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IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 220, February 26, 2004. CAUCASUS NEWS UPDATE February 26 RUSSIA "FORCING" CAMP CLOSURES Chechen refugees in Ingushetia's tent camps are coming under intense pressure go home. By Umalt Dudayev in Bart camp, Ingushetia Russia "forcing" camp closures Chechen refugees in Ingushetia's tent camps are coming under intense pressure go home. By Umalt Dudayev in Bart camp, Ingushetia Ingushetia's refugee camps are disappearing. The long rows of tents that used to be pressed up against one another have thinned. Now dark spots and big empty spaces on the raw ground are reminders that the place was home to displaced Chechens for more than four years. With the gradual closure of Satsita, Sputnik and Bart camps, Moscow still seems to be set on the declared target of shutting down all Ingushetia's makeshift refugee centres by March 1 - despite repeated statements of concern from the United Nations and rights groups that the internally displaced persons are being intimidated into leaving. In the early morning of February 21, the Chechen Datsayev family in the Bart camp in the Ingush town of Karabulak were hard at work, packing up their humble belongings, wrapping blankets and mattresses in bundles and its pots and pans and other household goods in cardboard boxes. Like many other families from the camp, they had decided to head back to Chechnya - but with great trepidation. The Datsayevs have three daughters, the eldest of whom has just turned 13-years-old. The parents said it was because of their safety and health that they had spent four long years in this tent camp. "As soon as the first bombing of Grozny began in the autumn of 1999 I immediately took the children and left for Ingushetia," said 39-year-old Larisa Datsayeva. "My husband stayed in Grozny, to protect the house from looters and robbers. He did manage to save it from bandits, but not from the Russian artillery. Our house was completely destroyed by shelling and now we have nowhere to live. "At first it was very hard. With three children, the youngest of whom was seriously ill, I lived with some friends of friends and then got a place in this tent camp. Then it got a bit easier, although we had no gas for several days in the winter and they turned off the water or the power sometimes. We had all kinds of problems." Datsayeva said they had been promised a "box house" and compensation for returning to Chechnya - but they are still very anxious about going back. However, after the authorities told them that the Bart camp would be closed on March 1, they felt they had little choice in the matter. Ramzan Datsayev, the head of the family, explained, "Everyone from the president right down to the last bureaucrat in Ingushetia's migration service constantly tells us that there will be no forced return of Chechen refugees to the homeland, but in actual fact it's not like that at all. "Forced migrants are being threatened, blackmailed and such unbearable conditions are being created that they are basically being forced to leave." Of 318 tents put up in Bart camp at the start of the second Chechen conflict in 1999, only a few dozen remain, housing little more than 100 families. Many of these will try to be re-housed in Ingushetia rather than go back to Chechnya. Estimates differ as to the number of displaced still in the region. The Ingush authorities say there are still some 45,000 Chechen refugees in Ingushetia, local human rights groups claim the true figure is double that, while international agencies put the number at around 67,000. The majority live in makeshift temporary accommodation, with only a few thousand left in tents. One Ingush official told IWPR that were now only 3,540 Chechens living in tents and that many were returning home voluntarily. This compares with figures of more than 300,000 people who left Chechnya four years ago. The authorities say the refugeess have simply had enough of living in tents. "For some reason people are always talking about pressure and threats," said Zelimkhan Bokov, deputy head of Bart camp. "But put yourself in the place of those refugees who have been living under canvas for more than four years. They are simply tired. No one is expelling them. "In our camp there are around 60 families who have said they want to stay on the territory of Ingushetia and have put in applications for panelled houses, and we are solving this problem. But the majority of the refugees are determined to go home." But Usam Baisayev of the human rights organisation Memorial said the refugees were being pressured to go back before a date - March 1 - that had been arbitrarily decided in Moscow. "Practically every day refugees come to us complaining about the brutal behaviour of security officials from different agencies," he claimed. "The March 1 date is no coincidence. The authorities are determined to liquidate all the tent camps by March 14, the date of the upcoming Russian presidential election. The issue of Chechen refugees has stopped being a social problem and become a political one." The non-returnees give various reasons for not wanting to go back - there is no accommodation fit for them to return to; there is no work in Chechnya, which has 176,000 unemployed, and above all they are worried about security. "In my view the right conditions still have to be created for people," said Adlan Daudov, head of the Public Council of Refugees. "I'm not talking about temporary resettlement units or humanitarian aid or compensation and all those