Karl Emerick Hanuska, Reuters

The Chechen rebel leadership is pushing for the creation of a war crimes tribunal like that for the former Yugoslavia to try alleged atrocities by Russian forces, a senior Chechen representative says.

"Those who committed genocide against the Chechen people must answer for their crimes. A forum for this is our key goal," Akhmed Zakayev, chief envoy of the breakaway region's president Aslan Maskhadov, told Reuters in a rare face-to-face interview on Friday.

He was speaking in Amsterdam a day after meeting Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the Hague Yugoslav war crimes tribunal. The chances of Russia agreeing to subject itself to a similar United Nations institution, however, are slim.

Chechnya is in its second war in a decade and Maskhadov, elected in 1997 after forcing the Russian army to withdraw, has been waging a guerrilla campaign against troops sent back into the province in 1999 when the Kremlin blamed Chechens for bombings that killed over 300 people in Moscow and other cities.

Chechen officials charge that Russian security forces rigged the blasts themselves as an excuse to invade the region, which remained formally part of Russia but de facto a separate entity.

Moscow has accused Muslim Chechen leaders of being allied with Islamic militants like Osama bin Laden, which they deny.

"No matter what the war's outcome is and whether or not we are acknowledged as an independent state, the Chechen people must be guaranteed the same human rights as anyone else in Europe," said Zakayev, a bearded, soft-spoken former actor.

He said the talks with Del Ponte were purely "consultative", part of a series of steps to get the international community involved in ending violence in Chechnya, where tens of thousands have died since the first war began in late 1994.

Chechens have long called for a greater international role in a conflict that Moscow says is a purely internal matter.

Russian anger

Russia, which rallied behind the U.S. war in Afghanistan after drawing parallels between the September 11 attacks and its own problems in Chechnya, protested in January when officials in Washington, London and Paris met Maskhadov's envoys.

The creation of a UN institution comparable to the Hague tribunal to deal with Chechnya is highly improbable given that the court for Yugoslavia was set up by the UN Security Council -- on which Moscow has a permanent power of veto.

Russia denies systematic abuses by its forces and says any wrongdoing by individual soldiers is properly investigated and punished. But rights groups note that few cases are brought to trial and not one Russian serviceman has yet been convicted.

Zakayev praised Del Ponte, who is Swiss, for what he called courage in ensuring that the victims of war atrocities had been given the chance to speak out.

"One can only be overwhelmed by her courage in a sea of hypocrisy," he said during the interview in Amsterdam. "This tiny woman like no one before has demonstrated the mettle and the courage to try and show the world that crimes will not be left unpunished."

Zakayev said he was heartened by the fact the Hague tribunal was now trying former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for genocide and crimes against humanity in the 1990s.

"What I saw there was a man who thought he was untouchable, who considered himself nearly a god...sitting in the dock. That really gave me hope about what tomorrow might bring," he said.

But Zakayev faulted Western nations for failing to force a settlement in Chechnya and said that without the involvement of the international community there could be no peace there.

"That is what was wrong with Chechnya after the first war. It did not have the financial or political support to stand up to the security services of Russia and other nations around the world who were active there," he said.

source: http://www.ichkeria.org/