Russland ausschließen! / The Council of Europe Must Act
15.09.2008 | Andres Herkel , Mart Laar | English news
Please find the original English version below.
Trotz einer fragilen Demokratie und Menschenrechtsverletzungen im Nordkaukasus trat Russland dem Europarat 1996 dessen ungeachtet bei. Das Beitrittsdokument verwies zwar besonders auf die Situation in Tschetschenien und forderte die Russische Föderation auf, nach einer friedlichen Lösung des Konflikts zu suchen. Seine Versprechen in Bezug auf Tschetschenien hat Russland aber nie eingelöst. Stattdessen entschied es sich 1999 für einen zweiten blutigen Krieg in Tschetschenien, was im Jahr 2000 die Aussetzung seiner Stimmrechte in der Parlamentarischen Versammlung des Europarates zur Folge hatte. Aber selbst diese schwache Sanktion wurde schon nach sechs Monaten aufgehoben, lange bevor der Krieg, der letzten Endes 150 000 Zivilisten das Leben kostete, abgeflaut war.
Natürlich registrierte Moskau den ängstlichen Umgang des Europarates mit der Situation in Tschetschenien. Zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte des Rates wurde nun ein Mitgliedsstaat unter fadenscheinigem Vorwand von einem anderen Mitgliedsstaat angegriffen, auseinandergerissen und besetzt.
Georgien ist sicherlich nicht schuldlos an der Situation. Aber die Schuld gleichermaßen auf beide Schultern, die des Aggressors und des Angegriffenen, zu verteilen ist scheinheilig. Schlimmer noch, es besteht die Gefahr, dass der Europarat seiner Grundidee beraubt wird. Russland, in einer Art Siegesrausch, droht jetzt der Ukraine, Moldawien, Aserbaidschan, Polen und den baltischen Staaten. Ein stummer Europarat, der sich nicht zu diesen Provokationen äußert, würde Russland in seiner Sicht bestätigen, dass Europas älteste Menschenrechtsorganisation eine zahnlose Institution ist und dass es ganz nach Belieben handeln kann.
Die Mitgliedschaft Russlands mag in der Vergangenheit, als noch ein gewisser politischer Pluralismus vorhanden war, sinnvoll gewesen sein. Aber diese Zeit ist längst vorbei. Die Situation hat sich grundlegend geändert. Russland hat zur Genüge seine Verachtung für den Europarat und alles, wofür er steht, bewiesen. Es gefällt sich als Sieger. Es fordert uns durch sein Verhalten heraus, endlich etwas gegen seine ablehnende Haltung gegenüber den europäischen Werten zu tun, denen es sich damals durch Beitritt in den Europarat verschrieben hat.
Russland hat sich für seinen Weg entschieden. Es ist ein gefährlicher Weg und sicherlich nicht der von Europa! Es ist an der Zeit, Russland aus dem Europarat auszuschließen.
Andres Herkel ist Berichterstatter der Parlamentarischen Versammlung des Europarates, Mart Laar war Ministerpräsident Estlands.
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THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE MUST ACT
by
Andres Herkel, Head of the Estonian delegation in the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly
Mart Laar, Former Prime Minister of Estonia
Of the many ways in which Russia is exceptional, its membership of Europe's premier human rights body, the Council of Europe, is perhaps the most embarrassing. Countries are usually admitted into the club only once they fulfill numerous pledges, including a commitment to an open democracy, the protection of human and minority rights, guarantee of free speech, and so on. It is on this basis that Belarus and Kazakhstan, for example, have not yet been accepted.
Yet Russia joined early in1996, despite a fragile democracy and widespread human-rights abuses in the North Caucasus. Its accession document drew special attention to Chechnya, encouraging the Russian Federation to seek a peaceful solution there.
Unlike other members, Russia was granted membership in Europe's oldest pro-democracy and human rights organization before fulfilling the main criteria for membership.
