Senior UN official pays visit to Grozny

A senior United Nations official said Tuesday that the civilian population in Chechnya is still suffering, Grozny is devastated and the international community must be prepared to help those Chechen refugees who never want to return home.

After a brief and high-security visit to Grozny, UN Undersecretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said a big stream of refugees were voluntarily going home monthly and conditions were "certainly better," but housing is still inadequate, there are not enough schools and security remains a real concern.

He declared that the United Nations would hold Russia to its promise not to force or pressure any refugees to return.

"The humanitarian suffering of the civilian population is by no means over," Egeland said by telephone from Nazran, Ingushetia, after his one-day trip to Grozny and two refugee camps in Ingushetia. "Grozny is as devastated as I've seen any war-torn city anywhere."

Egeland made a lightning-quick tour of the Satsita and Bart camps, home to some 6,000 refugees. He also visited a temporary center in Grozny for returning refugees that he said is overcrowded -- home to 1,400 people but with only latrines and no functioning toilet.

"There is an enormous lack of housing for people," he said of Chechnya. "The security situation is still very bad. There are still severe human rights problems. There is not enough schooling."

Egeland said he won promises from government officials in Ingushetia and Chechnya that no one would be pressured to return. Authorities, eager to portray Chechnya as stabilizing, have been campaigning to close the tent camps, promising housing and compensation for property destroyed during fighting.

Chechen authorities this month proposed dismantling the tent camps in Ingushetia by March 1.

Stanislav Ilyasov, the Cabinet minister in charge of Chechnya, told Egeland on Monday, however, that "no one will be forced to move to Chechnya."

"We will now with a hawk's eye follow the developments and hold them to their promise," Egeland said.

Liza Gamayeva, a refugee at the Satsita camp, who spoke briefly to Egeland, complained that although she fled from Grozny, officials were offering to move her to either Sernovodsk, 60 kilometers from Grozny, or Argun, 25 kilometers from the capital.

"I personally want to come back to Grozny and I will, but let them pay compensation to my family," Gamayeva said. "Our home was completely destroyed."

A refugee at the Bart camp, Sultanbekova Khava, said she is afraid to return to Chechnya. "I don't want to go anywhere," she said. "I am afraid for my kids. If the camp is closed, I'll find a corner someplace here."

Egeland said that, nevertheless, the tent camps have obviously been emptying out as "people now return in great numbers."

"Our impression is that most of the displaced return voluntarily," he said, adding that those he met in Chechnya did not regret coming back despite "conditions not at all being easy."

But Egeland said there will be some "who will not want to go back home at all, who will feel too insecure, feel that they have nothing to return to."

He called on Russian, Chechen and Ingush officials to give them "a future" where they are and "we the international community need to help them."

[28.01.2004 11:55] Mara D. Bellaby/The Associated Press

Jan Egeland: too little housing for Chechen returnees

Chechen refugees still confronted with critical living conditions after years of conflict face a housing shortage if they follow Moscow's urging to return home, the U.N.'s head of humanitarian affairs said on Tuesday. Jan Egeland, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, spoke to Reuters on Tuesday after meeting refugees and officials from the governments of Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia, where most of the camps are located.

"I have seen for myself that the situation for the civilian population and for the displaced in and around Chechnya is still critical," he said by telephone from the Caucasus. "This is one of the most serious problems of displacement and of civilian population problems in the world."

Ingushetia is home to around 70,000 refugees from Chechnya to the east, where a separatist war has dragged on for nine years and left large parts of the region destroyed. Some 7,000 live in tent camps, which the Chechen government says must be closed by March 1. Rights groups fear the refugees will be forced to return to Chechnya.

"We are still concerned over saying that March 1 is a deadline because we do not think that there is sufficient temporary accommodation in Chechnya," he said. The housing he saw in Chechnya was "overcrowded to say the least".

Officials have said that sufficient housing has been built and that those refusing to go back can scarcely be considered refugees. But they have promised all returns will be voluntary. "We still have reason to be alert and we still have reason to be holding the leaders to their promises," Egeland said.

The U.N. would monitor if refugees genuinely wanted to go home although the fighting in Chechnya, where troops and police die almost daily, made that hard. "The security situation is still very difficult," he said. "It is easy for us to monitor in Ingushetia... However, we have too little apparatus to monitor how they are faring when they go back to their villages inside Chechnya."

