For the past four months, 5,000 lightly armed Chechen warriors fighting on flat, open land and have held off 160,000 Russian troops with heavy guns, helicopters, thousands of tanks and armored vehicles.

        During the war from 1994 to 1996 an estimated 4,000 Russian soldiers were killed as well as about 100,000 residents of Chechnya, which is ¼ of Chechnya’s current population, many of them ethnic Russians.  Russians are killing their own kind.  Given the chance it’s hard to say that they wouldn’t finish off the remainder of the civilians. They are not setting a good example of what the world is longing to be like.  The current war has produced more than 200,000 refugees and thousands of civilian causalities.  With that large amount of deaths and injuries, Russia must be in denial to insist that they are not going through a war.  The Chechen nation faces the danger of being wiped out.  Chechnya should be independent.  It would save tons of lives, and Russia has no need for the country.  Chechnya would just be another area of land, if it didn’t have the Chechen people standing by it, fighting for what they believe in.

        The Russians are holding captive hundreds of Chechens in “filtration camps”.  Filtration camps are said to help find terrorists, but in actuality, many innocent people are getting put in the camps.  Civilians that have committed small crimes are getting put in charged for a crime that they have nothing to do with.  Humans Rights Watch charged on February 18, 2000 that Russian camp guards are torturing, beating and raping Chechen civilians at the filtration camps.  The organization had received many testimonies from former victims that spent time in a filtration camp in Gronzy, Chechnya’s capital.  

        “What’s happening in these filtration camps is unspeakable. We saw the same kind of torture and ill treatment in filtration camps during the last Chechen war.  The Russians must not get away with committing these abuses for a second time,” said the Director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division, Holly Cartner.

        Mary Robinson, the United Nations human rights chief, condemned Moscow on the same day, for blocking access to the war zone and other allegations such as executions and rape by Russian soldiers.   She also accused Russian forces of violating the Geneva Convention and their protocols, which they are a party of.  The United States president, Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and other officials have said that the United States objects to the conduct of the Russian military campaign against the Chechens, especially because of the impact on the civilians.

With that sort of behavior from the Russians, they do not deserve more territory.  It’s disgusting that people can be so irrational and be so abusive to others for no reason.  If they were to gain control of Chechnya they would have a grudge towards them that could result in even more deaths and unfairness.  Russia has violated Protocol II additional of the Geneva Convention, which they are to abide by. They can not even follow their own laws, so they shouldn’t be able to enforce similar laws onto the Chechens.

The Russians involved with this war are immoral.  In order for Chechen civilians to remain safe they have to bribe the generals.  In the Chechen village of Kater-Yurt, locals paid a top military official about 150,000 rubles ($5,555) and a big-screen television as a bribe to spare their town from bombing.  In another village, Kulary, locals offered basic foods, including sugar, meat and flour.  In Achkhoi-Martan, locals say that bombs rained down on their homes until someone passed a hat around the community and collected money as a bribe.  Once it was paid, the bombs stopped.  People should not have to pay ransom for their protection.  If Russia was to control Chechnya, the same kind of manner may continue to go on.

There is evidence of war crimes in Chechnya made by the Russians as well.  On October 21, 1999 three large explosions occurred in the Chechen capital’s downtown bazaar.  It killed around 140 people and wounded about 260.  Russians initially denied any involvement, yet later on some Russian authorities admitted their involvement in the blast, but they said that they had struck Chechen military targets.  However, a Humans Rights Watch team says that witness testimonies suggests that the attack may have been illegal, since the use of explosive devices in a crowded civilian marketplace in the day time is likely to have been indiscriminate and disproportionate.  In the Geneva Conventions they emphasize the principle of civilian immunity.  The law prohibits attacks, even when they are aimed at legitimate military targets, if they are indiscriminate or harmful to civilians.  Humanitarian law also requires precautions to protect the civilian population, such as an advance warning.  The Russian army didn’t abide by any of those laws. They are the ones that should be in prison, not the victims. It’s hypocritical for Russians to want to control Chechnya and lay down laws for them to follow when they don’t even follow the laws that they are required to follow.  

Bad leadership, bad morals, bad communications and bad coordination are crippling Russia’s campaign.  It has become a routine for Russian soldiers to ruin Chechen villages and kill Chechen civilians.  Chechens have been taking a stand, fighting for their independence which should be granted.  They have already proven that they are independent by coming together as a province and fighting against the Russians.  With all the intolerable actions that Russians have been acting out they are not capable of controlling Chechnya.  After all the Chechens have been through they deserve to be independent.  It’s time to say to the Russians: “Ivan-Domoi!” which can be translated as “Ivan- Go home!”