Human Rights Center "Memorial"

HUMAN RIGHTS CENTRE "MEMORIAL"
"Civic Assistance" Committee

In Expectation of an Autumn
Forthcoming Catastrophe

The position of forced migrants in the territory of the Republic of Ingushetia

31.07.2000

From the first days of a large scale military operation conducted in the territory of Chechenian Republic, the rights of the citizens of Russia for the freedom of migration and the selection of the place of residence were violated in the rudest way. The inhabitants of Chechnya who were willing to leave the zone of military actions were prohibited to go outside of this republic. In particular, in the end of September 1999 to the departments of interior of the territories and republics being in the composition of the Russian Federation sent was a corresponding telephonogramme signed by the commandant of the united group of "West" Federal forces General Major Shamanov.

Actually the only region of Russia, accepting forced migrants from Chechnya, turned out to be the Republic of Ingushetia (RI). By a personal instruction of the President of RI R. Aushev its borders were open for the people, running away from war. The possibility of going to Ingushetia, undoubtedly, saved the lives of many people. However as a result of this for a short period of time the number of population in this republic increased over one and a half times: more than 200 thousand forced migrants entered the republic with the population of 310 thousand persons.

Compared to this flow, only a small part of forced migrants could go to other regions of the RF. For example, 2200 people entered Northern Osetia, 5000 people - Stavropolsky territory, 2200 people - Dagestan. The departure included a derogatory procedure of sequential registrations, which is not envisaged by any legal acts; besides the "right" for the departure that was received often finished at the nearest frontier posts, where new violations started. So, for example, in the posts, located in Northern Osetia and Kabardino Balkaria, the persons of chechenian nationality, irrespective of the age and sex, were taken from the transport, searched, bribes were extorted from them. The situation is little changed at these posts at present.

It should be pointed out that anti-chechenian information campaign brought about the fact that even if chechenian families could go to the Russian regions, they find no compassion and understanding with the local population. But the stability of their position is to a great extent determined by the attitude of local authorities.

It is possible to make a conclusion from the above that the planned operation provided for the blocking of all residents of Chechnya within this republic and concentration of forced migrants in so-called "safety zones".

In the end of 1999 the representatives of the federal bodies of power proclaimed a number of residential settlements of Chechnya as "safety zones". Permanent residents were recommended to come back to these settlements. The residents of these "safety zones" were refused to be registered according to form N 7, the availability of which is obligatory for receiving minimum social benefits by forced migrants. The residents of other villages and cities of Chechnya, forced to run from military hostilities (including to Ingushetia) were offered to stay in these zones. However the events that followed showed a complete non- substantiation of such instructions and recommendations. Fighting groups members did not and does not think obligatory for themselves to observe this status of "Safety zones" declared by the federal power of the RF in a unilateral order. Their activity in these zones provoked response blows of the federal forces, causing the death of the peaceful population. Entry of fighting groups members at the beginning of January 2000 into the city of Shali, declared a "safety zone" before that, and a response rocket and bomb blow, causing perishing of hundreds of peaceful inhabitants - is a vivid example of such development of the events. In February 2000 it became clear that the federal command also does not take into account the existence of "safety zones" in preparation of military operations. In the course of the operation, developed by the Russian military command, according to which fighting groups members were going out of Grozny along a so-called "death corridor", where they were exterminated by the fire of artillery and bomb blows, was going along a number of villages, including those included into the "safety zones". As a result of artillery shooting and bombardment in the village of Shaami-Urt ("safety zone") about 200 peaceful inhabitants were killed. All this caused new flow of forced migrants from Chechnya to Ingushetia.

Already in November 1999, the Representative of the Government of the RF in Ch.R. N. Koshman declared that by December 25 all forced migrants, located in the territory of Ingushetia, will be returned back to Chechnya. In December 1999 - January 2000 the Ministry for Extraordinary Situations (MES) of the RF made the first attempts of pushing out and even direct forced return of forced migrants from Ingushetia back to Chechnya. For this purpose the issuance of any help to forced migrants from a number of residential settlements of Chechnya was stopped. 47 railway vans, in which forced migrants were residing, were against the will of the inhabitants returned to Sernovodsk (Chechnya) from the camp "Severny"(Ingushetia).

Due to a number of reasons: objective situation in Chechnya, protests of human rights and international organizations, protests of forced migrants themselves, - the plans of a quick return of forced migrants from Ingushetia to Chechnya were not implemented.

