AGAIN MCVEIGH – OPEN LETTER FROM PRAVDA.RU TO OUR READERS It has come to our attention the great number of letters addressed to our Moscow offices about our articles covering the execution of Timothy McVeigh. Due to the fact that it will be impossible to reply to all of them separately, we take the opportunity to present our position through this open letter. Our two articles about the execution of Timothy McVeigh produced a torrent of letters, some of them constructive, others no more than a hail of abuse. In most of them, the old skeletons of Afghanistan, Chechnya, Berlin and “Soviet” references came rattling out of the cupboard. We feel that we touched a nerve, particularly in the USA and would like to make our position clear. Firstly, Pravda.Ru is not anti-American or anti-anything. Pravda.Ru prides itself in taking courageous, firm positions in its permanent quest to present the truth (Pravda, in Russian) when presenting our position in public, however sensitive these issues may be. To link our article on McVeigh’s execution to Afghanistan, to connect the public execution of this terrorist with those people who were shot in Berlin, to put the televised execution of this young man in the same light as the events in Chechnya suggests to us that the main point in our article was missed and therefore we would like to present it again. Our position on McVeigh’s execution was, and is, crystal clear. We abhor all acts of terrorism, especially cowardly acts against civilians and in particular where women and children are involved. Russians are family people and love their children like anyone else. Our position is that the public spectacle around the execution of a human being is quite wrong. We understand very well the gut reaction from the families of those involved, we understand the adage “an eye for an eye” and we feel most sincerely for those whose lives have been destroyed, directly or indirectly, by this young man with a warped mind who wasted his own life along with so many others. We feel that the death of any human being is a private event and not a public show, however restricted this group may have been. The precedent is what we are concerned about because if today there are ten people, allowed to watch, and probably taking pleasure (fair pleasure) person being executed, tomorrow there may be one hundred and next week, there will be live shows on the NET and who knows, PPV channels where you can choose your state and method of execution. We would like to point out that most people would agree that the practice of public flogging, stoning, mutilation or execution in certain countries is abhorrent and uncivilized. We say that where is the line to be drawn between this, and what happened in McVeigh’s execution? To reply to the many accusations that Pravda.Ru is the first to criticize others while never mentioning incidents which happened in Soviet times or connected with the Russian Federation since then, these accusations are simply not true. Our pages are full of such references and we assume Soviet and Russian history with pride, with the courage to accept the good along with the bad. Indeed there are many critical references to Russia in our pages, about situations which we identify and try to correct. The histories of all countries have many moments of crisis and let nobody cast stones from glass greenhouses. It is not the intention in this letter to match, incident for incident, the comparative histories of all countries in the world in comparison with the Soviet Union and with Russia, a list which would at least be balanced, if not coming out in the latter’s favour. We did not mention Chechnya, Afghanistan, or Berlin, which we were accused of not doing, because we were writing articles about a particular incident, not a book about recent world history. An article has to observe the norms of professional journalism, namely to follow the theme presented in the headline and follow the lead, the short first paragraph. To respond to these points raised by our readers, we would like to reply as follows: The question of Chechnya has not been accurately reported in the international press and readers outside Russia are being presented with only one side of the story. Accusations about there not being freedom of the press in Russia are ridiculous, especially from countries which do not practise what they preach, however convinced to the contrary their citizens may be. Pravda.Ru has many references to the Chechnya war, an event which we follow closely and present to those who care to read our pages the hard facts. Regarding Afghanistan, we would like to inform our readers that the Taliban question was created by the USA, through Pakistan, not by Russia. As for Berlin, those who were shot were breaking the law and the soldiers who killed them were simply performing their duty. The victims knew what they were doing and knew the consequences. There are restricted areas everywhere and certainly it was not only in Berlin that measures were taken to enforce the law. After all, the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was bombed for collaborating with the Yugoslav authorities, however absurd were the excuses presented about the maps being out of date. Civilian lives were lost. Regarding comparative Russian history on the issue of mass murderers, there was the case of the psychopath Tchikatyla, who killed over 60 people in the area of Rostov in the 1990s. He was executed, his execution was kept a secret and journalists were not allowed access to the case because it was considered that the judicial process is not public knowledge. Pravda.Ru understands the desire for revenge by the family members of those killed by McVeigh but personal revenge cannot, and must not in any state of law, supplant the justice system, the mainstay of any country which takes pride in referring to itself as being civilized. Pravda.Ru’s position is that any execution in a capital punishment process, one which does not apply in the Russian Federation, should never be the cause of an adrenaline rush in some perverse form of panem et circences (bread and circuses), because the death of a human being (any human being) is a private and tragic event, not a Hollywood film show. TIMOTHY BANCROFT-HINCHEY, LISBON CORRESPONDENT OF PRAVDA.Ru, IN MOSCOW http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/06/13/7617.html Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/ STOP NOVOM SVETSKOM PORETKU ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrBE8.bVKZIq Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: archive@jab.org T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
