 Daymohk News Agency: Exclusive Interview with Akhmed Zakaev
Exclusive Interview with Akhmed Zakaev, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
Daymohk: Akhmed, Daymohk News Agency congratulates you on your appointment to the important and responsible position of Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Our first question is, what do you see as the most urgent tasks of the Foreign Ministry of the CRI?
Akhmed Zakaev: Thank you. For me this truly is a very great responsibility and honour. I believe that today every Chechen who is concerned about the events in our homeland should be both a diplomat and a politician in his relations with the citizens of other countries. I have always felt this was my own duty, and have tried to act in this way to the best of my ability, irrespective of the post to which I was appointed at a particular time by the President and Government of our country.
I do not believe there is any strategic change in our foreign policy priorities. The main task of Chechen diplomacy remains to communicate to the international community and to official international organisations the position of the Chechen leadership regarding the causes and nature of the Russo-Chechen armed conflict. We need to demonstrate clearly and unambiguously to the world that the Chechen people achieved state sovereignty within a framework of strict legitimacy, in full accordance with the laws of the USSR, RSFSR and Checheno-Ingushetian ASSR which were in force at the time our independence was restored, and that it corresponds to the letter and spirit of international law.
Daymohk: We know that those in power in the West, in spite of their obvious desire to make up to the Putin regime, do to some extent pay attention to public opinion. Our next question is, accordingly, are you planning to intensify efforts to communicate to the Western public the positions of the leaders of the CRI on all aspects of Russo-Chechen relations? If so, what returns do you expect to see from this?
Akhmed Zakaev: This is something that our representatives abroad and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under all its previous leaders have been working at ceaselessly from the first day of the Russian invasion of the CRI. We could list hundreds of large-scale information initiatives by Chechen representatives in many countries of the world: protest meetings, demonstrations, exhibitions of photographs, documentary film shows, participation at a wide variety of conferences and seminars, and so on. The problem is not that those in power in Western or Eastern countries do not know the truth about what is happening in Chechnya, the problem is that they deliberately ignore it. They limit themselves to empty ‘expressions of concern’, or even encourage the Russian leaders to continue their policy of terror and genocide against the Chechen people.
It really would be difficult to address this problem without the mediation of public opinion, that is, without its directly influencing the governments of leading nations. We recognise that public opinion exerts an influence on the policies of governments only in democratic countries, and that is why our information initiatives focus principally on the West. While it would be wrong to say that this work does not produce any results, we can unfortunately hardly be satisfied with the results it has produced up to the present. The Kremlin’s propaganda machine is extremely effective. It was run in and perfected during the Cold War, and not infrequently it succeeds in neutralising the efforts of our representatives.
To our great regret, Russia’s propagandists are aided and abetted by a number of would-be Chechen ideologists. They spare no efforts to persuade Europeans and Americans, in unison with the Russian disinformation campaign, that we are not fighting for our national independence, not fighting to free our country from foreign occupation, but are simply the sworn enemies of everyone else in the world. It is sometimes sufficient for Russian diplomats and representatives of the Russian Federation who are discussing the ramifications of the ‘Chechen problem’ in international organisations merely to quote them in order to nullify all the arguments of the Chechen side.
Daymohk: Do you see the possibility of positive developments in the attitude of the international community towards the Chechen problem? If so, along what lines?
Akhmed Zakaev: In today’s world, the alignment of international political forces is important and influential in resolving any political conflict, even those which at first sight appear purely ‘bilateral’. International politics is a constant clashing of very diverse interests, which means that it is extremely dynamic. If at one moment the international political situation goes against us, that is no reason to suppose that the same will be true tomorrow. We need to be aware of just how fickle international politics can be, and to keep abreast of its twists and turns. The practitioners of Realpolitik have no firm principles, which means they are highly unpredictable.
These political pragmatists decided they would sacrifice the Chechens (the war was ‘an internal matter for Russia’), and thought that they would then be able to put pressure on Russia when necessary by complaining about violations of human rights in Chechnya. Using this combination of the stick and the carrot, they would extract any concessions they needed from Russia. Before they knew it, however, it was they who were a plaything in the hands of the Kremlin. No sooner did Russia sense that she was regaining some of her power than she began behaving more aggressively towards the world around her.
In short, we can note an unmistakable and significant change in the international political climate today. In 1999-2000 and the following years, international institutions and organisations, whose founding declarations obliged them to intervene to stop the Russian aggression against the CRI, were deaf to our arguments. They ignored our warnings that the war which the Kremlin had unleashed against the Chechen people was only the prelude to a whole series of campaigns through which Russia would seek to reconquer post-Soviet territories. We warned that the Russo-Chechen war was only the first stage of a Kremlin campaign to restore its aggressive militaristic empire. Today the whole world can see the justice of our claims.
