NOT ON BEHALF OF US, PLEASE!

Declaration of participants in the demonstration of protest against the actions of the Russian government in Chechnya

Moscow, Red Square, November 18, 1999. "On August 25, 1968 seven dissidents (Larisa Bogoraz, Pavel Litvinov, Konstantin Babitskii, Nataliya Gorbanevskaya, Viktor Fainberg, Vadim Delone and Vladimir Dremlyuga) came out in the Red Square to protest against the invasion of the soviet troops in Czechoslovakia and paid for it with years of lagers, exile and "special" mental hospitals.

Today, 31 years later, we, the citizens of a new - as it seemed to us - free and democratic Russia - have to come out in the same historical "Lobnoe mesto " near the Kremlin walls to protest against the actions of our government in Chechnya.

We know perfectly well that all non-official actions near the Kremlin are banned. However, perfectly conscious of what we are doing, we decided to perform a civil disobedience action: this war is being waged by Kremlin and this is the best place to demonstrate our protest.

Certainly, unlike the courageous seven, we do not risk years of lagers and psychiatric hospitals. However, the atmosphere that reigns today in our country, the climate of militarist, nationalist, racist, anti-western hysteria, created by nearly all politicians, by the government and the mass media it controls - all this begins to remind so much of the "moral-political unity of the soviet people", as it used to be in 1968. Once again, as in 1968, only a small group of "renegades" has the courage to protest against the actions of the regime.

We appeal to the President Eltsin, to the "military prime minister" Putin and his government, to the generals, thirsting after a revenge for 1994-95: stop the second Chechen war immediately! Stop immediately the violence against the innocent people of Chechnya; hundreds of thousands of them trying to save their lives and escape from your bombs and missiles in the nearby Ingushetiya - this has already brought to a real humanitarian catastrophe. Remember: for the military crimes and the crimes against the humanity, for the bombardment of the Chechen market, for the bombardment of the civil population - sooner or later you we have to answer for it before the International Justice.

We appeal to the leaders of the Western States that today meet in Istanbul at an OSCE summit: do everything You can, make any international pressure You can in order to compel the government of our country to stop the new massacre in Chechnya. Not a cent, not a pfennig, not a dollar, not a lira to the Russian regime until it continues to kill civil population and to ignore Geneva conventions and the world public opinion.

We appeal to our fellow-citizens: wake up, open your eyes, do not wait until other hundreds of thousands of zinc coffins start to arrive from Caucasus. Take a critical view of the regime that continues to turn you into zombies with the help of its television! It's a long time that the objects of the operation in Chechnya have nothing to do with the declaration about the goals of the struggle against the terrorism made at the beginning of the operation in Dagestan, after the explosions in the city buildings (they were so well-times, weren't they!). The war is being waged by Kremlin because it seems to it that the more Chechens die under the bombs, the sooner you and I will vote next summer for the "iron" Putin - the next candidate for president appointed by Kremlin. The generals dreaming about a revenge for the defeat in the first Chechen war need this war to get new ranks and shoulder-straps. We, the citizens of this country accustomed to pay from our pockets, with our health, with our lives for the realisat

ion of the political goals that were set without us and not by us - we do not need this war.

We are here because we want the country and the whole world to see: there is another Russia. We say to the Kremlin: " Not on behalf of us, please!""

Nikolay KHRAMOV, Anna ZAITSEVA, Konstantin BOROVOY, Valeriya NOVODVORSKAYA, Vadim TERESHCHENKO, Lyubov' STOLYAROVA, Alyona ASAEVA, Sergey VORONTSOV, Il'ya MALKOV, Zinaida LEVICHEK, Susanna TSATURYAN, Maria KARYMOVA.