Civil Society and Peace-building in the North and South Caucasus ...

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The same is true for the Chechen side. The situation inside the Chechen community also changed a lot in comparison to the first war. It is too dangerous to go there. And, to where? For what? Those are the questions. Nevertheless, we preserved some ties and connections with Chechen women and organizations. For example, we are still working very closely with the Chechen Committee for Human Rights. The chairman was at the Baku Conference. The last time we met was in Baku. We made a joint statement. We paid the expenses of a Chechen woman, Zen Abgashaiva, who was working with the peacemaking center in Moscow, to go to Nazran to deal with humanitarian questions. So, there is a connection, but it is a different kind of connection than it was during the first war. It could have been said that we had connections with all Chechen people - that we could move freely among them. Now it is not possible. That is one difference. Another difference is that we mobilized public opinion against the first war. Very seriously. The government took this factor into consideration. As a result, they prepared public opinion for the second war. It was done quite correctly, from the point of view of the federal authorities. First of all, they presented it, not as a Russian or Federal aggression, but rather as Chechen aggression against Dagestan. Then, there was an explosion in Moscow. We don’t know yet…there have been no trials. But nevertheless, public opinion began to believe that there was a Chechen crisis. Though legally, no one can say that the Chechens caused the explosions in various cities in Russia. Also, Putin himself immediately declared that if participants in the Yugoslavian peacekeeping operations were receiving $1000 per month, then Russia should pay its soldiers the same sum because they were engaging in patriotic work defending their homeland against terrorists. In the very beginning of the second war, only a few mothers came to us for help. So we had to change our tactic to mobilize public opinion. We tried to reveal every lie that the military spread about the conflict. The first involved the human losses. There was a very broad public campaign in which we proved that they were lying about human losses. Of course, in the first period of the war, only a few Russian journalists openly declared their anti-war position. Most of the media was silent. So we used the foreign media so that the Russian media could no longer ignore the issue and the things we were telling them about the conflict zone. There were also a lot of mass protests during the first war. There were meetings in Moscow and Chechnya. Now they have proven to be less effective. The protests in Moscow and the regions draw too few people. So we think we will use this kind of pressure on the government when we can be certain of its effectiveness. At the moment, it is not effective. We used all of our influence in the previous Duma. The composition of the previous Duma was much better for us than it is now. In 1996 it was not so difficult for us to push through the Duma our amnesty project for all the participants of the conflict on both the Chechens and the federal side. We were the very first NGO that protected human rights on both sides of the front line. We pushed our amnesty project through the Duma, and it was a real achievement because a lot of Chechen people were not criminals or terrorists. We also pushed through the Duma some amendments to the military laws including the Law on Military Service and the Law on Military Courts. We also managed, as unpaid volunteers, to enter some state structures, which were interesting to participate in, for example, the Board of the Military Prosecutor and the Presidential Commission of Prisoners of War, the Presidential Commission on Human Rights, and several others. It was very convenient for us because we received information, and we had a public forum to express our views. Before my departure to the US, Putin issued a new decree regarding the Presidential Commission on Human Rights. Our representative was thrown off this commission. And, instead
of Valentina (last name inaudible), our responsible secretary, the new member of this commission is the general, the main political commissar of the Ministry of Defense, General Azarov. This shows the difference between the situation in the first war and the second war. As for individual complaints, the situation has not changed. We are very effective in solving individual complaints. Those soldiers’ problems are connected with the problems of conflict. The matter is that there is no state system of rehabilitation. None of the wounded or disabled receives any real help from the government. But at least we are trying to involve the regional authorities in this process to help the disabled soldiers. We are giving legal help in this field, and so on. I forgot to add that in the new Duma, the situation is much worse for us than in the previous Duma. We still do not have a stable group of supporters in the strategic committees. There are a few deputies with whom we work effectively. But still, we need to broaden this support. We have begun this process, but it is very difficult because the composition of this Duma has changed politically, and not to our benefit. A final few words about the military reform. We intensified the public campaign for military reform because our motto is “non-violence, human rights and the abolishment of conscription slavery.” So in this war, we use the conflict to show that it is absolutely criminal to send young boys to this conflict zone to be killed or to become killers. This is a crime. They are not going there by their own choice; they are going against their own will. There was a very dirty story about how they changed the law concerning draftees who could be sent to the conflict zone. Our state demonstrated that they could lie shamelessly. The evil is in the details, as they say. So we intensified our public campaign for military reform. We set the goal of military reform of the professional army in 1990 when there was the first forum of Soldiers’ Mothers, which was named Mothers Against Violence: Which Kind of Army Do We Need? And I think that in the field of military reform – I do not have the latest news from Russia except that latest Russian anecdote about the American elections. But Melissa told me that there was a meeting of the Security Council, and something was announced about military reform. I think that it is inevitable. It was a lack of political will and a strong military influence that stopped the military reform. Why are we for a professional army? We think in Russia’s specific condition, this is the only way that human rights can be protected. When a draftee enters military service, he has less than no rights, he has negative rights. It is just a remnant of pure slavery. It is possible to work as an ambulance – and we are working as an ambulance, solving the individual cases – but it is not possible to change the situation toward better human rights without military reform. So that was another main direction of public campaigning in the second Chechen War. I am sure that I did not discuss everything, but thank you very much for listening. CARR: Thank you, Ida, for sharing the work of your organization. Our next speaker, Fatima Yandieva, is the coordinator of the Fund for Repressed Peoples and Civilians in the Northern Caucasus. Her organization is one of the first nongovernmental organizations that was formed in the Caucasus; it began in 1992-93. Its initial goal was to protect the rights and freedom of the people who were deported by Stalin. But as we all know, events in the Caucasus and particularly in Chechnya took a turn for the worse, and so her organization became very involved in protecting human rights, particularly in Chechnya. As the focal point for the Fund in the North Caucasus, Fatima has monitored the situation and conducted field assessments and reviews, and written about the situation, particularly in Chechnya and Ingushetia. Fatima herself was recently in Grozny and will tell us some of her recent observations and impressions of the situation on the ground. FATIMA YANDIEVA: I think it will be interesting for you to know about the latest events in Chechnya – about the war in Chechnya. It is hidden from the rest of the world because it is not
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