TRP/O.Dupuis: HAS THE EUROPEAN
UNION DECIDED TO SUPPORT MR PUTIN’S REFERENDUM OF DEAD SOULS ?
CHECHNYA: HAS THE EUROPEAN UNION DECIDED TO SUPPORT MR PUTIN’S REFERENDUM
OF DEAD SOULS ?
Brussels, 7 February 2003. The Russian media announced on 4 February that representatives
of the OSCE will be sent to the Republic of Chechnya to check on the preparations
for the referendum on the constitution of the Republic of Chechnya. This agreement
was the result of negotiations held in Moscow between Igor Ivanov, Foreign Minister
of the Russian Federation, and the OSCE President Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Dutch
Foreign Minister. Mr Ivanov also announced that Moscow has begun discussions on
the question of extending the stay of the OSCE Mission in the Chechen Republic.
As the Council and the Member States will recall, the OSCE mission – which
has never shone for the determination and the reliability of its work with regard
to the denunciations of widespread abuse of the fundamental rights by the Russia
authorities in Chechnya – was expelled from Chechnya by the Russian authorities
several weeks ago without any apparent reason.
Question from Olivier Dupuis, Secretary of the Transnational Radical Party and
Member of the European Parliament, to the Council:
“Have the Council and the Member States of the Union decided to submit,
within the OSCE, to the blackmail of the authorities of the Russian Federation,
which first expelled the OSCE Mission from Chechnya without any apparent reason
and subsequently agreed to its return, provided it takes part in the legitimisation
of the referendum imposed by the Kremlin ? Does the position assumed by the Member
States of the Union within the OSCE mean that the Union as such has decided to
support the organisation and to recognise the results of Mr Putin’s referendum
of dead souls ? More generally, has the Council decided to abandon the position
it has held up to now, that there can be no solution in Chechnya without political
negotiations between the Moscow authorities and the legitimate Chechen government
of Mr Maskhadov ?”
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