Un Commission Fails To Pass Chechnya Condemnation

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which in recent years has been dominated by nations that are themselves notorious violators of human rights, voted as expected on April 14 to reject a resolution about human rights violations in Chechnya. The proposed text, sponsored by the European Union, condemned all terrorist attacks in all parts of the Russian Federation; it nevertheless failed on a vote of 23 against, 12 in favor and 18 abstentions.

Along with the predictable “No” votes from such countries as Cuba and China, it is noteworthy that the following delegations were also among the resolution’s opponents: Brazil, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and South Africa. Those that abstained included Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.

Akhmed Zakaev, the representative of Chechnya’s underground separatist government in western Europe, declared in response that “all countries which voted against the resolution to censure Russia’s long term atrocities in Chechnya, are direct participants in the monstrous genocide that was untied by the bloody Putin regime against the long suffering Chechen people. From now on, we will believe with good reason that the death of each child killed in Chechnya, the loss of our women and men who didn’t participate in the armed Resistance, lies on the conscience also of those countries which actually blessed the continuation of the genocide in Chechnya by Putin’s criminal clique.”