Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-13-Speech-4-161"

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"en.20000413.6.4-161"2
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"Mr President, what has happened in the war in Chechnya has shocked us all. A guerrilla war is being fought without the civilian population being spared, in fact, the civilian population is also suffering the dreadful atrocities that can occur in wartime. The first war in Chechnya may have evoked sympathy from us as a battle for autonomy and independence and setting things right in their own territory, but we now have to say that, although this war really ended quite well for the Chechens, the intervening period was not used to best advantage and Chechnya became a country of complete chaos, where kidnapping was commonplace and where the citizens were no longer safe. At one stage, Chechen generals even invaded Dagestan, an action which merited absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. This illustrates that there are various movements within Chechnya. On the one hand, there are the military who tend to play the Afghan card or count on Iran for support. The other two groupings seek more of a political solution. One of them is seeking a solution more in terms of what we in Western Europe would also wish to achieve and the other is again seeking to strengthen relations with Russia. Mr President, the President of Chechnya has limited control over the troops in his country. We are pleased to hear that Maskadov does not support the actions of his military. We are also delighted to hear that the Russians are at long last admitting to the fact that Mr Putin is contacting the Chechen authorities indirectly. We have also noted hat the Council of Europe has adopted a position in this regard. We know from the Russian delegation that was here until yesterday that this has hit them exceptionally hard and we spoke about it with them in detail. We have also heard that there is the possibility of a joint parliamentary delegation undertaking a fact-finding mission on an basis under the best possible conditions with a view to looking around the territory of Chechnya wherever it sees fit to do so. A mission of this kind must take place soon and I believe it is important that in the resolution tabled on the basis of the liberal text, an amendment is included to this effect. Mr President, we support an exceptionally brief resolution in that regard, perhaps even the briefest ever made in this House, consisting of the first two recitals of the liberal resolution, followed by the recital in which the decisions of the Council of Europe are mentioned. We shall vote against Article 1 because once again it involves support for this statement and we could substitute a better statement of our own. We shall willingly support Article 2 of the liberal resolution and then Amendment No 2 as well which refers to the joint parliamentary delegation which may be more useful in the future, because it is the future that we must concern ourselves with here. The delegation will have to examine what can be done to preserve the defence of human rights in the region, but also examine what we can do in the future to help Chechnya become a democratic constitutional state. Who knows whether with help from the European Union and Russia, a Stability Pact for the Caucasus region can ever be achieved. Mr President, for these reasons we support this resolution, which initially was not to our liking, but which, at the moment, provides the best basis for a statement from this House."@en1
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