20.11.1999 10:00 Legal Assessment of the Actions of Persons Who Are in Power in the Chechen Republic from the Viewpoint of International Law
The regime which is currently in power in the Chechen Republic not only grossly violates the constitutional law of the Russian Federation, puts under threat the indivisibility and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation but is also criminal from the viewpoint of international law.
Aggression is one of the most dangerous international crimes. The Resolution of the UN General Assembly of December 14, 1974 "Definition of Aggression" defines aggression as the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.
The first use of armed force by a State in contravention of the Charter shall constitute prima facie evidence of an act of aggression.
Any of the following acts qualify as an act of aggression:
The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof.
The action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State.
The sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands, groups, irregulars or mercenaries, which carry out acts of armed force against another State of such gravity as to amount to the acts listed above, or its substantial involvement therein.
The Chechen leadership was fully informed about the preparation of the terrorist acts on the territory of Dagestan, which falls under the international definition of aggression but actually means aggression by one constituent member of the Russian Federation against another constituent member. For example, the employees of power structures of Chechnya (the Sharia guard, the border and customs service, the armed forces) carried out activity for intelligence, material, technical and
other provision for the grouping of terrorist formations of Wahhabis. Official units of the power structures of Chechnya directly participated in combat operations. Therefore, it is possible to speak not only about criminal connivance but also about the direct participation of the Chechen leadership in the organisation and perpetration of aggression.
Another type of international crimes is genocide. Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), genocide, whether it is committed in time of peace or of war, is a crime which violates international law. Genocide (article 2 of the Convention) means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Under the Convention, genocide, and also conspiracy, incitement, and complicity in genocide, are punishable. Perpetrators must be tried by the tribunal of the state, in which the act was committed, or by the international penal tribunal. As regards extradition, genocide is not considered as a political
crime.
The ruling Chechen regime is carrying out the policy of genocide in relation to the republic's civilians. As a result of the course pursued by the republic's leadership for the past three years, over 250,000 citizens have had to leave the Chechen republic. Over 800,000 residents of Chechnya have lost their jobs, the possibility to get pensions and social benefits, realize their political rights and freedoms. Numerous facts of demonstrative shoot-outs of local residents by rebels for "assistance to federal forces" have been established.
Slavery is also referred to international crimes. Under the 1926 Convention on Slavery (with changes of 1953), slavery means the state or the position of the person, over whom the attributes
of the right of ownership or some of them are exercised. Slave trade involves any act of seizure, acquisition or surrender of a human being for the purpose of his sale for slavery, any act of
the acquisition of the slave for the purpose of his sale or exchange, any act of surrender by way of sale or exchange, and, in general, any act of trade or transportation of slaves (article 1).
The states - party to the Convention assumed the obligations: to cut short trade in slaves, take all measures to punish these offences.
In compliance with the additional 1956 Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, slave trade and institutions and customs similar to slavery, debt bondage, servitude and customs similar to slavery must be abolished.
According to current data, over 60 bandit formations in Chechnya numbering over 2,500 people are purposefully engaged in kidnapping.
There are grounds to believe that up to this day about 500 hostages have been kept on the territory of Chechnya; the criminals compel them to work to restore damaged communications, and also use them for other purposes.
Under the 1979 International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages (article 1), the crime - the taking of hostages - is committed by any person who seizes or detains another person and
threatens to kill, cause injury and continue to detain the hostage in order to compel a state, an international organisation, some private individual or legal entity or a group of persons to perform or refrain from the performance of any act as a condition to free the hostages, and also an attempt of the
performance of the above acts or complicity in them. The Convention (article 13) does not apply to the territory of the Russian Federation in the cases when the crime is committed inside Russia, when both the hostage and the supposed criminal are the citizens of the Russian Federation and when the criminal and the hostage are located on the territory of Russia (in other words, when the case is not aggravated by the "foreign element").
Due to the shortage of funds for the conduct of combat operations, bandits have stepped up their efforts to get ransoms for the persons forcefully detained by them.
Since January 1, 1999 the Russian Interior Ministry's officers have freed 276 hostages in the North Caucasian region and detained 130 participants in the kidnapping.
Among those released, there are citizens of Great Britain, France, New Zealand and many others. At the same time, the Russian Interior Ministry failed to save three citizens of Great Britain and one citizen of New Zealand who were brutally executed by the bandit group led by A. Barayev.
