Constance LEBEY

Charles ALBERT

Human Rights and terrorism

Counter-terrorism law and practice of Russia in Chechnya, particularly in respect of Human Rights

Putin said on September 24, 1999: “We'll follow terrorists everywhere. We will corner the bandits in the toilet and wipe them out”.This declaration announced the way in which the counter-terrorism policy in Chechnya will be led. Indeed, for the Russian government, Chechnya represented the origin of the terrorism which took place in Russia.

The ChechenRepublic, in Russia’s North Caucasus region, is officially “back to normal”. After a referendum on a constitution for Chechnya in March 2003, subsequent presidential and parliamentary elections in the republic and an amnesty for members of armed opposition groups, officials insist the conflict is over.

Thus, the ChechenRepublic, or,informallyChechnya, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria, is a federal subject of Russia. It is located in the Northern Caucasus Mountains, in the Southern Federal District. It borders Stavropol Krai to the northwest, the republic of Dagestan to the northeast and east, Georgia to the south, and the republics of Ingushetia and North Ossetia to the west.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Chechen-Ingush was split into the Republic of Ingushetia which wanted to remain part of Russia and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria which sought independence.

Meanwhile, an independence movement, initially known as the Chechen National Congress was formed. This movement was ultimately opposed by Boris Yeltsin's Russian Federation, which argued, first, that Chechnya had not been an independent entity within the Soviet Union but was a part of the RussianSovietFederalSocialistRepublic and hence did not have a right under the Soviet constitution to secede. Second, those other republics of Russia, such as Tatarstan, would join the Chechens and secede from the Russian Federationif they were granted that right. And third, that Chechnya was at a major base in the oil infrastructure of the country and hence would hurt the country's economy and control of oil resources.

Afterwards,an unofficial election was held and Dzhokhar Dudayev was elected but many false ballots were made. Then, Dudayev issued a decree of Chechen independence. A resolution was issued stating that the Chechen Supreme Soviet and President were not legitimate. In May, 1993, the Chechen parliament and the Muftiat (Islamic high council) made an appeal to the Chechen people to defend the old constitution and restore legitimate power. The decision of the Chechen constitutional court was that Dudayev's actions were illegal.

Then, the first civil war started.The Russian federal government refused to recognize Chechen independence and made several attempts to take full control of the territory of the ChechenRepublic. Russian federal forces overran Grozny in November, 1994. Although the forces achieved some initial successes, the federal military made a number of critical strategic blunders during the Chechnya campaign and was widely perceived as incompetent. Led by Aslan Maskhadov, separatists conducted successful guerrilla operations from the mountainous terrain. By March 1995, Aslan Maskhadov became leader of the Chechen resistance.

The widespread demoralization of the federal army, led to a federal withdrawal and the beginning of negotiations on March 21, 1996.Separatist President Dudayev was killed in a Russian rocket attack on April 21, 1996 and the Vice-presidentZelimkhan Yandarbiyev became president. Negotiations on Chechen independence were finally tabled in August 1996, leading to the end of the war and the return of federal forces in Russia.

Aslan Maskhadov was elected President in 1997, but was unable to consolidate control as the country devolved into regional bickering among local leaders and organized criminalfactionswho are going to become quickly terrorism acts.

On September 9, 1999, Chechens were blamed for the bombing of an apartment complex in Moscow and several other explosions in Russia. The Russian government claims that there is also strong evidence that local terrorist activity is supported with money and arms from Islamic militant groups such as Al-Qaeda.

Thus, Russia's new Prime MinisterVladimir Putin, ordered forces back into Chechen territory on pretexts of the bombings. A ground offensive began in October, 1999. Much better organized and planned than the first Chechen War, the Russian Federal forces were able to quickly re-establish control over most regions and after the re-capture of Grozny in February2000, the Ichkerian regime fell apart, although a prolonged guerrilla activity in the southern mountainous regions continues, despite becoming increasingly sporadic. Nonetheless Russia was successful in installing a pro-MoscowChechen regime.

Therefore in early 2002,Vladimir Putin announced that the Chechen war had ended, but currently most of Chechnya is controlled by the federal military and republican police. In 2002, federal forces installed a government of pro-Moscow Chechens into local government offices. Afterwards in March2003, referendum on constitution and presidential election were held and a republic's government formed. With this controversial referendum, a new Chechen constitution was passed. The 2003 Constitution granted the ChechenRepublic a significant degree of autonomy, but still tied it firmly to Russia and Moscow's rule, and went into force on April 2, 2003. The referendum was strongly supported by the Russian government.

Since December 2005, Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the pro-Moscow militia leader known as kadyrovites, has been functioning as the Chechnya's ruler. He has become Chechnya's most powerful leader and on February 2007, with support from Putin, Ramzan Kadyrov replaced Alu Alkhanov as president.

