AMC Update
 January 14, 2000

 From the Washington Post, January 14, 2000:
 "Russia's Softhearted Killers" (Editorial)

 Please see
 http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-01/14/099r-011400-idx.html for
 the full text.

 (GO TO AMC'S POLITICAL ACTION CENTER AT WWW.AMCONLINE.ORG to send An email
 on Chechnya to your member of Congress TODAY.)

 "RUSSIA'S GENERALS have figured out why their campaign to subdue Chechnya is
 sputtering: Their forces have been too 'tenderhearted.' That is the analysis
 of Gen. Viktor Kazantsev, Russia's military commander in the Caucasus. No
 doubt he has in mind the indiscriminate shelling and bombing of the capital,
 Grozny, which has left thousands of elderly and otherwise vulnerable
 civilians cowering in basements. He also may be thinking of the
 slash-and-burn tactics that have forced more than 200,000 people from their
 homes and the repeated instances of Russian soldiers looting those homes and
 shooting people who objected to such looting.

 "To combat this dangerous leniency, the Russian armed forces have formulated
 new policies. These seem to include, in Chechnya, a resort to fuel-air
 explosives -- particularly grim weapons against human beings -- and in
 Moscow, new pressure on the media, which for the first time have been
 expressing some skepticism about official (and obviously false) reports on
 casualties, battlefield successes and other matters. It is "outrageous to
 give air time to the terrorists," a senior official warned the Russian
 media; "terrorist" refers to any Chechen the Russians would like to shoot .
>>

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