©Human Rights Watch 2000 Chechen refugees on a bus at the main border crossing with Ingushetia, waiting to return to their home in Urus-Martan, Chechnya, December 1999. Russia Colombia China Iraq Africa Turkey The United States Women Home - Elections 2000

Russia: Would the candidate press the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to withhold funds for the Russian government until it holds accountable those responsible for atrocities in Chechnya? Follow-up: It's not the case, as some U.S. officials have argued, that World Bank payments are being used to restructure the particular sectors of the Russian economy. Some of the World Bank loans are conditioned on Russia's reform of particular sectors, for example the coal industry, but the funds are disbursed for unfettered budgetary spending. This is also the case for World Bank structural adjustment loans. Nor is it true that IMF money is not significant to the Russian budget, or that it "just goes to pay back the IMF anyway." Money from both the World Bank and the IMF enables Russia to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on other things--like the war in Chechnya.

Human Rights Watch recommends: The U.S. government should make sure that these funds are withheld until Russia conducts serious investigations of alleged abuses, and holds people accountable for them. Moscow must also allow an international monitoring mission to the region.