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Caucasian Knot 5/6/2004
Chechen refugees under relentless pressure
On June 2, head of the Ingush Interior Ministry's migration department Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Pomeshchenko and officials of the Interior ministry who accompanied him demanded that Chechen refugees living in the camp in the village of Yandare in Ingushetia should immediately dismantle the tents and leave the camp for Grozny, Nazran or any place they want. This camp is under the patronage of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship. It consists of re-equipped cowsheds and 12 tents. These very tents became a target of the attack on the part of the Interior Ministry's officials. Chairman of the regional branch of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship Imran Ezhiev got into touch via mobile phone with Ella Pamfilova, chairwoman of the Russian President's Human Right Commission, and Lyudmila Alekseyeva, chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group and a member of the same commission. The situation seemed to have been settled after talks between Mr Pomeshchenko and the members of the presidential commission. The official assured Ms Pamfilova and Ms Alekseyeva that no pressure was being put on the refugees.
However, on June 4, Ivan Pomeschenko told the refugees that if they did not dismantle the tents by 3 p.m. local time, the OMON special police force would be involved in the situation. After chairwoman of the Russian President's Human Right Commission Ella Pamfilova had interfered one more time, Ivan Pomeshchenko told the refugees they could carry their tents under the roof of the destroyed farm situated one hundred meters away.
Imran Ezhiev has commented on the situation: "The behavior of Mr Pomeshchenko is blackmail. There is no stabilization, therefore they want to create its outward appearance. By any means. Not taking people into account." Meanwhile, officials of the Ingush migration department did not allow journalists of NTV TV Company that came to the refugee camp in Yandare to shoot on the territory of the camp. The migration officials demanded that the journalists should immediately leave the camp and explained their demand by the lack of a permit. But places where internally displaced persons temporarily live are not closed places and all restrictions on the work of journalists on their territory are at variance with the Law of the Russian Federation "On the Mass Media". Source: Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship
Zachistka in the [Ingushetian] village of Sagopshi ingushetiya.Ru, 06.06.2004 15:11 On 5 June, around 12 in the village Sagopshi of the Malgobek district the agents of MVD RF mobile force with a support of the units of internal troops surrounded the Shkolnaya Street, where the Merzhoyevs, Galayevs, Belkharoyevs have been living and conducted searches in all the houses, located along this street. In the course of the operation no search warrants or other documents, which give a right to disturb the inviolability of dwelling were presented. After the end of 'zachistka'; in one of house dwelling two persons of Chechen nationality from a number of forced migrants were detained. The agents of the mobile force have driven them away in the unknown direction.
Jun 7 2004 11:43AM
MAGAS. June 7 (Interfax) - The last camp for Chechen refugees in Ingushetia has been closed, Ingushetia's Deputy Prime Minister Magomet Markhiyev told Interfax on Monday. "The Satsita camp has ceased to exist. There are no tents there anymore," Markhiyev said. Most former Satsita residents have already left for Chechnya, he said. He added that "some of them have stayed in Ingushetia, where they will be provided with accommodation and will be able to enjoy living standards better than in the tent camp."
Describing the closure of the tent camps as a sign that stability is being restored in the North Caucasus, the official said that "what counts most is that Chechnya is beginning to live a peaceful life and the refugees are returning home. The North Caucasus is well on the road to stabilization."
Tens of thousands of Chechen refugees are still in Ingushetia. Of them, more than 18,000 live in private houses and another 19,000 in small Chechen-dominated settlements
Civil Georgia, Tbilisi 2004-06-07 13:05:26 A Russian delegation led by Igor Yunash, head of the Federal Migration Service of Russia, will arrive in Tbilisi on June 7 in order to hold talks concerning the repatriation of Chechen refugees living in Georgia. It is anticipated that after holding talks with the Georgian authorities, the delegation will leave for the Pankisi Gorge in eastern Georgia and will meet with Chechen refugees there. Roughly 3,700 Chechen refugees, who fled from the second war in Chechnya in 1999, live in Pankisi at the moment. Similar Russian delegations have already visited Georgia tow other times – last June and last September, in vain attempts to convince Chechen refugees to return to their native land. The Chechens refrain from repatriating, claiming that their safety will not be guaranteed in Chechnya. The Chechen refugees instead seek to resettle in a third country. According to the UN refugee agency's (UNHCR) Tbilisi office, since 2003, 38 Chechens have already departed from Georgia and have resettled in different countries.