Therefore, since these wars, Russian Government is involved in a counterterrorism campaign.

Hence, nowadays there is still terrorism in Chechnya that is fought by the authorities.However, it’s clear that Russian Government, as others governments,took advantageof the terrorism concept.

Indeed, there is an absence of an internationally agreed definition of terrorism. Thus, states decide themselves what does that mean.

So, we can say that terrorism is violence or other harmful acts committed against civilians for political or other ideological goals.Terrorism includes acts which are intended to create fear or “terror”, perpetrated for an ideological goal, and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants. In 2004, the Security Council Resolution 1566 states a guidance for a definition based on three cumulative conditions: “Acts including against civilians, committed with the intention of causing death of serious bodily injury, or the taking of hostages; and irrespective of whether motivated by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature, also committed for the purpose of provoking a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons, intimidating a population, or persons or particular persons, intimidating a population, or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act; and such acts constituting offences within the scope of and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism”.

Russia considers that Chechens separatists, who make bomb attacks, take hostages…, are terrorists.Therefore, above all since 1998, Russia’s government legislates in this counter-terrorism campaign to prevent this violence.Counter-terrorism refers to the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and other groups adopt in order to fight terrorism. Counter-terrorism is not specific to any one field or organization; rather, it involves entities from all levels of society. Armies conduct combat operations against terrorists, often using Special Forces, as the Russian army.However, counter-terrorism policy must not overwhelm civilians in their rights and life.But the fact is both the federal and separatist armies during the Chechen conflict have been committed numerous abuses against civilians,including well-documented accusations on both sides of rape, torture, looting, and the murder of civilians.

First, if different sources gave evidence of violations of Human Rights by the Chechens fighters, it was however difficult to obtain independent and precise information about the perpetration of these violations. NGOs mission which had gone in Ingushetia in February 2000 had not collected direct testimonies on such violations. If no fighters violence had been blamed by the population, the representatives had noted however the difficulty to obtain reliable information. Furthermore, the organization of the Chechen armystays unclear for the outside observers that make difficult the identification of the chain of command, the responsibility of the military operations and the penalties in case of violations of Human Rights.

Even if the scale of demolition and the number of deaths among the population resulting from Chechen armed formations is incomparably less than those resulting from the actions of Russian's forces, the Chechen side must be blamed for grave Human Rights abuses too.Part of Chechen guerrilla organizes terror acts like suicide bombings and hostage taking. For instance, Chechen rebel forces carried out two dramatic attacks on civilians in 2002, causing enormous loss of life. Thus, they took nearly 800 people hostage in a Moscow theatre, which resulted in the deaths of more than one hundred people. The other bomb attack on the government building in Grozny left seventy-two people dead and another 210 wounded. In the last months of 2002 rebel forces also intensified their campaign against civil servants working for the pro-Moscow administration of Chechnya. These forces are believed to be responsible for seven assassinations, several assassination attempts, and nine abductions of civil servants.

So, some Chechens fighters and their sympathizers assassinated, attacked, or threatened Chechen civil servants, seeking to intimidate Chechens who might cooperate with the Russian government.

Also, Chechen forces were obligated to respect the principles of humanitarian law found in Article 3 Common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which applies during internal armed conflicts, but Chechen leaders have failed to unequivocally condemn attacks by their forces on civilians, which violate these provisions.Although Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov and people in his entourage have half-heartedly condemned the hostage-taking in Moscow and the bombing of the government building in Grozny, they have frequently suggested that abuses by Russian troops somehow excused these crimes.

Besides, there was evidence of the perpetration of violations of Human Rights and international humanitarian emanating right of Chechen fighters. Notably appear in ill-treatment and execution of war prisoners, attacks aiming at members of the administration civilian and murders, absence of sufficient measures to insure the protection of the civilians and the violence against the civil population. Thus, these facts constituted war crime according to: - The Status of the international military tribunal of Nuremberg; - The Status of the international Court for ex-Yugoslavia; - The Status of the international Court for Rwanda; - The Status of the international penal Court.

It is sure that Chechen forces have shown little regard for the safety of the civilian population, often placing their military positions in densely populated areas and refusing to leave civilian areas. Therefore, Chechen abuses have legitimized Russian activities.

Thus, separatist armies have been widely criticized by Human Rights groups such as Amnesty International for alleged war crimes committed during the two Chechen wars; but federal forces have been criticized for the same reason on a different scale.

