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Russia: Systematic 'Hazing' a Serious Abuse Officers' Corps and Government Fail to Act (Moscow, October 20, 2004)—Hundreds of thousands of new recruits face grossly abusive treatment at the hands of senior conscripts throughout their first year of service in the Russian armed forces, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The 86-page report, “The Wrongs of Passage: Inhuman and Degrading Treatment of New Recruits in the Russian Armed Forces,” documents the serious human rights abuses involved in dedovshchina, or “rule of the grandfathers,” which results in the deaths of dozens of conscripts every year, and serious—and often permanent—damage to the physical and mental health of thousands others. Hundreds of conscripts commit or attempt suicide each year, and thousands run away from their units. In the Russian army, older conscripts force new recruits to live in a year-long state of pointless servitude, punish them violently for any infractions of official or informal rules, and abuse them gratuitously - practices which clearly violate Russia’s military code of conduct. The officers’ corps and the Russian government have failed to take effective steps to stop these abuses. “Human Rights Watch’s research shows that hazing practices are entirely preventable,” said Diederik Lohman, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division and the author of the report. “It’s time for the Russian government to put a stop to this appalling practice.” The report is based on three years of research of the dedovshchina system in seven regions across Russia, including Cheliabinsk, Moscow, Novokuznetsk, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, and Volgograd, and interviews with more than one hundred conscripts, their parents, government officials, lawyers, experts from nongovernmental organizations, and former military servicemen. The conscripts served on more than 50 bases in more than 25 of Russia’s 89 provinces. The hazing system is fuelled by an endless cycle of vengeance, Lohman said. After suffering horrific abuses in their first year of service, second-year conscripts avenge themselves by inflicting the same outrages on the next generation of recruits, and so on. Throughout their first year, new recruits live under the constant threat of violence for failing to comply with second year conscripts’ arbitrary demands, ranging from polishing their boots to procuring food and alcohol. First year recruits spend much of their time complying with these demands, as any failure to do so routinely results in violent beatings or other physical punishment, usually carried out after officers have left the base. The vast majority of army officers either choose to ignore evidence of the abuses, or to encourage them because they see dedovshchina as an effective means of maintaining discipline in their ranks. In many units the existing prevention mechanisms in the Russian armed forces have been reduced to empty formalities. The fact that dedovshchina is rampant in some units and practically absent in others suggests that hazing abuses are preventable if officers exercise leadership to stop them. Some conscripts stated that the officers in units without dedovshchina sent a consistent and clear message to their troops that they would not tolerate abuses, maintained a certain closeness to their troops, meticulously implemented existing prevention mechanisms, and acted decisively on evidence of incipient abuse. Despite years of public awareness about dedovshchina and its consequences, the government has failed to take the appropriate steps to combat it. Instead of taking a clear and public stance against the abuses, government officials have largely ignored the issue in numerous speeches about military reform. The government has yet to adopt a clear and comprehensive strategy to deal with the abuses and establish a meaningful accountability process. “The government’s indifference toward hazing is startling,” said Lohman. “How can a country that is so concerned with its military strength ignore a practice that so clearly undermines it?” Horror stories about dedovshchina motivate tens of thousands of Russian parents every year to try to keep their sons out of the armed forces. As the most affluent and educated families do so most successfully, the armed forces increasingly draw recruits from poorer segments of the population, and many new recruits suffer from malnutrition, ill-health, alcohol or drug addiction, or other social ills before their conscription. During their service, conscripts face physical and mental abuse and receive poor nourishment and medical care that lead to low morale. Human Rights Watch called on the Russian government to create a task force to design and implement a comprehensive strategy for combating dedovshchina abuses. It also called for the creation of a special ombudsman for military servicemen under Russia’s general ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin. For the complete report see: http://hrw.org/reports/2004/russia1004/ Thursday, October 21, 2004. Page 3.The Moscow Times Inquiry Urged Into Soldiers' Mothers By Simon Saradzhyan Staff Writer State Duma Deputy Viktor Alksnis accused the respected Union of Soldiers' Mothers Committees on Wednesday of being "a foreign agent" seeking to undermine the defense capability of the armed forces and said he will demand a federal investigation. "They are fulfilling political orders from Western countries. ... Maybe they should register as agents of a foreign state," Alksnis, a member of the nationalist Rodina party, said by telephone. The union's chairwoman, Valentina Melnikova, denied Alksnis' accusations. Soldiers' Mothers assists young men who do not want to serve in the military or conscripts who have fled to escape hazing. The union oversees a network of regional nongovernmental organizations that have provided legal advice and