The conference

Russia's Foreign Ministry has expressed concern over a conference on the Chechen situation that opened Friday in Vilnius, Lithuania. Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said the conference represents what he called an expression of escalation of anti-Russian feelings in Lithuania that does not encourage constructive dialogue between the two countries. The conference is entitled "The Chechen Problem as a Denial of Rights," is marking the 59th anniversary of Stalin's deportation of 600,000 Chechens from their homeland to Kazakhstan during World War II. Soviet Authorities allowed the Chechen people to return to their homeland in the Caucasus during the de-Stalinization period that followed the dictator's death in 1953. Chechnya declared independence from Russia in the early 1990's. Russian troops fought a three-year war in efforts to crush the movement before withdrawing in 1996. They swept back into Chechnya in 1999 and have since been bogged down in a guerrilla war which has cost thousands of lives.