At present, 17 cases have been accepted by their respective resettlement countries and are waiting to depart. The UNHCR hopes to be able to resettle approximately 100 cases in 2004.
Giorgi Sepashvili, Civil Georgia 2004-06-05 15:01:42 Tbilisi has sent a request to Moscow to resume talks over the withdrawal of Russia's two military bases from Georgia and proposed, instead to set up a joint, anti-terrorism center in Georgia in exchange for the pull out. Georgia hopes that the proposal, described by Tbilisi as "a new approach," could bring a breakthrough in stalled talks, which have been deadlocked for five years.
Russia confirmed on June 4 that the proposal over a joint, anti- terrorism center is under consideration at the moment. "The proposal considers abandoning the use of the facilities and other technical capacities of the military bases, which will be pulled out, for setting up a joint anti-terrorism center," spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Aleksander Yakovenko said in a statement issued on June 4. "The proposal is just an idea at the moment and needs further consideration; hence it is difficult to talks about the details now," he added.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry issued an appeal on May 31 urging Russian authorities to agree to participate in a new round of negotiations on military issues in Tbilisi on June 10-11. Moscow has yet to respond to this request. "Our side has expressed hopes that it will receive an answer to this proposal in the nearest future," reads a statement issued by the Georgian Foreign Ministry on May 31. The Georgian and Russian sides are at odds over two Russian military bases – one in the southern Georgian town of Akhalaia and the other in the Adjarian Autonomous Republic's capital of Batumi. The 1999 OSCE Istanbul Treaty clearly prescribed that the Russian and Georgia sides reach an agreement on this issue before 2001. However, since then, Russian and Georgian officials have failed to meet the deadlines set for the closure of the two bases. Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili says that Tbilisi insists on Russia pulling out within three years, while Moscow demands "eight years, or even more." The issue had been breeched during discussions that took place between Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili and the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington D.C. on June 1. Powell agreed after these talks that the Russian military bases in Georgia "no longer serve a real military purpose." "We believe that the bases should be removed," Colin Powell said and expressed hopes "that in the months ahead, with continued goodwill on the part of all parties, we'll find a way to move forward." In the wake of her talks with the U.S. Secretary of State, Salome Zourabichvili voiced a new initiative and made a proposal to the Russian authorities, offering to set up a joint anti-terrorist center in Georgia in exchange for the pulling out of the military bases. "I think an innovative, even revolutionary approach is needed in order to solve this problem in the shortest period of time," Salome Zourabichvili said in a June 4 interview with the Russian news agency, Itar-Tass. She added that the proposal over the setting up of a joint anti- terrorism center would be precisely this kind of "innovative" approach.
"On the one hand, we agreed with the Russian side to continue negotiations over the military issues and on the other hand, we tried to resort to new approaches, particularly the proposed creation of a joint anti-terrorism center," Salome Zourabichvili added.
She also said that the issue was discussed during Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania's visit to Moscow in late May. Meanwhile, Georgia, which seeks for closer ties with NATO, began discussion of its Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) with the alliance. The Georgian Foreign Minister, who will be accompanied by Defense Minister Gela Bezhuashvili and the Commander of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Gen. Maj. Givi Iukuridze, will leave for NATO headquarters in Brussels on June 7 to begin more detailed considerations of the document.
The plan, which establishes specific defense reform goals for Georgia, that will be implemented through the help of NATO, was submitted to NATO by President Saakashvili during his visit to Brussels in April. It is anticipated that the issue of the Russian military bases will also be discussed during the visit. In April, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer backed the full implementation of the 1999 Istanbul agreement and expressed hopes that negotiations between Georgia and Russia in regards to this withdrawal would start as soon as possible.
Court declares authorities' actions against rights activists illegal On June 3, the Tagansky District Court of Moscow satisfied a claim by executive director of the Movement for Human Rights Lev Ponomarev and declared actions of Deputy Prefect of Moscow's Central Administrative District Mr Zaytsev illegal. The matter concerns Mr Zaytsev's refusal to consider a notification filed by human rights activists in early February about the holding of a meeting to mark the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Ingush and Chechen peoples. On February 23, the human rights activists staged a picket at the Solovetsky Stone on Lubyanskaya Square in Moscow instead of the meeting, but it caused the authorities' aversion. The picket was dispersed, 15 people being detained by the OMON special police force. Later, three organizers of the action were fined for participation in the unauthorized action. Deputy Prefect Mr Zaytsev refused to consider the notification he received on February 9 under the pretext that the Moscow Government carried a resolution on February 17 assigning some streets and squares in Moscow (Lubanskaya Square not included) for holiday celebrations. The human rights activists can demand now that the decisions about the fines be annulled.
