Rabbitte backs rigged referendum!

arcadegame2004

Anyone watch Q+A tonight? Pat Rabbitte said that the majority of the Chechens clearly did not support the rebels as shown by the "Constitutional settlement" (a reference to the Kremlin's rigged referendum on Chechnya remaining part of Russia. The results of that referendum were announced while the voting was still going on.

I am sick and tired of one of the worst genocides in European history being papered over by Western politicians. Here is evidence that the poll was rigged, from the Jamestown Foundation

http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=13&&issue_id=561

Volume 4 Issue 11 (April 3, 2003)

Add one more to the list of independent eyewitnesses who flatly deny Russian claims of a huge turnout for Chechnya's March 23 constitutional referendum. Nathalie Nougayrede of Le Monde told Radio Radicale on March 25 that she saw no long lines at polling stations in Grozny, where she spent referendum day. She said that Grozny was "practically deserted" that day: "At one or two polling stations I saw a few people, maybe four or five. Twenty or twenty-five during the whole day....Everyone I spoke to in the days leading up to the referendum said they had no intention of voting." She added that at one particular polling station she knew that only several dozen people turned out, but "at the end of the day the chief electoral officer declared that around 3,000 people had voted there."



The official results of the referendum seem even more dubious in light of the findings of an admittedly unscientific opinion poll released by the human rights organization Memorial. It was conducted in Chechnya and Ingushetia from February 22 to March 14. With just weeks to go before the referendum, Memorial found that only 12 percent of respondents expressed a wish to vote in the referendum, while 20 percent said that they had not yet decided and 68 percent said that they would not take part. (Detailed results are available on the organization's website, www.memo.ru.)



With the help of volunteers from other nongovernmental organizations, Memorial surveyed 656 people in Chechnya and in refugee camps in Ingushetia. Its report acknowledged that under current circumstances, which include physical dangers both to pollsters and to respondents, it was not possible to conduct a proper survey of a fully representative sample of the Chechen electorate. Over-represented in the Memorial poll were students, faculty members of schools and universities, policemen and health care workers. "But at least," suggested the report, "it can serve as an indicator of the moods and opinions of the youngest and most active."



Only 4 percent of those responding to the Memorial questionnaire agreed that "the necessary conditions in Chechnya exist for free expression of the will of the people:" 79 percent disagreed.



Asked what changes they expected would follow if the constitution were adopted, only 6 percent said that they expected "gradual normalization." Another 36 percent said that things would remain as before, while 34 percent expected things to get worse.



The poll found that the authorities had managed some measure of success in informing Chechens about the proposed constitution's text. Some 22 percent said that they had read the text, and 15 percent that they knew about its basic provisions from newspaper and television reports.



Also over-represented in the poll, the "Memorial" report noted, were residents of areas who were physically accessible to those conducting the poll. Those areas included the cities of Grozny and Gudermes and the areas around them, and refugee camps in Ingushetia. These of course were also the areas most likely to have been reached by the pro-referendum campaign, though the poll also included the Shatoiski district in the southern highlands.



Another anomaly about the referendum is that the official figures actually show higher rates of turnout in the most rebellious sections of the republic. The Central Election Commission posted a regional breakdown on its website (http://www.cikrf.ru/) on March 23, when its preliminary report claimed that the turnout was 79.63 percent for Chechnya as a whole. The figures for turnout in the southern highlands included 84.9 percent for the Nozhai-Yurtovski district, 82.92 percent for the Shatoiski district, 99.58 percent of the Sharoiski district, 91.37 percent for the Itum-Kalinski district, and 88.23 percent for the Vedenski district. (The latter is especially well known as the family stronghold of militant warlord Shamil Basaev.) In the more securely Russian controlled north, by contrast, the authorities claimed turnout rates of 78.45 percent for the Shelkovski district and 68.11 percent for the Naurski district.



The Le Monde correspondent Nathalie Nougayrede explained this paradox as follows: "In the villages that are surrounded by the Russian army and where the army carries out frequent raids and the people are terrified, in other words in many isolated mountain villages, it is very likely that the turnout was high simply because people were ordered to vote. Because if the number of voters in a certain village hadn't been as high as the number expected by the authorities, the inhabitants would have been exposed to further raids by soldiers and to further violence."



Members of the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation charged at a March 25 round table in Nazran, Ingushetia, that a key technique for falsely inflating the turnout figures was the use of additional voter lists, to which officials at local polling stations could quickly add voters not previously registered. This method made it easier for a voter to cast several ballots in several localities. A local human rights organization, "Ekho Voiny," said that three buses had been observed carrying passengers from village to village for just that purpose.



It was slightly less than a year ago that the Kremlin's favored candidate for president of Ingushetia, Murat Zyazikov, a veteran KGB and FSB officer, was officially declared the winner of the April 28 run off election. The declaration came despite the fact that Zyazikov had received only 19.4 percent of the vote in the first round against 31.5 percent for a more independent minded rival. Correspondent Alla Barakhova of Kommersant witnessed numerous irregularities in the run off, such as the distribution of ballots with the name of the Kremlin's candidate already marked (see John Dunlop's account in Chechnya Weekly, May 14, 2002). On balance, the evidence is convincing that the recent Chechnya referendum was another vote rigged in the classic Soviet tradition.