Russia never fulfilled its Chechnya commitments. Instead, it opted for a second murderous war in 1999. Its voting rights in the Council's Parliamentary Assembly were duly suspended in 2000. But even that mild sanction was lifted six months later, long before the war - which ultimately killed about 150,000 civilians - subsided.
At any given time, a number of countries are under close monitoring to ensure they respect their commitments to the Council of Europe (the list currently includes Ukraine, Georgia, Albania and Armenia). Yet, despite a dramatic degradation in its track record, the monitoring of Russia in effect appeared to stop in 2005, when the last report concerning its performance was published. Russia has only been investigated in three reports during its 12 years of membership. Armenia and Azerbaijan, both members for six years, have already been subjected to eight reports each.
Russian cases are flooding the European Court on Human Rights, the Council's main adjudication tool. And Russia is doing its utmost to ignore and cripple the court. The first rulings regarding Chechnya, made in 2006, were simply ignored; and the reforms needed to help the Court cope with a drastically increased workload are being blocked.
The Council's timid handling of the Chechen situation, mostly ignored in the West, was duly noted in Moscow. The permissive message it sent to Moscow was reinforced by the Council's handling of increasing Russian provocations against Georgia. Russian passports were illegally distributed in the ethnically cleansed territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from 2004. In 2006, an economic blockade was complemented by pogroms against Georgians in Russia. In 2007, a Russian fighter dropped a missile onto a Georgian radar station. Earlier this year, the provocations mounted: Russia absorbed the territories into its legal space, regularly violated Georgian airspace, deployed offensive troops in Abkhazia and shot down at least one Georgian police drone.
Throughout, the Council stayed silent.
And now, for the first time in the Council's history, a member state has invaded, dismembered and occupied a fellow member state on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Georgia was not blameless. Its young leadership lacked experience and made mistakes, and its democracy is not up to Swedish standards. But trying to share the blame equally between invader and victim reeks of the crassest hypocrisy. Worse, it threatens to empty the very idea of the Council of Europe of any meaning. Russia, drunk on its "victory", is threatening the Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Poland and the Baltic States. A silent Council would merely confirm its view that Europe's oldest human rights institution is toothless, and that it can in fact do as it pleases.
For a number of reasons, many Western countries chose to ignore the ominous developments in Russia. Energy dependence plays a role, but by no means the only one: many of our colleagues genuinely believed that oil wealth, the need for western expertise and so on would positively influence the country and its leadership. That hope, shaken by the wars in Chechnya, the murders of Anna Politkovskaya and other critics, the muffling of the opposition, the control of the media by the state and the praising of Stalin's "achievements" in official textbooks, has been shattered in the mountains of Georgia.
And yet some prominent commentators refuse to accept this new, and decidedly unpleasant, reality. For them, Russia's grievances excuse all. The pesky little countries of its borderlands should not have sought refuge in the havens of NATO and the EU. The democratic wishes of their people count for little: they should be resigned to bed down with the Russian bear. Moreover, these aspirations were supported by America - surely enough of an indictment. And anyway, the West needs Russia's energy, so we have little choice but to accept Russia's land grab in the Caucasus.
This cold realism, which offers so little comfort to the countries on Russia's rim, has no place in the Council of Europe. This is not an organization devoted to pipelines and business, but to values which Europe takes seriously: democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and the rejection of force as a tool to settle disputes.
Russian membership may have made some sense in the early days, when there was still some political pluralism. A few independent politicians, such as Sergey Kovalev, the eminent human rights activist, represented the country in the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly.
But that time is long past. The situation has fundamentally changed. Russia has demonstrated its contempt for the Council and all it stands for. It smirks in its victory. And it challenges us to do anything about its rejection of the European values to which it once subscribed.
Russia has chosen its path. It is a dangerous one, and it is not Europe's. It is past time to suspend it from the Council of Europe.
Source: Die Welt
