Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-15-Speech-3-009"
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"en.20040915.1.3-009"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are horrified by the terrorist atrocity in Beslan. We abominate and condemn it without reservation. The brutality meted out to children, parents and teachers beggars belief; these terrorists are not freedom fighters, but cynical murderers.
Like all Europeans, we MEPs are entitled to ask how this tragedy came to pass, and whether it was unavoidable. Who was it who sowed the seeds of such terrorism, which kills so many of the innocent in such terrible ways, in Beslan and in a Moscow theatre a year ago? Who is actually behind the aircraft crashes in Russia? Questions such as these do nothing to diminish our solidarity with the victims and our horror at the hostage tragedy.
There is no simple solution in the war on terrorism, for it goes far beyond the bounds of war as we know it, and is also far more complex than what was known as the Cold War. There are no defined battlefields, the foe is not readily identified, and that is what makes simple answers such as military intervention so ineffective.
Terrorists must be hunted down ruthlessly, no question about that, and nobody doubts it, but it is not enough to combat the symptoms; we have to get to the causes of this war. The Russian Government must learn from the catastrophe of Beslan if the vicious circle of violence in Chechnya is to be broken. In this situation, warlike behaviour bars the way to a peaceful and democratic end to the conflict. For as long as the people of Grozny have no hope of a normal life, there will continue to be a perverse incentive for more terrorism. President Putin is playing tough, but he is not taking the tough road that a political solution would be, for his government seems not to believe that a political solution for Chechnya is possible. We are left with the lie of an unwinnable war.
This week, President Putin announced amendments to the Russian constitution, effectively removing the elements of democracy from the country’s political system. That is no real war on terrorism, but it is Putin’s – a war on the political diversity that Russia needs so desperately, and his stronger government makes the country no safer.
We Liberals and Democrats are convinced that we have the right and the duty, as the representatives of the people of Europe, to speak out on Chechnya and to speak up for democracy and the rule of law. It is not enough to relegate Chechnya to the small print in the margin, and that is why we find it regrettable and deserving of criticism that the Socialist Group and the Group of the conservative Christian Democrats have blocked a resolution of this House on this important subject. We must not take the manipulation of elections and the ongoing violation of human rights lying down. Nowhere in the world can we allow the idea of pre-emptive war on terror to take root, for it leads down a dead end. We believe in the universality of human rights and in the rule of law.
If the European Union is to have the genuine partnership with Russia that it seeks, Russia has to be prepared to rethink its policy on Chechnya and find the courage to change tack."@en1
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