Where are the anti-war protesters when it comes to abuses by Russia and China? Prove that you are not anti-American, I say to them.

AngelofFire

I didnt see Q+A tonight because i was out on the piss so ill withhold judgement on pat rabbites "support for rigged referendum" until i get more information.

Where are the anti-war protesters when it comes to abuses by Russia and China? Prove that you are not anti-American, I say to them.

When the Chinese premier came to limerick i took time to go down there and protest against the brutal repression of members of Falun Gong and general abuse of human rights in China.

I am not anti american although i hate bush and everything he stands for, one of my reasons for protesting during his visit in june was to show solidarity with the growing number of americans who are outraged at the war and bushs policies both domestic and foreign. I am half french-canadian so i do slag the yanks, but i have friends and relatives in the US, i sympathise with the working class in america who are struggling to avail of something as basic as healthcare, there are people there who work 40 hours per week but still cant afford health insurance whilst hundreds of billions of tax payers money is splashed out on arms.

pete

frankly i don't see why anyone needs to "prove" anything to this jerk

GuanYin

Its amazing how I'm inclined to think the exact opposite of Arcadegame. Just because he posts it.

sceptre

(Detailed results are available on the organization's website, www.memo.ru.)

If they are, I can't find them. And I did look. At least Nathalie Nougayrede definitely exists - she wrote six articles for Le Monde during 2003, not that any of those was about anything that happened outside of Moscow. Given that the article quoted above doesn't appear to give any indication of the voting preference (as opposed to the preference towards voting) of the surveyed, can someone find the survey (I'm guessing it should be mentioned on their news page) as I'm sure this is the figure we're all actually interested in, despite the lack of a representative sample.

pete

On the subject of the Jamestown Foundation:

Waiters bring drinks around as we listen to Jamestown Foundation president Barbara Abbott talk about how the group, founded in 1984 to analyze Soviet-era threats and provide a conduit for Soviet defectors, is now shifting its ideological and strategic assets to the war on terrorism. We listen as bluff and gregarious Evgueni Novikov — a 1988 Soviet defector and the newly appointed director of Jamestown’s International Terrorism Program — gives his analysis: that oil money offers a chance for terrorists to " challenge American power. "

But mostly we’ve come to hear James Woolsey — director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Clinton administration and one of the most powerful advocates of war with Iraq — gaze into the crystal ball and tell us what’s next. Woolsey is vice-chair of Jamestown’s board of directors, and the foundation’s shift from Cold War to new war aligns perfectly with his own recent comments. He received gobs of recent media attention, including an April 20 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, when reports about a speech he gave at a GOP-student-organized " teach-in " at UCLA on April 2 appeared on TV networks and newspapers worldwide.

In that speech, the former CIA director argued that in its battle against terrorism, the United States is fighting " World War IV, " a formulation he credited to scholar Elliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. It took " four-plus decades " to win " World War III " — the Cold War — and the current conflict will also be a long one, Woolsey said.

http://www.providencephoenix.com/features/other_stories/multi_1/documents/02893074.asp

monument

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Where are the anti-war protesters when it comes to abuses by Russia and China? Prove that you are not anti-American, I say to them.

Where are you when it comes to abuses by America?

arcadegame2004

It isn't just the Jamestown Foundation that are saying the poll was rigged.

Other sources include:

Human Rights Watch:

http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/7.htm

Russia’s efforts at finding a political solution—at “normalizing” the situation—are not ending the conflict in Chechnya, but rather making the conflict less visible to the outside world. The constitutional referendum held in Chechnya in March 2003, and the subsequent presidential elections in October, were widely advertised by the Russian government as a final stage of stabilization of conditions in the republic. In reality, the referendum and elections took place against a background of continuing and escalating violence, and independent observers unanimously believed that the elections were rigged. Yet the Russian government has continued to use both elections to convince the outside world that the situation is normalizing through a political process, and to argue that international scrutiny or other involvement is no longer justified.

The St.Petersburg Times :
http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/854/top/t_9045.htm

Chechnya 'Yes' Vote Arouses Suspicion


By Timur Aliyev and Nabi Abdullaev
SPECIAL TO THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

GROZNY - Turning out in record numbers, Chechens gave overwhelming support for a new constitution that the Kremlin hopes will enhance stability to Chechnya, according to preliminary results released Monday night.

With ballots from 292 of the republic's 418 polling stations counted, 96.1 percent were in favor of the constitution confirming Chechnya's status as part of Russia, the Central Election Commission said on its Web site. Only 2.6 percent voted "no."

A similarly large number of voters on Sunday approved measures paving the way for presidential and parliamentary elections, the commission said.

Turnout was 85 percent.

President Vladimir Putin said the results "surpassed all expectations" and showed the rebels have no popular support.

"All who have not laid down arms are now fighting not only for their false ideals but also against their own people," Putin said at a regular cabinet meeting.

"The Chechen people have done this in a direct and very democratic way," he said.

Observers and analysts said, however, that Moscow has a history of rigging elections in Chechnya and that the preliminary numbers appeared to be too good to be true.

An informal poll of 50 Grozny residents on Monday found that Chechens are split about the credibility of the figures. But they said they were more concerned about peace than vote-rigging.

