The level of violence in Dagestan, the Southern Russian republic bordering Chechnya, continues to escalate.
Today 10 Russian soldiers were killed and seven injured after their truck was blown up by what is thought to have been a remote controlled device as they travelled through the suburbs of Makhachkala, the Dagestani capital.
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ACPC has just issued the following press release:
Violent assault in Chechnya accompanies Russia to G8 meetings
Washington, DC: June 30, 2005 10:00 a.m. EDT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya is deeply concerned by recent reports of human displacement and insecurity in the aftermath of a violent raid by pro-Moscow forces in Borozdinovskaya, an ethnic Dagestani village situated in northeastern Chechnya.
According to eye witness accounts, on June 4 masked gunmen in Russian armored personnel carriers, recognized by residents as members of Sulim Yamadayev’s federally-backed militia, conducted a security sweep of Borozdinovskaya, a village allegedly ripe with rebel activity. In a seven hour assault and humiliation of the village’s residents, the gunmen abducted and detained eleven local men, leaving four homes burnt to the ground, a few of which were later found with charred human remains.
The events caused a mass exodus of some 1,200 ethnic Avars, a total of 230 families, into neighboring Dagestan, where the displaced residents have been living in make-shift tents since June 16. The Russian government and their Chechen representatives have vowed to apprehend those responsible for the sweep, although Yamadayev has publicly denied complicity in the assault. In response to Russian-led attempts to return to Chechnya, the villagers have expressed their fear of future reprisals from federal or proxy forces, and demand the return of the eleven missing men. According to observers, the problem of Borozdinovskaya is compounded further by severe health problems facing the village’s displaced children.
ACPC Executive Director Glen Howard called the security sweep in Borozdinovskaya “a unique, although hardly isolated incident in Chechnya.” “In this instance, the Kremlin’s Chechen proxies have ignited ethnic divisions with the minority Avar population, once again
adding to the gradual spillover of violence from Chechnya into neighboring Dagestan.” Abductions and disappearances continue in Chechnya unabated and with impunity. Human rights observers note that pro-Moscow forces loyal to the Yamadayevs and Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov are responsible for the majority of disappearances in Chechnya, totaling 74 in the first four months of 2005. Ironically, Ramzan Kadyrov was appointed on June 28 as head of the commission investigating Borozdinovskaya.
In a related story reported by MosNews, an official of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration visited the displaced villagers from Borozdinovskaya on June 26 and, to draw comparison to their hardship, announced that 300,000 Chechens had been killed since the beginning of the first war in 1994, with another 200,000 missing. Glen Howard commented, “If true, this rare disclosure of the Chechen toll from the past decade of war supports claims that roughly a quarter of the pre-war population has been killed as a result of the conflict.” In light of this fact, the ACPC encourages Western governments and observers to continue to speak with moral clarity on Chechnya during their talks with the Russian Federation, notably on the eve of the July 6 G-8 Summit.
Founded in 1999, the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) is a bipartisan coalition of distinguished Americans dedicated to promoting a peaceful end to the war in Chechnya.
http://www.peaceinchechnya.org
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