The U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva was an opportunity to have pressed the Government of Russia to end its consistent practice of gross abuses of human rights against civilians by establishing a formal international commission of inquiry to gather documentation with which those responsible might have been held to account. The international community, led by the U.S., instead deferred to the Russian government's insistence that it investigate itself. To date, the Government of Russia has made no meaningful effort to carry out a credible investigation, nor allowed independent human rights monitors sustained access to Chechnya. Your meeting with President Putin will be an important time to warn him that failure to carry out a thorough and impartial investigation, in cooperation with U.N. human rights bodies, and allow unhindered access by independent monitors will result in the United States strongly supporting the creation of a formal UN-established international commission of inquiry. We are particularly concerned about the plight of those persons being held in so-called filtration camps.
Eyewitness testimonies indicate that torture and ill treatment is routine and rampant.
The failure to date of the Russian authorities to permit regular visits to the camps by human rights and humanitarian organizations is an outrage, and permits the continued torture of prisoners there. The upcoming U.S.-Russia meeting is an opportunity for you to address the large disparity between your administration's response to vast abuses of human rights committed by such international pariahs as Slobodan Milosevic, and comparable abuses in Chechnya committed by an American ally. This disparity is deeply corrosive to American moral and political stature, and a disservice to Chechen victims. We respectfully urge you, at a minimum, to indicate that the United States will promote a formal international investigation of war crimes in Chechnya if Russia does not immediately permit access to all detention sites for representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, allow unhindered access into Chechnya for independent monitors and journalists and commence a credible and independent investigation of its forces' conduct.