We Are Not Your Enemy

Akhmed Zakayev, a deputy prime minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, who received political asylum in Britain, writing from London in the International Herald Tribune on June 19, 2004:

I am perhaps one of the few who was not really impressed by the photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison. For I come from the part of the world where humiliation, torture, rape and murder in the name of the war on terror is a daily routine while exposure, apology and punishment of the perpetrators is an unattainable dream.

The Russian war in Chechnya has left 180,000 civilians dead, 17 percent of the population and twice as many homeless. Thousands of innocent people kidnapped by Russian soldiers disappeared without a trace. Some were ransomed to their families, alive and dead. Some were found in mass graves, disfigured by horrible torture. A human rights group recently published the confession of a Russian officer who took part in more than 50 secret executions.

Before Sept. 11, the West viewed Chechnya as a massive violation of human rights and condemned Russia for suppression of free speech and democracy. Then, democratically inclined Chechens - and Russians - felt the moral backing of the West and reciprocated with gratitude and respect. The Chechen problem was taken for what it was: a result of the disintegration of the Soviet empire that could be solved through negotiations.

But on Sept. 11, President Vladimir Putin pledged Russia's support to President George W. Bush; in return, Chechnya was declared a part of the global war on terror. So, while the statistics of atrocities in Chechnya have beaten all records in Bosnia and Kosovo, Slobodan Milosevic sits in the dock in the Hague while Putin attends the G-8 summit.

What, then, can we, the last democratically elected Chechen government, tell our people? That the United States deems us ineligible for life and liberty? That we have been sacrificed for the sake of strategic partnership with Russia? That the Russians have a license to kill us as long as Osama bin Laden remains at large?

Read the rest of Zakayev's article at this URL.