Guernica Cost 50 million - How Much Will Be Grozny?The destroyed Chechen capital is new Guernica and the world is again hardly aware of the peril Vazha Mtavrishvili Presidents and Prime Ministers, who shake hands with Putin, have to obey the international law. They are not journalists; they have rules to follow. As a train cannot avoid the rails, officials cannot avoid the law – though the law itself is not always fair. Chechnya is considered to be part of Russia, thus Russia wages the war in its own territory. And what if my nose is considered part of somebody’s face? You would smash my nose and then hand me a document, which would state that my smashed nose is your property. Nobody can be blamed for smashing his own nose! That is the way how it works in Chechnya. It is impossible to punish Russia for the violation of human rights in Chechnya using the "Yugoslavian" methods – Russia still has its nuclear potential. Also, Putin is now trying to convince the world in his good intent: having accused Chechen fighters terrorism and slave trading, he claims the war to be the war for liberation of Chechnya… To underpin this opinion, the Russian Information Center together with RIA (Russian Information Agency) "Novosti" issued a book called "Chechnya. White Book". Being spread by Russian Embassy, this book can be viewed as official position of Putin’s Russia on Chechnya. Putin appeals to the fact that the war goes exclusively in Russia’s own territory. The war is being made with good intent, and Russia certainly holds the sovereignty of the neighbouring countries in great esteem… Georgia is so often mentioned in the book in such a context, that anybody, who doesn’t know the history and the real state of affairs in the country, would easily think the information to be if not the truth, then just Russian propaganda. While the "White book" is more than mere propaganda, it is Putin’s "Mein Kampf". The world community still does not realize how serious the danger is. The end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Warsaw block, then the dissolution of the USSR deprived Moscow of the possibility to confront the West – according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Berlin was deprived of just the same. Moscow is not satisfied with the results of the Cold War as Berlin was not satisfied with the results of the Treaty of Versailles. And Russia did not lose a war, so it does not feel to be under any obligation to the West – do you remember the agony of Moscow regarding NATO expansion? Germany violated the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles even before Hitler came to power. Reichstag was burnt down, Austria was annexed to Germany, Czechoslovakia was occupied – and only when Hitler attacked Poland, the West started to react. All this happened despite the fact that both Czechoslovakia and Austria was members of the League of Nations, and according to the 10th article of its legal code, military aid to any of its members in case of military invasion was obligatory. It is easy to explain why the Western countries betrayed Czechoslovakia – had they acted from the positions of law, they would have been obliged to begin the war with Germany. The price for it would have been much higher than the price of free Czechoslovakia. By the way, for the same reasons France and Great Britain did not want Georgia to join the League – they were afraid of possible Russian invasion of Georgia, and they did not want to risk an open conflict with Russia. Hitler was perfectly aware of the Western policy, so, having occupied Czechoslovakia, he moved further. He hoped the West would not pay attention at him invading Poland as well. Especially after he masqueraded the invasion as a fair response to Poland, which was "first to attack". But that filled up the cup. Great Britain declared the war. It was probably not very wise of Britain – the Germans were much more powerful by that time. British troops were forced to flee the continent; in five weeks Hitler occupied Belgium and took Paris. London was incessantly bombed – and Göring promised Hitler not to allow a single bomb fall on Berlin. It was not far from the truth those days… Nowadays the West has the same attitude to Russia as it had for Germany before 1939. Well, it has its reasons for that. If Russia attacks Europe the way it did in 1956 and 1968, NATO forces would not respond with a nuclear bomb. The usual weapons would be likely to be used, and God knows, which part would be the winner. And if we presume NATO will win – as it is more powerful now – the victory would be still of little importance. NATO would just make Russia back to its borders and would never continue the war in the Russian territory - otherwise there would be the real danger of Moscow using its nuclear weapons. During the reign of Moscow more than 60 millions of Russian citizens were killed. So nothing would stop Russia from sacrificing a few millions more. And the West cannot send to the planned death even a 100,000 of its soldiers. Moscow does have this kind of advantage. One may ask if it is right to judge Russia from the Cold War standards? Well, what we discuss now, is not a Cold War ideology, it is the bare truth which was always hidden even during the period of the Cold war. Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill was Stalin’s ally in the fight against Hitler. But what he said about Russia and what he thought about Russia were two different things. If due to its limited resources Britain had not had to play political games with Moscow, had it had the possibility not to act according to the common sense but its conscience, then on September 1st 1939 it would have declared a war not only against Germany, but against the USSR as well. It was not Hitler alone, it was Hitler and Stalin, who concluded the agreement and attacked Poland from the West and from the East. There is just one tiny difference – German occupation lasted for 5 years, and the Russian one for 50. Churchill wasn’t Prime Minister when he made his famous speech at Eisenhower’s place – and Eisenhower was still under the responsibility of presidential power. That is why, unlike Churchill, Eisenhower was still calling Russians the Liberators. Moreover, he was so disappointed by Churchill’s words, that later he pretended not to have been at that meeting and not to have heard anything. Anyway, Churchill’s speech helped only one country – Stalin drew the troops out of Austria. The occupation of the rest lasted for 40 years more. Starting from 1920 Russia deliberately occupied and annexed a dozen of independent, internationally recognized countries. And only once was it punished - when for its aggression against Finland it was excluded from the League of Nations. When Hitler ruined Guernica, only Pablo Picasso perceived the tragedy of a small Spanish town as a tragedy of humankind. On September 27th, 1937 in Sofia, where 7 years later more than 4000 people would be killed during a single bomb attack, nobody was interested in what was going on in a town somewhere in Spain. The same day – as usual - people were just sitting at their tables and drinking tea in Hiroshima, and nobody ever imagined, that what the famous artist had depicted in a canvas would after a period of 8 years become a reality for their beautiful peaceful town. Eight years are only the period of two Olympic games; but during the 8 years between Guernica and Hiroshima 50 million lives were mowed down. If humankind does not realize what happened to Grozny and why it happened, the price might be 10 times bigger. Vazha Mtavrishvili - born in Tbilisi, Georgia; one of leading Georgian opponents of the Soviet regime and leaders of the Georgian national movement, which led to mass anti-communist demonstrations in 1989. © Prague Watchdog E-mail: mail (at) watchdog.cz (A) |
