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HR news |
The "Cleansing Operation" in the Village of Mairtup, September 1-9, 2001: Cleansing by the rules?
The Memorial Human Rights Center has reported more than once about the massive violation of human rights and numerous crimes against civilians committed by military servicemen and employees of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) during the course of so-called "cleansing operations" in communities in the Chechen Republic.
The Acting Commander of the United Forces in the Northern Caucasus and the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation have published orders (at the end of May 2001 and end of July 2001) declaring an end to the widespread arbitrariness and violence against peaceful populations in the course of "cleansing operations" in populated areas. As we have reported, however, these legal declarations have unfortunately not been observed.
The first instance that we know of when order No. 145 by the Commander of the United Forces in the Northern Caucasus actually facilitated a reduction in the level of arbitrariness and violence against the local population was the "cleansing operation" in the village of Mairtup on September 1-9, 2001. We would note that the behavior of the Russian general commanding this special operation differed substantially from the actions of his colleagues in the course of similar "cleansing operations."
On September 1, 2001, the village of Mairtup in the Kurchaloevsky region was blockaded by soldiers at about 4 o'clock in the morning. Residents were not allowed to leave the confines of the village, and no one was allowed in. The road which goes through Mairtup to the regional center of Kurchaloy was closed to traffic.
Closing roads like this sometimes threatens the lives and well-being of local residents. On September 8, while the "cleansing operation" in Mairtup was continuing, soldiers who were cordoning off the village did not allow a car to pass through, which was carrying a pregnant woman from the village of Bachi-Yurt to the Kurchaloevsky regional hospital. The woman was then beset by serious complications that put her life and the life of her future child at risk. The driver was forced to turn around and to go to Khasavyurt – some 40 kilometers further on. Moreover, he was forced to pay money at all of the roadblocks so that the soldiers wouldn't detain the car. The life of the mother and child was saved thanks only to the professionalism of Dagestani doctors.
The soldiers explained their actions, saying that they were searching for a certain participant in Chechen armed formations who regularly communicated with fighters from Mairtup by walkie-talkie. The general directing the blockade of the village rudely demanded that the local residents give up this individual and that if they didn't, the "cleansing operation" would be carried out harshly.
It is obvious that the "cleansing operation" planned for Mairtup was to be similar to the one carried out a short time previously in the nearby village of Alleroi. Here, just as in Alleroi, soldiers broke into homes on the first days of the "cleansing operation," stealing from residents and behaving incredibly rudely. They led away detained men – and even teenagers – to an FSB building in Kurchaloe or to the outskirts of Mairtup where the headquarters were located. On the nearby field no fewer than 20 people were interrogated and beaten severely.
It's important to note that the VOVD staff of the Kurchaloevsky region dealt properly with local residents right from the beginning of the "cleansing operation."
However events later took on a somewhat unusual character. Apparently there was a whole set of reasons for this.
First, the increasing collapse of discipline and moral decay within the armed forces stationed in Chechnya and the record levels of corruption – in which the army was compared with the MVD – clearly began to worry the Russian leadership.
Second, a series of scandals, which erupted after the details of the cleansing operations in villages in the Kurchaloevsky, Sunzhensky and Achkhoi-Martanovsky regions came to the attention of Russian and world societies, also forced the commanders of federal forces in Chechnya to try somehow to lower the level of violence against the civilian population.
Third, one can't discount the pressure on Russia from the side of the world community – although this is clearly not enough.
Against this backdrop, two individuals apparently played a deciding role in the development of events in the village.
Zhanna Khasbulatova, who lives in Maitrup, works at the bureau of the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the protection of human rights in the Chechen Republic. Overcoming numerous obstacles, she was somehow able to get through to the general directing the special operation. She demanded that the soldiers stop their arbitrary actions and that they conduct the "cleansing operation" in accordance with the order made by the Commander of the United Forces on May 27, 2001.
At first the general didn't take her demands seriously. But as this woman - a former school teacher getting on in years - continued to insist that at least some minimum standard of legality be observed, the general changed his tone after some time and accepted a statement from the residents of the village that contained complaints about the illegal actions being taken by his subordinates.
After reading through them, he gave an order that the soldier who had taken money from an elderly woman in the village be found and that items stolen from other residents be returned. Moreover, soldiers were made to pay 1100 rubles each to the owners of two rams that had been slaughtered by contract soldiers. Carpets, which soldiers had removed through the window of one home while some of their fellow soldiers were being offered tea in the kitchen, were returned.
Next, they stopped taking and beating local men, as had happened during the first days of the "cleansing operation." Chechen police began to travel around the village on the BTRs along with soldiers. The general harshly sentenced two contract soldiers who had beaten a man.