It is already for seven months of 2000 in the territory of Ingushetia an enormous number of forced migrants from Chechnya continue to stay. The return to the places of their permanent residence takes place very slowly - during the spring - summer of 2000 the number of forced migrants from Chechnya was cut down from 190000 to 150000 persons. This is mostly explained by the fact that it is impossible to have more or less normal living conditions on the most part of the territory of Grozny and a number of destroyed large villages, by the genuine absence of safety in many regions of Chechnya. So, on July 18, stanitsa Assinovskaya, where one of the centres of the temporary placement of forced migrants is located, was shut from tank weapons and from a helicopter. One of the local residents was killed, a number of houses along Krasnopartisanskaya street was heavily destroyed, a mill was completely exterminated. Military men explained their actions by the fact that they were shut at from the side of the stanitsa.

At the same time during the whole of the military operation the financing of forced migrants in the Republic of Ingushetia was obviously insufficient. Several times the flow of resources from the federal structures was completely ceased which brought the situation at the edge of catastrophe.

The Government of the Russian Federation for the period from October 1999 till March 2000 allocated 474.2 mln roubles for the maintenance and residence of citizens who were forced to leave the Chechnya Republic. In reality, according to the calculations of the Migration Service of the Republic of Ingushetia for maintenance and residence of citizens who forcefully left Ch. R. it was necessary to have twice as much - for the first 7 month of the year 2000 based on 180 thousand people - 922.087 mln roubles.

From the resources allocated to the Migration Service of the Republic of Ingushetia according to the order of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) of Russia really came for the period October 1999 - May 2000: 349.212915 mln roubles. From the resources that were received spent were: 349.178741 mln roubles. The resources from the FMS of Russian were received not in a due time.

As a result as for the state of 01.06.00 the Migration Service of the Republic of Ingushetia due to the insufficient financing and untimely receipt of the resources has a big creditor debt amounting to 307.3 mln roubles.

According to the calculations of the Migration Service of the RI for the maintenance of forced migrants from the Chechnya Republic (based on the number of 150 thousand persons) it is necessary to have 92.5 mln roubles per month.

However from June 2000 the resources for the maintenance of forced migrants in the territory of Ingushetia ceased to be received.

Already at the beginning of June the migration service of Ingushetia warned the Government of the RF that untimely payment of the debt may cause interruptions in the supply of food products to forced migrants. On June 19 due to the absence of resources the delivery of hot meals to the residents of the forced migrants camps was completely stopped. The stores of the Ministry of Extraordinary Situations (MES) are empty and there is no food products there even for dry rations (thanks to which in winter 2000 in a similar situation it was possible to avoid a catastrophe). There is no possibility to provide forced migrants at least with bread at the former level. The thing is that the MES of Ingushetia was forced to apply to organizations that deliver bread for migrants from Chechnya with a request to decrease the bread ration, given to one person, in order to give bread to all that need it. As a result the amount of bread, previously meant for one camp "Sputnik" is distributed also to the camp "Severny". And this happens taken into account that the state does not supply forced migrants with any other food products.

At present the food products come to the camps of forced migrants exclusively from non-government and international humanitarian organizations.

According to the data of the "Doctors of the World" organization in the camp "Severny" more often became the diseases among children which is the consequence of the cessation of the supply by hot meals.

In the interview to the correspondent of the "Radio Russia" T.I. Kasatkina, the minister for the affairs of federation, national and migration policy of the RF A. V. Blokhin stated the food problems in the camps are temporary and are related to the liquidation of the Federal Migration Service and the transfer of the main functions of this service to his ministry. However more than a month passed and there are no changes, although the matter is life important priorities in the maintenance of people.

At the meeting of the leaders of the Process Group of the UNO Conference on Forced Migration in CIS Countries that took place in Geneva on July 14, 2000, the Russian delegation, headed by A.V. Blokhin asserted that financing of meals and other forms of assistance to forced migrants that left Chechnya continues, that minor interruptions in the receipt of resources are in no way related to the liquidation of the FMS.

In June to the Migration Service of the Republic of Ingushetia applied the authorities of a number of organizations ("Ingushgas", "Ingushenergo", "Waterchannel") with warning letters about future disconnection of gas, water, power supply in the places of compact location of forced migrants due to great debts. As a result in July 2000 in Ingushetia at the centres of temporary residence started an overall disconnection of electricity. As the people often leave in the premises without windows, they are often find themselves in absolute darkness for the whole of the day.

