Madwonan’s notes
Seventy two crazy MPs from the parliaments of different European countries were discharged from the Strasbourg hospital a week ago and went home to stay there until January. I am one of them.
We were called a group of crazy people and a gray mass of marginals by the head of the Russian delegation in PACE because of our signatures under the motion to suspend this delegation’s credentials. Such sanctions are provided for by PACE’s regulations. In this case the reason for this proposal was that the state of Russia failed to comply with a single demand regarding overcoming the consequences of the war against Georgia, and instead they continued to strengthen their positions in the annexed Georgian territories.
Russian MPs have publicly announced their refusal to comply with the Assembly’s demands. Therefore, during the past year nobody could get to the territories occupied by Russian army, nobody had a chance to estimate and condemn the crimes of ethnic cleansing; refugees have not been given the slightest hope of returning home; humanitarian disaster has become a permanent resident; Georgia shrank and nobody has been able to do anything to protect the sovereignty of this country.
Why did 72 people who asked for a proper reaction to all of this were diagnosed as madmen?
The reason for that was that the doctor Konstantin Kosachev, the head of Russian delegation, in some mysterious way knew what Andreas Gross would soon write in his report. Gross was appointed to make a report in the Monitoring Committee at the proposal of the Russians. This Swiss MP, who no longer tries to hide his unconditional sympathy for all the actions of the Russian delegation, wrote in his report the words that turned the customary notion of Council of Europe upside-down. It read that, in the rapporteur’s opinion, the Council of Europe is a hospital rather than a home for democracy and that the process of healing cannot be based on expelling the sick and the wounded.
It can be noted that in the polemic ardor Russia was called sick in this report, but its delegation did not take any offence at that and instead gave a standing ovation. That is because later in his report Gross practically forced the Assembly to admit that its resolutions are just opinions that can either be deferred to or simply ignored. He also said that the resolution regarding the war in Georgia was, in fact, passed by mistake, as it was not based on a reliable study of the causes that led to the war.
At this point I had a desire to ask the local staff for additional portion of medicine. But all of a sudden a thought came: Who is actually the doctor in this hospital? Who hired him to work here? What if it is only a patient dressed in a white gown and disguised as the doctor? And, finally, who needs treatment here?
All the members of the Council of Europe seemed to have been equal before. Gross knew the answer to this, too. Gross announced that the Council of Europe admitted as members not those who agreed to conform to the European rules and standards, but also those who were actually immature. That is why now we have to be patient and explain to them: “It is not good to drop bombs on your neighbor! It is not good to drive the host out of his home and then live there and sleep in his bed. But if it is OK with you, dear patient, then fine.” “We have to respect disagreements,” Gross wrote. After 60 years into the Council of Europe’s existence, this was a new ground broken about how human rights should be protected.
At a PACE session in the summer the same people with same passion were trying to eject our Ukrainian delegation from the negotiations, the reason being a simple disagreement between Ukraine and PACE on how to view the process of judge selection. The same gentlemen wanted to divest us of authority because, they said, Ukrainian MPs do not know how to influence their government regarding this issue.
In the case of the Russian delegation, Gross wrote that MPs are not able to deal with their government, but it cannot be a reason to punish them. And there I felt sorry for Russia, for the homeland of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for journalists with their mouths shut, for the Russian human rights advocates who are being killed, while the world will not scream for fear.
I felt sorry for my dear friends in Russia who haven’t received one reform in their lives in the past year but were instead offered a perspective of fighting in neighbor countries. I felt sorry about the fact that their chance of living a real life of democracy is in the pockets of those Kremlin gentlemen who keep Europe in bear paws and in a friendly manner suggest continuing the ‘constructive’ dialogue from this ‘point of view.’
When we were leaving our hospital wards in Strasbourg, one still not quite healthy MP in a fit of fever said in passing that there is a chance that the next time we come back there will be, so to say, a cemetery and the dead with scythes in the place where there is now the hospital.
When I was finishing these lines, the TV showed a Verkhovna Rada briefing. The Party of Regions MP Oleh Tsariov, by all appearances, for the first time in his life spoke at a meeting like this. He proudly tried to say in some strange language that they finally began to understand in Europe how impatience is being implanted in Ukraine and that he is not allowed to ‘use Russian here.’ He also said that jointly with MP Vadym Kolesnichenko he reported this to Europe. Kolesnichenko added to this that because teachers in our schools teach in Ukrainian, Ukraine is sinking into imbecility, the reason for that is the imposition of a foreign lifestyle on the country.
I realized that nothing good is awaiting me at home. It looks like they have sent orderlies after us to take immediate care of the sick and the wounded on the spot.