"The reported turnout of 85 percent is farfetched," said Ruslan Lalayev, a journalist at Grozny's Stolitsa-Plus newspaper. "When I went to a polling station at Grozny's School No. 7 in the afternoon, there were just a few people there."

Ruslan Badalov, head of the pro-rebel Chechen Salvation Committee, said the numbers were inflated and that most of Chechnya's 540,000 eligible voters had boycotted the referendum.

However, Zarema Aubova, an official in the education department at Grozny's City Hall, insisted Monday that the figures appeared to be accurate.

"You could see lines of voters at the polling stations," she said.

The large turnout and huge number of ballots marked "yes" are remarkable for a vote in Russia, said Oleg Orlov, head of the Memorial human rights group.

"What happened in Chechnya can be explained in two ways only: Either the ballot boxes were illegally stuffed with forged ballots or Chechens felt they had no choice but to vote in favor of the constitution," Orlov said.

"In any case, there was no free vote in Chechnya," he said.

No complaints of voting violations were reported Sunday or Monday.

A delegation of observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States declared the vote valid Monday.

"The authorities of the Russian Federation and the Chechen republic gave Chechen citizens the opportunity to participate in a free and independent vote," they said in a statement carried by Interfax.

European countries are waiting to receive a report from observers with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, officials at OSCE headquarters in Vienna, Austria, and at the European Commission's Russia office said Monday.

The findings will not be disclosed for at least several days, an OSCE spokesperson said. Hrair Balian, the head of the OSCE mission to Chechnya, said Sunday that "the organization and conduct of the referendum were not without shortcomings."

Chechnya had a history of rigged elections in the 1990s, and this raises doubts about Sunday's referendum, said Vladimir Pribylovsky, political analyst with the Panorama think tank.

In 1995, during the first Chechen war, the pro-Kremlin Our Home Is Russia party got 48 percent of the Chechen vote in parliamentary elections - more votes than in any other region. A year later, President Boris Yeltsin, who ordered the military campaign, won 73 percent of the Chechen vote in a run-off with Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov.

Putin won half of the Chechen vote in the presidential election in March 2000 - despite his tough talk about Chechnya and his role in the launch of the second military campaign six months earlier. The second-place presidential candidate, Zyuganov, got 11 percent.

Voter turnout tends to fall between 30 percent and 40 percent during regional elections. When a simple majority is required - as on Sunday - winning candidates rarely secure more than 50 percent to 60 percent of the vote. An exception came last year when incumbent Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev won nearly 94 percent of the vote.

As for the part saying

A delegation of observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States declared the vote valid Monday.

Hah! They are all dictatorships accept Georgia. What a joke!

pete

In response to the question: "Since the terrorists in Beslan were using video cameras, does the panel feel it was right to broadcast the footage?", what Pat Rabbitte actually said was:

"...it is right that the world, including the Chechen people, because the majority of them do not support ehhh, the, ehh, the rebels, and that was clear in terms of the attempted constitutional settlement, that the Chechnyan people should see what is being done in their names."

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0913/qanda/qanda56_3.smil

monument

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Where are the anti-war protesters when it comes to abuses by Russia and China? Prove that you are not anti-American, I say to them.

Where are you when it comes to abuses by America?

chewy

maybe this has been asked before
but you seem to be taking a very different view on chechnia then you have previously taken on many other issues ? why is this ?

i would have thought you'd come out and say something that russia has evey right to defend its geographic integrity or some such?

arcadegame2004

the Chechen people, because the majority of them do not support ehhh, the, ehh, the rebels, and that was clear in terms of the attempted constitutional settlement,

Rabbitte doesn't say the terrorists. He says the rebels. I believe that the majority in Chechnya want Russia out. Having a gun held to your head is not democracy. To my mind the majority of the Chechen rebels abhore what was done in Beslan. Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected Chechen President in the elections in independent Chechnya in 1997, in results which international-observers said were free and fair (unlike Putin's Soviet-style referendums and elections which the OSCE has condemned) and who Putin removed from power, has said he had nothing to do with Beslan. I believe him, because in the cases of the Chechen terror-attacks at the Moscow Theatre in 2002 and at the hospital in Budenovsk in 1995, responsibility was claimed by the extremist Shamil Basayev, who leads the Islamist faction of the Chechen rebels. European Muslims are far less radical in their interpretation of the religion than most in the Middle East, e.g. women are not expected to have to wear the veil etc. Basayev's men are a minority of the rebels. Their ranks are probably growing though, as young Chechens become radicalised by the fascist extermination of their husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers by Fuhrer Vladimir Putin, in his obsessive campaign to hold onto the Chechen people against their will.

Who would vote to remain part of a State that was carrying out genocide against you and your people? That poll was rigged. My previous posting on this thread refers to past vote-riggings by Russia not only in Chechnya, but also in Ingushetia. I understand that it happens in many other regions of Russia where ethnic minorities are the majority e.g. Tatarstan's elections were condemned as a sham but international-observers.