The majority of forced migrants in the territory of Ingushetia live in the premises of the private sector and different economic structures. According to the instruction of the Federal Migration Service of 20.10.99 N 329 the hosts of these premises should be paid a lease fee from the budget resources.

At present to the Migration Service of Ingushetia the claims are raised to the court of arbitration with the demand to pay the debts for a lease of premises. Agreements, concluded with private house owners and owners of enterprises were many times returned from the Federal Migration Service of the RF back to Ingushetia with the remarks for mastering. It is possible quite surely suppose that allegedly "not worked through" lease agreements are only a bureaucratic pretext which allows "not to pay, not refusing". If the credit of patience of lessors is exhausted, and forced migrants shall be moved out of the private sector, Ingushetia will be looking forward for an extreme situation, as the camps for migrants are already overfilled.

Thinking well founded that:

• during the coming autumn and winter season in the territory of Ingushetia the major part of forced migrants will stay there,
• the conditions of life in functioning camps were extremely hard last winter,
• a considerable part of migrants will be forced to leave a private sector,

The President of the RI gave an order to construct a new tent camp. The Government of the RI applied to the Department of the Supreme Commissar on the Affairs of the Refugees (DSCR) of the UNO with the request to render assistance in the construction of this camp, as Ingushetia does not have its own resources for that, and the resources from the Federal Budget do not come. UNO DSCR in its turn, after thorough analysis of the situation, gave a consent for the construction of two camps for 12 thousand persons, priced at 0.5 mln dollars. The camps have to embrace all residents of rail road carriages, as well as forced migrants living in places, not suitable for residence (milk and commodity farms, basements, etc.). It was thought that the construction will be finished during the summer season. However the works were stopped as the Minister for the affairs of federation, national and migration policy of the RF A.V. Blokhin disagreed to the construction of these camps in Ingushetia, as according to his opinion the camp should be built in Chechnya. UNO DSCR in its turn cannot built camps in Chechnya due to the following reasons:

• the absence of residence safety;
• the lack of surety that the people will go from Ingushetia to the newly built camps.

As far as we know in the provisional Administration of the Chechen Republic prevails an opinion that until Ingushetia gives food to forced migrants they will not come back to Chechnya. But the crowds of people that in autumn of 1999 were running to Ingushetia, were looking for safety there. They neither had places for residence, nor food products. Obviously it is first necessary to created conditions for a safe living of people, and only after that to speak about measures, aimed at the mass return of forced migrants.

According to the data, available with "Memorial" Human Rights Centre, the Government of the RF took a decision on creating five centres of temporary residence in the territory of Grozny. The Ministry for the Affairs of Federation, National and Migration Policy of the RF was appointed as the executive. Luckily there were no practical steps made in this direction. Everybody who at least approximately are acquainted with the present situation in Grozny understands perfectly well that allocation of the mass of people in camps or vans among the destroyed city in which shootings continue on a daily basis, regular "purging" are conducted, where people disappear. and movement along the street is extremely limited, would be an utter absence of responsibility. It is hardly possibly to completely exclude the possibility of fighters penetration into such centres of temporary residence. And the attack of the federal forces in the vicinity of such centre will inevitably cause, as it happened many times in the territory of Chechnya, response measures aimed at peaceful residents - in this case inhabitants of the centres of temporary residence. The attempts to prevent such development of events by installing additional check points, fencing, etc., will turn these centres into concentration camps.

Unfortunately all course of actions of the command of the federal forces during the present military operation in Chechnya leaves the possibility for one more supposition. It is not excluded that by the creation of five camps in Grozny the aim of covering some directions by them from fighters as by a "live shield" is pursued.

The above analysis of the existing situation allows to make the following conclusions:

• at the edge of the coming autumn one hundred and fifty thousand forced migrants, located in the territory of Ingushetia, are again facing a catastrophe. In stead of taking care of the safety and real preparation of these people for the coming winter, they are attempted to be pushed back to Chechnya. Based on merely political goals the Federal bodies of power of Russia, and first of all - the Ministry for the Affairs of the Federation, National and Migration Policy of the RF, are actually interfering with UNO DSCR rendering assistance to the citizens of Russia, who found themselves in the hardest situation;
• the Federal bodies of power of the RF, in agreement with the Provisional Administration of the Chechen Republic are pursuing the policy of "pushing" the forced migrants from Ingushetia to Chechnya, rendering also an indirect pressure upon the government of Ingushetia;
• movement of forced migrants from Ingushetia to the Northern regions of Chechnya will solve not a single problem and will have similar negative in the social aspect consequences, as the placement of such camps in the territory of Ingushetia. But it will require considerable resources and will create additional inconveniences to forced migrants themselves;
• movement of forced migrants from Ingushetia to other regions of Chechnya, where their safety is not provided for, can provoke new terrorist acts and mass violence;
• the initial position of representatives of a number of federal organizations, aimed at the concentration of all residents of Chechnya within this republic and the policy aimed at speeded up re-emigration of forced migrants that is pursued make grounded the suspicions about the possibility of creating closed zones in the territory of Chechnya for placement of internal migrants, where the passage of journalists and human rights advocates will be limited.

