CHECHNYA: APPEAL TO THE
MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT.
WE MUST VOTE AGAINST THE CYNICAL COMPROMISE CONCOCTED BY OOSTLANDER AND PAASILINNA!
Strasbourg, 2 July 2003. Today, Wednesday 2 July, there will be a debate in the
European Parliament, in the presence of the Commission and the
Council, on the situation in Chechnya. The vote on the compromise text should
take place at 12 p.m. on Thursday 3 July.
Statement by Olivier Dupuis, Member of the European Parliament, Radical:
"While more than 100 Members of the European Parliament, Nobel Laureates and
many leading international figures and over 4,000 members of the public have already
supported the Peace Plan of the Chechen government of President Maskhadov, a duo
of MEPs continue to impose a policy of unconditional support for Putin and his
genocidal policy in Chechnya on the whole European Parliament.
These ardent supporters of Putin go by the names of Arie Oostlander (PPE) and
Reino Paasilinna (PSE). They are the same people who turned the mission of the
EP delegation to Chechnya into a Potemkin cruise, to the great satisfaction of
the Kremlin and the Duma. Like Catherine the Great, Messrs. Oostlander and Paasilinna
came back so pleased from their Kremlin-led journey that they think our Parliament
should offer profuse thanks to the Russian host.
The permanent dominance of the Chechen issue by these two colleagues is absolutely
unacceptable. I invite all my fellow Members of the European Parliament to vote
against a text which "forgets" the 200,000 Chechen dead, which "forgets" the daily,
large-scale abuse of Chechen civilians by the Russian armed forces, which "forgets"
the fact that the Chechens elected a President and a Parliament in regular elections,
which pretends to believe that the farcical referendum organised by Mr Putin contributes
to a political solution of the Chechen tragedy, and which pretends to deny the
existence of the Akhmadov Plan in favour of the establishment of an interim United
Nations administration in Chechnya."
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