Wednesday, Mar. 12, 2003. Page 4 The Moscow Times

Refugees Feel Pressure Over Chechnya Vote

By Yuri Bagrov

The Associated Press KARABULAK, Ingushetia -- Chechen refugees in Ingushetia said Tuesday that authorities were using threats to pressure them into voting in a constitutional referendum that the Kremlin is touting as the key to peace in the region.

Refugees in the Bart tent camp, which is home to more than 5,000 people, said they were each given a form to sign Monday when they went to pick up their food aid. The form included a request to include them in voter lists and to provide transportation for them to a polling station in Chechnya on the day of the vote.

Camp resident Marietta Dadayeva said officials told refugees the camp would be closed if they did not sign. "I didn't want to sign the questionnaire, but all my fellow refugees urged me to sign it, saying there is no way out," said Dadayeva, a former Grozny teacher.

Ruslan Badalov, chairman of the pro-rebel Chechen Committee for National Salvation, said his organization had documented numerous instances of pressure over the voter forms. "People are actually being blackmailed," he said.

The Ingush branch of the human rights organization Memorial said it had received similar complaints.

In Moscow, officials who gathered to present a slick brochure on Chechnya for foreign media denied that refugees were being pressured. "I was in Ingushetia yesterday, and there was no such information," said Akhmed Kadyrov, the Moscow-appointed chief of Chechnya's administration.

Ella Pamfilova, head of President Vladimir Putin's human rights commission, said the information she had received from Memorial and other groups indicated the refugees were not being pressured. She said that handing out the forms along with humanitarian aid was a good way to ensure that all those who want to participate are allowed to.

Putin aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky said prosecutors would bring charges against any officials who do use pressure.

He said Chechens will most likely eagerly take part, predicting a turnout of about two-thirds.

About 30 people gathered for an anti-referendum protest outside refugee camps near the Ingush village of Sleptsovskaya. "No referendum at gunpoint," read a handwritten sign carried by the protesters.

The demonstration's organizers said 26 people were on a hunger strike and that they planned to hold daily rallies.

Yastrzhembsky said the brochure presented Tuesday was designed mostly for foreign news media. He said the 27-page booklet, published in six
languages, is meant to counter what the Kremlin says is misinformation about the conflict, which has raged since 1999.

The brochure gives the Kremlin's take on Chechen history, as well as on the latest war and reconstruction efforts, and is sprinkled with photographs of beautiful mountain landscapes, bombed-out buildings and everyday life in the region.