Conflito da Chechnya

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JLRC

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Conflito da Chechnya
« em: Outubro 20, 2004, 05:58:41 pm »
Chechnya: Land Mines Seen As Continuing Scourge
 
 
(Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; issued Oct. 19, 2004)
 
 
 UNITED NATIONS --- Russia is due to soon face renewed scrutiny over the problem of land mines in Chechnya amid signs of continuing hardship for civilians.  
 
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a nongovernmental watchdog group, will feature a Chechen mine victim on the cover of its annual survey next month.  
 
In addition, an Austrian diplomat guiding a treaty to ban land mines is urging states to engage with Moscow to change its policy on the weapons.  
 
Wolfgang Petritsch will preside over next month’s summit in Nairobi, Kenya, of states-parties to the treaty banning land mines. He told RFE/RL in a recent interview that the proliferation of land mines in civilian areas in war-ravaged Chechnya is a major concern.  
 
“Chechnya is the most mine-affected region worldwide, and I think one needs to really put this on the political agenda when one speaks with the government in Moscow, to point out how important it would be really to Mr. [President Vladimir] Putin to accept assistance, support, to become a member of the land-mine community, so to speak, because it is not just the rebels who are suffering. Usually civilians, children, women who do the daily chores -- those are the main victims of land mines everywhere and particularly in Chechnya, in such a dirty war,” Petritsch said.  
 
The International Campaign to Ban Landmines said in its report last year that more people were killed or injured by land mines in Chechnya than anywhere else in the world. The group -- which won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize -- said the number of victims totaled nearly 6,000 in 2002.  
 
At the time, officials in the Moscow-appointed Chechen administration called the figure an exaggeration.  
 
The coordinator of this year’s report for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Mary Wareham, says the figure may have been inflated because of difficulties in distinguishing between the victims of mines and other injuries in Chechnya. She says the number of mine victims in 2003 is in the hundreds instead of thousands, but that the problem remains grave.  
 
Wareham says hundreds of thousands of mines have been deployed by Russian forces and that Chechen rebels also make heavy use of them. The mine action group is unaware of any humanitarian de-mining efforts, she says, since the nongovernmental group Halo Trust left the country at the end of 1999.  
 
“We know that the Russian Army engages in mine clearance -- when they find a mine they’ll clear it. But there’s not anything systematic or sustained going on to try and get every mine out of the ground in particular areas where civilians are likely to walk around in. And that’s what you need, is humanitarian mine clearance, not just military mine clearance. That’s not going on in Chechnya, and that’s a really big problem,” Wareham says.  
 
The public affairs office of Russia’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not respond to requests for comment. Russia, like the United States, China, India, and Pakistan, is not a member of a 1997 convention banning land mines.  
 
Russia is a party to the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons but not the 1996 protocol on land mines, booby traps, and other devices.  
 
The International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are among the few international agencies sponsoring mine-related projects in Chechnya. Their programs focus on victim assistance and education programs targeting children.  
 
But Wareham says there are few efforts under way to foster socio-economic reintegration for Chechnya’s many mine victims.  
 
“There’s a real lack of resources. Nobody is spending any money dealing with the problem there at the moment, and that’s one reason why the International Campaign to Ban Landmines wants to draw attention to the plight of Chechnya when it comes to the land-mine issue,” Wareham says.  
 
The cover of the campaign’s annual report -- to be released 18 November -- will feature Umar Eskiev, a Chechen boy who was 13 years old when he stepped on a mine on his way home from a market in Grozny two years ago. The boy’s left leg was amputated, but like other mine victims, he is still expected to provide for his family.  
 
Petritsch, who formerly was the international community’s high representative in Bosnia, says Chechnya’s mine problem must be elevated to the political level. He stresses that as more countries embrace a total ban on mines, there is less likelihood they can be used by rebel groups.  
 
“Land mines are called weapons of the poor man, so all the rebel movements are, of course, interested in getting their hands on land mines. Again, [that’s] the reason why this is a ban. We want to eliminate the existence of land mines altogether so that they cannot fall into rebel hands,” Petritsch says.  
 
The Nairobi summit is to adopt a plan of action calling for a series of steps to promote mine clearance, the destruction of stockpiles, victim assistance, and universal acceptance of a land-mine ban.  
 
There are 143 states-parties to the Ottawa Convention, as the land-mine treaty is known. They include mine-affected countries such as Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which have made progress in reducing mine accidents in the past two years.  
 
-ends-
 

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Normando

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Relatório da Human Rights Watch
« Responder #1 em: Março 22, 2005, 06:15:32 pm »
publico.pt
22 de Março de 2005

Human Rights Watch: desaparecimentos na Tchetchénia são crimes contra a humanidade  
 
Os desaparecimentos de civis desarmados tornaram-se "sistemáticos" na Tchetchénia, que continua a ser palco de "crimes contra a humanidade", denunciou hoje a organização de defesa dos direitos humanos Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Os "desaparecimentos forçados são frequentes e sistemáticos e constituem um crime contra a humanidade", acusou a HRW num relatório de 57 páginas publicado hoje.

A organização, que efectuou várias operações no terreno, apresenta uma série de testemunhos e detalha os casos de desaparecimento - a maior parte ocorridos nos últimos meses -, num momento em que a Rússia se esforça para convencer a comunidade internacional de que a situação "está normalizada" naquela república rebelde do Cáucaso.

"A Rússia tem o triste registo de ser líder mundial em matéria de desaparecimentos forçados. Quando uma pessoa é detida pelos agentes das forças de segurança do Estado e quando essa detenção é negada escondendo toda a informação sobre o seu futuro, o caso deixa de ter um enquadramento legal", diz o relatório.

A HRW denuncia a impunidade dos que cometem estes crimes: 1800 inquéritos foram abertos nos últimos cinco anos, mas "nem uma pessoa foi considerada plenamente culpada", o que cria uma atmosfera de "total impunidade".

"O Governo russo está ao corrente da situação e conhece a dimensão do problema, mas não tem nenhuma intenção de chamar os culpados à justiça, perpetuando o ciclo de abusos", disse Rachel Denber, directora executiva interina do departamento Europa-Ásia Central da HRW.

Na maioria dos casos, os responsáveis por estes desaparecimentos são as forças federais russas ou, cada vez mais, as forças tchetchenas pró-russas, escreve o relatório.

A HRW pede à Comissão dos Direitos do Homem das Nações Unidas para "tomar medidas urgentes de acordo com a gravidade extrema do fenómeno" e que adopte "uma resolução que condene os desaparecimentos forçados na Tchetchénia exigindo ao Governo russo medidas imediatas".

Os defensores dos direitos do Homem estimam que entre três mil e cinco mil pessoas desapareceram desde o início da segunda guerra, no Outono de 1999.

Para quem quiser apreciar o relatório da HRW:
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/chechnya0305/
"If you don't have losses, you're not doing enough" - Rear Admiral Richard K. Turner
 

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Lightning

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« Responder #2 em: Novembro 25, 2006, 06:25:21 pm »
150 fotos dos militares russos na Chechenia.

http://www.redsoldier.info/forum/full.zip