From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 2/6/2006 1:38 AM Open letter to the Swedish Government 04.02.2006 - 00:54:45
´´The Swedish Government is lacking in civic courage and has not one single functioning ethical compass. They are far more interested in lucrative gas and oil contracts than actually doing something for human rights...´´
´´The Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 would require the Swedish Government to open an immediate investigation into whether any of these soldiers committed violations, and if so to prosecute them. The same is true for the Genocide Convention...´´
We learn to our utmost astonishment that the Swedish military intends to carry out common exercises with Russian military units under the code name "Operation Snowflake", in the days of January 19-24, 2005, in Boden, in the northern part of Sweden.
The invited Russian brigade, assigned to this exercise, is the 138th Motorized Rifle Brigade - a Russian unit which has participated actively for years in the bloody Russian occupation of Chechnya.
Several Human Rights organizations, including the Russian "Memorial", have documented the involvement of the 138th Brigade in cases of murder, extrajudicial executions and violations of all conventions of warfare, for example in the Chechen location of Starye Atagi in 1999-2000, where many Chechen civilians became victims of killings and abuse.
Why hasn't the Swedish government in explicit terms specified the clear-cut precondition to the Russian government that NO Russian military units which have been involved in Russia's bloody war of suppression in Chechnya should be sent to Sweden, in order to take part in joint military exercises - especially for so-called "peace-keeping operations"? A war of suppression which is still criticized by the Swedish Government.
Furthermore we learn that the Russian 138th Brigade, despite of its bloody history, actually holds the status of "Friendship Unit" with Swedish military regiments.
This is absolutely disgusting, and at the same time a direct scorn on the Chechen victims, some of which have been granted asylum in Sweden, and who would rightly prefer to see members of the 138th Brigade far away from Sweden, or alternatively in a courtroom for war crimes, where the commanding officers of this Russian brigade ought to be.
We expect the Swedish Government to comply with its international obligations concerning active judicial provement of all crimes of war and the perpetrators of such crimes, including the obligations stated by the UN Convention on Torture, especially in the case of a well-founded suspicion that any such persons at present are visiting Sweden.
Danish Support Committe for Chechnya, The Board Chair: Thomas Bindesbّll Larsen
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