Journalists and rights activists complain of official harassment in Chechnya, where it is almost impossible to obtain information outside government channels. Egeland said he had asked officials to allow U.N. partners, mainly charities, to work freely. "I brought up administrative problems and bureaucratic obstacles that our partners have had both in Chechnya and Ingushetia," he said. In the remainder of his trip to Russia, Egeland will meet Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who was called away from Chechnya on Tuesday, prompting cancellation of Egeland's meeting with him.

[28.01.2004 11:54] Reuters

 

Chechen prosecutor assures UN official of falling crime in Chechnya

Groznyy, Itar-Tass, 27 January: Chechnya's crime rate is constantly falling and, currently, in real terms does not exceed equivalent figures for other Russian regions. Chechen Prosecutor Vladimir Kravchenko said this in Groznyy today during a meeting with United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland.

According to him, the number of serious crimes in Chechnya is falling quite noticeably. In particular, the number of premeditated murders fell in 2003 by 2.1 per cent, premeditated crimes resulting in bodily harm - by 10.8 per cent and burglaries, theft and other crimes involving property - by 24 per cent.

In the prosecutor's estimate, the Chechen bodies of power are "capable of keeping the situation in the republic under control". He noted that the large-scale socio-political events which have taken place in Chechnya - the referendum on the Chechen constitution and the elections of president and Duma deputies - played a big role in that.

Jan Egeland noted in turn that "employees of humanitarian missions will be concerned for their security while working in Chechnya until there is some progress in releasing the head of the Medecins Sans Frontieres mission, Arjan Erkel, even though he was kidnapped in Dagestan". In response to that a representative of the FSB department for Chechnya, who was present at the meeting, noted that "intelligence agents are responsible for ensuring security of foreign missions" and that "a special system of measures is in place in Chechnya which is aimed at protecting the interests of missions' employees".

"We are constantly monitoring the situation around foreign missions," the officer said. In his assessment, "the safety of employees of humanitarian organizations during their stay in Chechnya will be ensured".

The Chechen Times

Few refugees were allowed to meet UN’s Jan Egeland

On January 27 a delegation headed by deputy secretary general in chargeof humanitarian aid Jan Egeland arrived in the North Caucasus. Thehigh-ranking UN representative went there to find out the situation withthe forced migrants from Chechnya living in Ingushetia and to visitrefugee camps "Bart" and "Satsita" situated in Karabulak town of Ingushetia.

After the departure of the delegation a reporter of the InformationCenter at the Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship met with forcedmigrants living in these camps to find out their attitude to JanEgeland's visit. They said to him that they had been looking forward tomeeting the UN representative and hoped that some of their problemsconnected with unbearable life conditions and lack of any humanitarianaid for eighteen months would be solved. But the Chechen refugees couldnot communicate directly with the UN representative. Representatives ofthe Interior Affairs Ministry of the Chechen Republic and the FederalSecurity Service surrounded Jan Egeland and didn't let forced migrantsapproach him.

To make semblance that the life conditions of refugees are improving,Chechen officials showed a new tent that had been bought just before hisvisit to the deputy secretary general and said to him that all theforced migrants lived in such tents. Then one woman (the InformationCenter didn't manage to find her name out) burst through the crowd toJan Egeland and she was allowed to talk to him. But that woman must havebeen prepared by the correspondent services. Their conversation lastedless that a minute. It is evident that the UN representative wasn't ableto learn all the truth concerning refugees' urgent problems: thearbitrariness of the officials of the migration services of Chechnya andIngushetia, leaking tents, rotten linen, lack of any humanitarian aid,mockery of the Chechen officials who threaten them to force all of themback to Chechnya.

Refugees from "Satsita" camp expressed their great dissatisfaction withthe deputy secretary general in charge of humanitarian aid Jan Egelandto the reporter of the Information Center at the SRCF. They also toldthe reporter that they don't want to return to Chechnya where humanrights are violated, where the guerilla war is still going on and wherethe right for life isn't ensured. Refugees called all the statements ofthe Chechen officials that the peaceful life is being established inChechnya big lies. Such refugees as Malika Bysaeva, Adam Baysaev,Satsita Ibaeva, Amina Umatkhanova, Malika Yunosova, Khedi Israilova,Zhugirat Bisirova, Taguir Mudaev, Magomed Kandarov and many others areamong those refugees who state it.

