Address by the Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the ChRI Akhmed Zakaev
SIA CHECHENPRESS, Official information section, December 1, 2007
In the name of Allah, Gracious and Merciful!
Dear compatriots!
The reason for this address is the fact of the ChRI Parliament entrusting me with the responsibilities of the Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya.
Nobody is better aware than us, the Chechens, what difficult times we are living in, what irrevocable losses we have endured in the long years of this war. Nobody could know it better than us that our will has not been broken and that we will not yield an iota of what our enemies are making a claim to.
Russia has always laid claims to our territory, to our right to be its sovereign masters. This was the case in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the colonisers were burning down our villages and destroying ancient woodlands to move further into the heart of Chechnya. Every Russian settlement in the Caucasus is a result of ethnic cleansing with all its inhumane attributes.
The deportation of the Chechens into Siberia and Kazakhstan in 1944, with the preceding terror of 1920-1930s was yet another attempt to deprive us of the land to live on. Finally, starting from 1991 and until now Russia has been taking dirty and criminal steps trying in vain to stop the course of history and to return the Chechen people to the colonial yoke.
Thousands of our brothers and sisters have given their lives for the freedom and honour of our motherland. We can state that today the Chechens are in control of most of their country, with the exception of the places where the occupiers are holed in. In their search of allies to fight the Resistance forces the Russians have armed thousands of the so-called pro-Russian Chechens, as a result of which the Chechens have never been better armed and trained how to fight.
Our government sees it as its main priority to force Russia to peace. This means that military and political methods would be combined with economic ones. I am sure that as soon as this inhumane regime is gone, peace with Russia would become a reality. There are healthy forces in Moscow who understand that a war in the Caucasus does not serve Russia’s long-term interests.
A key to a speedy peace settlement of the Russian-Chechen conflict is our own manifest national unity. Gone is the time when many Chechens, finding themselves face to face with the criminal Russian military clique had to pretend to agree to the abuse of power by the occupants in order to save their own and their families’ lives. The time has come to speak plainly. Our government intends to have extensive consultations with the representatives of all strata of the Chechen society, not tarnished by blood.
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