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HR news |
Reports of human rights organizations are supported by evidence from other sources
April 2003
In the course of the 'second Chechen war' numerous reports by human rights organizations and journalists on mass human rights violations in the Chechen Republic have been repeatedly supported by evidence coming from various official, semi-official and close to official sources. Journalists and human rights advocates got access to secret reports, individual responses of prosecuting agencies, announcements of some officials of pro-Moscow institutions of the Chechen Administration and even to their collective appeals.
Thus, "Memorial" reported on the appeal of heads of state departments and ministries of the Chechen Republic, heads of local administration, members of Consultative Councils to the Head of Administration of the Chechen Republic addressed to the President of the Russian Federation in November last year. Among those who signed the document were Shaid Zhamaldaev, the president of the Presidium of the Consultative Council to the Head of Administration of Chechnya and Deputy-Head of Administration of Chechnya, Adnan Magomedov, the Representative of head of administration of the Chechen Republic with the President of the Russian Federation, the Heads of Administrations of Gudermesky, Achhoi-Martanovsky, Urus-Martanovsky districts. These officials of Chechnya asked the President to put an end to atrocities committed against the citizens of the Republic on behalf of the federal power forces.
Quoting the appeal:
In the days immediately preceding the terrorist act in Moscow the illegal actions of the Federal Forces in Chechnya have radically worsened the social and political situation in the Republic. This concerns kidnappings of the civilians, committed by the military servicemen using military vehicles late at night. For all of the numerous cases we have reports to the Republican Prosecutor's Office, Commandants of the districts, Commandant of the Republic, and the military authorities of the armed forces in Chechnya. <...>. All our appeals are unfortunately left without attention <...>
In the end of March and the first part of April this year 3 new pieces of evidence became public which supported the information of human rights organizations on mass human rights violations in Chechnya.
1. Interview of A. Kadyrov to 'Echo Moskvy'
On March 26, Akhmad Kadyrov, the Head of Administration of the Chechen Republic, gave a live interview to the journalist of radio "Echo Moskvy" Vladimir Varfolomeev.
Among other things, the journalist asked Kadyrov a question about disappearances:
V. Varfolomeev: Recently Human Rights Center 'Memorial' published a report which claims that now one of the security problems in Chechnya are mass cases of kidnapping people. There exist certain 'squadrons of death', which break into the houses late at night and kidnap people. Who are those people? How serious is this problem?
A. Kadyrov: This is a very serious problem, a very serious issue. In order to avoid searching for the guilty in FSB, MVD or Ministry of defense, searching among several structures, it is necessary for one structure to work. MVD should do it.
V. Varfolomeev: So generally, all this is within the framework of operations by federal forces.
A. Kadyrov: This, unfortunately, in December and January was from the side of the people, who were driving around in BTRs [armed personnel carriers] and by 'Urals' [cargo trucks]. I think Basaev is not driving a BTR these days.
2. Interview with an intelligence officer
On March 28, newspaper 'Izvestiya' published an interview with the head of a military intelligence unit dislocated in the mountainous Chechnya. Upon demand of the interviewee the journalists left out the name, the rank of the officer, and the specifications of his military unit. We translate parts of the interview referring to crimes committed in the Chechen Republic. For full text of the interview in Russian, go to http://www.izvestia.ru/politic/article31814
Officer: They protest against mop-ups, complain that their relatives disappear. But this is not for no reason. Normal people do not disappear in Chechnya. Only scam disappears, those who should be eliminated, cleansed.
Journalist: Is that you who kidnap people at nights and then eliminate them?
Officer: About 30% of them are kidnapped and killed as a result of criminal sorting outs among Chechens themselves. 20% are on the conscience of the fighters. And we eliminate 50%. With our corrupt judiciary there is no other way. If to send the detained fighters, according to the law, to the detainment facility "Chernokozovo", very soon their relatives would buy them out. We started to use those methods when the major groups of fighters in the mountains had already been killed. The troops stopped over. The prosecutors arrived, started to do all kinds of nonsense, something like peace making. Everything should be supported by evidence etc. Suppose we have operational information that the person is a bandit, his hands are up to the elbows in blood. We arrive to his place with a prosecutor and there's no single live cartridge in his house. What to arrest for? That is why eliminating fighters under the veil of the night is the most effective means of warfare. They are simply afraid of it. And nowhere do they feel safe. Neither in the mountains, nor at home. Large operations are not needed now. Precise operations are needed, targeted, surgical. You can combat lawlessness only by unlawful means.
Journalist: Do you like this means?
