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Understanding People .. Every Story Has 2 Sides - Zainab - 10-02-2004
Bismillah ... Salaam Alaikum .. and peace to all
While all of us absolutely condemn all forms of terrorism , thats not enough. We need to be more perceptive by analysing the core reasons of this problem. Peace would be much less elusive if a few powerful leaders humbled themselves a little for the sake of the multitudes across our planet and began dealing with the deep-rooted causes of militancy rather than just the 'symptoms' of it. No one is born a rebel or a militant. Neither does anyone like to kill or get killed. Unjust occupations and constant political extremism push communities over the edge. Their acts of frustration result in reprisals from their occupiers .. spiraling endlessly into a vicious cycle of violence in which mostly the innocents end up getting hurt on both sides. Such episodes are often 'spiced up' by the right-wing reporting of certain medias that only helps in deepening the hatred. The depth and duration of suffering of innocent civilians in places like Palestine, Chechnya, Iraq, Kashmir and many more places, should be completely against the civilized values of the modern society. Yet the world seems to be oblivious. It's this kind of political extremism that has resulted in militancy gradually over the past years. Islam is undoubtedly the clearest message of peace, love and harmony. This entire episode of today's terrorism is political and has nothing to do with Islam. Whenever we do see the 'label' of Islam on such militant activities, it's done with a purpose. The rebels like to use Islam as a tool but, it's certainly not the cause. And those governments who are fighting terror prefer to give this conflict an Islamic 'touch' (or a clash between two cultures), basically to cover up the serious flaws of their own foreign policies. If only the governments & policy makers of powerful countries became a little more selfless and a little less egoistical by realizing the harshness and lack of ethics of modern day occupations, and implementing their reformed policies pomoting the concept of sovereignty, terrorism would become history without a single shot being fired from either side.
For a lot of 'onlookers' far away from the places of turmoil, it's nothing unusual to be critical about the stories of militancy and the awfulness of revenge that invariably get huge coverage in the media. However, expressing the importance of rationality during a comfortable living room conversation is easy enough especially as long as one hasn't been violated or brutalised personally. If any of these people saw their own loved ones being tormented or butchered before their eyes in their own homes, would they still feel as rational and composed towards their violators ? Surely most of them wouldn't regardless of the situation ... and that's but natural. This is a basic trend of human psychology which is true of every society in the world.
Needless to mention, the entire Muslim community has expressed it's deepest sympathy for the bereaved relatives of those hundreds of innocent children and adults killed recently in the cruel hostage crisis in Beslan, Russia. It's just as important to know the miserable history of Chechnya, and the brute force that has been used against it's people to keep their country a part of the Russian federation for the past half a century or more .... and violence breeds violence. Ignoring the cries of the oppressed can certainly create no link to peace. One only has to look into history to know how often this has been proven true.
Perhaps it would be beneficial for some governments to learn from certain wiser systems in the world. For instance, in Canada, Quebec is a separatist province that has been asking for independence since the last several years. But uptil now there has not been any incident of violence carried out by either side over this issue. The credit goes entirely to the wise, realistic and fair policies of the Federal government. Despite the demands for separation by the people of that province, the Government has never initiated any moves that might even remotely violate the rights of the common people. To resolve the issue, referendums have been freely & fairly allowed and the results accepted in a cordial & peaceful spirit. Canada is indeed a wonderful example of promoting mutual respect, peace and freedom for many governments and communities of the modern world.
Caring for humanity becomes genuine only when sympathy & concern are expressed and implemented for every oppressed or suffering soul without any ethnic or political discrimination. It was heart wrenching to see so many children at the school gymnasium at Beslan with their hands behind their backs. It has been just as disturbing and painful to watch the images on television of the little boys and girls in Iraq between the ages of 4 and 8, with their tiny hands above their shoulders, their faces filled with horror and helplessness .. watching the heavily armed coalition soldiers storming into their homes, blindfolding the adult members of their families and taking them away in handcuffs, some never to return. Not to mention those hundreds ( if not thousands) of young children who have been killed or maimed by the widespread indiscriminate bombings carried out by the occupying forces in the recent Iraq war. We have heard much about those 1,000 US soldiers who have been killed in Iraq since the war began. But we hear little or nothing about the 12,000 civilians who have lost their lives during the past 17 months.