Like Ireland, the people of Chechnya are trying to rid themselves of the yoke of a savage, bloodthirsty regime prepared to exterminate 800,000 Chechens in the name of "Living Space" and the Master Race. As a country that has been in this position before, we should support the Chechen freedom-fighters, while condemning the minority of them that harm civilians, including the Beslan terrorists. The Beslan terrorists to me, are like the Real IRA. The fact that the Real IRA committed the attrocity at Omagh should not cause us to tar all the Republican movement in NI with the brush of terrorism. Thus. the Beslan savagery should not cause us to tar all Chechen rebels with the brush of terrorism either.

An army that stoops to terrorist methods loses the moral high ground over terrorists. Terrorism should be defined according to its actions, not according to what uniform someone is wearing. Armed separatism should also not be automatically defined as terrorism. If it is to be, then we are calling the founding-fathers of our State terrorists, not to mention those of the South American countries, the United States etc. Where would it stop?

Some here are asking me how I reconcile my support for the Chechen freedom-fighters with my lack of demonstrating against US wars. I will attempt to answer that now.

The reason I didn't go on demonstrations against the Bush war in Iraq is because I originally supported it. I believe in exporting democracy by force if necessary (except where the country has nukes and thus can't really be attacked by any sane person), unless the government of a country plans to introduce it themselves. By definition a people wanting to choose their government can't be opposed to democracy, since democracy involves giving you the choice of who governs you. The US says it will introduce election in January. I felt that the people of Iraq were entitled to democracy. The terrible stories of Uday and Qusay feeding rival suitors of women to the lions, and kidnapping Iraqi woman and raping them, as well as the stories of the torture-chambers in Iraq (later discovered to exist), and the stories of the acid baths prisoners were forced to lie in, definitely influenced me. I am a supporter of the idea of liberating people from tyrannical-regimes.

That is also why I opposed the invasion by the Nazi Russian troops. They removed an elected President, and replaced him with a puppet-regime that Marshal Petain would be proud of. They disqualified the other candidates thus turning the Chechen Presidential election into a sham and a fait-accompli. This is the opposite to exporting democracy. It amounts to exporting autocracy. But it got worse still, with these reports of massive human-rights abuses, far in excess of anything Western countries (except fascist Israel) have committed. The Russians deny the Western media access to Chechnya without army minders there to keep watch, and they are not allowed to talk to Chechen civilians. This is highly suspicious. They obviously are hiding something from us. I have no reason to believe that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are lying about the horrors of what is happening in Chechnya.

Do people here see parallels between the Palestinian's and the Chechens? I do.

pete

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Hah! They are all dictatorships accept Georgia. What a joke!

Really? I suppose once it's a US backed dictatorship it's ok then?

History is repeating itself: it was on the back of an anti- corruption
campaign that Shevardnadze became first secretary of the Communist
party in Georgia in 1972. Following his stint as foreign minister of
the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, he returned to his former fiefdom,
which he ran as a brutal dictator from 1992 to 2003. He was as
assiduously lauded by the west then as his protege and successor is
now.

And as for the operetta "revolution" staged against Shevardnadze's
regime last November, it has allowed a changing of the guard within an
unchanged power structure. Not only was Saakashvili minister of
justice under Shevardnadze, but the thuggish Zurab Zhvania, the prime
minister, had the same job under Shevardnadze, during which the worst
abuses of power (now denounced) occurred. The head of national
security is the same, and all the members of the former president's
party have converted to the new president's party. Shevardnadze's old
party has disappeared.

That November's "revolution of roses" was stage-managed by the
Americans has been admitted even by the new president himself, who has
said that his coup could not have succeeded without US help.
Abashidze also confirmed it on Saturday in Batumi, when he said that
his discussions with the American ambassador to Georgia, Richard
Miles, had convinced him that nothing can happen in the country
without a green light from Washington. Georgia, Russia's backyard, and
the country used as a base by the Chechens, is now as thoroughly
controlled by the US as Panama - and for much the same reasons.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/georgia/story/0,14065,1183424,00.html

arcadegame2004

chewy wrote:

maybe this has been asked before
but you seem to be taking a very different view on chechnia then you have previously taken on many other issues ? why is this ?

i would have thought you'd come out and say something that russia has evey right to defend its geographic integrity or some such?

What made you think I would say that?

Britain used to refer to Ireland as "an internal British matter" etc.

Russia using that language about Chechnya gets my back up because it is clear that they are going through the same sort of thing Cromwell etc. put us through.

No matter what the cause of a war, genocide is NEVER an acceptable tactic to use. It is outlawed by the Genocide Convention which is currently being violated by those countries in the West who have allowed Putin to cynically link his imperial war in Chechnya to Bush's "war on terror".

MadsL

Like Ireland, the people of Chechnya are trying to rid themselves of the yoke of a savage, bloodthirsty regime prepared to exterminate 800,000 Chechens in the name of "Living Space" and the Master Race.

And when did the British exterminate 800,000 Irish "in the name of "Living Space" and the Master Race", foaming at the mouth here AG.

pete

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Rabbitte doesn't say the terrorists. He says the rebels. <rambling guff snipped>

And your point is?

MadsL

I have no reason to believe that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are lying about the horrors of what is happening in Chechnya.

But strangely you do not accept the evidence of human rights abuses documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in Nigeria, Moldovia, etc as grounds for legitimate asylum-seeking.

Tad hypocritical?

pete

arcadegame2004 wrote:

I believe that the majority in Chechnya want Russia out.

