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Authorities will not speed up resettlement from tent camps Ingush authorities will not speed up the process of Chechen refugees' resettlement from tent camps, President of Ingushetia Murat Zyazikov said at a press conference in the office of Interfax agency on January 21. "There are no deadlines. No special measures will be taken for it," said the Ingush President. He added that the federal authorities and the leadership of Ingushetia and Chechnya would jointly solve the problem of displaced persons who stay on the Ingush territory. "With all this going on, forced return is out of the question," noted Mr Zyazikov. He visited the UN headquarters in Geneva on January 18-20 and met with the heads of UN agencies working in the North Caucasus. Source: Ingushetia.ru
Website Over the past few days power was being shut off on a regular basis inBart refugee camp in the city of Karabulak, Ingushetia. The forcedsettlers say that electricity is turned on only several hours a day.People spend the rest of the time with no light. Residents of that temporary placement facility are also complainingabout the worsening living conditions in the camp. Bart refugee camp hashad no water for the past few months, and the forced settlers claim thatthe water brought by special trucks is too dirty and not drinkable.People have to ask locals living near the refugee camp for water andcarry it from hundreds of yards away, - Council of Non-GovernmentalOrganizations reported. Kavkaz Center News 2004-01-24
Settlements of Vedeno and Shali districts are shelled On January 20, 2004 at about 7.40 pm a number of settlements in Shali and Vedeno districts of the Chechen Republic were shelled by federal units, including Avtury, Benoy, Makhkety, Khattuni, Dargo, Teskaly villages. People living in these settlements had to spend the disturbed night in basements of their houses. The forested and mountainous area in the area of Serzhen-Yurt village was also shelled at about 8 pm the same day. Victims among the civil population haven't been reported. On January 20, 2004 at about 7 pm several settlements in the territory of Shali district, the Chechen Republic, were exposed to a missile strike. According to the local people, a military helicopter fired three missiles at the village. The first missile hit a transformer unit of the New settlement that is situated within the precincts of Shali town. The second one fell down at the outskirts of Guermenchuk village. The third blew up between Shali town and Avtury village. Several households were damaged in Shali as a result of the air strike. The transformer unit was completely destroyed. The family of Alkhasur Patchakhoevich Taysaev (born 1958) suffered the most. Eight people live in his house, including his two sons - Zelimkhan (born 1980) and Vakha (born in 1982). The latter lives there with his own family, including one-year-old son. Alkhasur's wife, Malkan Taysaeva (born 1959) was taken to hospital in the unconscious state on the suspicion on the myocardial infarction. Malkan had had two of them before. She was taken home today as it is freezing cold in the hospital. The building isn't heated. Alkhasur Taysaev experienced a nervous shock that worsened the state of his health. The necessary medical assistance was rendered to him. The Taysaevs' house needs repairing. The Taysaevs' neighbor, Dovtkhadjiev Movldy, also had a heart attack. The necessary medical assistance was rendered to him too. The house belonging to Tashukhadjiev Sar-Ali Lomaevich (born 1963) was also damaged. All the window panes were smashed; the roofing was completely destroyed as a result of the air strike. But the transformer unit was completely destroyed as a result of the direct hit of a missile. It lost the local population electricity. It is important to mention the fact that the transformer unit was bought by people living there. [23.01.2004 12:50] The Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship Refugees protest against camp closure Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus – On January 22 about two hundred refugeesfrom the Satsita tent camp rallied in protest against the closure ofrefugee camps in Ingushetia scheduled for March 1. They held bannerssaying “Welcome to the Warsaw Ghetto” and “Stop Arbitrary Rule.” The main reason for their unwillingness to return to Chechnya is stilllack of security guarantees. “If [Moscow-backed Chechen leader] Kadyrovsays he cannot provide security guarantees for us or for himself in therepublic, we’d like to invite him here. We are able to guarantee himsafety,“ said one of the protesters. The news of a recent tragedy on the Rostov-Baku road caused greatconcern. An armored personnel carrier opened fire on a car, killing awoman and injuring three Chechen policemen that were inside. Members of Chechen