Chechens also organised and participated in a whole number of terrorist acts connected with the seizure of planes and hostage-taking. In particular, this refers to the hostage-taking and the seizure of the aircraft in October 1991 and March 1992 in the Mineralniye Vody airport, the seizure of 16 school children in Rostov-on-Don, the seizure of the buses with passengers in Mineralniye Vody in May, June and July 1994, and the seizure of the aircraft in Makhachkala in October 1994.
Mercenariness is also recognised as an international crime.
According to article 47 of the Additional Protocol 1 (1977) to the Geneva conventions of August 12, 1949 on the protection of the victims of international conflicts, a mercenary is the person who:
has been specially recruited at the place of military actions or abroad to participate in an armed conflict,
actually participates in military operations and is guided mainly by the desire to derive personal gains. Moreover, material remuneration must exceed the remuneration paid to the combatants
of the same rank and functions. The form of remuneration can be different.
Mercenaries are war criminals and the provisions of the 1949 Geneva conventions (in particular, the regime of war captivity) do not apply to them. They are brought to account both within the
framework of the national jurisdiction and by specialised international tribunals.
The 1989 Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Trading of Mercenaries (it was not ratified by Russia) refers to mercenaries not only the persons directly participating in
armed conflicts but also persons recruited for participation in the earlier planned acts of violence aimed at overthrowing the government of any state, disruption of its constitutional order
or the violation of its territorial integrity and inviolability. The acts of persons who recruit, use, finance and train mercenaries, and also an attempt at complicity in such acts, are recognised as criminal. In keeping with the Convention, a member state, on the territory of which an intended criminal is located, must arrest him in compliance with its laws and immediately carry out a preliminary investigation into the facts. Member states must render each other legal assistance, including the provision of all available evidence required for judicial investigation.
A network of international training centres for the preparation of terrorists oriented to actions not only in Russia but also all around the world has been set up in Chechnya. There is evidence that foreign mercenaries and Wahhabis of non-Chechen nationalities are fighting against the federal troops in Chechnya. In the area of the populated settlement of Shatoi, there operates the so-called Arab legion numbering several hundred militants. Up to 70 volunteers from Turkey are fighting
in Chechen bandit formations.
One of the most important methods of struggling with crime is to prevent the possibility of legalising the incomes from criminal activity and ensure their confiscation. The Russian Federation is party to several agreements stipulating a set of measures to cut short money-laundering. They include the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. The Convention has two supplements:
Tables 1 and 2. They contain a list of substances which can be used for the preparation of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances.
Under article 3 of the Convention, the following acts qualify as crime: the deliberate production, extraction, preparation, offer for sale, distribution, sale, delivery on any terms, mediation, traffic, transit traffic of substances as stipulated by the Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 and the
1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and also the cultivation of opium poppy, cocaine shrubs or cannabis for the purpose of the production of narcotic drugs, the preparation, transportation or spread of equipment, materials and substances indicated in Tables 1 and 2, if it is known that they are
designed for illicit cultivation, production or preparation of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances. As the aggravating circumstances, the Convention stipulates the following: the performance of such offences by an organised group, the participation of the offender in other types of international
criminal activity, the use of weapons or violence by the offender, etc.
In compliance with the Convention, Russia undertook to exercise its jurisdiction in the case of the commitment of the acts indicated in article 3.
At present, the Federal Assembly is working over the issue of ratifying the 1990 Convention of the Council of Europe on the laundering, exposure, seizure and confiscation of gains from criminal activity.
The territory of Chechnya has become a criminal zone for the industrial production of narcotic drugs. There have been revealed four factories for the production of heroin: in the settlement of
Shali - controlled by M. Udugov; in the Kalinin settlement on the outskirts of Grozny and the territory of the former sanatorium for employees of the energy sector in the Shali district - controlled by Sh. Basayev; in the Zorka pioneer camp - controlled by Khattab. Apart from this, Chechnya has turned into a transit channel in the transportation of drugs from Turkmenistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan to the Baltic states, Northern Ireland, Great Britain, Spain and Greece.
Apart from the processing of narcotic substances brought into the territory of Chechnya, Chechen criminal structures have organised the cultivation and production of narcotic raw materials on their territory, first of all, opium poppy and Indian hemp. The largest plantations of narcotic-containing
plants are located in the Nozhai-yurt and Vedeno districts.