Nevertheless, author of two books on the Chechen conflict Tom de Waal, of London's Institute of War and Peace Reporting, said Alkhanov has even less support in the region than Kadyrov had.

...

De Waal said the election has further alienated the Chechen people from politics in general. "There is just no trust anymore. People by and large have been turned off politics. It is difficult to say how much support anyone really has in the region but I would guess that Maskhadov and the rebels have between 10 and 20% of the popular support, another 10% are pro-Moscow and the rest of the people are just war-weary and fed up."

From: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E7CA4E22-5A9C-4D5E-BF6A-AD65C655E165.htm

arcadegame2004

Abashidze also confirmed it on Saturday in Batumi, when he said that
his discussions with the American ambassador to Georgia, Richard
Miles, had convinced him that nothing can happen in the country
without a green light from Washington. Georgia, Russia's backyard, and
the country used as a base by the Chechens, is now as thoroughly
controlled by the US as Panama - and for much the same reasons.

He would say that wouldn't he? Abashidze was the pro-Russian leader of Ajaria who rigged the elections, and arrested opposition supporters.

International observers have said the results of the elections won by Mikhail Saakashvilli were free and fair.

Regarding the "base for Chechen rebels" I would say that many refugees from Chechnya fled to the Pankisi gorge area of Georgia (whom to the Chechens' cousins, the Kists) to escape the Holocaust of their people in Chechnya. Russia accused them of terrorism in order to force Georgia to send them back to their deaths, just like it bullied refugees in Ingushetia into returning home, as Chechen refugees in other countries are an unwelcome reminder that the conflict in Chechnya is ongoing, and because these refugees talk to Humaqn rights groups about attrocities committed by Russian soliders.

Viva Chechnya!

pete

arcadegame2004 wrote:

He would say that wouldn't he? Abashidze was the pro-Russian leader of Ajaria who rigged the elections, and arrested opposition supporters.

International observers have said the results of the elections won by Mikhail Saakashvilli were free and fair.

And once again, i am left wondering if your inability to get the point is deliberate or unfortunate. To remind you - the issue was "is Georgia a dictatorship?".

From the same Guardian article:

The standard-issue media fairy-tale pits a democratically elected Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili - who overthrew his predecessor Edward Shevardnadze in a US-backed coup last November - opposing an authoritarian regional leader in Adjara, Aslan Abashidze.

This is not how the Georgians see things. In an interview with a Dutch magazine, Sandra Roelofs, the Dutch wife of the new Georgian president and hence the new first lady of Georgia, explained that her husband aspires to follow in the long tradition of strong Georgian leaders "like Stalin and Beria". Saakashvili started his march on Tbilisi last November with a rally in front of the statue of Stalin in his birthplace, Gori. Unfazed, the western media continue to chatter about Saakashvili's democratic credentials, even though his seizure of power was consolidated with more than 95% of the vote in a poll in January, and even though he said last week that he did not see the point of having any opposition deputies in the national parliament.

therecklessone

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Where are the anti-war protesters when it comes to abuses by Russia and China? Prove that you are not anti-American, I say to them.

I'll join Monument in asking:

Where are you when it comes to abuses by the US? Where are you when it commits human rights abuses itself, or when it supports regimes which are as despotic as any Russian or Chinese regime?

What's good for the goose and all that...

arcadegame2004

The more serious the abuses, the louder should be the condemnation. Do you agree or not?

Abu Ghraib should be condemned but you and I know well that sadly, governments tend not to speak out against some of the worst offenders on human-rights for trade reasons.

But the US, despite its shortcomings, cannot be said to be among the WORST offenders.

I supported the Iraq war as the Iraqi people will soon have the right to elect their own government. I don't see bringing democracy about as a human-rights abuse. On the contrary it is likely to lead to far fewer human-rights abuses in the long-run in that country.

At least the US army are not claiming Iraq as the 51st state, unlike Russia with Chechnya. At least the US army have not banned the media from visiting Iraq, unlike Putin with Chechnya (I wonder why!). At least the US hasn't set up concentration camps and put hundreds of thousands of helpless civilians in them (unlike Russia).

therecklessone

arcadegame2004 wrote:

The more serious the abuses, the louder should be the condemnation. Do you agree or not?

Or as you like to put it, the more money at stake, the quicker we should be to look the other way.

You are a prize hypocrite.

arcadegame2004

95% of the vote is not impossible when you consider how hated Shevardnadze became. Even in Ajaria, which at the time of the election was effectively independent, Saakashvilli got 95% of the vote. SO I don't think it was rigged.

De Waal said the election has further alienated the Chechen people from politics in general. "There is just no trust anymore. People by and large have been turned off politics. It is difficult to say how much support anyone really has in the region but I would guess that Maskhadov and the rebels have between 10 and 20% of the popular support, another 10% are pro-Moscow and the rest of the people are just war-weary and fed up."

