Mosques, hospitals, market places and refugee convoys have all been attacked. According to Chechen government estimates, between 5.9.1999 and 1.11.1999 over 3,000 people were killed by bombs and shells. No-one has counted how many have perished from exhaustion and hunger. The Chechen people must likewise give up their unlawful practices of hostage-taking and trafficking in human beings and distance themselves from their extremist military commanders. The Society for Threatened Peoples condemns the atrocity of the bombings carried out in Moscow and Volgodonsk, whoever they may have been committed, as well as Russia's terror bombing of Chechnya.
Genocide is the most heinous crime of which human beings are capable.
This is a matter on which there can be no compromise. Extremists such as Hattab, Raduyev and Bassayev are popular because of the courage they have shown in fighting the criminal activities of the Russians in Chechnya. However they have brought ruin to Chechnya. People do not chop hands and feet off. The pioneering work done by the OSCE in Chechnya in 1996 was remarkable.