Brussels, 27/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Olivier Dupuis, MEP and Lista Bonino member, has written a long and open letter to the President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, denouncing Europe's "silence" on the tragedy in Chechnya and indicated that because of their repeated and urgent demands, the Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid, Poul Nielsen, visits Chechnya. According to Mr Dupuis, the President of the Commission ought at least hand over the responsibility for humanitarian aid to another Commissioner (see EUROPE 25-26 February page 7 in connection with the demonstrations organised by the Trans-national Radical Party in several European cities). Pat Cox's reply to Olivier Dupuis stated that both he, together with the Parliament (just as President Fontaine had previously had the courage to invite Commander Massoud, a pariah in the eyes of a worthy and short-sighted international community and had by-passed the "good advice" of the chancelleries) could significantly contribute to relaunching Russian-Chechen negotiations and invite President Mashkadov to put forward his position to the European Parliament. Mr Dupuis also said that Member States should be called on to proceeding to the international recognition of Chechnya. Mr Dupuis pointed out that the UN's committee on human rights would be opening in Geneva and added, with irony, that he and his Radical friends could work out some new amendments to the Union budget to welcome tens of thousands of Chechen refugees. He said that this would obviously run the risk of seeing the new amendments "buried" by the public liberties and budgets committees, who were afraid of new and ambiguous signals to the European populations, sensitive about immigration issues and who had already forgotten previous efforts during the Bosnia and Kosovar tragedies. Olivier Dupuis said the question of saving Chechnya also meant saving Russia.