It is extremely hard to ger reliable data from Chechnya because the Russians wont let the Western media in without minders. Chechens who admit publicly to backing independence face death. The only free-and-fair elections in Chechnya were in 1997 when Aslan Maskhadov, the rebel leader, won. The Putin elections were a farce, with candidates being forced to withdraw from the race so that Kadyrov/Alkhanov could be coronated. The elections in Ingushetia were also rigged, with widespread reports of ballot-box stuffing. Same in Tatarstan, where ballot boxes were required to be left open! Russia has a reputation for rigging elections/referendums in regions where the majority of the population is not ethnically Russian.

pete

arcadegame2004 wrote:

95% of the vote is not impossible

But i thought you stated previously that smaller landslide votes in Chechnya were an indicator of rigged elections?

arcadegame2004

pete wrote:

But i thought you stated previously that smaller landslide votes in Chechnya were an indicator of rigged elections?

When a people are being exterminated, it is almost impossible to believe that they want to remain in the process of extermination.

By the way Pete, on Saakashvilli, I will use the old saying "By his actions and not by his words, let him be judged" (let alone his wife's words! :rolleyes: )

pete

arcadegame2004 wrote:

When a people are being exterminated, it is almost impossible to believe that they want to remain in the process of extermination.

Maybe they should put it to a vote or something?

By the way Pete, on Saakashvilli, I will use the old saying "By his actions and not by his words, let him be judged" (let alone his wife's words! :rolleyes: )

Yeah she obviously has it in for him / wants to undermine him. Obviously.

arcadegame2004

I'm just saying that in a context where international-observers pronounced the results in Georgia free and fair, that you'll need a bit more evidence of "dictatorship" in Georgia than words.

BTW, I predict that Georgia is next on Putin's "killing-list". He is using Beslan as an excuse to further erode democratic-freedoms in Russia and his threat to "attack terrorists bases abroad" will be used as an excuse to invade form Soviet countries including Georgia (which isn't even Muslim!).


Sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3655412.stm

Russian threats alarm Georgia
By Natalia Antelava
BBC, Tbilisi

Speculation about a possible Russian military strike is rife in Georgia, in the aftermath of the Beslan school tragedy and the Kremlin's threats to go after "terrorists".

Georgian troops in S Ossetia
Georgia is anxious to retain a hold on South Ossetia

From 1 October no Georgian aircraft will be allowed to land in Russia - the explanation from Moscow being that Georgian airlines have not been paying their airport dues.

But to Tbilisi this is another sign of what many officials say is unprecedented pressure from Russia following the Beslan siege.

Georgians are concerned that Moscow will try to link the school siege in Beslan to Georgia and will carry out its threat of preventive strikes in Georgia, which shares borders with Russia's troubled republics of Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia and Chechnya.

Statements from Moscow are fuelling the fears.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said he does not exclude links between Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia and the events in Beslan, which is only 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Georgian border.

Simmering tensions

Russian media allege that one of the hostage-takers from Beslan is hiding in the Kodori Gorge, in Georgia's other breakaway province - Abkhazia.



North Caucasus: At a glance
Georgia country profile

Moscow also claims that there are still Chechen "terrorists" in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge, on the border with Chechnya.

Pankisi, once a haven for Chechen guerrillas - and some even allege al-Qaeda fighters - has been bombed by Russia in the past.

But Georgia insists that its borders along the snow-capped Caucasus range are now fully under control. The question, according to Deputy Defence Minister David Sikharulidze, is whether Russia will choose to believe this.

"Our border guards are on high alert and we absolutely rule out infiltration of Chechen fighters into Georgia," Mr Sikharulidze says.

"But we know that unfortunately Russia will try to use this school tragedy to try and pursue its own agenda in the Caucasus."

This agenda, Mr Sikharulidze adds, includes destabilising Georgia.

For years, Georgians believe, Russia has done just that by supporting separatist regimes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Saakashvili defiant

Just last week Russia infuriated Tbilisi by resuming a train service between Moscow and Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia.

View of Russian border from Pankisi Gorge
The Pankisi Gorge was a haven for Chechen militants until 2002

Analysts believe that Moscow is punishing Georgia for its pro-Western course.

Georgia's aspiration to join Nato, and the presence of US marines, who are training and equipping the Georgian army in Moscow's backyard, are all thorns in Russia's side.

Moscow says President Mikhail Saakashvili's vows to reunite Georgia are stirring up trouble on Russia's borders.

Earlier this summer, Mr Saakashvili sent extra troops into South Ossetia, claiming that it was a haven for smugglers.

The move sparked heavy fighting, which escalated until Georgia withdrew its troops and handed control back to a joint peacekeeping contingent under Russian command.

The Georgian president describes the peacekeepers as "piece-keepers - there to keep the pieces of the old empire and not the actual peace".

In South Ossetia at least, the Soviet empire, and with it the Cold War, does seem to live on.

Soviet nostalgia

Just a month ago, as Georgian and Ossetian forces exchanged fire and shells fell on the capital Tskhinvali, Russia's General Sviatoslav Nabdzorov was drinking vodka in one of Tskhinvali's restaurants.

His eyes filled with tears as he raised his glass to the "Great Soviet Union".

General Nabdzorov's comment about the conflict was much briefer then his long and nostalgic toast.

"Only Russia can sort out this conflict," he said, "not America!"

And so the fear in Tbilisi is that the Beslan school siege will give Russia a free hand to "sort out" the conflicts in the Caucasus, including those in Georgia.

And while President Saakashvili says he hopes to defuse tensions with Russia at a security summit in Kazakhstan this week, he too is flexing his muscles.

