On Double Standards In International Politics

Elena Zhemkova, Executive Director of International Memorial Society, Russia

      The Memorial Society expresses anxiety about the way the NATO countries ( above all , the USA) demonstratively apply double standards in relation to the two crises - Kurdish and Kosovo, both of which aggravated in the winter of 1999.
      The pre-history of events in these "hotbeds" is very much alike. The leadership of both Turkey and Yugoslavia have rudely trampled upon the rights of ethnic minorities - Kurds in the first case and Albanians in the second- exercising direct discrimination on ethnic grounds. Fundamental human rights were violated - the right of ethnic minorities to keep their culture, to use their native language, the right to free associations, the right to freedom of thinking, conscience and expressing their opinions. The National movements of Turkish Kurds, same as of Kosovo Albanians, in their turn, have gradually acquired the qualities of aggressive separatism. In both cases, military units of separatists have launched broad-scale guerrilla warfare. In the course of hostilities numerous crimes were committed both by the government and anti-government forces, with indigenous population being the main victim.
      However, if the activities of the Turkish authorities towards the participants in the Kurdish movement are only feebly denounced by Western states, all means of international pressure, up to bombings, are used against the Yugoslavian leadership who also try to suppress by force the Kosovo independence movement. The NATO countries force the Yugoslavian government to negotiations with Albanian rebels ( terrorists or fighters for national independence - it depends on how you would like to call them), while the actions of Turkey ( a member of the NATO!), whose troops are exterminating insurgent teams outside their borders ,do not elicit any visible reaction.
      It is not for the first time during the last few years that we face the "double standards" concerning separatist movements which has actually become a norm in international relations. The correlation between the two norms of international law - the principle of state sovereignty and the right of peoples to self-determination - is interpreted differently each time, depending on current requirements.
      The policy of new Russia, alas, hasn’t become an exception. The self-announced formations in South Ossetia , Abkhazia, Pridnestrovye (?) have not been directly supported by Russian politicians but at least they have been for a long time accepted. Russian citizens and even officers of the Russian Army fairly frequently took part in military units of separatists. A clear high-principled attitude of the state to this problem was not expressed - double standards were considered an actual political instrument.
      At the same time, in the course of the Chechnya war Russia rejected even the slightest possibility of the world community interference with her "internal affairs". It is worth mentioning that this approach was understood by the leading Western powers - massive violations of human rights and war crimes committed by Federal forces in Chechnya in the winter and spring of 1995 were not so clearly evaluated as the events in the Balkans.
      The present-day tragic developments in Yugoslavia were not only caused by the stubbornness of one or the other conflicting sides but also instigated by the actions of the Great Powers behind their back. Who is more guilty that the inter-ethnic conflict has grown into a full-scale war - Russia, implicitly backing one side, or the North-Atlantic Alliance openly supporting the other side, is now not so important.
      Open use of double standards, like this, is fraught with dismal consequences for the future of mankind. Instead of trying to build the new world order based on the norms of LAW which is one for all, we witness the attempts to build the order based on FORCE and ARBITRARY RULE of a group of countries who have misappropriated the right to judge according to their will and in their own interests. There cannot be a greater blow to the idea of human rights as the underlying principle of the intra- and interstate structure.