Originally posted by leonid:
This Council of Europe thing is all nice and neat, but it doesn't address the fact that, like Afghanistan, Chechnya is a country run by Islamic extremist terrorists. And unfortunately all the evidence to prove this is primarily Russian.
No, the COE doesn't address that.
The fact that Chechnya may or may not be controlled by Islamic extremists is also immaterial to the question Daff asked, which started this line of discussion.
The US v Afghanistan (Nation-state v Nation-state) is an EXTERNAL conflict because one of these Nation-states "sponsored" an act of war against the other.
The Russian Federation V the rebellious Republic of Chechnya is an INTERNAL conflict because the Federation refuses to allow the Republic to secede. The act of secession is the issue, not the politics or religion of those running the Republic. Had the Islamic extremists NOT tried to secede, would the "Chechen war" have occurred? No, because it would have been an Internal police matter to round up the terrorists, not an all out war. Secession makes the difference.
No outside Nation-State or the UN is going to intervene militarily on behalf of Chechnya. That would rightfully be considered jus ad bellum by the Russian Federation.
Hope that clears that up.
As for the Council of Europe, it's in there to provide a proper context for Boroda's remarks that:
".... Nevertheless - our American friends don't even bother to legalise their agression (and de facto it is an agression)...I don't think that key decisions should be left for the people who have obvious problems with logics and common sence. Sometimes it seems to me that US authorities smoke something too much."Aggression? LOL. His American friends can't hold a candle to his own government when it comes to aggression.
Problems with logics and common sense? LOL AGAIN. His American friends aren't the ones being hoist on a world petard by the COE and Human Rights Watch for incredible brutality.
Put this in perspective: The COE, of which the Russian Federation is a member, charges the Russian Federation as follows:
"The Assembly condemns, as totally unacceptable, the current conduct of military operations in Chechnya with its tragic consequences for large numbers of the civil population of this republic.
As a result of this indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force, innocent non-combatants in Chechnya are suffering most serious violations of such fundamental human rights as the right to life, the right to liberty and the right to security.Human Rights Watch? Read this whole article and tell me what you think.
http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/europe/russian.html "The year was dominated by Russia's brutal war in Chechnya and fears of an impending crackdown on civil and political rights. Russian soldiers and police committed war crimes and other serious violations of the rules of human rights and humanitarian law in Chechnya....
...After moving into villages and towns left by rebel fighters, Russian forces carried out "mopping up" operations.
These operations, meant to check for remaining rebels, frequently turned into rampages during which soldiers and riot police looted and torched homes, detained civilians at random, and raped women. Just three such operations, in Alkhan Yurt, and in the Novye Aldy and Staropromyslovskii districts of Grozny, resulted in the confirmed summary executions of more than 130 civilians. Human Rights Watch received over one hundred more allegations of summary executions, many of which it was unable to verify."
And that's a small % of what they have to say.
How's it going in total?
http://chechnya.jamestown.org/project.htm "The war is also one of the great human tragedies of the post-Communist world. Deaths directly attributable to the fighting may approach 50,000, most of them civilians. Approximately 170,000 Chechens are refugees in camps in Ingushetia, where conditions are life-threatening. An equal or greater number are homeless "internally displaced persons" within Chechnya, and thousands more have fled to Dagestan. Of the nearly 300,000 ethnic Russians in Chechnya in 1991, fewer than 10,000 remain."
All that being said, I'm glad the Russian Federation is "aboard" in the US war against Afghanistan.
I'm hoping this reported friendship between Putin and Bush has some substance and that progress in the national relationship can be made. It even looks like the ABM thing that was going to be the next "end of the world" is going to be resolved; Putin himself intimated as much.
But to take a lashing from Boroda about the US "usually spit at any laws", "defacto it is an aggression" and "obvious problems with logics and common sence"?
No, I don't THINK so. Not with so much truly dirty laundry in his own basket.
[ 10-22-2001: Message edited by: Toad ]
