Moscow hostage drama: Europe's acritical support for Putin is far from being extraneous to the current tragedy.

25 November 2002.

Statement by Olivier Dupuis, Member of the European Parliament, Radical:

“The unfailing, acritical support which the political leaders of the member states of the European Union, as well as the other European institutions, have offered to Vladimir Putin in the last three years has today shown itself for what it has always really been: support for the weakening of democracy and the Rule of Law in Russia, and consequently of President Putin himself. European “comprehension” - which since the 11 September tragedy has become full backing for the Russian policy known as the ‘fight against terrorism’ in Chechnya - has led to what was predictable, and widely predicted: a growing ascendancy of extremist currents over the Chechen resistance, followed by a recourse to terrorism, as the tragic drama of the 700 hostages in the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow shows.

It is essential that the highest European authorities return immediately to politics by exerting all possible pressure on President Putin in order to avoid at any cost a blood bath in Moscow and save the 700 or so hostages; to push for direct talks between President Putin and President Maskhadov in order to lay the ground for the commencement of real negotiations between Russia and Chechnya, with the aim of establishing an interim international administration in the Chechen Republic, along the lines of what has happened in Kosovo. On this basis it will be possible to begin to isolate both the people behind the mass kidnapping in Moscow and the war profiteers in the Kremlin and other warlords in the Russian Armed Forces, and at the same time to lay the foundations for lasting peace between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Chechnya. A turnaround of this kind in Russian policy towards Chechnya would be the opportunity for the European Union to develop a new policy towards the Russian Federation, beginning by welcoming the proposal made by President Putin in August to allow the free movement of people between the Russian Federation and the European Union.”

From a press release of the Transnational Radical Party.