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WAR AND HUMAN RIGHTS
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March 18, 2000
N 169
Interregional Human Rights Network Group
Ryazan Memorial Human Rights Society
www.hro.org/war
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Our work is not politically partisan. Our digest neither duplicates
the Russian federal government's position nor advocates the positions
of Chechen militants. Rather, our purpose is to present as many news
sources as possible so that readers may form their own judgement. We
seek to attract the world's attention to the mass violations of human
rights in the conflict.
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Service of Catastrophe Medicine and "Doctors of Peace" at North
Caucasus
Independent information center "Glasnost - North Caucasus" reports:
according to the deputy chief of staff of All-Russian Service of
Catastrophe Medicine (ARSCM) Colonel Eduard Khalezin, 26,944 people
came to ARCSM Zaschita hospital for medical aid, including 9,695
children. On March 9, 2000 the number was 298 people, including 115
children. ARSCM hospital gives outpatient polyclinic treatment, there
are facilities for urgent medial aid, including surgery. 332 patients
received such aid in the Zaschita, including 56 children. Already the
5th shift of personnel is working in the hospital now. Each shift
includes 24 employees: physicians, surgeons, anaesthetists,
traumatologists, a paediatrist and a gynaecologist. ARSCM Zaschita is
financed by RF Finance Ministry via RF Health Ministry. A number of
other ARSCM hospitals are working in Chechnya, too.
Doctors from Finnish branch of international organization "Doctors of
Peace" are working in a tent camp in the stanitsa of
Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Republic of Ingushetia. The medical station
occupies two tents. Although medicines, dressing materials, etc. are
being brought here twice or trice per peek, the station is
catastrophically short of medical supplies due to the enormous number
of patients. The station can only give first aid, and than the
patients are sent to the district hospital. The hospital does not
have medical supplies at all, so the patients have to purchase them
themselves.
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Registration of Forced Re-Settlers from Chechnya Cancelled in
Ingushetia
Rosbusinessconsulting reports that, by the order of RF Federal
Migration Service, registration of forced re-settlers from the
Chechen Republic has been cancelled in Ingushetia. This was reported
by the aide to vice-premier of Ingushetia's government Isa
Vyshegurov. According to him, the FMS motivates this with the absence
of mass exodus of citizens from Chechnya, but the Ingush leadership
cannot agree with this decision. "If we don"t register people
officially, they would not receive financial aid from the center",
Mr. Vyshegurov emphasized. Over 279 thousand forced re-settlers from
Chechnya are officially registered in Ingushetia, "their number is
each day growing, and there are more people arriving than departing".
Mr. Vyshegurov said that in spite of aid from the center, regions and
international bodies, the shortage of medical supplies is still
extremely critical.
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Famine in Durtskhoti Hamlet
Unfortunately, we have to receive information about the developments
in Chechnya, especially in the zone of military actions, only from
eyewitnesses who are crossing the Chechen-Ingush border for some
reasons. A small hamlet of Durtskhoti is located in the Vedeno
Mountains not far from the village of Selmentauzen. About 400 people
live there. All these people are suffering a real tragedy: there
started famine. In mid-February one of the Chechen units retreating
from the Agrun Gorge went through it. The hamlet was blocked by
Russian troops, and since that virtually nobody left it. The hamlet's
grave situation became known accidentally: on March 11 the relatives
of Chechen fighter Khalis Salamkhanov, who was killed between
Ulus-Kert and Selmentauzen, settled the question with Russian
military and went there to search for his body.
The military gave them only one hour for their search, threatening to
begin shelling soon. In such situation only people knowing the
locality well could be helpful. That is why the family went to the
hamlet of Durtskhoti. They had a necessary paper with them, so the
soldiers allowed them to pass through the encirclement round. The
hamlet's dwellers asked their guests to pass a SOS to the
"continent". Foodstuffs are all over there for a long time already.
Part of livestock was killed by bombings, and the dwellers had to
slaughter the other part. There are only few horses and some oat
remaining. The relatives didn"t find the killed Chechen fighter but
managed to gather and take out 41 corpses of Chechens. According to
the evidence of the dwellers of the Durtskhoti hamlet, there are
about 400 killed Chechen fighters lying in the Argun Gorge and the
forests of Vedeno district and, possibly, some corpses of Russian
soldiers.
