Human rights activists
set up staff for monitoring of resettlement
December 17th 2002 · Prague Watchdog / Timur Aliyev
Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus – A group of human rights activists in Ingushetia
in recent days set up a staff for monitoring of the liquidation of tent refugee
camps in Ingushetia and the repatriation of Chechen refugees.
The activists said that the new body’s objective is to hinder representatives
of federal authorities from carrying out illegal actions against displaced people
from Chechnya.
The staff was established within the framework of the International Committee
on Refugees, which includes many non-governmental organisations from Chechnya
and Russia that deal with the issues of displaced people.
The staff will be stationed in one of the camps and it will always have a lawyer
on duty as well as several activists from Russian human rights organisation
Memorial, the Chechen Committee for National Salvation (ChKNS), the Society
of the Russian-Chechen Friendship and other organisations.
“On Tuesday, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin gave his assurances to
the Moscow Helsinki Group chairwoman Lyudmila Alekseyeva in the Kremlin about
the purely voluntary nature of the repatriation of refugees from Ingushetia
to Chechnya. If illegal activities keep occurring in the camps irrespective
of these assurances, they can be explained only by the excessive eagerness of
local officials,” says Usam Baysayev of the Ingush branch of Memorial.
At the same time Pyotr Panasyuk, deputy director of the administration of the
Federal Migration Service of the Russian Interior Ministry, reckons the return
of refugees has been proceeding without violating any laws. “I and my
colleagues are merely helping people return back home – we secure cars
and provide food for them,” he says. “They leave the camps on their
own accord.”
According to data provided by the headquarters for the return of displaced people,
which are headed by Panasyuk, 98 people returned to Chechnya on December 12,
and altogether 1800 refugees left Ingushetia between November 21 and December
12.
“For the migration authorities the main thing is that the refugees leave
their camp,” says one of the founders of the staff, ChKNS chairman Ruslan
Badalov. “But they don’t care where the people go from there,”
he adds.
Panasyuk does not deny that the capacity of temporary accommodation centers
(TACs) is not sufficient at present. “At the moment, there is only one
[center] that is ready – for one thousand people,” he says.
“Eighty per cent of people in the tent camps would leave immediately if
there were TACs ready for them in Chechnya,” Panasyuk claims.
Neither can Panasyuk guarantee the safety of those who return to Chechnya. “In
case some soldier gets drunk and shoots... ,” he says without finishing
the sentence.
As for the human rights initiatives, Pyotr Panasyuk believes that “human
rights activists frighten the refugees by their actions.” “When
none of them is present at a camp, people are ready to leave. But as soon as
they appear, the refugees start to refuse to return,” he explains.
Panasyuk accuses human rights activists that “the presence of refugees
in the camps is profitable for them,” because “that’s what
they get money for.” “But at the same time they alone live in normal
houses; they cannot realise what it is like to live in tents,” he asserts.
In response, Chechen human rights activists decided they are ready to move into
tents if the migration authorities allocate some to them.
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