In planning the work with forced migrants from Chechnya the federal bodies of power operate by only two administrative units: either Chechnya, where many people are afraid to come back, or Ingushetia, which is already about a year is in the status of an emergency situation.

It is thought that it would be expedient to consider new constructive proposals. For example, the conclusion of production agreements in the regions of Russia, to which traditionally the inhabitants of Chechnya and Ingushetia were going for seasonal works, the possibility of leasing agricultural lands for farming, etc.

ANNEX

According to the certificate of the Migration Service of the RI of 01.06.2000, for maintenance and residence of citizens who were forced to leave Chechen Republic the following monetary resources were allocated according to the Order of the Government of the RF:

N 1637p of 15.10.1999 N 1841pc of 11.11.1999 N 2132 p of 28.12.1999 N 437p of 24.03.2000	147 000 000 roubles 125 000 000 roubles 2 200 000 roubles 200 000 000 roubles
TOTAL	474 200 000 roubles

Out of them to the Migration Service of Republic of Ingushetia according to the order of the FMS of Russia received were:

N329 of 20.10.99 N379 of 1.12.99 N457 of 20.12.99 N8 of 14.01.00 N80 of 02.03.00 N81 of 02.03.00 N108 of 24.03.00 N117 of 03.04.00 N144 of 25.04.00 N167 of 17.05.00	45 012 915 roubles 37 400 000 roubles 45 000 000 roubles 2 200 000 roubles 65 000 000 roubles 14 600 000 roubles 40 000 000 roubles 20 000 000 roubles 20 000 000 roubles 20 000 000 roubles
TOTAL	309 212 915 roubles

From the resources that were received spent were:

For hot meals in camp towns For meals in the private sector For bread For communal services for citizens, residing in a private sector Communal services for organizations For leasing premises Maintenance in the private sector Maintenance of camp towns Other expenditures Auto services Travel by rail ways	71 350 638 roubles 11 9 407 075 roubles 73 696 424 roubles 24 457 062 roubles 3 310 381 roubles 7 628 917 roubles 3 624 139 roubles 2 032 464 roubles 1 095 092 roubles 1 076 546 roubles 1 500 000 roubles
TOTAL	309 178 741 roubles

According to the status of 01.06.00 the Migration service had a big creditors debt due to untimely allocation of monetary resources by the FMS of Russia. For the present the creditors debt constitutes for the articles:

For the organization of meals For bread For purchasing meals For communal services Including; For electric power For water For gas For leasing premises from legal persons For leasing in private sector from physical persons For travel along rail ways For the maintenance of towns Including for repair jobs in the towns Auto services Tail roads	10,0 mln roubles 9,5 mln roubles 25,2 mln roubles 48,6 mln roubles 14,6 mln roubles 8,8 mln roubles 25,3 mln roubles 40,0mln roubles 202,7 mln roubles 8,5 mln roubles 15,0 mln roubles 4,0 mln roubles 3,0 mln roubles 0,8 mln roubles
TOTAL	367,3 mln roubles

It was necessary to have for 8 months for the maintenance and residence of citizens that were forced to leave the CH. R., based on 180 thousand people:

For meals For rent

658800000 roubles 395280000 roubles

Due to the decrease of the number of citizens from Chechen Republic, residing in the Republic of Ingushetia, which constitutes approximately 150 thousand people, it was necessary to have 92.5 mln. roubles per month:
Including

For the organization of meals For bread For communal services Including: Electric power Water Gas For leasing premises from legal persons For rent in the private sector from physical persons For travel along rail roads For the maintenance of towns

33,5 mln roubles 10,0 mln roubles 7,5 mln roubles 2,5 mln roubles 1,6 mln roubles 3,4 mln roubles 6,0 mln roubles 27,8 mln roubles 0,7 mln roubles 7,0 mln roubles