Female dweller of Vedeno Tamara Khalidova, who told this story, came
to Ingushetia with the purpose to inform people about the tragedy of
the highland hamlet. Such signals of distress in the form of notes
written on pages from school-kids" copybooks, were being passed to
the journalists at the Chechen-Ingush border from Dubay-Yurt,
Khorsenoy, Tsa-Vedeno, Shatoy and other populated areas in Chechnya's
highlands a short time ago, Radio Liberty reports.
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Federals Detain All Dwellers of Komsomolskoye
"Clean-up" is continued in the village of Komsomolskoye in Chechnya.
Additional OMON forces have been maneuvered to the village. The
military are going to detain all people who are now in the village
without exception. By the military's estimations, there are 100 to
150 militants remaining in the village. Special attention will be
paid to men who seem to have shaved off their beards recently,
Russian ORT TV reports.
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Moscow Region and Tambov Provide Humanitarian Aid for Chechnya
ITAR-TASS reports: Moscow Region is giving humanitarian aid to
Chechnya, but is not going to take the liberated districts of the
republic under its patronage yet. This the governor of the Moscow
Region Boris Gromov told the journalists. According to him,
humanitarian aid to Chechnya is being provided in large amounts,
consisting of item of clothes, foodstuffs, medical supplies, and it
is planned to send there building materials soon, too. "We are not
forgetting to give necessary aid to servicemen and militiamen who
were sent to Chechnya from our region", the governor said.
By the initiative of the governor of the Tambov Region Oleg Betin a
truck caravan carrying seeds arrived to the Nadterechny district of
Chechnya from Tambov. Oleg Betin solemnly donated the seeds of pea,
barley, oat and wheat to the local farmers.
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Russia's Government Allots Additional Money to Federal Migration
Service
The RF government decided to allot 200 million rubles from the
government's reserve fund to the Federal Migration Service in 2000.
This money will go to deploy and maintain provisional facilities for
living and giving meals to citizens who are in the places of
temporary settlement in the territories of Ingushetia and Chechnya.
The Department of Governmental Information told ITAR-TASS that it is
also planned to allot to the FMS 10 million rubles for organizing
meals for citizens who are in Chechnya and 12 million rubles for
dwelling facilities and meals for those in other regions of Russia
and paying for trips of those returning to their permanent residences
in 2000.
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Severny Airport to Be Open on April 2
There is no money allotted for restoring Grozny in the federal
program of restoring Chechnya yet. This was declared on Wednesday by
the plenipotentiary representative of RF government in Chechnya
Nikolay Koshman in his conversation with the journalists after the
vice-speaker of the Council of Federation met the heads of
administrations of the districts of the Chechen Republic controlled
by the federal forces. According to Mr. Koshman, "mine clearing is
now going on in Grozny, after which a governmental commission will
begin working there". The commission will have to evaluate the scale
of destruction in the Chechen capital resulting from the military
actions, "and only after that a decision on financing the restoration
works can be taken". Mr. Koshman also said that "from April 2 the
Severny airport will be open for flights from Grozny to Moscow and
the whole Russia". According to him, this airport is already
receiving planes, Gazeta.ru reports, referring to ITAR-TASS.
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Nature Ministry Will Clean Chechnya of Mineral Oil
ITAR-TASS reports that the Natural Resources Ministry of Russia (NRM)
together with the Emergencies Ministry and Defense Ministry prepared
and presented for the government's approval a draft plan of measures
on removing the sequels of pollution of the territory of Chechnya
with oil. This was reported on Wednesday by the deputy natural
resources minister Nikolay Pinchuk. According to him, there are
currently large centers of soil pollution with oil in the territory
of Chechnya, especially in the districts of Grozny and
Staro-Sunzhensky and Chernorechensky water intakes, caused by
destruction of oil depots and underground oil refineries by military
actions. According to the developed plan, the primary measures will
be directed on preventing oil from polluting the water of rivers of
Sunzha and Terek during the spring flood, which the weather
forecasters are waiting to begin on April 20. That would cause
"pollution of arable lands of Chechnya and Daghestan for many years".
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Situation at Chechen-Ingush Administrative Border
The situation at the border is controlled by federal troops units and
units of Interior Ministry of Ingushetia. Checkpoints are working as
usual from 9:00 to 14:00 at the Kavkaz highway, checking identities
and making personal inspections. Yesterday (March 15) 1,446 people
went through the Kavkaz-1 and Adler-20 blocking posts from Chechnya
to Ingushetia and 1,211 from Ingushetia to Chechnya, ITAR-TASS
reports.
