Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-15-Speech-3-010"
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"en.20040915.1.3-010"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are all agreed that this attack in Beslan was monstrous, and that those who perpetrated it showed themselves to be monsters by taking children hostage and demanding that their mothers should decide which children should die and which should survive.
Taking that as our starting point, there are two options open to us: we can say that these monsters must be fought, which is a self-evident truism but rather simplistic, or we can ask ourselves how human beings could become monsters. The Chechens who carried out this operation were not born monsters, but became them. Who made human beings into monsters? That is a legitimate question, and, in Chechnya, a colonial power has for years been waging a colonial war that, day after day, brings forth monsters. If we want to talk about how to put a stop to the barbarities of terrorism, we have to start by looking at how to put a stop to the barbarities of this colonial war. History has taught us what colonial wars are like. The atrocities committed by the Algerians against the French were barbaric. Colonial wars bring forth barbarians. The problem is with finding a way to end the barbarism, and here it is not enough to say that we are going to pour more money into the war on terrorism; we have to ask what we Europeans are going to put into the political balance in order to put a stop to the barbarism.
In this context, the role we can play is that of political mediator between the Russians, who are incapable of coming up with a political solution, and the Chechens, who cannot extricate themselves from terrorism. That is why we call for a condemnation of Putin. What does the reform of the regional election process have to do with terrorism, or with the fight against it? Nothing. It does, however, have something to do with the power of a tsar whose democratic legitimacy is dubious. The Russia of today – it has to be said – is in the process of leaving democracy behind.
Turning to Chechnya, when there is talk of a political solution, we have to know with whom one is supposed to negotiate. A political solution will not be found in Russia alone; there must be partners on the Chechen side with whom it is possible to negotiate. If everyone – the terrorists and the Chechens who propose political solutions – is treated in the same way, that is to say, as terrorists, there will be no political solution, because there will be nobody to negotiate with. Negotiations will have to involve Mr Zakayev, they will have to involve discussing his proposals and recognising him, and it is only right that the European Union should recognise him and prompt him to abandon and denounce terrorism; he has to be treated as a political partner, as an enemy with whom it is necessary to negotiate. Negotiations are always conducted with enemies and never with friends. With friends, one organises surprise parties, if one feels in the mood for them; one does not conduct political negotiations with them.
It is for that reason, Mr President, that the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is proposing Natalia Estemirova for the Sakharov Prize. The daughter of a Russian father and Chechen mother, she is in Grozny fighting the good fight for the recognition of human rights: a symbol in herself! She is a member of the ‘Memorial’ group that produced Andrei Sakharov, in whose spirit, and with whose friends, she campaigns. I hope that this House will find the strength to say that there is a solution other than terrorism to the conflict in Chechnya, and Natalia Estemirova would be the symbol of political action on its part in the face of this tragic situation."@en1
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