Operation Lentil

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Operation Lentil (Chechevitsa) was a Soviet expulsion of the whole native Chechen and Ingush populations of North Caucasus to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan during Second World War.

The expulsion was preceded by 1940-1944 Chechnya insurgency and was ordered on 23 February 1944 by Joseph Stalin, who accused the whole Chechen people of siding with Nazi Germany, although thousands of Chechens had fought along with the Red Army at the very same time. The deportation encompassed the entire nation, over 0.5 million people. One-fifth to half of them were killed or died as a result of the Soviet action and the others were not allowed back to Chechnya until 1957.

Forced deportation constitutes an act of genocide according to the IV Hague Convention of 1907 and the Convention on the prevention and repression of the crime of genocide of the UN General Assembly (adopted in 1948) and in this case this was acknowledged by the European Parliament as an act of genocide in 2004.^[1]

[edit] Memorial

A memorial to the victims was constructed during ruling of Dzhokhar Dudayev, but it has been dismantled later on the order from Ramzan Kadyrov ^[2]

[edit] References