"Slandering
the Chechens is an attempt by the West to justify their sick conscience"
[10.01.2004 12:13] Akhmed Zakayev
After the air attacks on American cities, and even more so since 2002, there have
been frequent reports in the Western media, in interviews given by members of
the European and US military and intelligence departments, as well as
statements by certain leaders of west European countries, about a "Chechen
trace" and the presence of "Chechen fighters" practically all
over the world. A pretty candid desire to link any terrorist attack anywhere in
the world with the Chechens, and, in turn, to link the Chechens with Al-Qaeda
and Usamah bin-Ladin shows through in these reports.
Meanwhile, there isn't a single documented fact to show that one single Chechen
has ever fought against the forces of the Western coalition anywhere on the
planet. What is more, for about one and a half centuries now tens of thousands
of people with ethnic Chechen roots have been living in countries of the Near
East, and the participation of these people in military conflicts in their own
region would appear to be completely natural. Nevertheless, not a single
Chechen, either among prisoners or among the dead, has been discovered in
Afghanistan, in Iraq or anywhere else where the Western coalition forces have
been conducting their military operations.
Quite the contrary - among the prisoners or dead fighters in Iraq and
particularly in Afghanistan there are quite frequently to be found American,
German, French or British citizens; in other words, citizens of those
countries, whose politicians and "intelligence officers" are most
active in accusing the Chechens of "international terrorism", finding
imaginary "Chechen traces" or mythical "Chechen cells"
throughout the world.
One gets the impression that the initiators of this unprecedented campaign of
lies and slander which has been hurled against a small nation, which for ten
years now has been waging a most bitter war for survival, opposing hordes of
Russian marauders and invaders, are doing this quite deliberately and are
little concerned with realities. In fact, it is hard to believe that British
Prime Minister Tony Blair or high-ranking members of the American
administration are not in possession of authentic information about the
"ethnic composition" of the groups who are fighting the coalition
forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, or that Western intelligence is unaware that not
a single Chechen - alive or dead - has been found in these groups to this day.
There can be only one explanation why the West is making such efforts to
discredit the Chechen Resistance and is untiring in its attempts to link it
with "international terrorism" - the Western politicians and state
leaders are seeking a pretext for not interfering in the genocide of the
Chechen people which is being carried out by Putin's criminal clique before the
whole civilized world. Everything is happening as in the Chechen proverb:
"Before gobbling her cub baby bear, the she-bear dragged it through the
mud."
World politics has demonstrated more than once on what discreditable and
disreputable foundations notorious compromises between the "forces of this
world" are achieved. But never before has it happened that a small nation,
which has become the victim of unprecedented terror, which has lost one third
of its population in the past ten years as a result of genocide, and which in
an incredible struggle is striving for its right to national independence has
received, instead of help or at least sympathy from the so-called world
community, merely thick, evil smelling waves of slander, lies and insults.
The deputy prime minister of the government of the Chechen Republic of
Ichkeria,
special representative of the president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria,
Akhmed Zakayev