Chechens are Eligible to Press Their Human Rights Case
By: Adel Bashqawi
16, July, 2014
Human Rights / Eligibility Criteria
The Chechen people is like any other people in the world, is entitled to make a decision and to choose own destiny, according to its national interests. The European Union’s Human Rights introduction on the subject which details: “Human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights – these values are embedded in the EU treaties. Now they have been reinforced by the Charter of Fundamental Rights (http://europa.eu/pol/rights/index_en.htm).”
All nations of the world are equally entitled to enjoy the freedom of practicing their basic human rights without discrimination. Human rights are universal and inalienable privileges inherent to all human beings alike, no matter what is the race, place of birth or residence, sex, ethnicity, complexion, religion or belief, language, or any other way of life status.
Universal human rights are expressed and guaranteed by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other central human rights documents, in the “forms of treaties, customary international law, general principles and other sources of international law. International human rights law lays down obligations of governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups (http://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/pages/whatarehumanrights.aspx).”
The End of the Soviet Era
Boris Yeltsin was elected as a President for the newly emerged Russian Federation in June 1991. Economical restructuring was adopted to get rid of communism and socialism, in order to activate necessary reforms for introducing privatization and market economy, beside free trade, which situated Russia in uncalculated economic difficulties. “Russia in the 1990s was dominated by poverty, corruption and violence (http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/03-04/baker%20poland%20p1/ussr.htm).”
Inspirations for independence have grown on a large scale since the collapse of the Soviet Union (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1112551.stm), and the emergence of 15 independent states, tens of peoples and nations in the North Caucasus and other regions have stayed ruled by one of those emerged states, which is the Russian Federation. Chechnya among many other nations and peoples have repeatedly raised their reasonable demands to restore their basic human rights in different ways and means, to the central government residing in Moscow, but no positive response was received or provided to allow people to enjoy living freely in their homeland and to get rid of deep-seated sufferings.
Peoples of the Caucasus who lived in their homeland for thousands of years, had to be subjugated and ruled by the Tsarist Imperial Russia in the Nineteenth Century after disastrous devastating wars (http://eng.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/27024/ and http://www.answers.com/topic/caucasian-war), and subjugation had continued through the Soviet era and still controlled and governed by the Russian Federation, regardless of the nominal designations of the local Russian government administrative staff!
Chechens File Legal Case in the International Criminal Court
The legitimate Vice Premier of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and its representative to Int’l organizations, Said-Emin Ibragimov, has declared that he will start proceedings and will provide a citation to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, against Vladimir Putin and other Russian political and military leaders accusing them of crimes: aggression, genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes (http://chechencenter.info/n/44-european-news/2181-three-way-to-support-chechens-in-proceedings-to-be-started-in-the-icc.html).
The “accusations” were filed with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court as to start proceedings and looking at summarized atrocities suffered by the Chechen people after the collapse of the evil soviet Union, as a result of the 1st Russian-Chechen War, December 1994 to August 1996 http://faculty.oxy.edu/richmond/csp8/first_chechen_war.htm), which was triggered by Boris Yeltsin and the 2nd Russian-Chechen War (August 1999 until the so-called the termination of the military phase of the counter-terrorist operations in April 2002 http://faculty.oxy.edu/richmond/csp8/second_chechen_war.htm) that was declared by Vladimir Putin against Chechnya and the Chechen People based on flimsy grounds, which was witnessed, observed and followed by millions of people around the world through the Media and TV reports (http://chechencenter.info/n/44-european-news/2180-said-emin-ibragimov-requests-international-criminal-court-to-open-a-criminal-case-against-putin-letter-to-prosecutor.html), let alone the pursuit, arrest and murdering Chechen dissidents in Diaspora and in even Moscow (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13621483, http://www.uznews.net/en/politics/19234-killing-of-exiled-dissidents-in-europe-not-unheard-of-journalist-claims, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/world/europe/06chechnya.html?_r=0 and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3852697.stm).
Through the years, Chechens, have suffered of imperial invasion, murder, destruction, genocide, deportation and ethnic cleansing been carried out by the Russian military forces, which resulted in atrocities, occupation and annexation.
As per the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
(http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm)
The word “genocide” translated or defined in 80 languages (http://www.preventgenocide.org/genocide/languages.htm).
Conclusion
The clear objectives should lead to a careful glance at important issues, because “if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there”. There should not be excuses for why not getting it done, but it must be focused on all the reasons why they should happen. A success will be achieved if a review is performed for the international, and United Nations charters, declarations and laws:
-Charter of the United Nations (http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/)
– The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/)
– United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (http://www.un.org/en/decolonization/declaration.shtml)
– United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (http://www.ohchr.org/en/Issues/IPeoples/Pages/Declaration.aspx)