other assistance to conscripts for 13 years. Alksnis, a retired Air Force officer, suggested that foreign donors are pressing the union to encourage draft-dodging and desertions, and said that he will soon send a letter to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Justice Ministry asking that they open an inquiry. Alksnis also accused the union of violating a law on political parties that bans them from accepting foreign donations. The union is helping form a political party called the United People's Party of Soldiers' Mothers, and the party's organizing committee has filed registration papers with the Justice Ministry, Melnikova said. The party plans to hold a founding congress in November. Melnikova said, however, that the nascent party has not and will not accept foreign contributions. She added that the party will "have nothing to do" with the union. She said the union serves as an umbrella organization for Soldiers' Mothers committees in the regions, as well as for informal branch offices that are not officially registered. In total, 3,000 activists are involved in the organization, and all of them work as unpaid volunteers, Melnikova said. Melnikova said the European Commission awarded a 40,000 euro ($50,100) grant to one regional committee last year and another received a similar grant from the European Commission this year. She refused to say how much money the committees have received this year from Russian and foreign sources. Alksnis said he will ask that prosecutors and Justice Ministry officials check the organization's books to see whether all grants are reported and whether "thousands of their so-called public activists" do indeed work as unpaid volunteers. While initially focusing on conscripts, the Soldiers' Mothers union has gradually started to weigh in on political issues. Its most recent initiative was to urge Chechen rebels to enter peace talks with Moscow. The rebels' envoy in London, Akhmed Zakayev, said Wednesday that he is accepting the offer. Melnikova said the Union of Soldiers' Mothers Committees will now prepare for a meeting with rebel representatives. Duma to Investigate Soldiers' Mothers for Undermining Russian Army Created: 20.10.2004 14:45 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:20 MSK, MosNews The State Duma plans this week to start an investigation into the financing of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers, an organization that helps conscripts get through Russia's legal system and fights for their rights, after a member of the committee was charged for accepting bribes. Duma deputies say the committee is being financed by organizations seeking to undermine the Russian Army. A deputy from the patriotic Motherland party, Viktor Alksnis, was behind the initiative, and accused the human rights group of "anti- army activity, helping citizens get away from military service," the Novye Izvestia reported. Alksnis alleges the committee gets $15 million a year in grants from international sources. In an interview with the independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, Alksnis said the committee was being financed by people seeking to undermine the nation's defense capabilities. He added he was worried about "who finances the organization," noting that in strength and membership the committee is as big as the pro- Kremlin United Russia party. "Whoever pays for a girl's dinner dances with her," Ekho Moskvy quoted him as saying. The committee, meanwhile, denies the charges, saying that the earnings of all of Russia's rights groups combined don't reach $15 million. Only two branches of the committee received $40,000 each from international organizations this year, Novye Izvestia quoted chairwoman Valentina Melnikova as saying. She added that her organization's activities mostly involve publicizing and documenting crimes in the army. Crime and suicide are rife in Russia's conscript service, where every male between 18 and 27 must serve for two years. The Russian Army is said to be suffering from low moral as a result of these problems and poor financing. President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, caused a stir earlier this year when he blasted Russia's human rights groups for garnering millions of dollars from what he called questionable organizations abroad. 25,000 Russian troops died in wars From correspondents in Moscow October 21, 2004 SOME 25,000 Russian troops have died in the two wars Moscow has waged on Chechen separatists in the past decade, the chief of a respected watchdog groups said today in an estimate more than double the official figures. "In 10 years of war, Russian federal forces have lost 25,000 soldiers, officers and interior ministry staff in Chechnya, who were killed, died of their wounds or committed suicide in relation to the war," Valentina Melnikova, the head of Russia's Soldiers' Mothers Committee, told Moscow Echo radio. "The loss of the Chechen people can be measured in tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dead, in ruined lives, in the destruction that rules on the Chechen territory," she said. Statistics on the two wars that Russia has fought with Chechen separatists - first in 1994-96 and from October 1999 to the present - are sketchy and vary according to the source. The military says that about 10,000 troops have been killed as a result of the conflicts, a figure that is disputed by rights groups. Rights groups have estimated that tens of thousands of civilians and an unknown number of rebels have died as a result of the two wars. (snip) AFP Relatives of Missing People Storm Government Office in Russian Caucasus Republic Created: 21.10.2004 17:42 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:44 MSK, MosNews The relatives of missing people in the Russian Caucasus republic of Karachai Cherkessia have stormed the government residence. According to reports, they burst into the office of the president, Mustafa