European Parliament member continues hunger strike in defense of Chechnya

On Sunday 18 January the Radical MEP Olivier Dupuis began a hunger strike to urge the governments of the democratic countries, beginning with the countries of the European Union, to tackle the issue of the Chechen genocide with determination, both from a political and a humanitarian point of view.

Statement by Olivier Dupuis

I have begun this hunger strike above all to express my solidarity towards the hundreds of thousands of Chechens abandoned to a tragic fate, the victims since 1994 of a full-fledged genocide hidden by the European ruling classes from the world of politics, finance, and the mass media; to express my solidarity towards them a few weeks before the 60th anniversary of the penultimate genocide of the Chechen people, on 23 February 1944, when Stalin ordered the deportation to Central Asia of the whole Chechen people, during which almost half the population died of starvation, cold and disease.

My hunger strike is an instrument of struggle, of action, and of political dialogue. The things I am "calling for" correspond to a series of political and institutional duties, or in some cases even juridical obligations, which no-one in Europe seems to want to fulfil, thus making it even more difficult - for the few people still concerned - to avert the final completion of the Chechen genocide and making it even easier, for the Russian occupying forces, to finish off the extermination ordered by the Russian Administration.

In particular, I call on the Council, the Commission and the Parliament, and the governments and parliaments of the Member and Candidate States of the European Union:

• To acknowledge publicly that the Akhmadov Peace Plan in favour of the establishment of an interim United Nations administration in Chechnya constitutes the official proposal of the government of President Maskadov;
• To recognise officially the genocide suffered by the Chechen people in 1944, when Stalin ordered their deportation;
• To draw up, in accordance with article 14 section 3 of the EC treaty, a "white list" of Chechen figures charged with promoting the search for a peaceful and political solution to the Russo-Chechen tragedy, allowing these persons to reside and travel freely in the territory of the Union;
• To guarantee security and dignified living conditions for the hundreds of thousands of Chechens who are living, often in inhuman conditions, in refugee camps inside and outside the borders of Russian territory, not even enjoying the protection of refugee status;
• To call on the Russian authorities to allow international organisations, NGOs, and journalists back to work and circulate freely in Chechnya;
• To support by every means possible the local and regional authorities who have expressed their willingness to accommodate and treat Chechen children wounded or mutilated by land-mines or bomb raids, in particular by offering the full collaboration of the diplomatic services, in order to remove all bureaucratic or material obstacles to entry into the territory of the Union;
• To welcome the thousands of Chechen students who are unable due to the war to study in their own country into universities and secondary schools in the Member States of the Union, also helping in this way to form the Chechen ruling class of the future.

I invite the representatives of the local administrations and the European Regions:

• To set up and multiply initiatives of solidarity towards the Chechen people, supporting the Peace Plan for the establishment of an interim United Nations administration in Chechnya and welcoming Chechen students into their universities and wounded or mutilated children into their hospitals.

I also invite citizens:

• To mobilise to increase the total of over 14,000 citizens, elected politicians and leading figures from more than 90 countries who have already signed the appeal in support of the Peace Plan for a UN administration in Chechnya;
• To mobilise to organise demonstrations on 23 February outside the seats of government, wherever possible, to commemorate the victims of the deportation of 1944, and the Chechen genocides of the past and the present.