Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-10-Speech-3-012"
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"en.20020410.1.3-012"2
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"Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this text, which was chiefly drafted by Mr Oostlander, is an appalling document. It is totally immoral and cannot be considered to be politically credible. To continue to demand that the Russian authorities and military forces, which have waged war for two and a half years and have systematically breached the fundamental rights of the Chechen people for two years, bring an end to their deliberate acts of violence, is absolutely appalling.
Similarly, it is absolutely appalling to continue to demand that humanitarian aid be allowed to get through to Chechnya, when we know that the Russian authorities are doing everything to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching its destination. We are not talking about a massive breach of human rights taking place in Chechnya today. We are talking about outright genocide. It is the first genocide to take place in Europe since the genocide of the Jewish people.
When 20% of the population, namely 200 000 people out of a population of one million inhabitants – is massacred, when tens of thousands of men are tortured and when their reproductive organs are systematically destroyed, we are no longer talking about human rights violations. We are talking about genocide.
Forty per cent of the Chechen people are refugees and have nothing to live on. These people are surviving in dreadful conditions in Ingushetia, and only 20-30 % of the Commission’s humanitarian aid gets through to them; the rest is lost ‘in the system’. As Mr Poettering said, the aid supplied by Russia does not arrive at its destination either. Taking all this into account, you can only arrive at one conclusion. This is genocide and Europe is sitting back, watching this genocide take place.
Comparisons with Palestine can be made, but only up to a point, as we are talking about terrorism in Palestine. I would like some evidence that the Chechens are committing terrorism. We have proof that there are Palestine suicide bombers but, as for the attacks in Moscow of two or three years ago, there has been no evidence unearthed to prove that these were committed by Chechens. On the contrary, there is increasing evidence to show that the FSB – the Russian secret service – may have been responsible for the attacks. Is it possible that thousands of Chechens have been fighting with the Taliban? Hundreds and hundreds of foreign reporters have searched for Chechens in Afghanistan. The international forces which were and still are in Afghanistan looked day after day for Chechen fighters. But, so far, no one has found a single Chechen fighter in Afghanistan. This rumour was put about by the FSB and the Russian counter-intelligence service. So, it is wrong to call the Chechens terrorists when they are defending themselves, just as the Bosnians defended themselves, when they are defending themselves like the Croats defended themselves, when they have no Russian civilian targets because there are no Russian civilians in Chechnya. There are Russian soldiers and there are Chechen fighters who are fighting the Russians. It is, in fact, the Russians who are carrying out acts of violence and torture on a daily basis, resorting to blackmail, imprisoning Chechens in filtration camps, who are involved in bargaining and trafficking of corpses and prisoners. They are asking people who do not have the equivalent of one euro to spend several dollars in order save their families. This is the situation in Chechnya. It is genocide.
Two and a half years have passed and Commissioner Nielson still has not managed to visit this country where genocide is taking place. Mr Poettering, Mr Watson, Mr Cohn-Bendit and Mrs Frassoni met Mr Oumar Khanbiev, the Health Minister, who is sitting in the public gallery. Mr Baròn Crespo and Mr Wurtz are meeting him today. Mr Nielson, Mr Khanbiev is not suffering from the plague, you can also meet him. He is sitting there, all you have to do is walk up to the public gallery and you can see him. He knows everything about the needs of the Chechen population in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, you can discuss this with him."@en1
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