I was just watching the 10pm news on NTV, and they showed a segment from Chechnya, where a group of Chechen fighters had been apparently defeated in battle by Russian forces. One wounded Chechen remained alive, and they showed video of a Russian officer telling this wounded guy, who was lying on a cot and looked pretty far gone, that he had two choices: he could talk and be taken to a nearby field hospital, or he could keep quiet and go nowhere. As it turned out, according to the reportage, the Chechen talked but subsequently died anyway. I guess I don't know much about the laws of war, but it doesn't seem like that is the sort of treatment of a captured enemy you would want to have broadcast on national television.
In other news tonight, Boris Berezovsky, a.k.a. Platon Elenin (only BAB would go to the trouble of getting his name changed and get it changed so that he's named after Plato) is in Latvia, stirring up controversy by pontificating on the legacy of WWII as well as by continuing to suggest he might move to Ukraine soon after all.
4 comments:
Erm Lyndon, please tell me that you haven't only just fund out that Russian forces in Chechnya pay little regard to the rules of war!
Nope, that's not news to me. What was startling to me (though I guess maybe it shouldn't be) was the nonchalant way in which videotape of what might be considered a war crime was shown on a national news broadcast and not addressed at all by the journalist doing the story.
Under the Geneva Convention at least, the action would be illegal, but only if certain conditions were met - ie he was wearing a visible insignia, etc.
See http://www.siberianlight.net/siberianlight/2005/02/war_crimes_on_r.html for my take.
War has no laws. Anyone saying other is either fool or politician.
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