Aslakhanov calls on the State Duma to stop "the genocide of the Chechen nation"Translated by Prague Watchdog
Chairman
Dear delegates, we have set aside the time for the information from the delegate Aslakhanov, I think we can give the floor to the delegate Aslakhanov.
Please, for the information, proceed to the rostrum, you have 10 minutes.
Aslakhanov
Dear Lyubov Konstantinovna, dear colleagues! Frankly speaking I thought that after my election I would have the possibility to tell you what I have seen with my own eyes as far as what is going on in the republic. I also nourished a hope in the parliamentary sessions, which were held brilliantly, and believed some positive changes in the republic would happen after these sessions. The situation started to stabilize a little bit for a while when we realized that this was just another tittle-tattling on a higher level: Lawlessness is still a reality there. I don't like reading from a list but I will mainly have to read to stick to the time-limit rendered to me.
A complete neglect of the Constitution of Russian Federation and laws of Russian Federation has become a standard in the military activities towards the people of Chechnya. Though a state of emergency and martial law have not been officially announced in the republic, the armed forces imposed extraordinary conditions that cannot be compared to any analogue in the world due to their brutality, complete neglect of the laws of the Russian Federation and the international rules concerning human rights. Any military commander of regional or municipal level can, just on his own, establish special limitations on movement, curfew, raid citizen's homes at any time of the day, perform searches which are in most cases followed by marauding, ungrounded detentions, battery and torture. Especially in the so-called detention places: torture with electricity and with whatever can be thought out. What is more, those are not official prisons. All special units have their own kind-of-prisons: petrol stores, dug-out holes - people are kept anywhere and tortured as much as the torturers' fantasy permits.
Official higher commanders of power bodies flatly deny that each of the special services disposes of its own prisons and torture rooms. In 99 percent of cases, the citizens of the republic are not told who arrested a member of their family and for what reason, where s/he is kept and what s/he is accused of. The arrested people are scattered around detention centers in the Russian Federation and an interrogation protocol is the only document for most of them. As a professional and a person who worked in security services for 30 years I cannot understand how I could send a person interrogated by me to Khabarovsk SIZO (detention center) for a crime committed, supposedly committed, in the Chechen Republic.
It is ridiculous to speak of presumption of innocence for the Chechens guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the Russian Federation not only within the Chechen Republic but in the Russian Federation in general. This law does not apply to any representative of my nationality. Usually it does not. The vicious and criminal practice of palming ammunition, explosives and drugs on the Russian citizens of Chechen nationality is cynically and audaciously widespread. The same situation exists within Chechnya: grenades or cartridges are definitely palmed on every detained person just in case. If nothing else works out, this justifies their unlawful detention and is enough for trying them for explosives or ammunition possession.
Citizens of the Chechen Republic rush around all of Russia in search of their relatives. As a result of this so-called "brilliantly" conducted operation for establishing a constitutional order and after the anti-terrorist operation, over ten thousand citizens have disappeared and cannot be found anywhere. The only thing left to be done is to prove that they were taken exactly by those who were establishing this lawful order. My compatriots ask me: Please, tell us where our relatives are or, if they are dead, show us the place of burial and give us a possibility to bury them next to their family.
My multiple requests and also decisions and recommendations of the Commission of the State Duma Commission on Normalizing the Socio-Political Situation and Human Rights in Chechnya, recommendations of parliamentary sessions organized by this commission, the Committee for Nationality Issues and the Committee for Foreign Affairs are carried out by ministries and departments of the Russian Federation extremely passively. This is especially true regarding the urgent need to form a law-enforcement system, internal affairs bodies, a prosecutor's office and court system. And what is interesting, nobody denies this extreme urgency but everybody's acting extremely slowly and ineffectively. A question whether all this is done on purpose arises. [It is done] on purpose because the creation of these systems would assist in making due order in the republic and, this is the main thing, it might reveal evidence against many of those who have become butchers in this republic, produce evidence of the tyranny and lawlessness they have been practicing.
We are saying that the most important thing is the creation of the court system and I was busy with that all day yesterday. But unfortunately the Supreme Court could only approve 12 of the available 32 judges we have selected. And military authorities, representatives of the federal armed forces say: We do not believe it is possible to create courts in all regions of the republic and do not even breathe a word of creating a court in Grozny.
Opinion of many delegates of the State Duma on the situation on this subject of the Russian Federation quite seldom differs from the opinion of the Russian government. However, I felt awkward when reading replies of ministries and departments of our government concerning fulfilling a resolution issued by the government itself. But, to tell you the truth, one must disrespect himself very much to be able to write what was sent to us here, to the State Duma, about what we are to do. It's a purely formal reply! And, by the way, a formal reply which gives me, a professional who worked more than one year in the sphere of defense of state economic interests, serious grounds to think of the reason why they are replying in such a way and to ask the law-enforcement bodies to check where the so-called funds allocated on this or that branch of the Chechen economy have ended up.
