WE SUPPORT POSITION OF FRENCH PRESIDENT JACQUE CHIRAC. SHAMEFUL SILENCE OF NOT ONLY OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT, BUT ALSO OF DEMOCRATIC PARTIES AND PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS IS IN FACT A DIRECT COMPLICITY WITH CRIMES OF MILOSEVIC, KARADZIC, MLADIC & Co. DECLARATION OF NIKOLAJ KHRAMOV, SECRETARY OF A.R.A.

Press Release

Moscow, July 17, 1995

Tragedy of Srebrenica marks a new stage in development of what mass media name with a bashful euphemism "crisis in ex-Yugoslavia" and what in reality is nothing as repeating of aggression and genocide already committed half century ago by German predecessors of today's war criminals Milosevic, Karadzic, Mladic & Co. The complete impotence of United Nations, European Union, international community as a whole in front of the most impudent trampling on the international law which the world have ever witnessed after Hitler - it is a sign of Europe which impetuously rolls down to the Europe of '30s, to the times of Munich collusion of "peacemakers" Daladier and Chamberlain with Hitler.

In this context we support position of French president Mr. Jacque Chirac (unfortunately still remaining in political solitude), who declared about readiness to use all measures including military force in order to restore the statute of "safe haven" Srebrenica, affronted prestige of the international community and - the most important - to save lifes of Bosnian citizens.

Nobody in the world is anymore surprized by the position of the State Duma, which votes time by time for condemning the measures - not more than symbolic measures or even less - undertaken by the international community against Serbian aggressors. But the position of Russian government in regard to the last events in Bosnia (or better to say, absence of any position) - it is already something more than simple sympathizing the Serbs, in which the world justly accused our country on all the stages of war in ex-Yugoslavia. What is happening now is nothing as direct and open complicity in war crimes.

It is also impossible to define other than shameful also position taken by Russian press: it is matter not only of frankly pro-Serbian reports of TV program "Vesti", but of an underscored "neutral" approach of other democratic mass media.

For what concerns "Russia's Democratic Choice", "Jabloko", "Memorial", Moscow Helsinki Group, all those without exception who call themselves democrats and human rights defenders in Russia - their silence forces to arrive to the most sorrowful derivation about level of democracy, legal and civilian conscience in Russian society. And not only among so called "common people" but also among those, with whom we used to associate our hopes to the positive change in our country.