Russia gets off with limp finger-wagging from the West

By Florian Hassel

MOSCOW (DPA): When the second round of shooting in Chechnya started, Aslan Maskhadov predicted that the West would, as in the first conflict, content itself with a few stern words but otherwise let Russia carry on -- and sadly enough, he was right.

Russia has used just about every instrument that the compendium of war has to offer: bombardment and blockade of uninvolved civilians; the obliteration of whole towns, cities and villages; the kidnapping and murder of Chechen men; systematic plundering, rape and expulsion.

The West's answer to the whole catalog of what surely amounts to genocide has been suspending Russia's voting rights in the parliamentary committee of the Council of Europe and a lame resolution issued by the UN's Geneva Commission on Human Rights. All in all, a shameful balance.

The UN resolution condemns Russia and calls on Moscow to examine the crimes in Chechnya through an independent national commission -- a proposal that is as cost-effective as it is pointless.

The crimes committed in the first Chechen war have yet to be heard before a court: it would be idle dreaming therefore to expect the second batch of atrocities to be cleared up already.

Indeed, the so-called human-rights commissioner Vladimir Kalamanov has just one brief: to fob off visitors from the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or the UN with visits as infrequent as they are unyielding.

Moscow's characterization of the war as part of the necessary battle against putative terrorists and fundamental Islamists was in itself an amazing propaganda coup.

From U.S. President Bill Clinton, to NATO General-Secretary George Robertson, to German spy chief August Henning and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, western politicians and analysts were completely taken in by the Russians.

Although it is known that Chechnya has its fair share of foreign mercenaries and Islamist zealots, their appearance is only the result of Russia's recent policy of destruction in the area. Moscow therefore only has itself to blame if their number and influence are on the rise in the Caucasus.

Chechnya's civilian population in any case views the Islamists as outsiders. One need only spend a few days talking to the war's victims in the refugee camps in neighboring Ingushetia to realize that.

A propos, there is nothing to prevent accredited German, French and American diplomats from buying a ticket and flying to Ingushetia and doing the same. Yet not one of them has done so. That, too, is indicative of a sorry state of affairs.

Moscow need not fret too much over the EU-inspired UN resolution either. On the day of the Geneva vote, France's Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and Finance Minister Laurent Fabius made it clear via London's Financial Times that Moscow need not fear a single sanction. In fact, it can count on more financial assistance for its new beginning regardless of the continuing war.

The ministers wrote that "the culture of democracy is now deeply ingrained" in the new Russia emerging under Putin, despite its "misbehavior" in Chechnya.

The cynicism and disregard for reality that this verdict suggests leaves many speechless. The fact that France of all countries -- it has levied the least criticism over Russia in the past months -- can give Moscow the effective thumbs-up for its conduct has left heads spinning in the small community of Russian democrats and human-rights activists.

But who hasn't failed to disappoint them recently? German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer needed only one year to effect his return from a supposedly more morally oriented foreign policy to the classic realpolitik we know so well.

Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping, his British counterpart Robin Cook and his boss Tony Blair -- a year ago during the Kosovo war the West's prime upholders of human rights -- have in the meantime earned themselves top place in the elastic-morals rankings.

But all this should come as no surprise. Even after two campaigns in Chechnya, Russia has no monopoly on unpunished war crimes.

U.S. President Richard Nixon and his security adviser and later Secretary of State Henry Kissinger should have been hauled up before a war-crimes tribunal like the one in The Hague, had one existed then and if they had been measured by the standards being applied to Slobodan Milosevic's thugs or those blamed for the genocide in Rwanda.

But Nixon is in his grave and Kissinger is a respected ex- diplomat. As for Russia, even before his inauguration Vladimir Putin was able to take tea with Britain's queen.

What this whole case demonstrates as clear as ever is that if a country is big enough, it can get away with anything.