In the early days of the new year, diplomatic Europe recently demonstrated yet
again the cynical faithfulness to its double standards concerning what are
usually called human rights. It also demonstrated the extent to which it is indifferent
to the fate of individual Europeans living on its territory.
The mandate of the OSCE mission in Chechnya has thus ceased. It is
as if everything was fine, it is the finale of the war, and no one there needs
international protection anymore. What does something like this mean? What will
happen next? Was this mission of any use?
Naturally, there have long been rumors about the possibility of official European
diplomacy's bolting from the zone of the so-called antiterrorist operation in
the Northern Caucasus. This is not the first month that rumors have gone around
about the way the government of our country, which is a member of this all-European
organization for security and cooperation on the continent, has been shamelessly
pressuring the OSCE (the ideology of the pressure: "the war is ended -
- forget it").... All the same, though, we hoped for the best.
But it happened: Europe gave way to the pressure. To be maximally precise, however:
Europe. in an ignominious and cowardly way, crawled away from there, when it should
have fought and insisted on having its own way. It crawled away and thus signed
the verdict for the people living in Chechnya -- it no longer regards them as
Europeans, equal to themselves and worthy of all the generally accepted rights,
as well as even the rights to superficial European observation of the course of
the war. And it was precisely superficial -- a profanation of the mandate. Judge
for yourselves.
It is generally known that our authorities actually do not allow foreign journalists
into Chechnya -- group tours to the war don't count, when they can travel there
only under the military convoy and control of the staff members of the president's
administration. This means that there was and is no freely circulating firsthand
information on the horrors of the war going into its fourth year in Europe, and
therefore: how can Europe know about the total military anarchy in Chechnya? And
react accordingly? It is in this spirit that hundreds of influential Europeans
-- politicians, journalists, parliamentarians, diplomats -- have been speaking
to me personally: they say, "we do not know," and therefore do not react....
But that is the trouble -- "we do know." We even personally "know." There were
and still are gentlemen in Europe who know. Official "eyes and ears" of
the Europeans were constantly present in Chechnya. And Europe, or rather, the
political-official part of it, should have been enlightened on the Chechen problem.
These "eyes and ears" -- are primarily people in whose hands were the mandates
of official international observers on behalf of the main all-European organizations
(the European Council and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe).
By name -- they are Lord Judd, a British subject and former minister of the Navy
for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (mandate of the European Council), and Jorma
Inki, a Finnish diplomat who is in the service of the Portuguese government and
was, up to 1 January, head of the permanent mission of OSCE observers in the Chechen
Republic or, as he liked to call himself, "just an old Finnish man" waiting for
his pension....
There are in all two illustrations of Chechen reality in 2002.... Last
summer. The settlement of Mesker-Yurt was blockaded for three weeks. Reports come
from there, each one more terrible than the other: the bodies of men rounded up
to go to a filtration camp, servicemen blowing them up alive.... I entreated Mr.
Inki, when I met him in Grozny: "Do at least something -- you have the mandate!"
He muttered something indistinct in reply -- about his pension, he wants to live
until he reaches it and he is just about to get it....
August 2002. In Shatoi, a rayon center in the mountains, people died as the result
of a provocation arranged by the federal special services. There were many victims....
Again I entreated Mr. Inki in Grozny: "Do at least something! Come on, write a
statement in your name! You saw everything! You are a witness! After all, Europe
will listen to you!" But Mr. Inki again went on about his being "just an old Finnish
man" and about "a pension soon".... He jokes and makes mischief....
The second similar personage in the days of the second Chechen war was Lord Judd,
who also had a mandate. I am a journalist, who often works in Chechnya. So when
Lord Judd is there on the routine inspection trip to prepare the usual report
on the human rights situation in Chechnya, and without fail recognizes the situation
as "gradually improving," I, a journalist, cannot approach Lord Judd. He is surrounded
by an impenetrable ring of servicemen, and he can see perfectly well and is fully
aware of the fact that it serves as an information filter.... But he will NEVER
take any steps to break this ring (he told me this himself). Never. And nothing.
Why? It is more peaceful for Lord Judd. At the price of continuing death and murder.
The Lord will go away -- they remain alone with their pain, certain that no one
-- neither the prosecutor's office nor European organizations nor the UN -- will
help them find the murderers, the kidnappers or the executioners of their relatives;
that they must do this independently, that mob law, it turns out, is their only
possible fate, and that justice does not exist for them.... How many conclusions
of this sort have we had to hear during this war!
Why is it all precisely like that? And not otherwise? Why has Europe sent out
to Chechnya representatives like this, for whom nothing, applying the strictest
criteria, is necessary? Why are huge funds being spent for their maintenance in
Chechnya from the all-European public purse, which we ourselves, the Europeans,
fill? Why are they ordered to keep silent?
There are always very simple answers to all complicated questions. As far
as the Chechen situation is concerned, they are like this: silence is advantageous.
For both the OSCE and the European Council. And it is no use hiding here behind
beautiful constructs: a profanation of the European mandate has taken place in
Chechnya.
This is what the Kremlin ordered -- and Europe is humbly guilty, thus destroying
all the European values on which our continent has stood since the end of World
War II and which have now tumbled down, having stumbled over the tragedy called
the second Chechen war....
Only one conclusion follows from all of this: no matter what words
are uttered from the great rostrums about human rights and their priority over
all other rights, don't believe them. We are faced with a new international reality,
in which there is nothing of all that which is the basis of the constitutions
of civilized countries, in
which the OSCE and the European Union are adherents of bloodshed in one part of
Europe, the part where Chechnya is. And if the adherents are like that, that means
that the participators are too. They have shielded what happened. And having shielded
it, they crawled away. That is to say, they recalled the mandate.
Europe has fallen down to the point of its own profanation. First
by giving the impression that it observed the murders taking place in Chechnya,
and now, by denying it. By demonstrating that the Europe which we long considered
the traditional protector of human rights and the hope of all those offended and
oppressed is no more. That is all. The curtain has fallen.
But is this advantageous to Europe itself? If you judge by the strictest criteria?
Strategically? And not narrowly politically, as Blair, Chiraq, Schroeder and others
now think? To Europeans as a whole? Those Europeans who are now doomed to live
in the awareness that a terrorist act, such as the one in Moscow in October, can
be
repeated whenever and wherever the terrorists like? And not just by the hands
of the Palestinians?
Think, Europeans. Decide. And having decided, demand. Chechnya is tired of waiting.