To process the grown raw materials, mini-factories have been put into operation in the settlements of Achkhoi-Martan, Sarzhen-Yurt, Zama-Yurt. The equipment for the organisation of industrial production of narcotic drugs was brought from abroad in September 1997 through Abkhazia.
Under the 1929 Geneva Convention on Counterfeiting Currency, the following acts qualify as crime:
All deceitful acts for the production or change of currency notes,
the sale of counterfeited currency notes,
the acts aimed at the sale, importation into the country or for personal receipt of counterfeited currency notes, if their counterfeited nature was known. The Convention establishes the obligatory informing of the respective foreign states on new issues, seizure and annulment of local currency notes, the finding of counterfeited foreign currencies with their detailed description, information on the searches, arrests and convictions of international counterfeiters.
In Chechnya the production of counterfeited US dollars and their delivery to Russia has become widely spread. The instances of the sale of such dollars through the establishments of the financial and banking system have become ever more frequent. At present, in the Maritime Territory alone over $1 million was withdrawn from illegal turnover. There is also information that in 1998 about 1 million false US dollars were brought into the Magadan Region from Chechnya. There are also facts which prove that field commanders pay foreign mercenaries in their detachments with false US dollars proceeding from the calculation of 1 false US dollar for each genuine 28 cents.
The acts of Chechen militants also testify to the violation of the norms of international law contained in such international treaties as the 1980 Convention on Physical Production of Nuclear
Material, the 1970 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Marine Navigation, the 1949
Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. Illegal radio broadcasting is also an international crime and punishment for it is stipulated by the 1965 International Telecommunication Convention, the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the 1965 European treaty on the prevention of broadcasting from the stations located outside national territories.
Apart from this, in their activity Chechen authorities demonstratively ignore the norms and recommendations contained in the conventions of the Council of Europe. In his statement of
February 4, 1999 PACE chairman Sir Russell Johnston noted that "the Russian Federation which consists of 89 entities (among which there is Chechnya) is a member of the Council of Europe.
The Russian Constitution and the convention on the protection of human rights and basic freedoms apply to all the constituent members of the Federation. I persistently urge all the involved parties to make the new legislation of Chechnya correspond to the norms of the Council of Europe." At the same time, the bodies of power in Chechnya are guided in their activity not by the Russian legislation but by the norms of Sharia law and one of the most reactionist movements of Islam - Wahhabism, which was proclaimed as the ideology of Chechnya.
In their speeches the heads of Chechnya openly propagandize the supremacy of Moslems over people of some other faith (infidels), make calls for a holy war and vengeance on them, the
commitment of terrorist acts, including the use of chemical, bacteriological weapons and radioactive substances.
In Chechnya there are legislatively sealed and executed the punishments subjecting the persons under trial to tortures - the cutting of a part of the body, flogging, the beating with stones,
the cutting of a head. Each of such cases is criminally punishable not only under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation; this is also the violation of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European convention on human rights (the right to life, the prohibition of tortures, slavery and forced labour, the right to fair and impartial judicial investigation, etc.), the European social charter, the European convention on the prevention of tortures, inhuman or humiliating treatment, the European framework convention on the protection of minorities, etc.
Consequently, the anti-terrorist operation which actually has the nature of federal intervention recognised by international law is nothing else but the efforts of the leadership of the Russian Federation to fulfil its international obligations and protect the basic rights and freedoms of
citizens, and also the norms of the effective international law.
At the same time, according to the provisions of the 1949 Geneva conventions, an armed conflict between the rebels and the central government is, as a rule, an internal conflict. However, the rebels can be recognised as a fighting side, if they have their organisation, have at their head the bodies responsible for their behaviour, have established their power on a part of the territory and observe in their acts "the laws and customs of war."
In the course of military operations of the federal forces against the Chechen bandit formations, the latter constantly demonstrate the cases of murders, tortures, the use of civilians and captured servicemen for forced labour, the senseless destruction of civilian facilities in populated settlements for propaganda purposes, the taking of hostages, the threats of attacks on civilian installations or structures with dangerous potential (atomic power plants, dams, hydro-electric power plants), robbery, violence over the population. These facts once again demonstrate that the bandits do not adhere to the norms of international humanitarian law; their actions are international crimes which fall under the jurisdiction of national war tribunals. As for international crimes of the ruling Chechen regime as a whole, they can become the subject of consideration of international governmental and non- governmental organisations (the UN, the International Committee of Red Cross, the Council of
Europe, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, etc.) within the bounds of their competence.
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