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Chechen Refugees' Reaction for PACE Delegation Visit
Oleg Kusov of Radio Liberty reports from Ingushetia: "The visit of
PACE delegation, headed by Lord Judd, to Chechnya and Ingushetia
inspired the Chechens with hope for the soon end of military actions.
It is completely understandable that the Chechens are no more
believing Russian politicians. It seems that they only believe in the
support of influential European organizations. In one of the tent
camps in Ingushetia the Chechen refugees gave Lord Judd written
evidences of mass destruction of civilian population of Chechnya
during the military actions in the republic's territory. The refugees
consider that Moscow functionaries, who were accompanying Lord Judd
and his delegation, managed to hide the most tragic evidences of
destruction of civilians of Chechnya, and that means that his
conclusions may be incomplete. "There was a spectacle prepared for
the Lord. Beaten people were taken away and new brought, for showing
how they keep people in Chernokozovo", thinks Adam from Grozny.
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1,500 Soldiers Served an Extra Month in Chechnya
Lenta.ru referring to Interfax reports: about 1,500 called-up and
contracted soldiers who served in Chechnya were transferred to the
reserve with delay. Many of them served for a month longer than they
were to, reported the chief of Supervision Department of the Military
Prosecutor's Office of the Joint Group of Troops in the North
Caucasus lieutenant colonel of justice Vladimir Margasov. "For
understandable reasons, many commanders are trying to keep
experienced soldiers, knowing the smell of powder, for longer time
without replacing them with young ones", he said, explaining the
situation. But, according to Mr. Margasov, the Prosecutor's Office
restored the violated rights of the servicemen and is going to
suppress such situations in the future.
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Andrey Babitsky of Radio Liberty Appeals to General Prosecutor's
Office Asking to Institute Proceedings against 1st Deputy Interior
Minister of Russia Ivan Golubev.
Mr. Golubev openly said that he was responsible for the exchange of
the journalist for Russian servicemen. In his appeal Babitsky
describes the exchange as an "imitation" and demands to institute
criminal proceedings based on three articles: kidnapping, forcible
illegal imprisonment and exceeding one's authority. The Radio
Liberty's reporter is going also to appeal to the General
Prosecutor's Office with request to return videotapes and papers
confiscated from him.
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Plenipotentiary for Human Rights Terrified with Situation in Chechnya
The plenipotentiary for human rights in Russian Federation Oleg
Mironov told Radio Liberty: "We saw our servicemen without their arms
and legs in military hospital in Mozdok, with terrible wounds, but in
the refugees we saw a 9-years-old Chechen girl without her leg, and
nobody can make a prosthetic device for her, and a 65-years-old
Russian woman, whose husband was killed, she has three children on
her hands, and her arm was torn off with a bomb explosion�" Oleg
Mironov calls upon Russian and international observers not to limit
themselves with visiting only the ill-famed holdover in Chernokozovo:
"I grew up in the Caucasus, began working as investigator in
Zheleznovodsk, and I know very well that there are two holdovers - in
the cities of Pyatigorsk and Gerogievsk. It's necessary to go there,
to speak with people, because the situation in Chernokozovo is
rather fine now. Everyone has an own berth there. I usually visit a
cook-room - there is wonderful food, nice smells, six doctors - we
don"t have so many in our body. But those who are not to be shown
were, I"m sure, transferred to Pyatigorsk." The plenipotentiary for
human rights in Russian Federation described the prohibition for
Andrey Babitsky's going to Strasbourg for the PACE session as
"another mistake of low-ranking bureaucrats". Oleg Mironov recognized
that his views to the situation in Chechnya have much in common with
these of Lord Judd.
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Do International Norms Allow to Give the Floor to Chechen Leaders?
Interfax distributed the following report: "The RF Ministry for
Press, TV, Radio and Mass Communications will rate giving floor to
leaders of Chechen terrorists in Russian mass media as violation of
the law on combating terrorism." Radio Liberty's correspondent in
Paris Semen Mirsky contacted the authoritative international
organization "Reporters sans Frontiers" for revealing, if the Russian
authorities" decision corresponds with acting international norms and
practice of journalists covering wars and international conflicts.
