RUSSIA: A British peer and rights envoy has threatened to quit his post if Russia goes through with a planned referendum in war-ravaged Chechnya. Meanwhile, a top security official conceded yesterday that Moscow's forces had failed to subdue the region's rebels.
The admission came as Chechnya's chief prosecutor said many of its missing people were probably dead in mass graves and a day after Human Rights Watch condemned Russian troops for kidnap, rape and murder in Chechnya.
Lord Frank Judd said he would leave his position in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) if Russia held the vote planned for March 23rd in the region, which Lord Judd and rights groups have separately condemned as unworkable.
"In the course of three years work as rapporteur on the conflict in Chechnya, I have never been so convinced about anything," he said, adding that he would quit if the referendum went ahead.
After visiting Chechnya this month, Lord Judd concluded that the poll - intended to approve a new constitution for the republic and confirm its place within the Russian Federation - was infeasible while the region was so dangerous and while so many Chechens remained in refugee camps in neighbouring Ingushetia.
Rights groups have condemned what they call Russian attempts to force refugees back into Chechnya, where a war between rebels and federal troops is in its fourth year. The United Nations said this week that 103,000 Chechens were still living as refugees in Ingushetia.
Lord Judd's security fears were given unlikely backing when the secretary of the Kremlin Security Council said Russian troops had failed to subdue Chechnya's rebels, in contradiction of official assertions that the war is in its final, "mopping-up" stage.
"Despite positive progress, we have to admit that the counter-terrorist operation has not normalised the situation in Chechnya," former Interior Minister Mr Vladimir Rushailo was quoted by Interfax news agency.
Russia's chief prosecutor for Chechnya also said yesterday that many of the regions missing people may already be dead and buried in mass graves
"As of today, many residents of the republic are listed as missing. We do not rule out that the majority of them are no longer alive," Mr Vladimir Kravchenko told Interfax. He said there were "very many" people still missing, a lot of whom were probably buried in mass graves found in Chechnya over the past two years.
The statement came a day after New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Russian forces of atrocities in the region to which they returned in 1999 after defeat in a 1994-96 war.
"Abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya - forced disappearances, extra-judicial executions, looting and arbitrary detention - have continued unabated," Human Rights Watch said in a report which also condemned rebels for a series of assassinations of pro-Moscow officials in the region. Russia rejects claims of widespread abuses.
Interfax also reported that the Kremlin's top adviser on Chechnya said after talks in Washington that the US would place three of the region's rebel bands on its list of international terror groups.