Daymohk: Please explain this in more detail.
Akhmed Zakaev: The most recent example is the growing political turmoil in South Ossetia. Next will be conflicts in Abkhazia, Karabakh, Pridnestrovie, the Crimea and many other places. Any time it chooses, the Kremlin can escalate these situations to the level of armed conflict and intervene in them. The post-Soviet nations which claim sovereignty over those territories, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Moldavia, are only too aware of this. In fact, of course, the Kremlin has no use for a lot of tiny ‘autonomous’ republics and will hardly bother to annex them. What it needs is to keep these situations simmering, so that fear of losing territories makes the governments of post-Soviet nations more obedient to its will.
If, for example, Russia really were to formally annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Georgia would no longer need to keep looking over its shoulder at Moscow, trying to retain its sovereignty over them, and would drift all the more rapidly into the ambit of the Atlantic powers. The Kremlin needs to keep Tbilisi and Kishinev in a state of constant anxiety over the possibility of losing their autonomous regions in order to keep them in line on strategic matters.
The West knows this full well. Despite its seemingly local nature, the conflict between Tbilisi and Moscow over South Ossetia is one of the most important fronts in the global confrontation between Russia and the West for control of the post-Soviet territories and, more broadly, of Eurasia. There has been a change of emphasis. Official Russia is suddenly talking about the right of peoples to self-determination, while the West is increasingly theorising that a ‘nation’ should be defined not in ethnic but in political terms. In other words, the West is putting forward the idea that the right to self-determination should belong, not to a nation in the sense of a people, but to a ‘nation-state’.
Daymohk: But in that case it would seem that the West should be even more adamant in rejecting the right of the Chechen people to national independence.
Akhmed Zakaev: This is not the case. As I have said, the pragmatists very readily change their rhetoric when real political and economic interests are in play. I won’t attempt here to forecast the overall future situation, but the way things are moving clearly suggests that the Chechen problem may very soon again become a hot topic in international politics. It is not just that Western politicians, and primarily the leaders of the United States, have an opportunity here. They will have no option but to launch a ‘counter-attack’ against Russia in the Chechen sector. They will confront the Russian leaders with a simple question: why, if the Kremlin acknowledges the right of the South Ossetians and Abkhazians to self-determination, does it refuse the same right to the Chechens?
Russia’s only one answer to this question is to point to all their phony referendums and elections in Chechnya. However, for all their flirtation with Russia, no Western country has accepted the validity of these blatantly fake exercises. They have no legal standing at all with the West. Moreover, the CRI has legal backing for its claim to self-determination which none of the republics being championed by Russia have. We have, for example, a bilateral peace treaty between equals, signed with Russia on 12 May 1997. We held free elections for our President and Parliament, in accordance with the Constitution of the CRI, which were recognised by the entire international community, including Russia. We have numerous other proofs of the legitimacy of our state which have the force of law.
Daymohk: What are the chances that the force of law will translate into political influence?
Akhmed Zakaev: There is no certainty about this, but there is a good chance. I do not want to offend the Ossetians, the Abkhazians or anyone else for whose self-determination the Kremlin is currently campaigning, but they have nothing remotely resembling our legal underpinning. The Chechen people have demonstrated their political maturity in the course of two wars, and the Chechen state has demonstrated its durability. Our claim to sovereignty does not rely on the bayonets of fraudulent Russian ‘peacekeepers’, who in reality are troops of occupation, as is the case with the ‘autonomous’ regions. Quite the opposite. The legitimately constituted armed forces of the Chechen people have been defending our state sovereignty in a brutal war with a nuclear power, and this is a further major political argument in our favour.
The main thing is to get the international community to listen to these arguments. It has to be said that Russia seems currently to be doing everything in its power to get our case heard by the West. The whole logic of Russia’s political manoeuvring in the post-Soviet territories, and specifically its actions in the Caucasus, should cause the Western alliance to react in precisely this way. It is, of course, impossible to foresee all the circumstances, so I am basing myself only on the present political situation and its inner logic at the present time. The future is known only to Allah the Almighty. All we can do is make our plans and ask his help in our righteous struggle.
Daymohk: Thank you for the interview. Dela reza hulda! Dala atto boila!
Akhmed Zakaev: Masseran a boila Dala atto!
Daymohk News Agency
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