Batdyev, who was not in the building at the time, the Regnum web agency reported. The group that raided the building consists of relatives of seven people who went missing in the republic over a week ago. The republican authorities reported the incident only after deputy premier, Ansar Tebuyev, was killed. There were reports that the relatives had demanded Batdyev's resignation. However, the republic's state media have refuted this claim. The head of the presidential information directorate, Fatima Chikunova, was quoted by the agency as saying six people had already been detained in connection with the disappearances. She did not confirm that anyone had stormed the president's office. The missing people as well as the detainees were guards at a country house of Batdyev's relative, Ali Kaitov. Earlier, the relatives of the people missing held a rally in the center of the republican capital, Cherkessk. They spoke of Kaitov's involvement in the kidnappings, Ekho Moskvy radio reported. Parliament probe in kidnapping begins in Karachai-Cherkessia 21.10.2004, 13.22 CHERKESSK, October 21 (Itar-Tass) -- A group of deputies of the Karachai-Cherkess People's Assembly began Thursday the parliamentary investigation of the kidnapping of seven young men that remains unexposed. Relatives of those kidnapped insisted on the involvement of deputies in the investigation of the crime that stirred up the republic. According to relatives, " law enforcement agencies do not take proper coordinated actions in the investigation." Deputy of the People's Assembly Rasul Bogatyrev, young businessmen are among those kidnapped. Chairman of the legislation committee of the People's Assembly Uali Yevgamukov is appointed the head of the group of deputies that got involved in the investigation. He believes that there are no sound reasons for laying the blame on not quite coordinated actions of law enforcement agencies in the investigation of the case on disappearing several residents. Highly qualified investigators of the prosecutor's office, the republic's Federal Security Service department and the republic's Interior Ministry are involved in the investigation. However the problem of exposing crimes in the republic exists. More than 500 people got lost for the last five years. Chechens now Europe's largest refugee group Chechen refugees now constitute the largest national group seeking asylum in the European Union, according to an October 15 report in the Irish Times-far outstripping those fleeing wars in more populous places such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. Most of these Chechens, wrote Irish Times correspondent Dan McLaughlin, "acquire a fake passport in their Caucasus homeland, bribe their way north through military checkpoints, cross Russia's unguarded border with Belarus and turn up at the Polish frontier-which since May 1st marks the eastern edge of the EU." Of the nearly 7,000 people who claimed asylum in Poland last year, some 5,345 were Chechens. Meanwhile, the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights last week began considering six cases brought by Chechen civilians accusing Russia of war crimes. In the first case, plaintiffs Magomed Khashiyev and Roza Akayeva are seeking compensation for the torture and death of relatives during federal zachistki security sweeps in the year 2000. Another case will seek damages for lives and property lost when Russia warplanes strafed refugees fleeing toward Ingushetia in 1999. The first hearing, on October 17, took more than two hours. Court officials told the Associated Press that a ruling is likely only after several months. On October 13, the Memorial human rights center released its estimate that some 278 people have been kidnapped in Chechnya since the beginning of 2004. Of these, some 106 have been freed, Memorial spokesman Dmitri Grushin told the Interfax news agency. Another 20, he said, have been found dead, with 122 still missing. Oct 20 2004 4:18PM Second trial of policemen accused of civilian deaths opened in Chechnya ROSTOV-ON-DON. Oct 20 (Interfax-South) - The North Caucasus District Military Court on Wednesday started preliminary hearings in the second trial of four police officers under Eduard Ulman's command, accused of shooting six civilians in Chechnya on January 11. The accused Ulman, Alexei Perelevsky, Alexander Kalagansky and Vladimir Voyevodin are attending the hearings. The victims are represented by their relatives. Ulman told the press before the hearings that after the first trial ended and the four defendants were acquitted and freed from custody, all of them continued their service. October 20th 2004 · Prague Watchdog Three years on and Khanty-Mansiysk abduction case continues Ruslan Isayev, North Caucasus – The court case concerning the abduction of Grozny resident, Zelimkhan Murdalov, by members of the OMON [special police forces] deployed to Chechnya from the Russian town of Khanty-Mansiysk has continued now for three years, with another session held in Grozny on October 18. The accused is Sergei Lapin, a member of the Khanty-Mansiysk OMON unit stationed in Chechnya. His colleagues say that it was he who was responsible for the “disappearance” of Murdalov, who has not been seen since his arrest. Zelimkhan’s father, Astemir Murdalov, was present at the hearing. The prosecution was interested in the fact that Sergei Lapin remains a member of the police force in Khanty-Mansiysk even though he has been implicated in an abduction case and had to pledge not to leave Russia. In addition, Lapin arrives at the hearing accompanied by armored personnel carriers and colleagues from the OMON, who surround the court building, all of which, says the prosecution, affects their representatives and the members of the court. After brief discussions, the case was adjourned. Even though Astemir Murdalov asked for only a few days for his lawyer to arrive, the next session will be in a month’s time, on November 17.