Statement by Akhmed Zakayev on non-participation of Chechens in international terrorism

We call your attention to an appeal made by the emissary of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Akhmed Zakayev. It is devoted to the statements by Western politicians about a "Chechen trace" in the actions of international terrorists.

"After the air attacks on American cities, and even more so since 2002, there have been frequent reports in the Western media, in interviews given by members of the European and US military and intelligence departments, as well as statements by certain leaders of west European countries, about a "Chechen trace" and the presence of "Chechen fighters" practically all over the world. A pretty candid desire to link any terrorist attack anywhere in the world with the Chechens, and, in turn, to link the Chechens with Al-Qaeda and Usamah bin-Ladin shows through in these reports.

Meanwhile, there isn't a single documented fact to show that one single Chechen has ever fought against the forces of the Western coalition anywhere on the planet. What is more, for about one and a half centuries now tens of thousands of people with ethnic Chechen roots have been living in countries of the Near East, and the participation of these people in military conflicts in their own region would appear to be completely natural. Nevertheless, not a single Chechen, either among prisoners or among the dead, has been discovered in Afghanistan, in Iraq or anywhere else where the Western coalition forces have been conducting their military operations.

Quite the contrary - among the prisoners or dead fighters in Iraq and particularly in Afghanistan there are quite frequently to be found American, German, French or British citizens; in other words, citizens of those countries whose politicians and "intelligence officers" are most active in accusing the Chechens of "international terrorism", finding imaginary "Chechen traces" or mythical "Chechen cells" throughout the world.

One gets the impression that the initiators of this unprecedented campaign of lies and slander which has been hurled against a small nation, which for ten years now has been waging a most bitter war for survival, opposing hordes of Russian marauders and invaders, are doing this quite deliberately and are little concerned with realities. In fact, it is hard to believe that British Prime Minister Tony Blair or high-ranking members of the American administration are not in possession of authentic information about the "ethnic composition" of the groups who are fighting the coalition forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, or that Western intelligence is unaware that not a single Chechen - alive or dead - has been found in these groups to this day.

There can be only one explanation why the West is making such efforts to discredit the Chechen Resistance and is untiring in its attempts to link it with "international terrorism" - the Western politicians and state leaders are seeking a pretext for not interfering in the genocide of the Chechen people which is being carried out by Putin's criminal clique before the whole civilized world. Everything is happening as in the Chechen proverb: "Before gobbling her cub baby bear, the she-bear dragged it through the mud."

World politics has demonstrated more than once on what discreditable and disreputable foundations notorious compromises between the "forces of this world" are achieved. But never before has it happened that a small nation, which has become the victim of unprecedented terror, which has lost one third of its population in the past ten years as a result of genocide, and which in an incredible struggle is striving for its right to national independence has received, instead of help or at least sympathy from the so-called world community, merely thick, evil smelling waves of slander, lies and insults."

Akhmed Zakayev
Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria,
Special Representative of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

Published on January 8, 2004