Remembrance
In 1991, Chechen separatist President Dzhokhar Dudayev made political capital by, in a symbolic move, sending out officials to gather these lost gravestones (that had been used by the Soviets for the construction of pedestrian footpasses and foundations of pig pens), many of which had lost their original inscriptions, and to construct out of them a memorial in the center of Grozny. The memorial was made to symbolize both Chechen remorse for the past as well as the desire to, in the name of the dead ancestors, fashion the best possible Chechen Republic out of their land and work hard towards the future. It bears an engravement, reading: "We will not break, we will not weep; we will never forget." Tablets bore pictures of the sites of massacres, such as Khaibakh. The memorial was damaged during the subsequent Russo-Chechen wars. It has been later moved and dismantled by Ramzan Kadyrov's pro-Moscow government, sparking much controversy.
Forced deportation constitutes an act of genocide according to the IV Hague Convention of 1907 and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of the U.N. General Assembly (adopted in 1948). In this case this was acknowledged by the European Parliament as an act of genocide in 2004; experts of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum cited the events of 1944 for a reason of placing Chechnya on their genocide watch list for its potential for genocide. The separatist government of Chechnya also recognizes it as genocide, as do Ingush nationalists. Members of the Chechen diaspora and their supporters promote February 23 as World Chechnya Day to commemorate the victims.
Read more about this topic: Operation Lentil (Caucasus)
Famous quotes containing the word remembrance:
“Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew,
In prison pine with bondage and restraint;
And with remembrance of the greater grief
To banish the less, I find my chief relief.”
—Henry Howard, Earl Of Surrey (1517?–1547)
“Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“There’s rosemary and rue. These keep
Seeming and savor all the winter long.
Grace and remembrance be to you.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)