Officer: Not always. Sometimes innocent people disappear. Chechens now are dividing power, sometimes they report on each other. And when we find out truth it turns out its too late to correct anything. The person is already gone.
3. Information leak from the authorities of the Chechen Republic: a report on crimes committed in Chechnya
In the middle April foreign journalists accredited in Moscow were handed over a secret report of the Chechen government, which, as it was claimed, had been compiled by the power structures of Chechnya (administration and government) and intended for the President of the Russian Federation. These materials were not to be made public. In January and February 2002 some media reported that Administration of the Chechen Republic had intentions to prepare periodic reports on the situation with human rights in Chechnya and deliver it to the president of the Russian Federation The staff of Human Rights Center 'Memorial' studied these documents. They contain specific examples of crimes, committed in the Chechen Republic in January and February 2003, a comparative analysis of crimes in January-March 2003, a statistical report on crimes of 2002, a list of mass graves with the number of corpses discovered in each of them.
In general, the documents do not produce an effect of a completed report or even a supplement to it, but rather preparatory materials for such a report. For simplicity, hereinafter we will refer to them as 'materials of the authorities of the Chechen Republic'. Materials reveal certain negligence in the content. Thus, sometimes in the statistical tables there are flaws in adding individual numbers to get to the summarizing ones. Under the section 'Data on murder and kidnapping of people on the territory of the Chechen Republic in January 2003' are quoted cases of other crimes, for example, hooliganism and destruction of property. However, such inaccuracy does not put under question the authenticity of data in the document. Conversely, judging from our experience, we can assert that such carelessness is characteristic of documents, processed by MVD and the prosecuting agencies (most likely these documents were prepared by the MVD of the Chechen Republic or in the department of Administration of the Chechen Republic, which supervises MVD).
It should be taken into consideration, that the figures quoted in the statistical reports give a lower borderline of the estimate in the number of crimes committed against civilians. Thus, as is claimed in the materials, in the year 2002, 1314 civilians were injured and killed. Obviously, here were united the victims by federal forces and by the Chechen combatants (some media has mistakenly classified all of them as victims of summary executions).
It makes sense to compare these figures with the data of Human Rights Center 'Memorial'.
We have evidence, in the year 2002, of deaths of 559 civilian persons (including 6 heads of administrations of the towns and villages) on the territory of the Chechen Republic. Among those killed are 60 women, 31 children and adolescents. These include 372 civilians (67% of the total number) who definitely were. victims of the federal forces and power structures in the Chechen Republic However, for us it is quite obvious, that our list of crimes against the civilian population is not exhaustive. "Memorial" is capable of monitoring up 25-30 % of its territory only. The remaining regions, and among them mountainous districts, are inaccessible to our monitors. In the meantime, precisely there the situation remains particularly tense; murder and kidnapping of people are committed almost daily. It is beyond our capacity to collect full evidence even for the districts where 'Memorial's monitors work. According to our approximate estimates the total number of persons killed on the territory of the Chechen Republic might in fact be 3-4 times higher than the figures of 'Memorial'. Therefore, from our viewpoint the data quoted in the analyzed 'materials of the authorities of the Chechen Republic' are likewise, understated.
This becomes obvious in comparison to the data of monthly "Chronicle of violence", which is regularly updated by "Memorial", with the list of murder and kidnappings in January-February 2003 from materials of the authorities of the Chechen Republic. However, a number of crimes described in the materials of the authorities of the Chechen Republic, are missing in the 'Chronicle of violence'. Moreover, naturally, our NGO has no access to the official data. However, curiously enough, not infrequently the cases of murder and kidnapping, described in the "Chronicle of violence", are absent in the material of the authorities of the Chechen Republic. Importantly, criminal cases have been open on the majority of those crimes. Probably, this is the result of departmental confusion and carelessness of the bureaucracy.
Therefore, it is obvious that the data on crimes against the civilian population in the Chechen Republic are incomplete both in the materials of "Memorial" and in the materials, prepared by the authorities of the Chechen Republic. The same can be said about mass graves. "Memorial" does not have the entire information on the 49 mass graves, which are listed in the materials of the authorities of the Chechen Republic. It should be noted, however, that in the village Goyskoye (699 corpses), were mostly the graves of Chechen fighters killed in March 2000 in the fights for Komsomolskoe. Although, later, they buried victims of summary execution there as well (the staff of human rights "Memorial", possesses information on at least 4 of similar cases).