You'll find below some important informtion pasted from the website created by various human rights' groups about the situation in Chechnya. Most reporters are barred from entering Chechnya, and websites are the basic source of information, which are also often hacked by Russian authorities. Therefore, please pass this message to all your relatives, friends and acquaintances for information.
JazekAllah Khair .. Ma'salaama
Zainab ..
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Economic View Point
Russia's real GDP amounts to only $400 billion but, despite that, the production of oil in Chechnya doesn't contribute much to the Russian economy -- it doesn't quite justify the current war that Russia is waging. Of course, the oil pipelines through Chechnya have a much greater role to play, but I still wonder whether war can be justified on the basis of cost-benefit analysis. Russia is spending billions of dollars on the war and earns only a few million from the region. Further, the pipelines are continuously atacked and require more funds for repair. The main pipeline hasn't even been completed and with the current unstable state of security, it seems unlikely it will be completed any time soon. Russia needs to re-examine its economic benefits from keeping Chechnya in the federation.
Endless Brutality
For more than a year, Russia's federal forces have inflicted wanton violence on civilians in Chechnya in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law. While the most intense period of the war in Chechnya ended in the spring of 2000 with the occupation of the capital, Grozny, and most other areas, the behavior of Russia's forces toward the civilian population continues to be brutal, corrupt and illegal.
Physicians for Human Rights documents that, as of December 2000, Russia's forces continued to engage in arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, torture, murder, attempted murder, disappearances, bribery, and shelling of population centers. Civilians are arrested on flimsy pretexts, interrogated, beaten, and sometimes thrown into pits in the ground, only to be released when relatives pay significant bribes. Some disappear. Russia's military units sweep through cities and villages ostensibly in search of fighters on the Chechen side, arrest civilians, shoot into homes, take property, and leave. Travel within Chechnya requires civilians to run a gauntlet of checkpoints, where they also may experience extortion, arrests or beatings.
Although there was considerable variation in the details provided by witnesses in their accounts to PHR of human rights violations, common elements appear throughout: The violations committed by Russia's forces came suddenly, often without warning or reason, to people merely trying to survive in a war-devastated country. Individuals were arrested and detained while walking on a road in their villages or towns, standing in their front yards, shopping at a market, driving, crossing a checkpoint that they had navigated hundreds of times before, or just sitting in their homes with their families. One man was arrested because he could not produce a case of vodka, another because he protested the arrest of his son. Sometimes individuals were arrested en masse, especially during 'sweeps' through the villages by Russia's soldiers.
During the first six months of the second Chechen war of the decade, which began in September 1999, war crimes by Russia's forces were documented and condemned by numerous organizations. In February and March 2000, Physicians for Human Rights assessed patterns and prevalence of abuse and found extensive evidence of war crimes and other human rights violations. PHR conducted a random survey of 1,143 persons displaced from Chechnya by the war. Respondents and members of their households alone witnessed almost 200 killings of non-combatants. 46% of the 1,143 surveyed reported witnessing at least one killing of a civilian by Russia's federal forces. Survey respondents reported 77 instances of torture.1 The survey was accompanied by corroborated witness case testimonies of massacres at Katr Yurt and Aldi, and atrocities at the Chernokozovo filtration camp.2
In April, 2000, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin conduct an independent investigation of serious breaches of human rights by Russia's forces and hold accountable those responsible for them. But when Russia failed to perform the demanded investigation or to end impunity, it suffered no consequences. Instead, Russian authorities continued to block the entry of human rights monitors from international bodies including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations, preventing them from investigating ongoing violations or preventing new ones. Other than eliciting verbal protests, the international community, including the United States, took no effective action and declined to use tools at its disposal to require President Putin to stop Russia's massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law. The abuses continue into the present day.
