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SNA CHECHENPRESS. Official Information Section, 02/06/08
We think that our interlocutor does not require introduction. His name is well known not only to the Chechens but also to sports fans in many countries of the world. Ruslan Takhaev is the World and European weight lifting champion among sports veterans. Ruslan has just earned his very last title of the strongest weightlifting sports veteran in the European championship. We warmly congratulate our countryman on this victory.
Besides the sport to which the Chechen sportsman has dedicated many years of his life, Ruslan Takhaev has been an active participant of political processes impacting on the lives of the Chechen people and their state. Since as early as 1991 when Ruslan joined the ranks of the Vajnakh Democratic Party he has been an active participant of the overthrow of the Soviet communist regime in Chechnya , and later contributed to the national liberation struggle by helping the ChRI resistance fighters in their wars of liberation against Russia. Having been forced into emigration in Austria Ruslan Takhaev has been using his knowledge and his abilities in order to bring up Chechen children according in the spirit of patriotism, humanism, commitment to freedom and independence of the Chechen people.
Today Ruslan Takhaev is member of the ChRI Government as Head of the ChRI Department for Sports which does not stop him participating in international competitions, demonstrating the unbroken spirit of a patriotic Chechen. According to Takhaev, the most urgent task for his Department is to organise an international free style wrestling cup tournament on the Independence Day of 6 September in honour of the first Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev. Such a tournament would encourage participation of the Chechens living in many different countries as well as representatives of other nations.
ChP: Ruslan, what would such a tournament contribute to the patriotic upbringing of our young people?
R.T.: Only this type of tournament would be the venue where the Chechen national anthem would be played and the Chechen national flag raised. These are sacred to every true Chechen. I think that Chechen sportsmen who perform for Russia today and who step onto the podium to receive awards for their successful performance do not have a moral right to stand beneath the flag of the country – Russia – which is guilty of many genocides against the Chechen people. Standing beneath the national flag of Russia and listening to the national anthem of this terrorist state the Chechen sportsmen should remember the 250 000 Chechen citizens murdered by this state, including 42 000 children, they have to be reminded of the thousands of maimed and wounded compatriots, who have become disabled and crippled, let alone the thousands of our young men and women who are still kept inside the walls of the Russian concentration camps. This is why my uppermost task today is to bring up real patriotic Chechen sportsmen who would always remember and know their heroic past and remember the main culprit of all the tragedies that have befallen the Chechen people in the course of several centuries.
ChP: Do you consider a national flag flying above a sports podium an important educational factor?
R.T.: I cast my mind back to the recent European championship where I managed to become champion in my weight category. I would like to dwell on the moment when members of one of the national teams from a post-Soviet state came up to me and said: “We believe that one day you will mount the podium under the Chechen national flag”. I found their words very stirring, they were yet another reminder of the fact that sooner or later, despite the great resistance of the external enemies of our country, such as Russia, and all the internal enemies, our people will achieve its final goal – the recognition of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya as a subject of the international law. Our duty and our task today are to rally round the Parliament and the Government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya which I am convinced are the ones who feel very deeply for and care very much about our long-suffering Chechen people. |
