Translated from the Lithuanian language

Ms NICOLE FONTAINE
CHAIRWOMAN OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Ms BENITA FERRERO-WALDNER
CHAIRWOMAN OF THE ORGANISATION FOR SECURITY AND CO-COOPERATION IN EUROPE

LORD RUSSELL-JOHNSON
President of the European Parliamentary Assembly of the council of europe

Voted during a meeting of the Representatives of the People of the City of Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania, to commemorate the Sixth Anniversary of the beginning of the War against Chechenia waged by Russia 

Destruction of the Chechens - THE World Civilisation’s Crime and Shame

Today we commemorate the sixth anniversary of the beginning of the first Russian War against Chechenia, begun because Chechenia had dared to declare its independence. This war was not provoked, instead it was labeled as an action against “bandit formations”. The second Russian war against Chechenia, also labeled as a war “against terrorists”, only confirms the colonialist nature and purposes of these wars.

Russia conquered Chechenia in 1859 by force of arms. There is no legal basis allowing Czarist Russia, the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation to hold that Chechenia became part of Russia by its own free will. Russia organized elections in Chechenia this year which only imitate the democratic election process. It is planning to hold similar elections in the future. Russia continues to commit crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Chechenia. It continues to wage genocide. During service in Chechenia, Russia’s paratroop forces were awarded 48 “Hero of Russia”, 2011 decorations and 4814 other medals. As Russia proudly declared, these awards were given because the paratrooper forces had killed 12,000 Chechen fighters. However, at the same time, they had also sold live people and the bodies of those who had been killed. They had also detained, tortured, degraded, raped and robbed countless others. Theft was pervasive and people were simply made to disappear. Moreover, 25 percent of Chechen territory was ecologically destroyed. Russia was commended that it had declared a moratorium of the death penalty. This belied the fact that its forces had killed 30,000 non-combatant civilian inhabitants.

Russia’s apartheid politics in Chechenia is attested to by the fact that among first year schoolchildren, only Chechens are fingerprinted and are photographed front and profile. Russian military also forces steal most of the international humanitarian aid sent to Chechenia and refugees receive only 25 percent of the shipments sent to hem.

Your organisation continues to back down to Russia:

-By politically, legally and morally accepting Russia’s destructive colonial war in Chechenia,
-By refusing to demand that it accept responsibility for the actions of its forces in this war,
-Instead it continues to believe Russia’s lies about the “political regulation of this problem”,
-By tolerating Russia’s myth about ‘international terrorism,
-By refusing to discuss the rights of the Chechen people to independence as the only condition,
-which would allow the Chechen nation it survive. 

Your organisation must immediately demand of Russia that it:

-Begin negotiations with the legitimate Chechen government,
-Stop further war actions,
-Introduce international peace-keeping forces into Chechenia,
-Guarantee the free access of international humanitarian organizations to Chechenia and their right to directly distribute aid.