Valery Vorotnikov: There should be no double standards when it comes to terrorism

After the terror attack in the United States on September 11, the world community started realizing that terrorism was not only the plague of the XX and XI centuries, but also the international trouble for the whole planet. Many politicians, military men and special services attendants express their opinions about what should be done by 2 leading powers, the United States of America and Russia in order to put an end to terrorism.

The start of terrorism in Russia may be referred to 1978, when Zityakin’s group carried out explosions in Moscow. Nowadays there is actually no region in Russia that can be considered safe.

Russian Duma’s deputy, major-general of KGB (before the events that happened in August of 1991) Valery Pavlovich Vorotnikov expressed his point of view pertaining to terrorism. When working in KGB Vorotnikov was in charge of the department for struggle against terrorism.

Question: What is your opinion about the reasons of such a horrible act of terrorism in the USA? Was it bad work of the American special services, are all the politicians of the States guilty – the politicians who can do anything – right to supporting the Afghani terrorists, those who have links with the Chechen “warriors for Islam?”

Answer: There is no point to blame the American special services, as if they were completely guilty in what had happened. War is a way to solve the political goals with the help of the military force. Terrorism is also a way of solving the political problems by similar bloody methods. The hidden policy is the ground of all terrorist indications, not depending on the fact if the politicians themselves admit that or not. If talking about Russia’s current problems in the republic of Chechnya, I mean the problem of terrorism, then this is a consequence of the political mistake. Right in the beginning of the Chechen campaign the political administration of our country made rather serious mistakes. The Americans ought to carefully realize the political decisions, which were made by their country, and to find that political motive that led to the terror attack. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people killed as a result of terrorism – the innocent people, who were not guilty of the political decisions that pushed to committing acts of terrorism. It is the highest responsibility of the politicians – to make the decisions, which would not result in such wild and horrid reaction.

Q:Is the U.S. guilty of what has happened? The Palestinians, who were dancing on September 11 – they knew who delivered arms to Israel. A lot of citizens of Lebanon still remember the shelling by the American 6th fleet - by the battleship the New Jersey, in 1984. The citizens of Belgrade will surely have the American and British air raids in their bad dreams for really long.

A:The people who were buried under the rubble of the world trade Center are innocent. The political administration of America that made the decisions pertaining to the military operations in other countries must apologize in front of its nation for making their people hostages of the political games. If the politicians decide to dismiss some special service top official - that would be a wrong thing to do. Because terror is the crime that can hardly be discovered. The conspiracy level is the highest, when preparing the acts of terrorism, espionage pales in comparison. In the recent case we can not talk about those, who actually performed the acts of terrorism since they all died. The organizers of the crime should be found. It is extremely hard to do – there is no terrorist organization, which said it was responsible for the terror in New York and Washington. I am sure the role of the American special services will raise a lot, when conducting the investigation on the matter. I am sure they have already have a circle of the people, who were allegedly involved in the acts, I am sure they already have the ideas who ordered and organized that. You just have to conduct a very careful investigation towards all the passengers, who were flying on board the crashed planes. Those people who did not have any suspicious indications are put aside, the rest of the passengers may coincide with the organizers – from the religious, national point of view. So there should be these things compared: the location of those suspicious passengers before the flight and the country of their permanent living, which might be somehow linked to the acts of terrorism and so on and so forth. In this case it is not hard to find out - you check the information of their biographies, what they did in their lives and why they boarded that plane.

Q: Do you think Osama bin Laden was the person, who ordered the tragedy?

A: You and me are the people, who are not aware of the efficient information, we may suppose and guess, but it is not worthy – there have been all possible versions put forward already. If the Americans become so active, when it comes to bin Laden, then one may assume their special services have the information proving bin Laden’s connection or participation in the act of terror. We will know it for sure only when they wish to say it out loud. This is a very important investigation and of course, there will be no details exposed.

Q: What is your opinion about the joint crusade of Russia and the USA against Afghanistan? Can bin Laden have links with the Chechen commanders - terrorism is international.

A: There is so point in waiting for the Americans to execute our goal, to protect our southern frontiers from the Taliban. This problem will not be solved that way. It will remain as a problem, until there is a more loyal order established in Afghanistan towards the countries it borders on.

Q: So what should the politicians and special services do, if they are the major source of bad news?

A: There can be 2 answers to this question. First and foremost – the correct politics. As far as the special services are concerned, one should work altogether in order to be strong enough to protect ourselves from the international terrorism. Speaking about the current events – the special services must cooperate, of course. There should not be this double standard in politics: everything Russia does is bad, it is the violation of human rights and everything the West does is good; it is protection of law and struggle for human rights.

Valery Vorotnikov was interviewed by Ilya Tarasov PRAVDA.Ru