Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-17-Speech-3-143"
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"en.19991117.5.3-143"2
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"Mr President, the Russian government will be tempted to draw parallels between our action against Serbia to end the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and their action against Chechen crime. This is strangely voiced at the extreme left of this Parliament. I personally think that this comparison is rather far-fetched, but it is useful to remind ourselves of the discrepancies. Our action and that of NATO in Kosovo and Serbia was undertaken with an extremely selective application of the least possible violence, sparing the civilian population as much as possible. Therein lies the huge difference between our action and the action Russia is taking in Chechnya at the moment.
It is useful that the extreme left should remind us of this difference, although quite unintended. Also, human life appears to be of no consequence and refugees are of no concern. Long lines of refugees are kept waiting at the border and international aid organisations fail to offer real help due to a lack of cooperation. This is another clear difference and it is really good that the extreme left have underscored these huge differences between Russia’s action in Chechnya and that of NATO in Kosovo.
Mr President, it is essential that clear-cut measures be taken and that we give the Russian population some sort of message. Indeed, we received the delegation from the Russian Parliament here and we noticed that there is, in fact, a common opinion amongst the Russian representatives there and they were not all from the same party. This stood out to us.
We will have therefore have to give the Russian population a message which is loud and clear so that they might start to question the events in Chechnya and their government’s action. I am sure we will need to bring some pressure to bear in Russia if we are to put an end to these Russian crimes once again. This is why I think, following on from what Mr Patten said during his hearing, that it is bad doing business with states which violate human rights on a massive scale – he was talking about China in response to a question raised by us – and that it is in fact beneficial to consider financial-economic measures when it comes to giving a clear message. We may be able to call on our friends from the Council of Europe too to consider a suspension.
Mr President, I think we as a Parliament should take a clear stance and express our support for the Chechen population and, for this reason, it is important to my mind that the President of the European Parliament meet the Chechen Foreign Minister in order to explain our stance."@en1
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