Last Sunday, Georgian interior ministry troops launched massive exercises by the South Ossetian border.

"The enemy is only 20 kilometres away," said Georgian Interior Minister Irakli Okruashvili as he saluted his troops. His finger pointed to the north.

---

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3655540.stm

US 'concern' over Putin measures
Vladimir Putin
Putin announced sweeping political changes
The US State Department has expressed concern about political changes proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin following the Beslan tragedy.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Mr Putin was in effect pulling back from democratic reforms and said he wanted to discuss the measures with Moscow.

On Monday Mr Putin called for stronger central control of the regions and an overhaul of security services.

Russia has also pledged an extra $5bn to its security services.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who announced the move on Tuesday, said the fight against terror would be a top budget priority in 2005.

Two-thirds of the money will go to the Ministry of Defence.

'Move to the rear'

Mr Powell told Reuters news agency that Moscow should balance the need to go after terrorists with a commitment to the democratic process.


In effect this is pulling back on some of the democratic reforms - we have concerns about it and we want to discuss them with the Russians
Colin Powell

Reform plans alarm Russian press
"It would be not the best course of action to move in a direction which [would] be seen by the international community as moving toward the rear with respect to democratic reforms," he said.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher also urged Russia to "strike the right balance", while expressing Washington's solidarity with Moscow in the fight against terrorism.

Mr Putin's announcement on Monday of a series of radical and far-reaching reforms included plans to change the way Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, is elected and nominate rather than elect regional governors.

Mr Putin also repeated that Russia had a right to take pre-emptive action to "destroy criminals in their hideouts and, if necessary, abroad".

The BBC's Peter Biles, in Moscow, says new measures will almost certainly strengthen Mr Putin's own position, and further limit the power of an already weakened opposition.

'Long-term perspective'

The cash investment in the security services announced on Tuesday followed almost $70m pledged by Mr Kudrin for an anti-terrorism programme in next year's budget.

QUICK GUIDE

The Chechen conflict
The latest funding increase will boost the Defence Ministry by a further $3.7bn while the Federal Security Service, Interior Ministry and Foreign Intelligence Service will get more than $1.7bn between them.

The money will be spent on technical support, training of specialists and recruitment of professional servicemen.

"The fight against terrorism requires a long-range perspective," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Mr Kudrin as saying.

Some extra funds will also go towards security on underground train systems.

Our correspondent says some Russian newspapers have warned that the funding - which represents a 27% increase on previous amounts - could lead to more bureaucracy rather than greater security.

Hobbes

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Rabbitte doesn't say the terrorists. He says the rebels.

He says that for a reason. The same reason news agencies don't say "Terrorists" or "Freedom fighters". They are emotive terms.

Of course Rebels, freedom fighters and hey even presidents can be terrorists.

arcadegame2004

And based on evidence Hobbes, do you think that Russian troops in Chechnya are being in a terroristic manner?

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04//12/russia8424.htm

Russia: Nine Civilians Extrajudicially Executed in Chechnya
Amid Evidence of New Atrocities, U.N. Human Rights Commission Must Take Action

(Moscow, April 13, 2004)—The bodies of nine men bearing the marks of extrajudicial execution were found in Chechnya on Friday, Human Rights Watch said today. Eight of the men had been forcibly disappeared two weeks ago after armed men, presumed to be Russian forces, took them from their homes.
" The U.N. Human Rights Commission should not allow Russia to dictate the terms of debate. It is Russia’s failure to stop abuses and impunity for them that’s putting the political process in the region in doubt. Russia is taking for granted that the international community will just turn a blind eye to atrocities, and the Commission must dispel this perception. "
Rachel Denber
Acting Executive Director
Europe and Central Asia Division


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“This latest incident of forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions should serve as a wake-up call to those who believe that things have improved in Chechnya,” said Rachel Denber, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division. “The U.N. Human Rights Commission can help break this ongoing cycle of abuse and impunity by adopting the resolution introduced last week.”

About ten days ago, Human Rights Watch researchers spoke with villagers from Duba-Yurt in southern Chechnya while they were still searching for their “disappeared” relatives. They told Human Rights Watch that at around 2 a.m. on March 27, eight military vehicles bearing smudged number plates entered the village. Among the vehicles were armored personnel carriers, used exclusively by Russian forces.

A large group of masked men in camouflage uniforms, who had arrived in these vehicles, raided 19 houses in Duba-Yurt and detained 11 men between the ages of 28 and 44. Several witnesses independently told Human Rights Watch that the armed men—who spoke Russian without a Chechen accent—burst into the houses, forced the families to the floor at gunpoint, and took the men away without checking their documents or giving them a chance to dress.

The armed men released three of the detainees near the village the same night, but the remaining eight subsequently “disappeared.” Among them were Bai-Ali Elmurzaev (b.1968), Idris Elmurzaev (b. 1971), Sharip Elmurzaev (b.1974), Apti Murtazov (b.1964), Lechi Shoipov (b.1960), Zelimkhan Osmaev (b.1975), Khusim Khadzhimuradov (b.1975), and Isa Khadzhimuradov (b. 1965). The men’s relatives appealed to the procuracy—a government agency responsible both for criminal investigation and prosecution—and other authorities for information on their whereabouts, but received no response. Unofficial sources told relatives that the eight men were being held at the Russian military base in Khankala, yet the procuracy denied they were held there.