things the bureaucrats talk about. People need to be provided with security and given work so they can feed their families and then many questions will fall away by themselves. Refugees don't need to be persuaded to return home. They want to do it themselves, without being forced to." Ella Pamfilova, Russia's outgoing presidential human rights commissioner, visited the camps earlier this month and reported that many refugees were now willing to go home. But she said that many displaced were also still receiving threats which compelled them to go back to Chechnya. Jan Egeland, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, also delivered a mixed message earlier this month after visiting Chechnya. Egeland said "the suffering was by no means over" in Chechnya and that 2004 would be a "decisive year". He said he had received assurances that all return of refugees to Chechnya would be voluntary and that the March 1 deadline no longer applied. He also pointed out a much-overlooked problem - that there are still some 200,000 displaced people inside Chechnya itself, and described conditions inside one temporary accommodation centre there as "overcrowded and insecure". Umalt Dudayev is the pseudonym of a Chechen journalist. «Satsita» will be liquidated by force On February 24, 2004, refugees living in "Satsita" camp (Sunzha districtof Ingishetia, the vicinity of Ordjonikidzevskaya settlement) noticed anannouncement saying that the camp settlement «is closed» and that allits residents would have to leave it by March 1. The announcement wassigned the camp administration. The commandant of this site of compactrefugee settlement Khasan Khunkuev told a reporter of the InformationCenter at the Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship that he wasn’trelated to that announcement. He also said that the announcement hadbeen put by representatives of the Chechen Committee on Refugees that isa structure of the pro-Moscow government of the Chechen Republic thathas its representative office in Ingushetia. Today the leader of the Chechen-Ingush branch of the SRCF Imran Ezhievhad visited «Satsita» camp before the announcement appeared there. Hisvisit was caused by the closure of the local school where 500 forcedmigrants’ children had studied (see our release No660 from February 23,2004). To find out the details of what happened, Imran Ezhiev asked theteaching staff of the school, the camp commandant and residents of thecamp to comment on the situation. According to the teachers, the order to close the school was taken bythe Ingush authorities the day before. It is connected with their desireto make all refugees living in "Satsita" return to Chechnya. The campcommandant Khasan Khunkuev confirmed this information. Then Imran Exhievmet with the members of Refugees’ Council who told him that less thanone fifth of "Satsita" residents were going to return to their homeland.Thus, in the light of all these events refugees regard the closure ofthe local school as one more form of pressure aimed at pushing forcedmigrants back to Chechnya. The Information Center learnt from its source in the Ministry ofInternal Affairs of the Chechen Republic that there was a meeting of thecamp commandant Khasan Khunkuev with the deputy minister of internalaffairs Mr. Tepsuev. Tepsuev informed Khunkuev that a force operationwould be held in "Satsita" on February 25, 2004 in order to liquidatethe camp and to make refugees return to their homeland. The commandantstated that he refused plainly to participate in such an action.
February 20, 2004 at 4 PM people who happened to be near the BaltorgMarket, not too far from the intersection of the Rostov-Baku andNazran-Ekazhevo highways, got frightened when they heard the burst of anexplosion that rent the air and was followed by fierce assault-rifleshooting. The people who arrived at the scene saw military vehicles andRussian invaders on the premises of the Baltorg Market, and a body of ayoung man ripped by the blast was lying nearby. When the office of Chechen Committee for National Rescue (CCNR) receivedthe information, CCNR representatives and employees of the Memorialhuman rights watchdog organization headed for the scene of the incidentimmediately. After arriving at the scene and questioning theeyewitnesses, the human rights activists put together the entire pictureof the events in detail. A young man, b. 1984, local of the village of Alkhan-Yurt, gave a rideto his friend (names and other details currently being established) on aRussian-made VAZ-2107 car to a supermarket in Nazran, Ingushetia. Afterdropping his friend off at the supermarket, the driver headed for thehighway. The young man who got out of the car only took a few steps before he washit by a burst of fire from assault rifles. The man was shot by theRussian invaders who were shadowing the car. The young man died on thespot from sustaining serious wounds. After shooting the person, Russian invaders jumped in their cars andrushed for the VAZ-2107 that was already driving off. They caught upwith it at the Baltorg Market at the entrance into the village ofEkazhevo and opened fire. The driver jumped out of the car and ran intothe market’s premises, trying to evade the murderers. In haste he didnot know where he was running and ended up in a dead end, where theinvaders caught up with him. Then the eyewitnesses told that a blast was heard coming from the deadend, where the guy was, after which the aggressors started shootingthere. After making sure that the young man was dead, the invadersstopped shooting. The body of the young man was ripped by the explosion. After murdering the second person, the aggressors disappeared from thescene of the crime that they committed. All sorts of power structures ofthe Republic of Ingushetia arrived at the scene later on. The lawenforcement conducted appropriate actions, after which they took thedead bodies. The eyewitnesses spotted the region number 15 on the license plates ofthe UAZ jeeps belonging to the Russian invaders. Chechen refugees andhuman rights activists believe that people with Chechen ethnicbackground get systematically shot on the territory of Ingushetia. Itwas one of many of such cases happening on the territory of Ingushetiafor the past two years, - CCNR Press Service reported. Kavkaz-Center 2004-02-23 27.2.2004