On the other hand, in this aspect the materials of the authorities of the Chechen Republic are likewise incomplete. Thus, data on several mass graves, information on the exhumation of which is available at 'Memorial' is missing from it. Thus, in the report, there is no mention of a grave, which contained 74 bodies, discovered in June 2000 in the proximity of the road Urus-Martan- Tangi-Chu. It is reported that two corpses were allegedly found in the surroundings of village Starye Atagi. However, according to the information we have, which is supported by evidence from the prosecuting agencies, in September 2000 were discovered three mass graves with 6 bodies, which were later identified by the relatives. All six of the victims had been at different times detained by the representatives of the federal forces. There is no mention of the mass grave, discovered on March 13, 2001 in the proximity of the Russian military base in Khankala. After the exhumation, corpses of four residents of town Argun were identified, whom the military servicemen had previously detained during the mop-up of this town. Similar examples can be continued.
The list of mass graves cited in the report, contains graves with victims of summary executions. However, within the last year or two the Russian federal forces tend to blast the corpses of their victims. For these purposes they usually choose forests, gardens and other places, where the remains of human bodies cannot discovered immediately and thus have good chances to be eaten by wild or feral animals. However, sometimes quite long afterwards such places are discovered by the locals. As examples one could name gardens of the state collective farm "Michurin" near Urus-Martan, and Chernorechensky forest near the road leading from highway Rostov-Baku into the village Goyty. In these and in other similar places, fragments of human bodies have been repeatedly found. Some of them were later identified by distinctive fragments of bodies, in particular, teeth. As a rule the victims turned out to be persons, previously detained by the federal forces. Such places are not recorded in the materials of the authorities of the Chechen Republic. Neither are cases when the dead bodies of the victims killed by the federal servicemen were discovered under the ruins of houses blown up during the sweeps of the Chechen settlements as it happened in Alkhan Khala.
Thus, the materials of the authorities of the Chechen Republic intended for the President of the Russian Federation are authentic but incomplete.
Interestingly, after the publication of the articles based on these materials in mass media of Europe and the USA, Akhmad Kadyrov declared that 'such a report is non-existent', that information of this type is a fraud, an attempt to distort the real situation in Chechnya, which is normalizing, by means of a newspaper canard."
Following this, new leak of information occurred from the official sources on the crimes committed against civilians in the Chechen Republic.
4. A Report of the Prosecutor of the Chechen Republic
On April 16, "Nezavismaya Gazeta" published an excerpt of the report by Vladimir Kravchenko, the Prosecutor of Chechnya, which had been distributed at a closed meeting of the republican power officials in the start of March 2003.
On mop-ups:
"In the course of similar actions were committed looting of property, money and valuables of the civilians, destruction of residential and household edifices; this is supported by the materials of the criminal cases under investigation..."
On abductions:
"...a particular significance on the territory of the republic have acquired cases of illegal detainment and disappearance of civilians. In the period of carrying out the counter-terrorist operation on the territory of the Chechen Republic have been open 1178 criminal cases for kidnapping of 1163 civilians, including 565 criminal cases on kidnapping of 738 persons in 2002 only"
"Out of the total number of 565 criminal cases open by the prosecuting agencies in 2002, in about 300 criminal cases there exists evidence of the involvement of representatives of the federal forces in kidnappings of civilians"
In relation to the numbers quoted by the prosecutor it makes sense to refer to another relevant publication. On February 10, 2003 the newspaper "Vesty Respubliki", which is being published under the patronage of the Ministry of Press, TV and Radio Broadcasting and Mass Media of the Chechen Republic, under the headline "A Bleeding Wound" published an interview with Sheiakhmed Abdurakhmanov, the head of the unit for search of missing persons at the Department of Legality, Security and Work with Military Servicemen of the Administration of the Chechen Republic. To the question on the number of disappearances after detainment by the federal forces he, referring to the data of the Information Center at the Department of Interior MVD of the Russian Federation on the Chechen Republic, announced the following numbers: 141 persons in 2000; 279 in 2001, 654 persons - in 9 months of 2002.
When asked how many persons were killed in the same time periods, Sheiahmet Abdurakhmanov said that these numbers are even 'more depressing'. According to his information in 2000- 278 persons were murdered, in 2001- 525, in 9 months of 2002-1178. Kadyrov's official did not make any attempts to conceal the fact that all those murdered had been civilians, and that Russian military servicemen and the representatives of the special services committed crimes against them. In the interview he warned his interlocutor "Keep in mind that we are speaking of victims among the civilian population. If "Antiterror" continues in Chechnya, soon there will remain no one to kidnap and kill here". On top of that, Sh. Abdurakhmanov said that no one has precise statistics on the numbers of killed in Chechnya. He only supposes that they are even more horrendous and "are in arithmetical progression several orders higher".
