Moscow, July 18, 1998

Statement of Nikolaj Khramov, coordinator of the Transnational Radical Party for Russia and CIS:

``Yesterday in Rome on the Diplomatic Conference of plenipotentiaries has been established the International Criminal Court, which will from now persecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, wherever and by whomever they be committed.

It is a victory also of our Transnational Radical Party - a nonviolent International of fighters for right on life and life of Law, citizens and parliamentarians, acting across state frontiers and advocating during the last ten years for creation of a new sovra-national jurisdiction able to persecute originators of the most horrific crimes of our century. It is without any doubt a victory also of many dozens of Russian parliamentarians, members of Ukrainian Supreme Rada and Azerbaijanian Milli Medjlis, members of parliaments in Moldova, Georgia and other CIS countries who, starting from 1992, actively supported Radical Party's struggle - first for creation of an ad hoc Tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia, then for a permanent international criminal tribunal.

A also hope that now, when the international tribunal has ceased to be merely a beautiful dream, the horrible crimes committed on the territory of former Soviet Union will also not remain unpunished: neither genocide of Georgian population in Sukhumi and Gagry, not tragedy of Shusha and other Azerbaijanian villages in Nagorny Karabakh, nor crimes committed by Russian military in Chechnya.''