[28.01.2004 18:23]

27 Jan 2004 19:23:00 GMT

Too little housing for Chechen returnees

- U.N. By Oliver Bullough

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Chechen refugees still confronted with critical living conditions after years of conflict face a housing shortage if they follow Moscow's urging to return home, the U.N.'s head of humanitarian affairs said on Tuesday.

Jan Egeland, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, spoke to Reuters on Tuesday after meeting refugees and officials from the governments of Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia, where most of the camps are located.

"I have seen for myself that the situation for the civilian population and for the displaced in and around Chechnya is still critical," he said by telephone from the Caucasus.

"This is one of the most serious problems of displacement and of civilian population problems in the world."

Ingushetia is home to around 70,000 refugees from Chechnya to the east, where a separatist war has dragged on for nine years and left large parts of the region destroyed.

Some 7,000 live in tent camps, which the Chechen government says must be closed by March 1. Rights groups fear the refugees will be forced to return to Chechnya.

"We are still concerned over saying that March 1 is a deadline because we do not think that there is sufficient temporary accommodation in Chechnya," he said. The housing he saw in Chechnya was "overcrowded to say the least".

Officials have said that sufficient housing has been built and that those refusing to go back can scarcely be considered refugees. But they have promised all returns will be voluntary.

"We still have reason to be alert and we still have reason to be holding the leaders to their promises," Egeland said.

The U.N. would monitor if refugees genuinely wanted to go home although the fighting in Chechnya, where troops and police die almost daily, made that hard.

"The security situation is still very difficult," he said. "It is easy for us to monitor in Ingushetia... However, we have too little apparatus to monitor how they are faring when they go back to their villages inside Chechnya."

Journalists and rights activists complain of official harassment in Chechnya, where it is almost impossible to obtain information outside government channels. Egeland said he had asked officials to allow U.N. partners, mainly charities, to work freely.

"I brought up administrative problems and bureaucratic obstacles that our partners have had both in Chechnya and Ingushetia," he said. In the remainder of his trip to Russia, Egeland will meet Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who was called away from Chechnya on Tuesday, prompting cancellation of Egeland's meeting with him.

 

[28.01.2004 18:23]

2004-01-29 13:48    

Thousands of Chechens refugees refuse to return home

MOSCOW, January 29, 2004 (RIA Novosti) - About 15,000 Chechen refugees who are currently living in other federation members are not going home. Deputy Chief of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Interior Ministry Mikhail Tyurkin said this at a briefing on Thursday.

He also emphasised that the refugees would not be forced out of the Chechen republic.

"The interior ministry top brass earlier met Jan Egeland, UN Humanitarian Coordinator (Emergency Relief coordinator) and Under- Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, to discuss the problems of the North Caucasus region," said Tyurkin.

In his words, at issue was humanitarian assistance of international organisations to Chechen residents. "Today such assistance is provided to the former Chechen residents, who are temporarily living outside the republic," Tyurkin said. He also emphasised that Egeland had promised to review the activity of international organisations in this area.

29 January 2004  UN News Centre

UN refugee agency ambassador Angelina Jolie documents visit to displaced Chechens

28 January 2004 – Actress Angelina Jolie, a Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), has released a new online journal documenting her mission to the Russian Federation, where she met displaced Chechens as well as refugees in Moscow and North Ossetia.

For four days last August, Ms. Jolie travelled to the republic of Ingushetia in the North Caucasus, meeting Ingush President Murat Zyazikov and displaced Chechens living in camps. Her journal reflects both the displaced people's fears about security in Chechnya and the authorities' view of the situation.

"I know that if thousands of people were dying every day in California, London or New York, it would be very different. But most of these people are in places like Africa, Chechnya, the Balkans, Central Asia and Colombia, and maybe the world is used to hearing about their deaths? Is it old news? Are they too many? Or is it that they have nothing we feel to give to us in return? Which is of course wrong because they have everything to offer," she writes in the journal.

"At the end of the day, what should that matter, we are equal," she concludes. "They are families like us. And they need our help, our support. And in areas like Chechnya, they need us not to forget."