So, as to fight against terrorism, Russian forces started to deploy in Chechnya. This phase was characterized bymassive and indiscriminate bombings on the whole territory, and by the establishment of a filtrationsystem of the population: as all the men were suspected of supporting terrorists, in order to findand eliminate combatants.The nextphase of the counter-terrorism campaign was replaced bya guerrilla war. Attacks led by Chechen combatants against the soldiers or the pro-Russianadministration members have been followed by sweep operations, firstly in the south of thecountry. Since the war started, some cities and villages suffered over thirty sweep operations,which were accompanied by lootings, destructions, arbitrary detentions, violence, and sometimessummary executions and rapes.The filtration system became generalized as the places of detention with the samecharacteristics are multiplying, whether they are legal (departments of the Interior, temporarydetention centres) or illegal (graves, abandoned buildings). Finally, a very high number ofdisappearances have been reported, following arrests at check points or during sweep operations.

Then in January, 2001, the management of the anti-terrorist operation was transferred to the FSB (formerKGB): it was the start of the normalization and a massive withdrawal of the troops. But, afterwards, sweep operations have kept being as numerous.

Nowadays, the conflict is still going on behind closed doors, as the NGOs,inter-governmental organizations and independent media are denied free access to the Chechenterritory while the counter-terrorism policy is still working to the detriment of Chechens Human Rights.

Thus, how do the regulation and the implementation of the Russian counter-terrorism policy have led to the annihilation of Chechens Human Rights?

First,we will deal with the position of Russian authorities about counter-terrorism policy, notably Russian law about this topic and its implementation. Then, we will focus on the effect of this policy, precisely on the violation of Human Rights.

I- Existence of a zealous counter-terrorism policy

The word "terrorism" was first used in reference to the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. But the notion of modern terrorism, appeared to the second half of the 20th century, leave nobody indifferent. This phenomenon created a deep contesting because it revolutionizes the classic war. Extremely difficult to foresee and even more to protect itself from it, the terrorism forces States to take account in their decisions and schemes in the course of the years. It is only after the extraordinary attempt of September 11th, 2001 that the threatened States really joined their speeches and their efforts with the aim of countering the terrorism.

In this respect, Russia shows itself confronted with the terrorist phenomenon inside its borders. That is why the leaders quickly owed to develop an internal antiterrorist policy.

So, the attacks of September 11th, 2001 introduced a new paradigm into world politics,and Chechnya has since been one of the regions most affected by the increased focuson terrorism. Indeed, it did not take long after this event for the Russian government todraw comparisons between the terrorist attacks on the United States and the situationin Chechnya.

President Putin warned the world that it ought to fightthe common threat of “Islamic fundamentalism”, namely in Chechnya. Hence, the Russian government has said that it has no partner in negotiations because all Chechens are extremists.

In such a perspective, we will focus on Russian government and how theyhave faced the terrorism issue. We will study policiesand the anti-terrorist strategy of the RussianState.

On one hand, it is interesting to explain the Russian legal system about counter-terrorism set up by Russian authorities to face the terrorism, notably in Chechnya.This legal system concerns the fight against terrorist actions and also all the means which surround it as mass media. On the other hand, we will explain how the counter-terrorism struggle takes place, namely its implementation on the field by Russian forces.

A) Legal repression of terrorism

In Russia the “war on terrorism” is related to Chechnya and events surrounding it. The first armed conflict in Chechnya in 1994–1996 never got an official legal definition, although the Judicial Chamber for Information Disputes, operating under the President of Russia, once offered an interesting description of that conflict: it was labelled the “armed rebellion.”

So, during the last decade, there have been numerous,but ineffective attempts to organize Russia’scounter-terrorism efforts. Naturally, the FSB had a keyrole in this development. In 1995, the FSB establisheda “Counter-TerroristCentre” within its Departmentfor the Protection of the Constitution and Counter-Terrorism. Then in January 1997, Prime Minister ViktorChernomyrdin established the “InterdepartmentalCounter-Terrorism Commission of the Russian Federation,”which was renamed in 1998: the “Federal Counter-Terrorism Commission”. Supervised by thePrime Minister and his deputy, the FSB director; thecommission ultimately brought together over twodozen power ministry officials and deputy ministers.The commission’s main accomplishment was producingthe 25 July 1998 law on counter-terrorism.So willingly or not, the government created specific conditions for conducting an anti-terrorist operation well in advance.

This federal law of 1998, “On the Fight against Terrorism”, expanded the boundaries of the notion of “terrorism”, which earlier existed only in the 1996 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In the Criminal Code, terrorism is defined as “the committal of explosive devices detonation, arson or any other activity that threats to cause loss of life, significant property damage or other socially-dangerous consequences; if these actions are carried out for the purpose of violation of public security, intimidating the public or influencing government authorities in their decision-making process, as well as a threat of committing the above described actions for the purpose stated” (paragraph 1 of Article 205).