DATE=12/22/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA / CHECHNYA (L)
NUMBER=2-257391
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: International human rights groups and western
journalists are compiling evidence of an apparent
massacre of civilians by Russian troops in Chechnya.
Moscow correspondent Peter Heinlein reports Russian
officials and media are fiercely denying the
allegations.
TEXT: The U-S based group Human Rights Watch says
there is growing evidence that Russian troops killed
as many as 50 civilians this month in Alkhan-Yurt, a
village 15-kilometers southeast of the Chechen
capital, Grozny.
Western news agency reports - based on interviews with
newly-arrived refugees in neighboring Ingushetia - are
similar to the Human Rights Watch information.
Earlier this week, a British Broadcasting Corporation
correspondent said he had heard eyewitness accounts of
Russian soldiers rampaging through Alkhan-Yurt looting
homes and killing anyone who got in their way.
The French news agency issued a similar report quoting
a refugee who said he witnessed the summary execution
of at least 15-civilians during a three-day period
early this month.
An independent French journalist who was able to get
to within sight of Alkhan-Yurt a few days ago said she
had been told Russian troops involved in the massacres
were so drunk they could hardly stand up.
Several sources blamed the worst atrocities on so-
called "kontraktniki," volunteers who are not part of
the regular army, but who agree to fight in Chechnya
for as much as one-thousand dollars a month, a very
high wage by Russian standards.
But officials in Moscow staunchly deny the reports,
and have mounted a media campaign aimed at
discrediting western accounts.
A Defense Ministry Press Service spokesman, who asked
not to be identified, told V-O-A reports of a massacre
are part of a disinformation campaign being waged by
foreign intelligence services.
/// SPOKESMAN ACT IN RUSSIAN, THEN FADE TO...///
He says -- there was no shooting of Chechen civilians.
This is all made up. The spokesman called the events
at Alkhan-Yurt nothing more than an operation to drive
out Chechen gunmen hiding in the village.
Russia's privately-owned N-T-V channel, which has been
openly supportive of the war effort, Tuesday ran a
report suggesting that what happened in Alkhan-Yurt
was not a massacre, but a battle between federal
troops and heavily-armed Chechen fighters.
The N-T-V report indicated many of the Chechens killed
were fighters rather than civilians, and said several
Russian soldiers also died in the fight.
But Human Rights Watch investigators say they have
documented grave abuses in Alkhan-Yurt through dozens
of witnesses, and have no doubt the massacre took
place.
Journalists in Ingushetia report seeing an amateur
video in which Russia's administrator in Chechnya
angrily tells a group of army officers in Alkhan-Yurt
they will be held personally responsible for the
killings. (SIGNED)
NEB/PFH/GE/RAE
22-Dec-1999 09:02 AM EDT (22-Dec-1999 1402 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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