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TITLE: Chechen Rebels Welcome Gluck's Release, Charge Russia With Kidnapping |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: Agence France Presse |
DATE: February 5, 2001 |
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Chechnya's separatist administration welcomed the release of U.S. aid worker Kenny Gluck, but still considered Russian security services responsible for his kidnapping, a rebel spokesman said Sunday."All kinds of kidnappings are organized in order to vilify the Chechen separatists and the Chechen people as a whole and discredit us before the international community," Chechen rebel president Aslan Maskhadov's press spokesman claimed in a statement.Maskhadov also vowed to assist human rights groups in their efforts to aid the breakaway republic, and guaranteed the safety of any organization that "helped Chechnya's civilians", the statement said.Gluck, who worked for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), was kidnapped in Chechnya on January 9 and released Sunday after a night-time raid by Russian security services (FSB). The FSB had charged Chechen rebels with having snatched Gluck from a four-car convoy, but the separatists claimed Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration was the culprit. Gluck's abduction, last in the series of kidnappings of journalists, aid workers and other foreigners, alarmed the international aid organizations, and some United Nations and non-governmental groups suspended their operations in Chechnya. Russian troops and tanks poured into Chechnya on October 1, 1999, to crack down on rebels, but Moscow has been unable to wipe out guerrilla activity in the Caucasus republic since retaking the capital Grozny last February. END |