Price of International Law

As one might expect, the reaction to the offer of Chechen Commander Shamil Basayev to stop acts of sabotage on the territories of Russia was dead silence. Sure, it is clear: the terms that Commander Basayev brought forward – to comply with the norms of the International Law during war operations in exchange for giving up strikes on the Russian soil – were unacceptable if not blasphemous for the Russian politicians. Death of their fellow citizens is not the reason to give up their pleasure to be committing genocide of the Chechen people.

The silence of Russian mass media in this regard is understandable too. First, the 'Ministry of Truth' banned to report any statements made by the Chechen side or even mention the names of Chechen informational sources. In such cases the bravest Russian journalists only have enough power to say things like «a man looking like a famous terrorist made a statement on one of the Internet resources of the separatists». But in this case it is excluded.

Let’s say, had Commander Basayev demanded 50 million dollars for stopping the acts of sabotage, the headlines in the Russian press would have been gleaming with his pictures, and the 'guarantor of peace for Russians' (Putin) himself would have gotten involved in the traditional revelatory sputtering, on the top of Yastrzhembsky (Russian spokesman on the war in Chechnya).

The demand to comply with the International Law is a whole different story. Here he is not talking about the end of war or withdrawal of troops. Earlier the Chechen Commanders were demanding that the Russian side must fight the war against THEM, instead of terrorizing the peaceful civilians. However, there is nothing that the Russian army, having all military advantages, can do and it resorts to the tactics of terror. Even those rotten Russian laws, which are allegedly upheld by Russian power structures, do not apply to peaceful civilians of Ichkeria.

Russian citizens just need to be reminded that when they scrape off the remains after another blast from a sidewalk in Moscow, this is the payment for the pleasure that the Kremlin maniacs get from terrorizing Chechen peaceful civilians. Commander Basayev has warned on several occasions that each report about tortures, extrajudicial executions and use of force against peaceful civilians of Ichkeria will entail consequences in the cities of Russia.

They can turn a deaf ear to it, or they can ignore the reports from 'resources of separatists', but they are unlikely to avoid consequences of their government’s criminal policies.

It’s about time for the Chechen politicians to stop being a part of the game of a good cop and bad cop. When a big country attacks a small nation without complying with any laws, then those who are calling the Chechens and not Russia to comply with the international norms are accomplices in the genocide. At the same time it seems like some of our politicians do not see it and are more concerned about on which graves the word 'terrorist' should not be written, instead of responding with adequate strikes.

Even before the well-known Budanov trial Chechen troops captured 10 Russian commandos from the special police force (OMON) and offered to exchange them for Russian colonel Budanov. After the Russian side refused, the commandos were executed. Relatives of those commandos are aware of all details, and they will be remembering for the rest of their lives that they lost their loved ones for the sake of the life of 'the best Russian', Budanov.

However hard Russian mass media would try to conceal these facts, the messages still reach the addressees, and the history shows that Russians can only understand these kinds of messages.

Desperate yearning to comply with the norms of the International Law did not make the lot of the Chechen people, undergoing terror, any easier. Today the choice between the retaliatory strikes on Russia and the compliance with the norms, which do not affect the fate of the people, is not a personal business of one leader or another. Two hundred and fifty thousand of innocent victims in exchange for praises from Western animal protection activists for complying with some norms is too great of a price, if it is actually appropriate to bring up a price in this particular case.

Aset Ismailova,