|
Chechenpress Statement by Ahmed Zakayev [on the rejection of the EU resolution in the UN Human Rights Commission] As is known, the UN Human Rights Commission on Thursday, 15 April, rejected a resolution which concentrated on the violations of human rights in Chechnya. Of 53 countries participating in the voting, 23 voted against the resolution, 12 countries voted for it and 18 countries abstained. Besides Russia, such "model countries" from the point of view of democracy like Cuba, China, India, Libya and Syria showed special zeal against a censure of the violations of human rights in Chechnya. I emphatically declare on behalf of the Chechen government and the entire Chechen people, that all countries which voted against the resolution to censure Russia's long-term atrocities in Chechnya, are direct participants in the monstrous genocide that was untied by the bloody Putin regime against the long-suffering Chechen people. From now on, we will will believe with good reason that the death of each child killed in Chechnya, the loss of our women and men who didn't participate in the armed Resistance, lies on the conscience also of those countries which actually blessed the continuation of the genocide in Chechnya by Putin's criminal clique. These countries, represented by their governments, now appear in our eyes as direct participants, besides the Russian executioners, in the torture chambers of the numerous concentration camps, they are participating in the "cleansings" by the Russian death squads, the kidnapping and extrajudicial killing of absolutely innocent people, they are trading corpses for the removal of internal organs for separate sale, they are poisoning our fields and reservoirs with poisonous chemicals, they are sterilizing our children under the guise of "medical vaccinations". These countries are now direct participants in all the other, countless crimes against the Chechen people, which are unprecedented on earth. After the present shameful and also criminal decision by the United Nations, it has finally become clear to us, that not only the Kremlin regime, which has sunk into a bloody quagmire, is rejecting a peaceful solution of the Russian-Chechen conflict, but also, essentially, the entire rest of the world. To our greatest regret, precisely those analysts, including Chechens, who assert that the Russian-Chechen conflict absolutely has no other solution than a military one, proved to be true realists. Now it is clear to us as never before, that the Chechens, who have been given up and repeatedly sold in cynical backstage dealings by Western and Eastern politicians, can defend their right to live only by themselves, with weapons in their hands. And so it will be. The universal treachery against the Chechen people, which we witnessed today, is no tragedy for us, as someone gloatingly assumes, but a great purification of our consciousness, a deliverance from illusions, which were dangerous for the very existence of the Chechens as an ethnos. From now on, now that we understand the true price of the deceitful declarations about "humanism", about the "protection of human rights" and other empty slogans, hung out on the facade of the so-called international community, the Chechens will mobilize all their forces in order to fling out beyond the borders of their fatherland the brutal, bloodthirsty beasts with a human appearance, who have been tearing our people and our soil to pieces for ten years already! Prime minister of the Chechen government, Special representative of the President of the ChRI Ahmed Zakayev Chechenpress, 16.04.2004 http://chechenpress.com/news/2004/04/16/06.shtml [Translation by N.S.]
Friday, April 16, 2004 By Oliver Bullough MOSCOW (Reuters) - Chechnya's fugitive separatists said on Friday that countries backing a top U.N. human rights body's refusal to condemn suspected abuses by Russian forces were "participants in genocide." The Commission for Human Rights on Thursday voted heavily against a resolution which would have put Russia in the dock over disappearances, torture and summary executions in Chechnya, where rebels have fought Moscow's rule for a decade. "All the countries that voted against the resolution condemning the many years of Russian brutality in Chechnya are direct participants in genocide of an incredible size," a senior rebel Akhmed Zakayev said in a statement. "The death of every child in Chechnya, the killing of women and of men who are not involved in the armed resistance, rests on the conscience of those countries," said Zakayev, currently in exile in London. Human rights groups accuse pro-Moscow forces of widespread rape, looting and kidnapping and this was the third consecutive year when the European Union and Washington failed to secure U.N. condemnation. They also accuse the separatists of human rights violations. According to official figures, which rights groups say severely understate the real state of affairs, more than 600 people went missing last year in Chechnya. Russia condemned the EU-penned resolution as offering support to terrorists,lthough the document also condemned "terrorist acts" committed across Russia by the rebels. Russia refuses to negotiate with the rebels. The EU document called for a peaceful, political end to the bloody conflict, which has seen the fiercest fighting in Russia since World War II. But Zakayev said the U.N. decision showed the rebels could not count on the world for help. "Now it is clear like never before that the Chechens, many times betrayed and sold out in cynical deals between western and eastern politicians, can only establish their right to live themselves, with guns in their hands. And so it will be." President Vladimir Putin started the current campaign in Chechnya in 1999, sending in forces to crush a de facto independent state set up after the Russian army was defeated in 1996. Moscow says it is stabilizing the region but loses men daily. Human rights groups said on Friday Russian forces were still staging air strikes on the Gudermes region, where they are hunting rebels who killed eight police earlier this week.
eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 17/4/2004 Deputy head of Grozny's Staropromislovsky district administration Sultan Shakhgeriyev told the Grozny Inform agency that "17 families (118 people) are left in the Satsita camp in Ingushetia." But according to data of the Chechen National Rescue Committee, 1,500 people in 300 tents are officially registered on the territory of the Satsita camp, though the real number of people living in this temporary accommodation center exceeds 2,000 people. Source: Public organization "Chechen National Rescue Committee"
|