An interview with two workers of Memorial's advisory office in Nazran
An interview with Satsita Muradova and Usam Baisayev of Memorial's advisory office in Nazran on the refugee situation in Ingushetia
By Ichkeria.org
So, the topic of this week's interview - the camps of Chechen refugees in Ingushetia, what assistance local authorities render to them and what international humanitarian organizations do for them. Initially we wanted to make a lengthy interview with Svetlana Ganushkina, the chairwoman of the Russian Committee Civil Assistance, who is working in the field for quite a long time and knows the subject not by hearsay. However on the night before the interview their Moscow office caught fire for unknown reasons, the computer system was destroyed and the Committee's safe disappeared in a strange way.
We decided to use Ganushkina's suggestion and contact by phone the public reception room of the human rights center Memorial in Nazran (Ingushetia), which has been working since March of 2000. Naturally, in our conversation we touched upon not only the situation with refugees, not only the issue whether their rights are observed or violated, but also the magic release of doctor Kenneth Gluck, which was the key issue of discussions not long ago.
The participants of the conversation: Satsita Muradova and Usam Baisayev - employees of the advisory center of the human rights organization Memorial.
Satsita Muradova is a lawyer, she has been working for Memorial for several years already. She is our first interlocutor.
Correspondent: Please, tell us in short about your center.
Satsita Muradova: Our advisory center was opened after a seminar on the acute necessity of rendering legal assistance to the population was held here. This center is called a multipurpose reception room, because aside from legal advisors there are monitors, social workers and even a doctor working here. On March 18 we opened our reception room officially, and we render legal assistance. When we had proper resources, we also offered medical aid and went to refugee camps. The doctor receives patients here and in the camps. The center is working daily, there is someone even on Sunday.
Corr: Back in Soviet times public reception rooms were always crowded. What is going on today in your center?
M: Yes, but everything depends on whether or not we have resources. For example, we have not received resources for a part of humanitarian aid since September, but people come to us day and night. And these are mostly Chechen civilians - relatives of those who were detained or arrested. They come to us for legal assistance, to file applications and inquiries. Plus those who live in Ingushetia. They need help filing court suites to find out how Ingush officials and authorities treat them - legally or illegally.
Corr: According to some estimations, about 70 to 90 people come to Ingushetia daily. If the Chechen war continues for at least a year, the total number of refugees would surpass the 200.000 mark, and this is a dangerously volatile situation.
M: Yes, these are figures of the Ingush immigration service. These are so-called secondary refugees - refugees from Chechnya, who left Ingushetia, and now they are coming back. Why? I would cite an example. You know, an education system has begun more or less functioning in Chechnya. And you should be aware of the fact that as a result of the residential area's shelling on December 20 six students of the Pedagogical Institute were killed. As well as three local residents. There are "mopping up" operations, spontaneous bombardments. And people, who came home, who are tired of everything even though there is no light, gas and water - people who started a new life - they had to return to Ingushetia. They came back not because "Aushev treated them kindly," as Kazantsev put it, but because there is no safety guarantees. And the occupational regime upset all their efforts to set up peaceful living. And even Ingushetia started exerting a slight pressure on refugees - they are denied registration.
Corr: How do you assess the current situation with Chechen refugees in Ingushetia?
M: Today Chechen refugees in Ingushetia survive only with the help of humanitarian organizations. It includes medical aid, food products, clothing and the rest. I mean foreign organizations, because the federal center debt is enormous, and the Ingush immigration services and the Ministry for Emergency Situations are working on credit.
Corr: From which countries do relief supplies come?
M: I will just enumerate relief organizations working here: Doctors without Borders - from Belgium, Holland and France, Doctors of the World, Danish Refugee Council. The latter has a wide program. They work both in Chechnya and Ingushetia. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, organizations form Germany, Austria ...
Corr: How many refugees are there in Ingushetia today?
M: Official statistics of the regional body of the Ingush Federation Ministry says that there are 142.825 refugees registered on "form No.1". In fact, there are much more people, because there are secondary refugees, who are denied registration. Therefore, we shall count unregistered refugees.
Corr: And how many in total?
M:The Danish Refugee Council provides more precise figures - as of December 22 there were 175.000 officially registered refugees in Ingushetia. As of today, the situation has not changed: it is no so volatile, but it is still very complex and explosive. However, owing to the efforts of the coordination council of the Ministry for Emergency Situation, the republic's government and international humanitarian organizations the refugees are not only supplied with everything necessary, it is also possible to make prognoses. And if a year ago the refugee wave caught Ingushetia unawares, people occupied unfit premises - poultry farms, dairy farms, cellars; today - there is sort of planning - new camps are being erected and inhabited. It was widely discussed. The construction of refugee camps for 12.000 people should have started in the summer and the refugees, who used to live in railway carriages, were supposed to move into. It was delayed, because until the end of the summer the Minister for National and Immigration Policy Mr. Blokhin suggested building such camps in Chechnya, as they wanted refugees to come back. As a result, the construction started only by the fall.
Corr: To come back - under Russian bombs?
