Dear Sirs, Dear Madams
October 27th, 2007 marks the seven-year anniversary since you, the leading intellectuals of Europe, addressed V.V.Putin with the open letter: “Red carpet—silence and crime”. 526 writers, journalists, philosophers, actors, human rights activists and the like signed this letter. Among them: Isabelle Adjani, Jane Birkin, Andrey Babitsky, Elena Bonner, Irena Brejna, Vladimir Bukovsky, Andre Gluksmann, Waclaw Havel, Jean-Luke Godar, Juan Goitisolo, Olivier Dupuis, John Le Carret, Bernar-Anri Levi, Ruppert Hoydek, Oleg Orlov, Marco Panella, Vanessa Redgrave, Ismail Kadare, Phillipp Solers, Victor Suvorov and Bertrand Tavernier. You can find the full text of the petition here
What
was the result? What followed from that extremely important letter? What’s
happened and what we have now, after 7 years?
Let me briefly remind you of the main points of this letter that you submitted
to Russian President Putin during his visit in France:
Wake up, Europe! We speak about the fate of the entire nation. The statute
of limitations does not apply to crimes against humanity.
The silent compliance is equal to murder.
I am afraid that your passionate call remains a voice in the desert. In fact
during those 7 years we can see:
- Not only international observers and respected organizations in the frames
of OSCE were swept out of Chechnya, but also one of you, the signatories, journalist
Anna Politkovskaya, was cruelly murdered. She was the last beam of truth about
what was going on in Chechnya
- The military actions in Chechnya didn’t stop at all, but on the contrary,
they spread over to neighbouring regions and republics. And if the war in Chechnya
was at first large in scale and open, it is now much more cruel and inhuman,
characterized by permanent secret “special” operation of special
paramilitary russian units. As a result, many Chechen civilians have been subjected
to torture, heavy beating and disappearances. Many of the disappeared are later
found dead somewhere in the outskirts of the villages or in the forest.
President Aslan Maskhadov is slain. But not only Maskhadov: several Chechen
leaders shared his fate. Now the Kremlin began the hunt for those potential
participants of then expected peace dialog, which are now outside of Chechnya
and Russia. Its goal, first of all that nobody in Europe could even think
about peace negotiation in Chechnya. That’s why Putin so bravely asks: “with
whom to negotiate?”
What is following from all above said? Putin didn’t meet your requirements
at all, but did just contrariwise. What was your reaction? What is the
reaction of those politicians, who were in charge of delivery your petitions
to Putin? You have been silent for all these 7 years, and the European politicians
have also been silent for those 7 years. Even worse: the European politicians
humbly followed president-murderer. But we all know the cause of such silent
international “agreement”: - Russian energy resources.
Such irresponsibility to your own petition may devalue you as intellectuals.
In order to prevent the catastrophic drop of morale in European countries,
you have to call on your leaders and your politicians for answer; to call on
those who tried to assure you that Putin was a democrat. But is it possible,
that Putin, a colonel of KGB was a democrat, when KGB was and remains a means
of suppressing democracy.
Once more, I find it strange, to put it mildly, that most of you preferred
not to notice a man, who had been on hunger strike in the heart of European ‘Institutions
of Justice’. Said-Emin Ibragimov wanted only one thing: to remind the
European politicians to keep to their commitment, and it is what actually
you, intellectuals, had to do. The situation with S.-E. Ibragimov requires
your immediate attention and intervention. The politicians who represent your
countries, set up a nasty war against this man in the center of Europe. They
use means that were and are in use in those inhuman regimes of North Korea,
Iran, Russia. At Said-Emin's home, the electricity, telephone, Internet were
cut off. The office of his humanitarian organization “Peace and Human
Rights” was
closed. Quarrel is set up and heightened inside of his family and among his
friends and relatives. Last year , unknown bandits could even close his Internet
address Hotmail.com. At the beginning of this year, an attack was made o S.Emin
in his own apartment, in downtown Strasbourg.
All those bandit acts pursue a goal that Said-Emin gave up his human rights
activity, was isolated and fell into deep depression and possible death, This
kind of death would satisfy a group of European politicians, but not the death
as a result of hunger strike.
Dear Sirs, Dear European intellectuals,
I hope that you still have enough strength to stop the terror towards S.-E.Ibragimov
in France, that have always been a symbol of liberty. I am sure that your defense
of Said-Emin, his rights and his work can save not only his life, but also
your reputation as European elite.
With respect and hope for your cooperation,
Mayrbek Taramov,
Chechen journalist and Human Rights defender.