Source: All-Russian Public Movement "For Human Rights"
Monday 07 June 2004 Human rights and security issues are of major concern in Chechnya with no one being able to be held responsible, according to an European envoy.
Security and respect for human rights remain a huge problem in Chechnya, a top European official said in an interview published Monday after his visit to Russia's war torn republic. "The region still has a huge problem with security and respect for the principles and standards of human rights," Rudolf Bindig, a rapporteur on Russia from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily.
People continue to be arrested and tortured and many disappear in Chechnya, where separatists have fought pro Moscow forces for more than four years, Bindig said.
"Several law enforcement and military authorities are currently operating in Chechnya," including troops from the interior ministry, special forces, the FSB security services, local police and forces of the recently assassinated president Akhmad Kadyrov. "Each of these structures blames the others for the human rights violations," he said. As a result, "we do not know for sure which of the power structures is the guilty party." Elections Bindig, who last week conducted a fact-finding trip to the republic with PACE's Chechnya rapporteur Andreas Gross, was sceptical about upcoming presidential elections to replace Kadyrov, who was killed in an explosion in central Grozny on 9 May.
"It is impossible to normally observe the elections in Chechnya" because of security concerns, Bindig said. "We can only travel accompanied by 20-30 armed soldiers and only between two or three polling stations," he said. "Does that sound like normal elections?"
The situation in Chechnya can only be resolved with the participation of all sides in the conflict including rebel, a scenario that Moscow is unlikely to agree to, he said. "In my opinion it is imperative to gather together all of the political forces in Chechnya, except extremists and terrorists, those who have committed crimes," he said. (*) "All of them must participate in the search for a political solution. But the Russian side will not accept such a route to regulation," Bindig said.
Moscow has insisted that the war in Chechnya is over and a political solution to the conflict has taken place with last year's controversial election of Kadyrov, a former rebel turned Kremlin ally, to lead the republic. His assassination last month has undermined those efforts and has presented Moscow with the problem of finding a replacement to back in the elections scheduled for 29 August. AFP
Dispersal of women's meeting in Grozny - details A large group of Chechen women (from 150 to 200 people, according to some reports) staged an action of protest at the complex of government buildings in Grozny on June 2. The women demanded that the authorities impart the whereabouts of their relatives and intimates who were abducted by officers of different security agencies and disappeared during so called "purges". However, as one of the women who took part in the action reported, a high-ranking official of the interior ministry who came out to see the protesters demanded that they immediately break up and addressed the women standing close to him with the words, "I remember everyone, we will look into it later!" This statement produced a wave of the women's indignation. They started throwing stones and everything that was in their way at the guard of the building. They managed to break through the cordons and approach the Government House. After it, military men and the guard of the building dispersed them. Women who took part in the action say that officers of security agencies beat them using butts of their automatic rifles and legs and continuously fired in the air. They chased the women running away for several hundreds of meters not stopping mercilessly beating them. It was a pure chance that the meeting at the Government House in Grozny did not end with victims. The mass protest action was caused by human rights activist Kheda Saratova's TV appearance. Speaking to the local television in the evening of June 1, she stated she had lists of 1,500 residents of the republic detained by the military and kept in prisons on the territory of Russia. Ms Saratova offered relatives and friends of the missing to gather on Bogdana Khmelnitskogo Street in the Leninsky district of the Chechen capital the next day and familiarize themselves with the lists she had. It is a known fact that mainly women search for missing relatives. They start arriving in Grozny from different Chechen districts early in the morning on June 2. But Kheda Saratova did not come to the scene. And the lists of the missing were posted up on the gates leading to the television building. There were about 400-500 names on the lists. The published lists were old, according to some reports. Then someone among the women offered to hold a picket at the Government House. Speaking to the local television, Secretary of the Chechen Security Council Rudnik Dudayev said the authorities had had grounds to disperse the meeting in the center of Grozny. "The crowd was aggressive. And the authorities showed firmness taking into account the fact that there may have been people with arms, which they brought with them to use in case the crowd broke through to the protected territory(!)," he said.
No contact with Kheda Saratova, the human rights activist who, as believed by many Grozny residents, voluntarily or not incited the women to hold this action, has been established so far. Author: Sultan Abubakarov, CK correspondent Source: Caucasian Knot
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