M: Yes, yes. And the UN High Commissioner for Refugees provided funding. It began and is continuing construction with the Ministry for Emergency Situation.
Corr: What is the average temperature inside a railway carriage or a tent during the winter, as compared to the temperature outside? Perhaps, it is the same?
M: The temperature for living there is normal. Another thing is that there are no furnaces enough. But there are no problems with gas - the government is doing its best. At the moment, one camp - Alinu , for 4.000 people - is inhabited, two other camps - Satsitu and Bellu - are under construction. Those who live in private houses would reportedly move into. These are people who used to pay for living (but now they do not have money any more), or people who have to leave houses provided by locals, because the war is dragging on and people cannot bear the burden any more. The population of Ingushetia is tired as well. We could understand them.
Corr: During the first months of the Chechen war there were reports that many tents have ground floors. Are there such tents now?
M: No. When the Ministry for Emergency Situations constructs new camps, it makes wooden floors, if possible - furnaces are installed. Humanitarian organizations help to this cause. Indeed, there are no ground floor tents.
Corr: What is the role of international humanitarian organizations in helping Chechen refuges in Ingushetia? How humanitarian aid is being distributed?
M: Let's take the Danish Refugee Council, for example. It deals with distributing food products. Regularly, once a month, refugees from different camps or those living in private houses receive humanitarian aid. They apply a food distribution norm. This order is always upheld. The same about Islamic Relief, which offers aid in large camps, in Sleptsovskaya and Karabulak. They help a lot. Islamic Relief opened a policlinic in a camp. Several doctors are working there, the organization pays for their job. It also supplies medicines. Doctors without Borders [Belgium] covers the whole Malgobeksky district, which is located away from Nazran; they distribute medicines, necessary things, including articles for babies. Aside from that, Doctors without Borders take medicines to Chechnya.
Corr: That means that humanitarian aid is being supplied continuously?
M: Yes, continuously.
Corr: You mentioned there are hospitals being opened. Are there opening schools?
M: Yes, there are schools in several camps. Refugee children study there. In two camps in Sleptsovskaya and in Karabulak. As for small camps, which are located, for example, in Nazran or neighboring villages, refugee children attend local schools. There are almost no cases when children are rejected. Compare - there were such problems in Moscow and Kabardino-Balkaria: when even children with registration were sent home. We have faced no such problems, because President Aushev issued an order banning school directors from rejecting children, even though there might be no vacancies.
Corr: You mentioned about international humanitarian organizations, and what about Russian ones? In particular, the Ministry for Emergency Situations?
M: The Ministry for Emergency Situations is coordinating the work of humanitarian organizations, it helps erecting refugee camps jointly with other organizations.
Corr: Previously there were many reports that this "coordination activity" of the Ministry for Emergency Situations and other Russian structures among humanitarian organizations gave birth to a big number of corrupt officials, that humanitarian supplies are simply being stolen. Do you have any new facts in this respect?
M: We have such facts. This is a commonplace thing, because there are many refugees. But I cannot give a certain example. Naturally, there are cases of theft and misappropriation, but I believe, that under such conditions this process is inevitable.
Corr: Could you say that the activities of international humanitarian organizations and Russian relief bodies are coordinated, that they understand each other?
M: I do not know about many Russian humanitarian organizations. But there is certain coordination. Every Friday there are meetings at the Ingush Minister for Emergency Situations Valery Kuks. Representatives of all the organizations working in the region gather there, report on the work done. Their work is constantly coordinated. If, for example, a camp is not covered, the issue is raised at the ministerial meeting. Also, the refugee camps' commandants attend such meetings, and if there are problems - aid has not been delivered or not enough, a representative of the camp goes to the next meeting and raises the problem before the humanitarian organizations.
Corr: Many people go through your reception room. Their fates are so alike and so different. Nevertheless, do you remember a story that struck you most of all and made you especially sorry?
Usam Baisayev: There was such a case. Satsita filled the application form to the presidential representative [Vladimir] Kalamanov. I believe it was on January 9. The refugee - Ibragim Tamirbulatov - went to Grozny. He was born in 1953. Invalid. From the first days of the war he came and lived here (in Gamurziyevo village in Ingushetia) in an apartment; he lived for free, because he had no money. On January 9 he went to Gudermes to get a certificate with the Medical Labor Expert Commission. He wanted to arrange a disability pension. And he disappeared. Relatives began searching for him. It turned out that on January 9 he was in Gudermes. He spent a night there, and then headed for Grozny, where he stayed with his friends. The next day he said he was going to Gudermes to arrange everything, because he might be deprived of his pension. He left for Gudermes and disappeared. Later the relatives managed to find out that in the line near the MLEC all the disabled males [all of them came to get similar medical certificates - all wounded during some skirmish in the outskirts] were detained. So far they have failed to find him. He disappeared. Here, in Ingushetia, his wife and children are waiting for him.
Corr: And so far there has been no information about this man!?
