Questions to the vice-president of the CRI. Shamil Basayev, put by the editor of the Polish Pipeline Journal, Witold St. Michalowski.

[St. Michalowski] Why do you think Russian propaganda has succeeded in creating an image of international terrorists out of you and your comrades?

Russia needs image of Chechen terrorism

[Basayev] Because this is the image required by today's international coalition of atheists who have declared a war on Islam. If this were merely Moscow's wish, then this image would not extend beyond the Russian television channels. The West (by which I mean the USA, by and large) had to offer its services to Russia in order to get something in exchange. But that's just one side of the coin. The reason they are trying to paint us as "terrorists" is an ideological one, because today nobody can deny that Western and Russian propaganda are doing everything they can to try to convince their people that Islam means terrorism. And terrorism is justification for the war against Islam. So it is not just I, but any Muslim who has taken up arms to fight injustice, violence and atheism, who is labelled a "terrorist". We are terrorists to them, and they are terrorists to us.

[St. Michalowski] When I and other journalists visited you in Dzhokhar [Groznyy] in 1999, the Russian special services and military had tried to assassinate you. Do you think this was a policy to kill all of you or just you?

[Basayev] It was to kill those who oppose their aggression or anyone who might be a witness to their foul crimes - that is human nature for Russia's rulers.

[St. Michalowski] There are gold mines situated in the Republic of Tuva, not far from the Mongolian border. A group of friends and I visited one Tuvan and on the wall of a pitiful room in his house hung portraits of the Buddhist monk Dalai Lama and the Chechen hero Shamil Basayev. What would you like to say to the oppressed peoples of Siberia and the Volga region?

[Basayev] Siberia and the Volga region experienced one of the most terrible genocides in the history of mankind. For example, among those who took part in the operation in Beslan was an ethnic Guran [from Lake Baykal region]. These people, who lived in Siberia, virtually disappeared because the Russians simply wiped them out. Russia must answer for its crimes, and they will answer in time. We have good contacts with many people from these regions who are already today ready to take up arms. In Siberia and the Volga region there are legitimate communities whose rights must be restored and Moscow's criminals and thieves must be punished. We are working in that direction.

US policy in Afghanistan and Iraq

[St. Michalowski] What do you think about America's attack on Afghanistan?

[Basayev] America had believed herself to be big and strong and has decided that the time has come to prove this. Afghanistan was chosen because the Afghans have restored Shari'ah Law. The kind of ideology which the USA professes predetermined this attack. Islam is deadly dangerous to tyrants, and the USA is an international democratic tyrant. The ideology of today's atheist West has no time for peaceful coexistence with Islam.

[St. Michalowski] What is your assessment of America's invasion of Iraq?

[Basayev] As American (and Israeli) stupidity, and God's mercy to Muslims.

[St. Michalowski] I once asked you - in 1995 - why you didn't block the supplies of gas to the Russian military garrisons in the North Caucasus, and you said that ordinary Russian citizens would suffer. In view of Russia's gas blackmail in relation to western Europe, have you changed your opinion on this?

[Basayev] At the time we still had illusions and thought that if we obeyed the rules we would help the enemy to keep within certain frameworks of the war. Today we have no such illusions.

[St. Michalowski] The high prices for oil and gas enable Russia to spend large sums on the latest nuclear weapons. What do you think of this?

Oil and gas money funding Caucasian war

[Basayev] Rusnya [derogatory term for Russia] spends money not just on nuclear weapons. She is using this money to wage war in the Caucasus and is again poking its nose in the former Soviet colonies, trying to show it is equal to the USA and Europe. The fruit may look ripe and attractive, but inside it is rotten. Back in 1993 [former Chechen rebel leader] Dzhokhar Dudayev called upon the world community to take control of Rusnya's nuclear facilities and weapons. This appeal is still relevant today. The West will weep bitter tears for its short-sighted attitude.

[St. Michalowski] Russian and international politicians used to say that the reason for Russia's military aggression against Chechnya was the Baku-Groznyy-Tikhoretsk oil pipeline, which no longer operates today with the commissioning of the new Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. What do you think were the real reasons for the Russian-Chechen war?

[Basayev] Fairy tales about oil and the pipeline are for the ordinary man in the street who needs simple and plausible explanations. The real reason for the war is Rusnya's imperial ambitions and the fear of an Islamic state emerging in the Caucasus. General Yermolov, who warned the Tsar that the Chechens would be a bad influence on his subjects because of their love of freedom, also wrote about the reasons for the war. The Russian serfs, like many Russian soldiers, escaped to Imam Shamil from Russian slavery. Little has changed since then. The Islamic state of Imam Shamil was a just state in which everyone had a sense of their own dignity. If alongside Russia were to appear a country where justice and the dignity of the people were fundamental to it, Russia in its present form would not last long and its criminal rulers would be severely punished.

[St. Michalowski] French demographers are predicting that in 50 years' time Russia's population will be reduced to the size of the Arab Republic of Yemen. What do you think will happen to Russia in 50 years' time?

[Basayev] Only God knows what will happen in the next 50 years. We shall do all we can to ensure that bloody Rusnya ceases to exist in its present form long before that.

[St. Michalowski] What do you think of Russia's plans to supply Siberian gas and oil to China?

[Basayev] Moscow thinks it will get something back from China by doing this. But this is hardly likely to please China.

[St. Michalowski] Do you think that accepting Islam will save the Russian people from degradation?

[Basayev] Islam saves both the individual and whole peoples. The Russians are no exception. Islam does not need one people and one person. These peoples need Islam because this is the religion of our Lord, given as a favour to the world.

[St. Michalowski] Do you still have a love of bees?

[Basayev] Bees are the sign of God, and what's more I love honey.

[St. Michalowski] What would you like to say to our magazine and to the Polish people who support the national-liberation struggle of the Chechen people against the Russian empire?

[Basayev] Never forget those crimes which Russia committed against your people and your state. And remember this when you hear about our struggle.