On Friday, local residents found nine bodies in a ravine outside Serzhen-Yurt, a village about 25 kilometers (15 miles) northeast of Duba-Yurt. The bodies bore gunshot wounds to their heads and torsos, as well as numerous signs of torture. Villagers who discovered the corpses said the men had been shot very recently. A medical doctor reportedly found that they were killed two days before. Eight of the bodies were identified as belonging to the men seized from Duba-Yurt. The ninth body belonged to another Duba-Yurt resident who had also been detained previously.

Chechen law enforcement authorities have allegedly launched an investigation, but to date have been unable to determine either the perpetrators or the place were the men had been held.

Also on Friday, a Russian court issued a ruling liquidating the operations in Russia of the Danish Refugee Counsel, a humanitarian organization that had been one of the major sources of humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons since the renewal of the conflict in 1999. According to the court ruling, the Danish organization must cease its activity in Russia and close its offices in Stavropol, Nazran and Moscow. The liquidation hearing was initiated by the Ministry of Justice on the grounds that the organization had failed “to report the changes in the organization’s leadership and its legal address.”

...Russia responded by accusing the European Union of “putting the political process in the North Caucasus region in doubt” and “providing moral support for terrorists.”

“The U.N. Human Rights Commission should not allow Russia to dictate the terms of debate,” said Denber. “It is Russia’s failure to stop abuses and impunity for them that’s putting the political process in the region in doubt. Russia is taking for granted that the international community will just turn a blind eye to atrocities, and the Commission must dispel this perception.”


During the Chechnya conflict, now in its fifth year, tens of thousands of civilians have fallen victim to abuses perpetrated by both Russian forces and Chechen rebels. These abuses include indiscriminate bombings and several massacres, extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, rape, torture and arbitrary detentions. The overwhelming majority of these crimes remained uninvestigated and unpunished.

Nevertheless, Russian authorities claim that the situation in Chechnya has been “normalized.” Meanwhile, they have persistently restricted access to the region for journalists and for international humanitarian and human rights agencies, and have coerced thousands of the internally displaced to return back to Chechnya, with blatant disregard for their security.

In both 2000 and 2001, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights passed resolutions calling on the Russian government to stop abuses, establish a meaningful accountability process and invite the U.N. monitoring mechanisms to the region. Russia defied the resolutions and failed to comply with most of their recommendations.

“For too long, the world has been indulging Russia in its claims that the situation has been ‘normalized’,” said Denber. “It’s time for the world to send an unequivocal message that Russia must take real measures to stop the abuses in Chechnya.”

New evidence of torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions perpetrated over the last three months in Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia was presented on April 8 in a joint statement by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and Memorial Human Rights Center.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04//08/russia8415.htm

Russia: Conditions in Chechnya and Ingushetia Deteriorate
UN Human Rights Commission Should Adopt Resolution on Chechnya

(Moscow, April 8, 2004)—The international community should take immediate action to address major human rights abuses continuing in Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and Memorial Human Rights Center said in a joint statement released in Moscow today.
" Russia’s assurances of “normalization” in the region should no longer obscure the vision of the international community. A resolution on Chechnya and Ingushetia will send the message that these continuing abuses must stop. "
Anna Neistat
Moscow Director
Human Rights Watch


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The Situation in Chechnya and Ingushetia Deteriorates
Memorandum
, April 8, 2004

Briefing to the 60th Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights
Special Focus, January 29, 2004

"Glad to be Deceived": the International Community and Chechnya
Commentary, January 26, 2004

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Contribute to Human Rights Watch
Human rights groups have recently documented a number of “disappearances,” summary executions, and attacks against civilians in both Chechnya and Ingushetia. The joint statement by the leading rights monitors in the Russian Federation marks the deadline for a draft resolution on Chechnya to be tabled at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

“The climate of abuse and impunity in Chechnya is now spilling over into Ingushetia and threatening stability there too,” said Anna Neistat, Moscow director for Human Rights Watch,..

..In the last three months federal troops, security services, and pro-Moscow Chechen forces under the command of Akhmad Kadyrov, as well as Chechen rebels, have committed numerous human rights abuses, such as arbitrary detentions, torture, forced disappearances and summary executions in various parts of Chechnya. Similar violations are on the increase in Ingushetia. As in Chechnya, the perpetrators of these abuses go unpunished.

Despite continuing violence in Chechnya, the federal and Chechen authorities continue closing tent camps for the internally displaced persons in Ingushetia and pressuring them to return to Chechnya. Accommodation and humanitarian assistance provided to Ingushetia returnees in Chechnya does not meet international standards.

“The government is using a mixed policy of threats and incentives to get the displaced persons to return, with blatant disregard for their well-founded fears about security,” said Neistat.

AngelofFire

I supported the Iraq war as the Iraqi people will soon have the right to elect their own government. I don't see bringing democracy about as a human-rights abuse. On the contrary it is likely to lead to far fewer human-rights abuses in the long-run in that country

If you supported the war on iraq on human rights grounds, them i take it that you were opposed to The US giving support to sadaam during the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s.