The month of wonderfully organized parliamentary sessions ended. I would like to express frank words of gratitude to Tkachev [head of the State Duma Commission on Normalizing the Socio-Political Situation and Human Rights in Chechnya, PW] and Rogozin, the Chairman of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, who have organized everything just greatly. We have talked much of the assurance we've been given that there will be changes, we were proposing our ways of solving this situation in appearances in different mass media and during meetings in various departments. But it seems that all we were saying, doing and which we thought was being taken seriously, is not being done. The absence of actual deeds on the part of those who can command and demand order hasn't made anything happen. Everything returned to where it used to be and the genocide of people is again a reality.
I understand that many do not like this word but take Ozhegov's dictionary and read what genocide is. This is a creation of conditions for extinction of a nation. Practically all of them exist: there is no nourishment nor health protection, it is impossible to travel normally. Everything that could be destroyed has been destroyed during the nine years! And, excuse me, if people who have absolutely nothing to do with military operations are arrested every morning and they cannot be found anywhere later, that is, they are exterminated, enormous number of burial places have been found, the name for that is genocide. Everything is back as it used to be. Everything is done for extermination, for the extinction of citizens.
Not to be unfounded I will present some facts. I believe none of you believed the tales of Koshman and other "restorers" of the republic that 80 percent of land is under crop, a great number of agricultural machinery and medicine has been brought, food and equipment is being brought in, over 400 schools restored, almost all hospitals restored... Lies! Just a few have been done! I have been in those schools. 10 percent of the schools are incapable to receive children, they will not function in winter: gas, electricity, windows, many other things are absent. And so on, and so on. I don't even want to talk about hospitals!
Probably, the representatives of force bodies who entrenched themselves in Khankala see their main task in hiding mass facts of lawlessness and in reporting that everything is going on there normally.
I have never heard any citizen of Chechnya saying that terrorism and gangsterism, traffic in human beings and criminality are not to be fought with. They are in favor of the dictatorship of law. And they have been telling me: meet the President of Russia, ask for the permission to speak in the State Duma and say that we ask to enforce the dictatorship of the Constitution and laws of the Russian Federation in Chechnya in the strictest way. They say they are demanding, there is nothing more they want. But exactly the Constitution and laws of the Russian Federation are violated absolutely at every level! I spoke of that in the state Duma, I spoke during the parliamentary sessions. And nothing is changing! Although I meet sympathy everywhere. There is no delegate I talked to who didn't express his sympathy. Yes, they say, something terrible is going on in your fatherland! Everybody understands that! And no minister of those I have talked to...they all say as well: yes, it is all true, this is something terrible, war, and what is going on is unclear. But the strangest thing for me is that the people on whom establishing order depends are saying: You know, wait, probably something will be arranged soon...But it seems to me that elections of the President of the Russian Federation are over and Chechnya is no more a subject of interest to anyone. Nobody is interested anymore!
It's impossible to live like that. We cannot live like that! Neither in the direct nor the indirect meaning! Both the Moscow political elite and us, the Chechens, are guilty of what is going on in Chechnya. We are not declining the responsibility. Our fault is in that we stood aside when various scum were climbing into power.
We thought it wasn't possible that they would come to power. We are guilty of saying we would not spill the blood of our co-religionists when we have encountered a slave-trade going on in our republic. And we stood aside, we were cowards, and because of this we were the first to lose people. 90 percent of those who were kidnapped in the republic were Chechens after all - nobody ever speaks about that somehow. And they were tortured more than others - cut their fingers off, made to take an Orthodox priest away to mountains, additionally kidnapped and killed at home. We... (The microphone switched off)
Chairman
Your time is up, you have been speaking for 11 minutes. We also have information of Kotyenkov on Tomchin's demand. We give you one more minute.
Aslakhanov
Alright. Although we could talk about that for a long time. I request only one thing… or rather, two requests. Either move all of us to hell, to some Vrangel's island and leave us all face to face with those who are placing this so called constitutional order, covered with decorations and medals and big epaulets. Let them prove face to face that they really earned all this. Let them fight! Just move us away, the group that is being exterminated! Or after all, let us apply to the President, to the government and ask them to create order as it should be. Proposals have been prepared, we are ready to introduce them. And I would be very grateful if the State Duma once again applied both to the government and to the President in this matter. Thank you for your attention. |