The director of the European department of "Reporters sans Frontiers"
Alexander Levi answers the correspondent's questions:
"I can tell you at once, what exactly actions are denounced by the
Constitutions of all democratic states and practice of international
journalism: there are legal sanctions against appeals for violence,
hatred, those creating inter-racial and inter-ethnical hostility.
Mass media which become mouthpieces of the above mentioned appeals
for hatred, broadcasting them without providing a necessary
commentary, i. e. appearing with apologetics of appeals for hatred,
are being punished according to laws, existing in democratic
countries. This is the main issue, regulating the mass media's
behavior, ratified by the 10th paragraph of the European Convention�
When the matter is an armed conflict, the journalists - such is the
stand of the "Reporters sans Frontiers" - are to have possibility to
work on both sides, i. e. to cover the events from the viewpoints of
both the warring parties, to make hearable the voices of all the
antagonists, because if they don"t, the public will only possess one
viewpoint, a one-sided view on the developments� Violation of this
practice, i. e. practice of covering the conflict from both its
sides, makes military journalism, reports from the battlefields,
simply senseless."
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US Expert about Perspectives of Russian Presidential Election in
Chechnya
Strategic planning director of Eurasia Fund Fiona Hill told Radio
Liberty that she cannot imagine the possibility of holding
presidential election in Chechnya. She doesn"t think it to be
possible to hold free and honest election, corresponding to
international standards, during the war being in its full swing,
especially, when the population is so much scattered, most of it
being in refugee camps in Ingushetia, and nobody knows where the
others are - in Grozny, in some villages� Election doesn"t seem
possible to her. Mrs. Hill doesn"t know if the Chechens can take this
election seriously. It looks like absurd, if we pay regard to Russia
and Chechnya being actually in the state of an unheralded war. During
the previous war, in 1996, there were parliamentary and presidential
elections held there, too. Then the puppet government of Doku Zavgaev
existed in Chechnya, creating at least some semblance of a state
structure. Now even this doesn"t exist. But even then there were an
OSCE mission present at the elections, and OSCE concluded that the
elections were neither free nor hones, although 58 percent of Chechen
population did vote then. But, again, they were voting in refugee
camps, there were reports about servicemen taking part in the voting,
and much information about law violations.
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Reaction for Tony Blair's Visit to Russia in the UK
The public opinion and the mass media of the United Kingdom were
rather critical towards Tony Blair's visit to Russia. Daily Telegraph
notes that Blair's hastily organized visit two weeks before the
presidential election in Russia automatically became a support to
Putin for presidency. While other countries are trying to distance
themselves from Putin, the newspaper writes, Blair, criticizing
Russia's actions in Chechnya, had unwillingly to make a compromise.
One of the leaders of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party of
Great Britain, commenting on Blair's meeting with Putin, declared
that the British prime minister is giving help to a person who,
covering himself with combating terrorism in Chechnya, is violating
elementary civilized norms of behavior.
Sunday Telegraph writes that Blair's visit became a propagandistic
triumph for Putin, whom it calls Grozny's butcher. The newspaper
notes that Blair's visit did not force Russia to change its policy in
Chechnya, Radio Liberty reports.
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See "War and Human Rights" on the Web: www.hro.org/war
Information digest prepared by the Interregional Human Rights Network
Group and Ryazan Memorial Human Rights Society
Edited by Andrey Blinushov
Technical Editor - Julia Sereda
Translated by Oleg V. Martynov
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With use of information from: Radio Liberty, Radio Echo of Moscow,
Deutsche Welle, BBC, newspapers: Express-Chronicle, Le Monde,
ANP-RUSNET, Web-sites Lenta. ru, Russian DEADLINE, Kavkaz-center,
Gazeta. ru, Inopressa. ru, agencies: Associated Press, Interfax,
ITAR-TASS, Netherlands Press Agency, Agency of Social Information, RIA
Novosti, Reuters, Rosinformcenter, TV companies: NTV, ORT, RTR, CNN,
Amnesty International, Memorial Society, Human Rights Watch, Civic
Cooperation Society, Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers,
Glasnost Defense Foundation, own information.
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Sincerely,
ANDREI BLINUSHOV
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Karta/Memorial/Human Rigts Network,
Ryazan, Russia
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Stop war in Russia:
www.hro.org/war
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E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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