From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 3/10/2006 12:36 PM
10.3.2006 12:53 MSK
Demonstration against the war in Chechnya
RUSSIA, Moscow. On March 9th, in the Pushkin Square of area of Moscow, the Committee of Pacifist Actions and the Pacifist Club demonstrated against the war in Chechnya and in support of the delivery of the body of Aslan Maskadov to his relatives. A year ago, on March 8th, 2005, as a result of a special services operation, the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskadov, perished.
A document handed out at the demonstration, called “A Year Without the Chance of Peace," noted: "Without waiting for the agreement of Russian authorities to begin negotiations... Maskadov declared a one-sided armistice. Apparently, this was the last straw for the Kremlin, which did not desire to resolve the Chechen conflict peacefully. Specifically, it was during this armistice that Maskadov was killed. Thus, the Russian authorities finally sealed the coffin on the idea of peaceful negotiations in a war which is increasingly acquiring a religious nature and spreading throughout the Caucasus. Despite the fact that he did not die committing an act of terror, the delivery of Maskadov’s body for burial with religious rites has been refused. Instead, Maskadov is concealed in an unknown place,” the organizers of picket emphasized. During the demonstration, signatures were collected on a letter to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, calling on him to give Maskadov's body to his relatives.
Participants in the demonstration, of whom there were about ten, held posters reading: "Stop! Think: to whom is the war in Chechnya advantageous?", "We defend the freedom of Chechnya - let us protect the free federation of Russia! And let all imperial dreams die!", "How many more lives do we have to pay for the ‘territorial integrity of Russia?” and "The war in Chechnya is a crime against humanity". One of the posters quoted well-known writer Victor Astafev: "We will be never right there, as the Germans were not right, fighting in Russia".
Translated by OM Kenney
PRIMA-News Agency [2006-03-09-Rus-06]
http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/news/2006/3/10/35146.html
