KOSOVO A USEFUL PRECEDENT FOR RUSSIA – CHECHEN SEPARATIST MINISTER

Chechenpress web site
19 Jul 07

Russia wants Kosovo’s independence to be decided without consensus
in the UN Security Council, so that it can then recognize the
independence of the disputed territories of Abkhazia, South Ossetia
and Pridnestrovye without any need for international consensus,
Akhmed Zakayev has said. In an article originally published in German
newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the foreign minister of
the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria said that attempts to agree with
Russia on Kosovo were an example of double standards. He deplored
the West’s "selective" democracy that deemed some peoples worthy of
the right to self-determination and others not. Zakayev said that
the current regime in Russia has "no mechanism for self-restraint"
and concluded that it must be changed. The following is the text of
Akhmed Zakayev’s article published by the Chechenpress web site on 19
July 2007 and headlined "Why Russia opposes Kosovo’s independence";
subheadings have been inserted editorially:

The Chechenpress state news agency presents the full text of the
article by the minister of foreign affairs of the Chechen Republic
of Ichkeria, Akhmed Zakayev, published on 14 July 2007 in the German
newspaper WAZ (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung).

Russia wants to apply Kosovo precedent to Abkhazia, South Ossetia
and Pridnestrovye

Whoever has any interest in the Kosovo situation must have the
impression that Russia is fiercely opposed to independence for this
former part of Yugoslavia because it fears a precedent. The many
assurances aimed at Russia from the US administration and European
structures that Kosovo cannot be a precedent for Chechnya are striking.

Nevertheless, Russia refuses to support the Martti Ahtisaari plan. I do
not think that this is a matter of Russia’s fears or lack of trust in
its Western partners. Kosovo’s independence is to Russia’s advantage,
but Russia needs it to occur with its official disagreement or, at
least, without its approval. In the former instance this would mean
using the veto and in the latter a simple abstention from the vote
in the UN Security Council. Russia methodically takes hold of the
Kosovo precedent so that Kosovo’s independence should be recognized
without consensus in the Security Council.

When Russia soon recognizes the right of the peoples of Abkhazia, South
Ossetia and Pridnestrovye to self-determination, i.e. allows them to
join Russia, there will be those who do not agree, but that will be
nothing new and it will be possible and necessary to live with them.

The West’s determined effort to resolve the Kosovo problem is
completely understandable and worthy of approval and will mean the
recognition of Kosovo’s right to self-determination. It is also easy
to understand why the USA and EU are trying to get Russia’s support
for their Kosovo plan. They decided to insure themselves against the
possible independence of Russia, if the reverse should be the case,
in resolving the Abkhaz, South Ossetian and Dnestr conflicts. Of
course, it would not be bad for it [presumably the West] to receive
all three republics under its control, if they, accordingly returned
to Georgia and Moldova. History persistently teaches that not every
temptation has a basis in reality.

There is no need to explain the geopolitical significance of the
three republics for Russia; it is enough just to look at a map. For
example, without the Abkhaz sector of the Black Sea coast, Russia
would just have a symbolic presence on the Black Sea, while without
South Ossetia Russia would have just the scantiest prospects in the
South Caucasus, until Armenia and Azerbaijan agree over Nagornyy
Karabakh. As for Pridnestrovye, I think a comparison with West Berlin
very apposite. Russia has no reason to give up its West Berlin.

Russia has been de facto in charge in all three republics since the
collapse of the USSR. Russia just has to take one step in order to
formalize their affiliation to Russia: give a formal "yes" to the
appeals to join Russia passed in their day by the authorities of
Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Pridnestrovye. The legal basis for the
sovereignty of the "self-declared" republics is exactly the same as the
basis for the sovereignty of Russia, Georgia, Moldova or Kazakhstan,
for example. Gorbachev’s reform in 1990 made all the national
territorial formations in the USSR equal in legislative terms. At that
time the supreme authorities of the USSR gave up their exclusive right
to determine the political status of individual national territorial
formations, delegating the right to the formations themselves.

Russia (then the RSFSR [Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic])
rushed to be one of the first to use the right to "self declaration"
when they passed the Declaration on State Sovereignty in June 1990.

