European Union minister blasts Moscow for Chechen war

March 1, 2000
Web posted at: 6:35 a.m. EST (1135 GMT)

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From staff and wire reports

MOSCOW -- Disturbing reports from Russia's five-month war against Chechen rebels are prompting harsh words from a top European Union official, as Russia's military finally claims control of all Chechen population centers.

"Russian leaders have to understand the depth of outrage at what people have read in their newspapers and seen on their TV screens," said EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Christopher Patten in an interview published Wednesday in Britain's Guardian newspaper.

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"Even if only half the stories were true, they would still be horrific. We cannot behave with Russia as though nothing untoward had happened -- as though we could simply conduct business the way that we wanted to before the Chechnya hostilities," he said.

Other nations outside the EU and international human rights groups have accused Moscow of using excessive force in the Chechen conflict, and have called for a negotiated settlement between Russia and rebel forces.

A senior EU official in Moscow said on Tuesday he expected EU foreign ministers to issue harsh words about Chechnya to Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov later this week during a scheduled meeting in Lisbon, Portugal.

Russia sent ground forces into Chechnya in late September, 1999, to fight separatist rebels whom it blamed for apartment bombings in Russia. The bombings came after Chechnya-based Muslim fighters invaded the neighboring republic of Dagestan in August and were driven out by Russian forces.

Patten's comments came as more allegations surfaced of abusive conditions at Russian detention camps where Chechens are being held.

In an interview broadcast Tuesday in Moscow, Andrei Babitsky , a Russian reporter for U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, said he heard the sounds of Chechens being tortured while he was being held in early February at the Russian camp Chernokozovo in northern Chechnya.

Babitsky told NTV he had heard from one woman "cries which showed a person is experiencing torturous, unbearable pain and experiencing it for a long time."

He said guards shouted at another man that they would cut off a part of his body and dragged him along a corridor while another man was being beaten.

Babitsky also described his own beating at the camp as a "routine light initiation" for all inmates, "a few dozen blows of truncheon on the body which go fairly painlessly after two or three days."

Tuesday, reporters were allowed to tour the camp, and Russian officials there denied reports of inmate mistreatment.

The detainees shown to journalists stated in loud voices that they were fed normally, were not beaten and were generally treated well. But some inmates whispered that prisoner beatings occur regularly.

Russian troops detained Babitsky, who had been reporting from behind rebel lines, in January during Moscow's assault on the Chechen capital Grozny. His reports from rebel strongholds had angered Russian officials, who later exchanged him for captured Russian soldiers.

Babitsky said the Russians had handed him over to "completely unknown persons," who held him prisoner for three weeks. The human rights group Amnesty International quoted Babitsky as saying that his Chechen captors did not beat him, but did subject him to psychological ill treatment.

Friday, he surfaced in the adjoining region of Dagestan, where he was arrested for carrying a forged Azerbaijani passport. Officials also resumed their investigation of Babitsky's alleged links with Chechen rebels.

Following complaints from international officials and human rights groups, Russia's Acting President Vladimir Putin prompted Babitsky's release, saying there were insufficient grounds for keeping the reporter in jail.

Babitsky's comments came on the heels of Russia's claim Tuesday that it had ended its full-scale offensive in Chechnya by capturing Shatoi, the last populated region held by rebels.

But continued fighting was reported in the mountains outside town, and some rebels ventured out of the mountains to launch attacks in the plains that Russia seized weeks ago. Lower ranking Russian officers said they expected a rebel counteroffensive.

At dawn Tuesday, an estimated 300 rebels broke out of the mountains and attacked several villages near Urus-Martan, a sizable town in the flatlands.

A Chechen field commander who led an attack Tuesday outside the village of Goi-Chu claimed that Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov had ordered rebels to move closer to Grozny and launch a large-scale offensive on the ruined capital, which fell to the Russians in early February.

Rebels also battled federal forces trying to penetrate the Argun Gorge, where the military claimed it had surrounded the villages of Duba-Yurt, Dachu-Borzoi and Chishki, all at the gorge's northern end.

The most intense fighting was said to be further south, around the villages of Ulus-Kert, Zony, and Kordon.

Correspondent Matthew Chance, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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