CHECHNYA. Several days ago in the village of Ghekhy, Urus-MartanovDistrict, Russian forces seized a young girl and took her away to anunknown destination. Nothing more is known of the incident except forthe girl’s name: Madina. On 24 February during a zachistka, or “clean-upoperation” in the village of Goyti, also in the Urus-Martanov District,Russian forces arrested and removed two local residents. According tothe information available, they were charged with taking part inmilitary actions against the federal powers. The Council of Chechen NGOs reports that on the night of 23 February aresident of the village of Alkhan-Kala, Grozny District was kidnapped.Local residents said that Russian soldiers arrived in the village inseveral unmarked UAZ cars. They entered a house on the village outskirtsand without producing any sort of charges took the young man, about 24years old, away with them. His relatives are trying to establish hiswhereabouts and his fate. The reason behind the arrest is not known. Translated from the Russian by Sue-Ann HardingPRIMA News Agency [2004-02-25-Chech-12] 27.2.2004
GEORGIA, Tbilisi. (Own correspondent). Aslanbek Abdurzakov, Chechenhuman rights campaigner and head of the Chechen International Committeefor the Protection of Human Rights, is calling “strange” the informationbeing spread in the Russian media about the arrest, allegedly onWednesday on the Georgian-Russian border, of two Chechens whodisappeared recently in Tbilisi under mysterious circumstances. According to the information in the Russian media attributed to theRussian Federal General Prosecutor Administration for the NorthCaucasus, Hussein Alkhanov and Rustam Elikhadzhiyev, released on 6February this year by the Tbilisi Regional Court, were arrested byRussian federal security forces on the Georgian-Russian border near theVerkhny Lars KPP (Federal Control Post) “It’s just doesn’t make sense how and why they should turn up there,”Aslanbek Abdurzakov told journalists on Thursday. He was unable tocomment on the fact that instead of Bekkhana Mulkoyev, one of theChechens who went missing in Tbilisi, another person, RustamElikhadzhiyev, had appeared. Relatives of the original two Chechens have been holding protests inTbilisi over several days, confirming that the Chechens, freed by theTbilisi Regional Court, were in fact missing. Their lawyers suspect thatGeorgian special forces deported the Chechens to the Russian side of theborder. Translated from the Russian by Sue-Ann Harding
Returning Refugees Abandoned to the Mercy of Fate CHECHNYA, Grozny. Having left the Satsita tent city in Ingushetia the previous day, a group of Chechen refugee families effectively found themselves out on the street. The Aslakhanov, Murtazov, Basayev, Batayev, Dukayev and Shakayev families returned to Chechnya after being promised accommodation at the temporary accommodation station (PVR) in Grozny at 23 Ippodromnaya Street. The information centre of the Council of NGOs (SNO), reports that when the families arrived at the appointed PVR, it turned out that all the places were taken and there was simply nowhere for the new arrivals to stay. The families spent the night on the street. They have already telephoned the Satsita camp and warned tent city residents not to believe the promises of the authorities and repeat their mistake. According to general opinion, officials are doing all they can in order to return all refugees to Chechnya by 1 March, in spite of the lack of accommodation places. Translated by Sue-Ann Harding PRIMA News Agency [2004-02-26-Chech-03] Eight thousand Chechen retirees unable to receive proper pensions Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus – Nearly 8,000 retirees in Chechnya areunable to receive retirement benefits for which they are eligible,announced Bogdan Istamulov, deputy director of the Pension Fund of theRussian Federation for Chechnya. According to him, this has been caused by the absence of necessarydocumentation needed for pension assessment. “Employment files thatdocumented where pensioners formerly worked and salaries earned weredestroyed during "anti-terrorist operations". These are essential fordetermining average earnings since they are the only basis forevaluating the amount of support that retirees should receive,”Istamulov explained. For this reason many are getting only minimum payments. “We agree thisis not fair, but that’s the law and we must proceed according to it,” hesays. “We’ve already approached the Russian [central] pension fundasking them to take into account the specific situation in Chechnya andto at least reassess the minimum level.” According to data of the Chechen Pension Fund, there are more than200,000 pensioners in Chechnya today; 8,000 of whom receive only theminimum of a bit more than 600 roubles monthly, the equivalent of over $21. |