posted by zaina19 on January, 2006 as Human Rights
From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 1/16/2006 12:08 AM
Monday, January 16, 2006
Joint Military Exercises Criticized The Associated Press
STOCKHOLM -- Two Swedish human rights organizations on Sunday criticized joint Swedish-Russian military exercises to be held in Sweden and said the Russian soldiers taking part were guilty of gross human rights violations in Chechnya.
Robert Hardh, chairman of the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, and Martin Uggla, chairman of the Swedish Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, said in an article in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet that Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov had called the weeklong military maneuver "an exercise in fighting terrorism" while the Swedish government had called it a "peacekeeping operation" authorized by the United Nations.
The two chairmen claimed that "fighting terrorism" is a Russian term for the war in Chechnya.
Hardh and Uggla said that Russia was to send the 138th motorized rifle brigade to Sweden, which "like most other military units" was guilty of gross violations of human rights during its time in Chechnya.
"Sweden should ... send an unambiguous signal that human rights violations in Chechnya are not acceptable. But in practice, the government acts in a way that lends legitimacy to atrocities and war crimes," they said.
Swedish Defense Minister Leni Bjorklund said it was important that Russian units come to Sweden for exercises "to learn about relations between conscripts and officers" in Sweden.
"We also think it is important to learn about our view on how to behave during missions and that we believe that one should be very careful about human rights when handling international crisis situations," she said.
"In bilateral contacts at the government level, it is no secret that we are highly critical of what they are doing in Chechnya," she said.
The exercises will start Thursday in northernmost Sweden and run through Jan. 26.
Ivanov and Bjorklund made the announcement of the joint exercises during a visit by the Swedish defense minister to Moscow in October last year.
The Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights is an independent nongovernmental organization that monitors human rights and supports projects to improve democracy and civil society. The Swedish Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights is also a nongovernmental organization based in Stockholm.
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