Feb 27, 2004

Chechnya: European Parliament recognises the genocide of the Chechen People in 1944


The European Parliament has adopted two amendments tabled by the Radical MEP Olivier Dupuis recognising the Chechen genocide in 1944 and asking to study the Akhmadov Peace Plan
Brussels, 26 February 2004 - In the debate on the Belder Report on EU-Russia relations, the European Parliament has adopted the two amendments tabled by the Radical MEP Olivier Dupuis and supported by over 100 colleagues including Poettering, Paasalinna, Coh-Bendit, Frassoni, Wurtz, Pasqua, Malmstrom and Bonde. The first amendment, adopted almost unanimously, calls on the Commission and the High Representative for CFSP to study the Akhmadov Plan, which proposes, on the basis of the international experience in Kosovo, the establishment of an interim United Nations administration in Chechnya. According to Ilyas Akhmadov, Foreign Minister in the Chechen government of Mr Maskhadov, this international administration should be established, after the withdrawal of the Russian military and civilian forces and the disarmament of the Chechen resistance groups, to oversee the reconstruction of Chechnya and the passage to democracy and the Rule of Law, in order to prevent any possibility of destabilisation. At the end of the transitional period, the Chechen people would be called on to vote on the final status of Chechnya.

The second amendment, adopted by the plenary assembly of the EP, recognises that, on the basis of the IV Convention of The Hague of 1907 and the Convention on the prevention and repression of the crime of genocide adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, the deportation of the entire Chechen people ordered by Stalin on 23 February 1944 constitutes an act of genocide.