Objectively speaking, the sovereignty of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and
Pridnestrovye are the same Soviet inheritance as the 15 new independent
states, including Russia, which have been recognized by everyone. One
might add like the Soviet debts inherited by Russia and the seat on the
UN Security Council. If the decisions of the Soviet authorities can
be ignored with regard to Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Pridnestrovye,
then why should Russia not quickly give up Konigsberg [Kaliningrad]
and the Japanese islands given to Russia by the Soviet authorities
after World War II?

Russia raises self-determination as it thinks Chechen question closed

The decision that Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Pridnestrovye should
join Russia was taken in Moscow before anyone had heard of conflicts
in these republics. For 15 years Russia did not talk about the right to
self-determination of the "self-proclaimed republics", not because they
expected a Kosovo precedent, but because of the drawn-out conflict
with Chechnya, whose sovereignty is no less legitimate than, for
example, Russia’s. Just over a year ago Russia declared at the highest
level for the first time the right of the peoples of Abkhazia, South
Ossetia and Pridnestrovye to self-determination, presumably reckoning
that the Chechen problem was already resolved. The referendum on a
constitution scheduled by the Russian president for 23 March 2004 was
for the Chechens, according to Vladimir Putin’s assessment, the de jure
restoration of Russia’s territorial integrity. Without any demonstrable
enthusiasm for the dubious referendum, the US administration and
European leaders later recognized and even went as far as directly
financing the Chechen puppet authorities, formed by elections which had
been staged on the basis of the referendum. After that it is no wonder
that the Russian leadership considered the Chechen question closed.

On one hand, Russia takes hold of the Kosovo precedent in order, as
far as it can, to refer as little as possible to the right of peoples
to self-determination inherited from the Soviet Union. Otherwise
both anti-Chechen campaigns would fall under the definition of
"aggression against a sovereign state", which without any doubt
is what they are. On the other hand, it emerges that the Russian
leadership has an interest in dragging out both the Kosovo and all
post-Soviet conflicts as long as possible. When Russia unleashed the
Chechen war and appealed to the principle of territorial integrity,
not only sides in direct conflict with Russia such as Georgia and
Moldova were caught on its hook. The leaders of the West considered
it possible to close their eyes to the mass killings of Chechens in
the hope that, having swallowed up Chechnya, Russia would not prevent
the return of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgian jurisdiction
and Pridnestrovye to Moldovan.

West guilty of double standards

In cooperating with Russia for more than 10 years the West European
countries have been acting directly against their democratic
principles. The Western leaders bear their share of responsibility
for the kind of regime that Russia has today. When democracy comes
up against authoritarianism and allows itself to depart from its
fundamental values or takes refuge in double standards, it becomes
like a train that has gone off the rails and can be taken anywhere
but to its destination. The application by the Americans in Iraq of
precisely Putin’s experience of political settlement in Chechnya was
a serious mistake, which the majority today do not doubt.

I see only double standards in attempts to agree with Russia on
Kosovo. When in the name of democracy peoples are divided into those
who deserve freedom and those who do not, then this democracy must
be called selective. Another question is in what way does it differ
from Putin’s managed democracy. Only in that the former leads to a
dead-end, while the latter to the planned overthrow of the democratic
reforms that occurred in Russia in the early 1990s. Being guided by
the universal principles of democracy can lead to stability and help
to spread democracy at the same time.

The fact that the exclusively anti-Chechen wars led to the
establishment in Russia of an anti-people, extremist regime is
indisputable. The unsolved nature of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian
conflicts has paralysed Georgia for a long time, not allowing their
enterprising people to show their full potential. The presence of the
Dnestr problem does not have the best influence on the situation in
Moldova and its prospects for European integration. Instability and
tension are a feeding ground for destructive forces.

Current regime in Russia must be changed

A return from selective to universal democracy will allow the West to
move from hopeless defence to attack. Human rights and the right of
peoples to self-determination are indissoluble. Russians’ agreement
to the cruel persecution of the Chechens has in the final analysis
rebounded on them themselves. No-one is insured: neither democrats,
nor oligarchs, nor even great power patriots. The nature of the regime
that has established itself in Russia is such that it has no mechanism
for self-restraint. This is why the regime must be changed.