Ms. Jolie also writes of her concern for humanitarian personnel – from a long list of aid workers attacked in the Caucasus region to those killed when the UN headquarters in Baghdad was bombed just days before the start of her mission.

UN: Grozny too Unsafe for Mission

The Associated Press Jan 28, 2003 

  A senior UN official said Thursday that he had received assurances from the government that refugees from Chechnya would not be forced to return to a republic that remains too unsafe for a permanent UN mission.

UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, who earlier this week paid a brief visit to Grozny, said the United Nations would help those refugees who want to come back to Chechnya from Ingushetia.

"On our side we will assist those who return," Egeland told reporters.

"The fundamental principle" is that their return must be voluntary, he added.

Egeland said Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and leaders of Chechnya and Ingushetia told him that a proposed deadline for the relocation of refugees living in Ingush tent camps to Chechnya would be dropped. Chechen authorities this month proposed dismantling the tent camps by March 1.

Egeland said he got the impression that some people were being pressed by local officials to return to Chechnya, but stressed that the authorities were mainly relying on so-called "incentive packages" rather than direct pressure to urge Chechens to return. He said 39,000 families were eligible for 350,000 rubles ($12,300) each in compensation for the housing and land lost in the war.

At the same time, Egeland emphasized that "humanitarian conditions are still very difficult and human needs are still great" in Chechnya.

"Grozny is one of the most devastated, war-stricken cities I have been to," Egeland said, adding that security conditions prevent the UN from establishing an office in Chechnya.

eng.kavkaz.memo.ru 27/1/2004

Statement by Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship on murder of Society's volunteer in Chechnya

Early in the morning of 16 January 2004, the dead body of Aslan Davletukayev, a volunteer for the Interregional Public Organization "Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship", was found by a reconnaissance company of one of the Russian military units on the roadside near the town of Gudermes. The body had traces of violent death and torture.

We call your attention to extracts from the statement made by the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship on the occasion of the murder of Aslan Davletukayev.

"(...)

Criminal case #35002 was opened by the Gudermes district prosecutor's office in connection with the murder of Davletukayev. The case is led by investigator Andrey Rotov.

(…)

The Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship is inclined to think that the reason for the abduction and further murder of Aslan Davletukayev might have lain in his human rights activity. (...) The Society rates the abduction and murder of Aslan Davletukayev as another act of state terror against people of the Chechen Republic and as another episode in the chain of physical extermination of political and ideological opponents by the regime.

It must be noted that Aslan is already the fourth activist of the Society murdered since 2000. And the complicity of Russian security agencies in at least two of these four deaths is evident and in the other two seems to be the most probable. One more volunteer for the Society, Artur Akhmatkhanov, has been in the missing list since April 2003, when he was abducted by Russian servicemen in the Chechen town of Shali. It is needless to say that no one of the above-mentioned crimes has been investigated and no one of the guilty has been punished.

It is also worthy of notice that already ten days have passed but the criminal case has never been brought into the office of the judge advocate, despite clear evidence of Russian servicemen's complicity in the murder of Davletukayev. (...)

The Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship appeals to all of its partners, representatives of public, state and international organizations and the mass media to do their best to put strong pressure on state structures of the Russian Federation aimed at securing effective investigation into the abduction and murder of Aslan Davletukayev and bringing the criminals to account.

Editors note: See also the article "Volunteer of Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship killed".

Source: Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship

27 January 2004 

Chechen human rights champion shadowed

Chechen Timnes web site [BBC Monitoring]

26 January: Residents of the refugee camp in the village of Yandar in the Republic of Ingushetia had to post guards in the night of 25-26 January at a tent where the head of the Chechen-Ingush regional branch of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, Imran Ezhiyev, lives with his family, and at the house where his elderly mother temporarily lives. The security measures are being taken as unidentified people are shadowing Imran Ezhiyev and watching places of his residence and work. These people use four Lada cars (a VAZ 21010, two silver VAZ 2109 cars and a blue VAZ 2107) with no number plates. They had their watching positions in two pits near Ezhiyev's house. Refugees noticed four people in the field early in the morning on 26 January. They thought that was another guard and tried to approach them. However, the people in the field rushed to a Lada car parked by the road and left the scene. Ezhiyev had to spend last night in a car, constantly changing parking places. No-one is shadowing him now, he said.

