Speak up to Putin for the freezing people in south-east Europe, Mr. Schröder!

Dear Mr. Schröder,

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) appeals urgently to you to speak up for the freezing people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and other countries of south-east Europe and the Ukraine. The peoples of this region have already suffered enough in recent decades through political conflict and war. In Sarajevo alone 240,000 people in 72,000 dwellings have no heating in arctic temperatures and cannot make themselves a hot meal because the promised deliveries of gas from Russia have not arrived.

Dear Mr. Schröder, we call on you to use now your great influence as advocate of the economic interests of Russia in Europe. Speak up at least this time for the survivors of the genocide in Bosnia! Like the former Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl you as leader of the Opposition looked on for four years while the encircled towns in Bosnia were being shelled, concentration and rape camps were being set up and genocide committed. The people in Bosnia feel themselves left alone today and cut off from the rest of Europe.

Yesterday evening we were shocked to hear that you intended to use the Russo-Ukrainian conflict to further your own personal economic interests in pushing the Baltic pipeline project. What we miss is a clear and helpful statement to your Russian business partners on behalf of the freezing people in south-east Europe. This project is being observed by our smaller neighbours in the east with fear and negative feelings.

Make it clear to Prime Minister Putin that his arbitrary procedure reminds the general public in Germany and many European countries of the totalitarian practices of the past.

Yours Truly,

Tilman Zülch

For the GfbV International