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Pete Glatter

Blair’s Butcher Friend

(August 2001)


From Letters, Socialist Worker, No. 1763, 25 August 2001, p. 6.
Downloaded with thanks from the Socialist Worker Website.
Marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).


DAVE CROUCH’S article on Russia’s dirty war in Chechnya (Socialist Worker, 11 August) rightly mentions the West’s support for Putin. Let’s not forget that last year Blair specially visited Russia to demonstrate the West’s support for Putin just two weeks before the presidential election. A leading Russian daily (Nezavisimaia Gazeta) was amazed at the way Western correspondents suddenly shut up about Chechnya.

Let’s not forget Putin’s return visit to London either. Putin came to London because the butcher of Chechnya was not welcome in any other major capital in Europe, according to the leading Russian business magazine Ekspert. The magazine featured this prominent quote from KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky:

“Theoretically, it is not the queen’s habit to drink tea with murderers who turn up with their hands stained with blood. This invitation is a real miracle for Putin’s reputation.”

Blair abandoned Chechnya to its terrible fate. And he sold out every Russian who is fighting for real democracy and human rights.

PETE GLATTER, London


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