 Appeal to the heads of state participating in the G8 summit
Dear Summit Participants,
The family of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI), Aslan Maskhadov, who was murdered by Russian special services on 8 March 2005 in the Chechen village of Doykur-Evl (Tolstoy-Yurt), hereby appeals to you.
Our appeal concerns the attempts of the Russian Federation leadership to absolve itself of responsibility for this crime by calling the legitimate leader of the Chechen state a terrorist, with no grounds whatsoever for this accusation. Moreover, not content with his murder, the Russian leadership has made a show of refusing to give the body of the head of our family for burial, as is required by our traditions and religion, thereby adding further to the pain of our loss.
You know that Aslan Maskhadov supported peace and stability throughout the world. Aslan Maskhadov was elected president of the CRI in a nationwide poll on 27 January 1997, which was recognised as legitimate by the international community, including Russia. Many times he presented realistic plans to settle the military and political conflict between the Russian Federation and the CRI exclusively via negotiations, not via military means.
The murder of Aslan Maskhadov is a major blow to the process of peacefully resolving the Russian-Chechen conflict, which has become genocide of the Chechen people by imperial Russia.
The war has given birth to phenomena such as the kidnapping of whole families, the mutilation of corpses, the trade in corpses and the refusal to give the bodies of the dead to their relatives for burial. On this issue the Russian leadership has made an open challenge to the entire international community, issuing a range of inhumane decrees, with the help of which they try to justify such actions.
In 2002 Russia adopted an amendment to the federal law “On combating terrorism”, Article 16.1, according to which Chechens killed in the war are classified as “terrorists” and on a par with those who have been legally executed; for this reason their bodies are not given to their families for burial.
We think that all this is done in order to cover up the signs of monstrous torture and abuse of Resistance fighters and civilians and also of the mutilation of their remains.
The current Kremlin administration included in its “list of terrorists”, together with other participants in the Chechen Resistance, the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, who one month before his death (February 2005) declared a unilateral cease-fire throughout the territory of the CRI and once again called on the Russian Federation leadership to hold peace talks. In response to this proposal the Russian leadership organised Aslan Maskhadov’s murder. Having killed him when he proposed an end to the war, as a result of which people are suffering on both sides, the Russian leadership took its most inhumane step: it refused to hand over his body for burial, which is required by our traditions and religion.
There is no doubt that all the aforementioned is a direct violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, “everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life”, not to mention unacceptable in terms of common human ethics and morals.
Therefore, we consider that the Russian leadership’s violation of the legal right to burial of the dead is unacceptable in a democratic society; moreover, it offends millions of people.
We consider the behaviour of the Russian authorities blasphemous and completely inexplicable in the modern civilised world, including within Christian culture, to which the Kremlin authorities declare their adherence.
We urge you to demand that the Russian Federation leadership give the body of the head of our family, Aslan Maskhadov, for burial, and also the bodies of other Chechens, killed in the Russo-Chechen war, for burial by their loved ones.
In great hope of your understanding,
Yours sincerely,
Kusama Maskhadova – widow
Anzor Maskhadov – son
Fatima Maskhadova – daughter
11 July 2006
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