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Chechen leader condemns Basayev

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  • 24-09-2004 5:50pm
    #1
    arcadegame2004
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,406 ✭✭✭


    I saw this report on the BBC website, and I feel it backs up my assertion that tarring all the Chechen resistance with the "terrorist" brush is unfair. An oppressed people have the right to take up arms in my view, although they should only target occuparion-forces:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3685970.stm
    Chechen leader condemns Basayev

    The Chechen rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, has said he wants his former comrade-in-arms Shamil Basayev to go on trial for the Beslan school siege.

    Mr Basayev has admitted organising the hostage-taking at the Russian school but blamed the hundreds of deaths there on the Russian security forces.

    Mr Maskhadov said Mr Basayev and others would have to go on trial at the end of Chechnya's war of independence.

    Mr Maskhadov's statement appeared on the rebel website Chechenpress.com.

    He again insisted that Chechen rebel forces under his command had "nothing to do with the terrorist act" in Beslan.


    "Unfortunately, with the current war continuing, it is practically impossible to bring to justice those responsible for the terrorist act," he admitted.

    More than 320 hostages were killed, many of them children, when pro-Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, in early September. The victims died during a fierce battle between the gunmen and surrounding Russian security forces.

    Mixed gang

    Mr Basayev says his fighters carried out the hostage-taking as well as the recent bombing of two Russian airliners and the Moscow underground.


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    #2
    aidan_walsh
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,208 ✭✭✭✭aidan_walsh


    BBC wrote:
    Mr Maskhadov said Mr Basayev and others would have to go on trial at the end of Chechnya's war of independence.

    Or, why not make a political gesture and turn him over?


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    #3
    arcadegame2004
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,406 ✭✭✭arcadegame2004


    Originally posted by doodle_sketchOr, why not make a political gesture and turn him over?

    They now seem to be rivals and in charge of different factions among Chechen rebel group. It is not clear if Maskhadov is in a position to hand him over and even if he was, I greatly doubt that Putin would allow a situation to develop whereby Maskhadov was seen as handing Maskhdov over to Russia. Most likely if such a handover happened, Chechens doing so would be killed too. Putin's intransigent stupidity in refusing to differentiate between the mainstream Chechen rebel movement and a minority of them who support Islamic extremist terrorism will probably ensure that such a handover won't happen.

    I wonder would Putin hand over to an independent Chechnya or to the International Criminal Court, those many Russian soldiers involved in the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of Chechen children in the past 5 years?


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