Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [161]
They passed the resolution, but they have been made to pay for it.
I have many friends in the European Parliament and they are simply laughing. The European Parliament has no great need to travel to Russia. It is Russia which needs that.
But this Commission visit was eagerly anticipated in Chechnya by people who have no other hope. They may well be laughing in Brussels but Europe now has no eyes and ears in Chechnya.
That is a different matter. By refusing to allow them a presence in Chechnya, Russia did not hurt the European Parliament in the slightest. Their presence is important for Chechnya and for Russia, but not for the European Parliament. The Russian authorities don’t seem to understand that.
You are well known as a contemporary political Nostradamus. What do you think, will the Kremlin decide to assassinate Maskhadov?
Of course. They are searching for him right now and want to kill him. Europe would not react even to that. As far as the future resolution of the Chechen crisis is concerned, assassinating Maskhadov will make it practically impossible to achieve any ceasefire agreement, and all the Chechens’ efforts to establish their own state will have come to nothing. For Russia this will mean a perpetually festering wound in the South which nobody will be able to treat. An intelligent person does not allow such situations to develop. He tries to impose a measure of control in order to bring a conflict into at least minimally civilised bounds. Russia is giving no thought to that and is acting in a completely absurd manner. It is an insane policy calculated to obtain short-term advantage but which completely fails to take account of the interests of the vast majority of Russia’s population. It is a criminal policy. You really should negotiate with people who are willing to negotiate, rather than kill them.
Why do you think Europe, which does not seek merely short-term advantage, is so unconcerned about trying to preserve the lives of witnesses of war crimes in Chechnya? If there is to be any prospect of an international tribunal like the one Miloŝevic has been subjected to, their testimony is essential.
Miloŝevic’s presence in the Hague is illegal. He may deserve the gallows, but the charges against him are ludicrous. This was all got up by the New Left in Europe, who were flexing their muscles just at that moment. The NATO operation against Serbia was a crime and an act of aggression as defined by the United Nations. It was entirely without foundation, and was a vile political act of self-affirmation by the new elite in Europe. Nobody was fighting to get Miloŝevic put in prison or to expose war crimes. They simply made up the crimes. They told us a minimum of 500,000 people would die if we did not intervene and Miloŝevic remained in power. In fact, when the dust settled and the graves were opened, they contained 6,000 bodies, and they were from both sides, including victims of the NATO bombing. It was no more than a policing operation. They raised a tremendous hue and cry, comparing what was going on to the Holocaust – a criminal abuse of that historical example. News management. The world has gone mad, like a hammer head flying off its handle. We have idiots here and idiots over there. Do not imagine that the situation now is black and white. It was black and white in my youth: back when there were communists and democrats and it was clear who was the world’s enemy.
What is the situation today then – universally grey?
Everything is shit-colored. Today we are dealing with varying hues of shit.
How do you envisage the end of the Second Chechen War?
If it ever has an end. One of the most likely outcomes is that there will be no end, everything will just drag on for decades. New groups of desperate young people will continue carrying out senseless acts of terrorism, sacrificing their lives for some cause but achieving nothing. A better