Eurasia Press & News
It will be six years soon as the second stage of the Russian-Chechen war has been continuing. This war which the Russian Federation started against the Chechen nation is the cruellest in the modern European history.
The one-million-strong population of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria has sustained catastrophic losses as the world community has left it to be lacerated by butchers to please imperial ambitions of the Kremlin regime in exchange for economic cooperation.
At least 25 per cent of the [Chechen] population has been killed since autumn 1994, including over 45,000 juveniles. About 90,000 people were abducted or went missing. Over half of the entire population have been subjected to physical and psychological violence in prisons, filtration and concentration camps. About 30 per cent of Chechen citizens have become refugees. There is no need to mention the republic’s infrastructure which has been razed to the ground by [former Russian President Boris] Yeltsin’s and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s terrorists.
Against the background of this arbitrariness committed by Russia, which is a Council of Europe member state, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe [PACE] is demonstrating the amorality of fixed approaches of a number of international democratic institutions to the horrifying tragedy of the long-suffering Chechen nation which is on the verge of extinction.
The Council of Europe and PACE ignore statements and appeals from the new Chechen president, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, who urges these European organizations to change their policy on Ichkeria as it makes the acceptance of the Russian-Chechen war dependent on [their] cooperation with Russia in other spheres and to prioritize the Chechen issue.
Proceeding from the abovesaid, the government and parliament of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria have great doubts about the prospects for further cooperation with the PACE. At least until the Council of Europe and PACE make specific steps to confirm their adherence to the protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms on the basis of international law.
In this regard, the government and parliament of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria suggest that the Council of Europe and PACE:
1. condemn the barbaric assassination of the legitimate president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, and demand that the Russian leadership hand his body over to his relatives for burial;
2. admit that the round table discussion organized by the so-called PACE rapporteur on Chechnya, Andreas Gross, was futile and erroneous;
3. condemn all-out attempts made by some PACE members under pressure from the Russian Federation to legitimize the inhumane, criminal, occupying puppet regime in Chechnya;
4. condemn amoral attempts by the Kremlin regime to foist on the Chechen people another political farce named “parliamentary elections” in Chechnya, as in the circumstances of continuing genocidal war there is no possibility of people expressing their will freely: that is a shameless mocking of democratic tools and a flagrant violation of democratic principles;
5. start an immediate implementation of the European parliament’s recommendations to the Council of Europe mentioned in the resolution of 6 February 2004, especially those from paragraph 14;
6. intensify efforts to find a peaceful settlement to the military and political conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria through real negotiations of the Russian and Chechen leadership to establish lasting peace in the North Caucasus;
7. condemn cases of human rights violation by the authorities in European countries regarding Chechen refugees and make for the repeal of the Dublin agreement which is an inhumane document running counter to democratic principles.