human rights organizations, who also took part in theprotest, spoke
up in support of the refugees. The chairman of theChechen National Salvation
Committee, Ruslan Badalov, told them, “No onehas the right to
evict you on March 1 or any other time – either underRussian or
international law. The situation in Berkat-Yurt village As the Information Center at the Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship reported yesterday, Imran Ezhiev, the chairperson of Chechen and Ingush branch of the Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship and a group of members of the SRCF met with residents of Berkat-Yurt village on January 20, 2004. The meeting people living in the village and representatives of the human rights organization took place because of the violent acts of Russian servicemen. They regularly shell the outskirts of the village, attack the residents of the village and abduct them. According to the local people, the shells often hit "targets" within the precincts of the village. It causes stresses, heart attacks and untimely deaths. The village was shelled on January 19 for the last time. On January 10, 2004 a group of Russian servicemen arrived at the village in APCs and abducted Khasan Chalaev, a Chechen policeman (there was a wrong date in our release No. 606 from January 20, 2004). After the election to the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, that took place on December 5, 2004, Russian servicemen shell the outskirts of the village from heavy artillery almost every day. Shelling becomes very intense between 3 and 4 am. According to the local population, six people have died of heart attacks caused by night shelling for the last month. After the shelling of January 19 Kharima Baytalaeva (born in 1952) Is-Khadjy Chalaev (aged 88) had heart attacks. Kharima Baytalaeva's case was diagnosed as the preinfarction angina. Both of them are being treated at home and their doctors consider their conditions poor. Chalaev's condition is aggravated by the fact that he was beaten up by Russian servicemen not long ago and experienced a psychological stress caused by the abduction of his son. On January 10, 2004 at about 2 am representatives of federal forces arrived at Barkat-Yurt in four APCs, smashed fences and gates with their vehicles, robbed houses of several of the local residents, misappropriated their belongings, and abducted a serviceman of the Chechen police. The abduction might have been committed to hold this person for ransom. A group of Russian servicemen smashed the gate, burst into the territory of the household, where a twenty-five-year-old serviceman of the pro-Moscow Chechen police Khasan Chalaev with his relatives. The policeman's father, Is-Khadjy Chalaev by name, made an attempt to bring the bandits to their senses but they beat him with gun butts. They tied Khasan Chalaev and forced him into one of the APCs. Besides, the military "searched" the house. They loaded the Chalaevs' belongings to the APCs. They turned the owners of the house out together with Khasan Chalaev's three-month-old baby. The military were "kind" enough to throw its mother a blanket so that she could protect her baby from cold. Khasan Chalaev's relatives have got no information from official structures about his fate and whereabouts up to now. But through unofficial channels they learnt that the abducted man could be kept in the territory of the main military base of the federal forces that is situated in Khankala settlement not far from Grozmy. His relatives hope that they will manage to free him for ransom and so they are not appealing officially to any human right organizations. The same night Nurzhy Turchaeva's (aged 65) was also robbed by the military. They threatened the woman with weapons and robbed her from her belongings. After that she felt bad and her case was diagnosed as a stroke. Residents of Petropavlovskaya settlement that is situated five kilometers away from Berkat-Yurt also complain that the outskirts of their village have been shelled too. Such shelling causes aggravation of heart diseases just as in Berkat-Yurt. At night of January 19, 2004 it was shelled for the next time. Baytaev Akhmed (aged 81) fell ill with the heart attack. [22.01.2004 18:11] The Chechen Times
Murder and abductions in Chechnya CHECHNYA, Grozny. 19 January in the town of Achkhoi-Martan, members ofsecurity forces killed two local residents. A day before, Russianservicemen had abducted two young men in Grozny. NGOs’ Council information centre states that according to Achkhoi-Martanresidents, the masked military broke into a private residence and shotto death two young men aged about 25-30. There is information that oneof the victims was a former member of the Resistance who had beengranted amnesty. 18 January in Leninskiy District of Grozny members of Russian securityforces abducted two young men. According to the information receivedfrom the locals, both men were about 25-30 years of age. PRIMA News Agency [2004-01-20]