Lada cars without number plates are ill-famed in Ingushetia. People say that these cars are used by abductors. The fact that cars without number plates can freely travel in the republic and the traffic police do not stop them suggests the idea that these unidentified people coordinate their actions with the Ingush Interior Ministry's agencies.

Ezhiyev believes that the unidentified people's attention to him was caused by his investigation into the abduction and killing of Aslan Davletukayev, a voluntary worker of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society.

As was reported, Davletukayev was abducted by Russian troops who arrived in three armoured personnel carriers at his house in the Avtury village of Chechnya's Shalinskiy District on 10 January 2004. He was then tortured and killed by a shot in the back of his head. His body was found near Gudermes on 16 January.

[29.01.2004 11:58] The Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship

[29.01.2004 11:58] Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations

Friday, Jan. 30, 2004. Page 3 The Moscow Times

FSB in a Huff About 4,400 Books

By Caroline McGregor Staff Writer The Federal Security Service late last month seized a shipment of the book "The FSB Blows Up Moscow" in what it called an effort to protect state secrets, but an ensuing scandal has done more to tarnish than burnish its credibility, the book's Moscow retailer and human rights activists said Thursday.

The book, which uses circumstantial evidence to suggest that law enforcement agencies played a role in the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, is now at the center of an FSB criminal investigation into whether it divulges classified information.

"The fact that they opened the case under this part of the Criminal Code [on state secrets] is an indirect admission that they participated in the explosions," said Alexander Podrabinek, whose company, Prima, bought the shipment of 4,400 books from a printer in Latvia to sell in Moscow.

"It's completely idiotic from any point of view," Podrabinek said Thursday by telephone.

FSB investigators summoned Podrabinek to Lefortovo prison for questioning Wednesday.

No one -- neither Podrabinek nor authors Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer with asylum in Britain, and historian Yury Felshtinsky, who lives in the United States -- has been accused of wrongdoing.

The FSB denies any role in the explosions, saying they were orchestrated by Chechen rebels. Earlier this month, two suspects were convicted in connection with the Volgodonsk bombing.

But if you follow the FSB's logic, Podrabinek said, the only way state secrets could be involved is if the agency indeed played a part in the blasts.

"The FSB Blows Up Moscow" was released in London in 2001. Though it was widely castigated by the Moscow establishment, in part due to Litvinenko's ties to businessman Boris Berezovsky, it was available on Moscow bookstore shelves. After falling off the public radar for a while, lingering questions over the bombings are being raised again -- not only by the books' seizure, but by presidential hopeful Irina Khakamada, who has accused the Kremlin of hiding the truth.

Police stopped the truck delivering the books near the intersection of Volokolamskoye Shosse and the Moscow Ring Road on Dec. 29.

FSB investigators on Wednesday peppered Podrabinek with questions related to the impounded shipment, asking whether Prima had the right to buy books and how much money was involved, Podrabinek said.

"I refused to answer because the questions had everything to do with us and nothing to do with the state secrets case," he said. Podrabinek, a Soviet-era dissident, called the seizure a "shock attack on freedom of the press in Russia."

If investigators are so concerned about how confidential information came into the public domain, they should talk to Litvinenko, Podrabinek said, adding that he even offered to put them in touch. "But they said, 'No, no, no, it's not necessary.'"

An FSB spokeswoman said Thursday that no one was available for comment. Litvinenko did not respond to phone calls Thursday evening.

Berezovsky's Foundation for Civil Liberties announced late Thursday that it was forgoing its copyright to the books, so more people could disperse the material.

Podrabinek said he did not see what the FSB stands to gain since the benefit of stifling a few thousand books "is so small, and the noise is so big."

Valentin Gefter, the director of Moscow's Institute for Human Rights, said this is an illustration of how much the FSB loathes being the subject of discussion. "But the fewer real facts there are to work with, the more theories and rumors there will be," he said. "We're always telling them, 'If you don't want to be accused of having been involved, open [the files], show us, have a court process with facts and witnesses."

FSB officers seized copies of the September 2003 edition of Versia from the weekly's newsroom Thursday, Interfax reported.

The issue included a report on ship-building technologies that described the criteria for a criminal case based on the divulgence of state secrets, Interfax said. Law enforcement agencies had refused to comment in the Versia report.