DATE=2/18/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA - HUMAN RIGHTS (L)
NUMBER=2-259303
BYLINE=BILL GASPERINI
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: INTRO: Russia is denying reports that Chechen
men are being rounded up and tortured in a detention
camp in the embattled
southern republic of Chechnya. But international
pressure about the issue apparently led Acting
President Vladimir Putin to name a special
envoy to look into the charges. Bill Gasperini
reports from Moscow.
TEXT: Russian officials deny repeated allegations
about mistreatment of men in Chechnya, in particular
at a detention camp north of the capital Grozny.
Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky (Yastre-
shemsky) says stories about torture and even rape of
prisoners in the camp are untrue.
He says prison guards at the facility undertake only
"routine work" in investigating whether the Chechen
men taken there FOUGHT against the Russians.
But so many reports have emerged from the camp that
the government is having a hard time backing up its
denials.
There has even been television footage showing men
with their hands bound behind their backs being shoved
roughly into trucks by Russian soldiers.
Other footage shows the grim and dirty interior of the
camp.
Apparently in response to the allegations, Acting
President Vladimir Putin has appointed a special envoy
for human rights in Chechnya.
His appointee is Vladimir Kalamanov, head of Russia's
immigration service.
Mr. Kalamanov was in charge of responding to the flow
of refugees out of Chechnya when the conflict started
last year.
It is unclear how independent Mr. Kalamanov will be,
given that he is part of the government.
Meanwhile Russian warplanes continue to bomb suspected
Chechen positions in the Caucasus Mountains as a
build-up of troops there
continues.
As many as eight-thousand Chechen fighters are
believed to be in the area.
Russian commanders say they want to deliver a "final
blow" and defeat the rebels;
They maintain that the war will be over soon.
But a Chechen spokesman says the Russians face a long,
slow war of attrition which has only just begun.
(Signed)
NEB/BG/PLM
TEXT:
NEB/WTW/
18-Feb-2000 04:49 AM EDT (18-Feb-2000 0949 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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