SUMMARY
The recent PHR investigation was designed to document human rights violations in the last five months of 2000 and evaluate changes in the scope of abuses since PHR's earlier investigation.3 From December 8 to December 24, 2000, PHR Executive Director Leonard S. Rubenstein and Ondrej Mach, M.D., a consultant with extensive experience in the region, investigated violations in Chechnya. They interviewed more than 50 witnesses to human rights abuses that took place during the last five months of 2000, focusing especially on events in October, November and December.
The violations documented in this report take place in the context of widespread violence. Although by the spring of 2000, Russia's federal forces claimed to occupy all of Chechnya, they were unable to stop hit and run attacks against them by fighters on the Chechen side and suffered serious losses when Chechen fighters blew up trucks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles. In some areas of Chechnya, including Grozny, Russia's federal forces responded to these losses by shooting at and killing civilians in their homes and on the streets; by shelling villages where rebels are suspected of operating; by illegally arresting, detaining, and torturing Chechen men, causing some to disappear; and by extorting money from civilians to permit the release of loved ones or to allow them to cross checkpoints.
Arbitrary Arrests and Disappearances
The circumstances and manner of the arrests suggest that they are often executed by units without any pretext of legal authority or regularity. Although some of the men arrested were brought to conventional detention facilities, others were thrown into pits in the ground or held in fuel dumps or cellars. Local military commanders sometimes did not know men had been detained or where; in other cases the commanders helped secure release. Some men simply disappeared after arrest.
Beatings/Torture
Individuals interviewed by PHR who were arrested were always beaten, often repeatedly and severely. Some of the men PHR interviewed were tortured with electricity. One was shot while riding on a truck. Another was mutilated. Their documents were confiscated, creating new risks when they were finally released. While detained they were deprived of food for days at a time and sometimes kept in cells or pits so small that all of the men could not sit down.
Arrests as a Form of Extortion
The men interviewed were released only when families paid a bribe demanded by the unit holding them or when families used whatever political influence they could muster to secure the release.
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For more indepth information on human rights violations in Chechnya, please visit: http://www.phrusa.org/research/chechnya/chech_rep.html
For information on the history and struggle of Chechnya, click: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/wor...ar/chechnya.htm
Understanding People .. Every Story Has 2 Sides - Anyabwile - 10-02-2004
Quote:For a lot of 'onlookers' far away from the places of turmoil, it's nothing unusual to be critical about the stories of militancy and the awfulness of revenge that invariably get huge coverage in the media<b>. However, expressing the importance of rationality during a comfortable living room conversation is easy enough especially as long as one hasn't been violated or brutalised personally. If any of these people saw their own loved ones being tormented or butchered before their eyes in their own homes, would they still feel as rational and composed towards their violators ? </b>Surely most of them wouldn't regardless of the situation ... and that's but natural. This is a basic trend of human psychology which is true of every society in the world.
Quote:Caring for humanity becomes genuine only when sympathy & concern are expressed and implemented for every oppressed or suffering soul without any ethnic or political discrimination. It was heart wrenching to see so many children at the school gymnasium at Beslan with their hands behind their backs. It has been just as disturbing and painful to watch the images on television of the little boys and girls in Iraq between the ages of 4 and 8, with their tiny hands above their shoulders, their faces filled with horror and helplessness .. watching the heavily armed coalition soldiers storming into their homes, blindfolding the adult members of their families and taking them away in handcuffs, some never to return. Not to mention those hundreds ( if not thousands) of young children who have been killed or maimed by the widespread indiscriminate bombings carried out by the occupying forces in the recent Iraq war. <b>We have heard much about those 1,000 US soldiers who have been killed in Iraq since the war began. But we hear little or nothing about the 12,000 civilians who have lost their lives during the past 17 months. </b>
A very interesting article, the above quotes and sections i highlighted touched me the most. What does everyone else think? Megadeath? I have many views on this but just wanted to highlight the above sections for now.