Nonetheless, the village remained in a state of siege – the school didn't operate and people weren't able to work in the fields. Therefore the local residents themselves suggested to the general leading the "cleansing operation" how he might speed up the screening process. On September 7, all men between the ages of 15 and 50 (2748 people in total) went to a field on the edge of the village. MVD employees began a comprehensive check of the men with the help of a computer database. Soldiers brought water to the field; a military doctor and representatives of the village administration were present. Toilets were even set up. Those who didn't understand Russian were interrogated with the help of a translator. People prayed on the field according to the five times a day schedule.
The check took all of a few hours to conduct. In the course of the check two people were detained and taken away to the temporary VOVD facility in Kurchaloe. Over the next days soldiers took away nine more people who had undergone checks in the field.
In total, 17 people from Mairtup were brought to the VOVD center in Kurchaloe as a result of the "cleansing operation." Four of these were later released. Among those remaining were a 17-year old young man, Reshidov, who was detained because of a mistake in surname in his passport, and the mentally-ill Gazaliev.
Despite all the efforts of the local residents and the good will of the general, not all excesses were avoided. As it turned out, it wasn't just residents who needed to be defended, but also the conscripted soldiers who were cordoning off the perimeter of the village. The "cleansing operation" went on for almost nine days, but they had been brought food for only three days. By the end of the eighth day, the hungry soldiers began to shoot at cattle and to raid nearby homes. In these raids they seized not only food, but whatever else happened to be within reach – possibly with the thought of later selling it. It appears that these soldiers – practically boys, who had earlier been witnesses and unwilling participants in the arbitrary actions of their elders – somehow developed a stereotype of how to behave during a "cleansing operation" and didn't understand that in the given situation things should have been different. Local residents, who relate with great sympathy towards conscripted soldiers – seeing them as victims of the war, just like themselves – were disconcerted by their behavior.
It's not known whether or not the soldiers managed to find the one fighter thanks to whom, supposedly, the whole "cleansing operation" occurred. But in the course of the special operation they did manage to avoide the egregious acts of arbitrariness that had occurred earlier in other villages of the Kurchaloevsky region. This does however raise doubts about the very necessity and advisability of conducting these special operations. Approximately a month before these events in the village of Mairtup, an Arab who apparently was connected with Chechen armed formations was killed by soldiers. No "cleansing operation" was needed for this – only the block where he was hiding was cordoned off, and no local residents suffered.
This time during the first days of the "cleansing operation" the village underwent a real attack: most institutions didn't operate and work in the fields was stopped. Children couldn't go to school for a whole 10 days – for those going to first grade, the "holiday of knowledge" was spoiled forever.
Afterward to the text of the orders of the General Prosecutor on the events in Sernovodsk and Assinovska, 3-4 July 2001
The events of July 3-4, 2001 in Assinovskaya and Sernovodsk had such a loud public resonance both in Russia and abroad that for the first time since the beginning of the "anti-terrorist operation" in Chechnya, the leadership of the General Prosecutor was forced to publicly admit to massive human rights violations by federal Russian forces against the civilian population.
The Human Rights Center Memorial has the text of the order made by the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation on July 25, 2001 in relation to these incidents.
On one hand, the document is unique in that the highest official figure of the Russian Federation, responsible for monitoring compliance with the law, actually admits the problematic situation in the Chechen Republic in terms of observing human rights while carrying out "cleansing operations."
On the other hand, the document fits perfectly with other similar orders and directives intended to curtail arbitrary actions and violence against civilian populations in the course of "cleansing operations" in populated areas.
The Human Rights Center Memorial has already reported on order No. 145 of the Acting Commander of the United Forces in the Northern Caucasus. There are many overlapping points in these two orders. The Acting Commander ordered regional commanders and heads of divisions of the federal forces to cooperate with the heads of local administrations, military commanders, chiefs of village police departments, and regional prosecutors when carrying out special operations in populated areas. It was prescribed that these official figures should be invited at the start of special operations to the command point for the leader of the operation.
However the "cleansing operations" in Kurchaloevsky region, Assinovska and Sernovodsk showed that the Acting Commander's order went regularly unfulfilled.
The "cleansing operations" in the villages of Staraya Ataga, Chiry-Yurt, and Alleroi, unfortunately, show that the order of the Prosecutor General, No. 46, is also going unfulfilled.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Has control been lost over federal forces operating in the Chechen Republic? Are neither military command nor the office of the prosecutor able to influence the actions of the direct executors of these "cleansing operations"?
Or is it the case that orders like those of the Acting Commander and the Prosecutor General are simply being published for symbolic purposes, and that in fact the official figures signing them are not at all worried about the massive violations of human rights?
We don't yet have a clear answer to these questions.