Chechnya: can the Council deny that Voloshin, Basev, and Surikov met together in the territory of the Uniono in July 1999? Brussels, 21 January 2004. According to a study by John B. Dunlop, a specialist in Russian affairs, published on 8 January 2004 in RFE/RL, a number of Russian journalists and political analysts have expressed their belief that Shamil Basaev, head of the extremist and terrorist wing of the Chechen resistance, and Anton Surikov, an agent of the GRU, the secret services of the Russian armed forces, met together once again some years after their frequent meetings at the time when Basaev was Deputy Minister of Defence in the government of the Abkhaz separatists. At this meeting, which took place in the south of France in July 1999 at the estate of a Saudi international arms dealer, they were in the company of the chief of the Russian presidential administration, Aleksandr Voloshin, in order to seal an agreement which led to Basaev's invasion of Daghestan the following month, and immediately afterwards to the reoccupation of Chechnya by the Russian armed forces. During the summer of 2000, after the newspaper "Versiya" published an article about the alleged meeting complete with a group photograph of Voloshin, Basaev and Surikov, the paper approached Surikov and he "rather severely" told its correspondents to leave him alone. However, Surikov did not deny that the meeting took place. Question from Olivier Dupuis, Member of the European Parliament, Radical, to the Council: "Can the Council deny that in July 1999 a meeting took place in southern France, in other words in the territory of the European Union, between Voloshin, at that time chief of the Russian presidential administration, Basaev and Surikov?" You can sign the Appeal in support of the Peace Plan in favour of the establishment of an interim United Nations administration in Chechnya at: www.radicalparty.org ===== Olivier Dupuis Member of the European Parliament http://www.radicalparty.org/ tel. +32 2 284 7198 fax +32 2 284 9198
eng.kavkaz.memo.ru 23/1/2004 Journalists and human rights activists on Abdul-Khakim Sultygov's dismissal as Russian president's human rights representative in Chechnya Abdul-Khakim Sultygov's dismissal as Russian president's human rights representative in Chechnya "has nothing to do with protection of human rights and freedoms in Chechnya", said Anna Politkovskaya, a Novaya Gazeta correspondent. She thinks, "Sultygov has never devoted himself to human rights, he just had a post with such a name. He himself and his office have been engaged only in politics." "The situation in Chechnya will depend neither on Sultygov's dismissal nor Kadyrov's words in Moscow," Ms Politkovskaya added. "It will depend on when the troops are withdrawn and the interim administration with international representatives, who will put an end to military high-handedness, is established." Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation Oleg Mironov agrees to such a point of view. "There must be a system of measures to normalize the human rights situation. All structures must act in this direction," he said. In Mr Mironov's opinion, the main problem in Chechnya is a "problem of providing security", and "this is beyond the competence of the human rights representative, it is in the competence of special services." Abdul-Khakim Sultygov's work in Chechnya has been "a kind of screen to draw off criticism," therefore "no one cries about his dismissal," said human rights defender Sergey Kovalyov. Aleksandr Cherkasov, a board member of the Memorial human rights organization, holds that the local government will not cope with the extraordinary human rights situation developed in Chechnya. "A state of emergency, which de facto takes place, should have been introduced in Chechnya long ago," Mr Cherkasov said. "But it would imply the introduction of limiting procedures for security agencies, and they prefer to be fully uncontrollable." At the same Aleksandr Cherkasov noted, "The fact that the office of the human rights representative in Chechnya has been removed changes nothing, as Abdul-Khakim Sultygov has done nothing notable for a year and a half of his work." The opposite view was given by head of the information and analytical department of Chechnya's permanent representation in Moscow Edi Isayev. He believes the president of the republic and his administration are those who should be responsible for security and human rights in Chechnya. Mr Isayev also said there was "nothing awful" in Abdul-Khakim Sultygov's dismissal. Source: Radio "Echo of Moscow" |