B: No, absolutely no information. Although the relatives addressed the office of the special presidential envoy [good name, huh!] for human and civil rights in Chechnya, Kalamanov. And, I believe, they also contacted the military commandant. But - in vain. A kind of Bermudan triangle, where people disappear.
Corr: In this respect the issue of refugees' human rights become very acute. You cited a very bright example of it. How does it look like in the background of Russia's voting right restoration in the PACE? Do western countries hope that the situation with human rights and refugees in Chechnya has improved?
B: I would give you an example. The same day when Lord Judd visited Grozny. Just several hundred meters from the place where he met with locals. In fact, we also were there, Satsita and me. It took place on January 16. The day before that - at about 3 p.m. on January 15 at the block-post Zagryazhsky (there is such a bus station on the Staropromyslovsky road), about 2 to 3 kilometers from the place of the meeting with Lord Judd, two young men and a girl named Zara from Ivanovo were taken off a minibus. We cannot tell her last name, you know. We promised her. This is her story. She did not know these men. Her form#1 paper was expired by three days. She was taken off the bus, as well as these two men. When people became outraged, the troops said there was nothing to worry about - it was a common procedure: we need to check their identity and then they would be released; what about it? What could people do against machine guns? They were put into an UAZ vehicle and driven to the plant commandant's office. However, they were not taken to the commandant's office. They were pushed out of the vehicle, taken to a shabby house just in front of it and beaten. They beat with butts and kicked. The girl and a man were lying on the ground. They were beaten severely. Then they were put into the vehicle, where they waited until the darkness fell. When it became dark, the girl was freed. It was nigh, curfew time, and it was not safe to move around the city. Perhaps, they believed she wouldn't get too far. When she walked away for some two hundred meters, she heard two single shots. Zara thinks these men were shot dead. Hiding in the ruins, because there are numerous block-posts - every several hundred meters within the field of vision - by 1 a.m. she managed to get to the Grozneftyanaya bus station, knocked on the door of a nearby house, where a woman took picture of her bruises. And we have that picture. And the next day me met Lord Judd of the PACE Political Committee at the Grozneftyanaya... At that time a "mopping up" operation was going on in Starye Atagi. Several women were killed there on January 14.
Corr: Did you produce these facts to him?
B: Yes. We told him about the incident in Starye Atagi. And general Babichev, who was present there, made a gesture saying "keep it in mind, this is the village where Kenneth Gluck was kidnapped." To what we said that it was five days later, because Gluck had been kidnapped on January 9, and that he could have been taken to Kamchatka already...
Corr: And what was Judd's reaction - he shrugged shoulders as usual?
B: No. We felt that he was quite aware of the situation, because information form Memorial goes directly to the Council of Europe. And he knew that. There also was Rogozin's deputy, the representative of the State Duma Mr. Slutsky. Kalamanov, the republic's commandant, general Babichev and a number of other officials were there. When we provided facts, and named dates and surnames, Slutsky demanded that the commandant speak out, adding that Memorial narrated a lot. To what Lord Judd replied: "I am sorry, we would have time to talk to the military in Khankala, whereas I have only an hour with Memorial." He even listened to our witness - a common, semi-literate man, who was beaten up, taken to the 45th regiment disposition, where he was put in a pit blindfolded. Then they took the strap off his head and said he was Khattab's aide. Therefore, you could see that Judd listened to us, though he felt some pressure.
Corr: Now, after the story of Gluck's detention and his strange "magic" release there are reports that international humanitarian organizations resume their mission in the North Caucasus. In particular in Chechnya. Don't you think that such statements are just another trick of Russian authorities?
B: Judge yourself. The next day after he was kidnapped a meeting of relief workers took place in Nazran. The decision to suspend humanitarian activities in Chechnya was made. The problem is that there are no journalists in Chechnya, information goes through the third party. Journalists that came here to make a report either settle here or go begging to the military. Then, they are allowed to see and talked to those whom the commandment chooses. To get more or less objective information journalists go to refugees or to human right organizations. But humanitarian organizations are not the mass media, they work in Chechnya and see what is going on there. There is the organization Doctors for Human Rights. Perhaps, you have heard about its recent harsh statement on the situation in Chechnya. This is an American humanitarian organization. Very often for journalists they are the source of information as well as human rights groups. These are additional eyes for the military. And the latter would like them to leave.
Corr: Why, do you think, Gluck is keeping silence?
B: In fact, Kenneth Gluck's detention cost the inhabitants of Starye Atagi three lives. During the "mopping up" operation a woman and two young men were killed. They were found with their ears and fingers cut off. One of them had his cheek scalped. Considering the sufferings that he caused to the villagers, Kenneth [Gluck], as a noble man, should have said the truth for the sake of these innocent lives' memory. He didn't do that. But I could accept that he was said: "You can say whatever you like, but after that your organization is unlikely to work in Chechnya." This is a quite weighty argument to silent him, especially considering the fact that Doctors without Borders provide enormous medical help to Chechnya, they help hospitals, and small medical centers. Perhaps this is what really matters. I doubt there could be another reason for Kenneth Gluck keeping silence.
Source: Ichkeria.org (Feb 24, 2001)
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