EP/Debate on Chechnya: intervention
by Olivier Dupuis
European Parliament – Plenary Session - Sitting of Thursday 16 January,
2003.
Olivier Dupuis (NI-Radical). Mr President, dear colleagues, I believe that, quite
simply, the text we are about to vote on is absolutely despicable and heinous.
The same members of parliament, the same colleagues who for two years held up
all the calls for the indictment of Milosevic made by this parliament are
the very ones who - Mr Oostlander is not here for the moment - who are now conducting
this "realist" policy towards the Russian Federation and Mr Putin and who are
hiding - whenever possible - the reality of the situation in Chechnya, that of
a true genocide.
We say that we are disappointed by the absolution of Mr Boudanov. I think that
we should at the very least be completely outraged. We are sorry that we were
not able to go to Chechnya, now that this visit has been put off for the fourth
time, and that the EP delegation has been waiting to go to Chechnya for two years.
We are confused, we are losing all our bearings. We have forgotten that between
1940 and 1945 there were acts of resistance in our countries, acts of resistance
that aimed at the symbols of the occupying powers, at Vichy, at Quisling,
at those who collaborated with the occupier. Now, it is the attack on the
Headquarters in Grozny, which I personally, as a believer in nonviolence, would
not have dreamed of, which is an act of resistance. And we accuse the Chechens,
who aim at the heart of collaboration with Moscow, of perpetrating acts of terrorism.
These are not terrorist attacks. There was a pocket of people working for the
FSB, and therefore a strategic target for the Chechen resistance fighters.
We have lost our heads. We are lumping everything together under the term terrorism.
It is extremely serious. Just as it is also extremely serious to advocate a political
solution on one hand and to support a referendum organised by the occupier on
the other; to advocate political negotiations while preventing Chechen MPs and
ministers from coming to Europe to meet politicians from our countries in the
European Parliament, the European Commission, and the European Council, and continuing
to say that this is impossible, while we know very well that article 14, paragraph
3, allowed us to draw up blacklists of Yugoslavian or Bielorussian leaders
and that we can equally draw up a "white list’ of Chechen leaders. If we
want to talk about politics, we must talk politics with political interlocutors.
Here, we are beginning to become the accomplices of a genocide*. It is time that
this Parliament woke up. Otherwise we will produce the terrible results we saw
in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. I think that we have already paid enough for that.
The text of the European Parliament resolution on www.radicalparty.org
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Olivier Dupuis
Member of the European Parliament
http://www.radicalparty.org/
tel. +32 2 284 7198
fax +32 2 284 9198