission with regard to the situation in the Northern Caucasus, if there is a desire to help us, is to participate, together with appropriate Russian organizations, in providing humanitarian relief to the population affected by terrorists' actions. We are ready to welcome such a UN role in the future as well.
November 17, 1999