Last winter in Ingushetia
Timur Aliyev, special to Prague Watchdog
Chechen and
Ingush authorities are ready to close all the remaining tent refugee camps in
Ingushetia. The refugees' position is not unanimous: some of them are packing
their things and leaving for Chechnya, while others adamantly state they will
not return to Chechnya under any conditions.
"All
of them must be back in Chechnya by March 4!"
During a meeting
with Migration Service officials and camp directors in December, Chechen
Moscow-backed leader Akhmad Kadyrov said that he received a command from Moscow
to conclude the process for returning refugees to Chechnya.
According to
eyewitnesses, Kadyrov told the participants in the meeting: "Those who do
not wish to return home are the murderers and criminals. They harmed the
interests of Chechnya and that is why they prefer to sit in the tents. If
someone doesn’t want to return home, he will be expelled by force - and I´m not
afraid to say this. Cut the tents with knives, act unceremoniously. Make them
go home. I will provide you with all assistance necessary, even special police
or military units if needed. I will use all the force at my disposal. I claim
responsibility for everything - be they either good things or bad things."
A UN
representative at the meeting asked him: "Are you going to claim
responsibility for the forcible return of refugees?" Kadyrov replied:
"I claim 100 per cent responsibility for everything that will be done
there."
The UN
representative asked another question: "Can you provide the returnees with
security guarantees?" And Kadyrov answered: "What kind of guarantees
do they need? I'm not able to guarantee my own security. Perhaps I'll die
tomorrow. I will not give any guarantees to anyone."
Then Kadyrov
literally ordered: "I want them all back in Chechnya by March 4. Let me be
absolutely clear on this so you can’t say you didn’t understand me. This job
has to be completed and everything necessary has been prepared for it -
vehicles and other equipment have been already allocated by the Southern
Federal Region."
Human rights
defenders are convinced that such statements will not change the current
situation. "The refugees will not simply pack up and leave the camps, and
so there may well be conflicts," said Taisa Isayeva, a member of SNO, an
umbrella organization of Chechen NGOs based in Ingushetia. "The authorities
are not interested in the refugees; they just want the tent camps
dismantled."
Refugee or
Rebel?
In 2000 there
were about 20,000 refugees in the tent camps; the Iman camp in the Malgobeksky
district was closed in December 2002 and the Bella and Alina camps were shut down
at the end of last year. Currently there are three major camps in Ingushetia:
Satsita, Sputnik and Bart, housing about 4,600 refugees.
The refugees
feel that the main obstacle is the security situation in Chechnya, as well as
lack of appropriate housing. The Public Council of Refugees
("Obshchestvenny sovet bezhentsev") prepared a draft appeal stating
that "hundreds of families have been recently deprived of refugee status
in Ingushetia and because they have no documents confirming their stay in the
camps, they will be in danger after returning home as at any time they could be
accused of being rebels.”
"We would
like to return home and live in peace with our children, but unfortunately we
don’t have this opportunity. Many of us have nowhere to go and no work to
return to," the statement continues.
According to
Adlan Daudov, a member of the Public Council of Refugees, another problem,
which has to be solved as soon as possible, are tremendous food ration arrears.
In some camps people haven’t received their portions for 14-18 months. ”People
don’t want their humanitarian aid to be taken away by dishonest
officials," he says.
Refugees refuse
to accept the accusation of being "henchmen of rebels who don’t want to
return home because of previously committed crimes."
"We are no
bandits, no terrorists, no wahhabis and no criminals. We are common Chechens
who lost everything - our houses, relatives and friends and our homeland. Yet
all means are being used to make us "voluntarily" return to Chechnya:
bribery, promises, persuasion, even explicit intimidation and blackmail,"
the statement reads.
Where to
go?
Human rights
defenders say the accommodations being offered to the returning refugees are
unsuitable. The human rights organization Memorial explains that most of the
temporary accommodation centers (TACs) are in a state of disrepair and not
adaptable for permanent living. “The health of the resettled people may be
endangered if they stay in these homes too long.”
"None of
the eight new TACs were heated at the beginning of winter and the same applies
to most of the existing ones. The new centers have no water supplies or
reservoirs for drinking water. In many the water from barrels intended for
technical use is used for drinking and cooking. All TACs have electricity, but
the voltage is very low, and although gas is supplied it is often shut off
without any warning; and a sewer system is non-existent in all the new
centers," Memorial reports.
However,
Zhadayev says it is not always easy to get into these centers. Despite many
vacancies, some of the people were turned down; yet upon a “suggested” payment
of $100, accommodations suddenly became available.
Ingushetia is
trying hard to prevent the refugees from staying any longer. For example, at
the Troitskaya village, the leases in three temporary refugee homes have been
cancelled and the Migration Service will not extend these agreements.
Epidemiologists are being sent there to point out the alleged unsanitary
conditions there. But according to Zhadayev, these experts admitted to being
told that under no circumstances were they to come up with a positive
evaluation.
He said the
former head of the Ingush Migration Service, Ivan Pomeshchenko, who is now the
head of the Moscow working group of the Migration Department of the Russian
Interior Ministry, personally issued instructions to legally evict the refugees
should they refuse to leave.
Promises
and "Compensations"
The Migration
Service officials as well as other authorities not only use threats but
promises as well. Malika Suleimanova said that Chechen district administration
heads arrived in the Sputnik camp and promised to provide accommodation for the
returnees either in their TACs or empty houses. "However, the people are
in no rush to return - who would want to live in somebody else’s house when the
landlord could return at any time," she remarked.
Money is yet
another way of trying to attract the refugees; those who choose to return are
promised financial compensation for their destroyed homes. However, they look distrustfully
at such offers. Refugee Apti Saraliyev says that so far he has not seen one
single person receive this money.
Yet some
refugees do comply and return to their homeland. According to the Chechen
Refugee Committee in charge of repatriation, about 2,000 people voluntarily
leave the camps each month. Every day the committee provides 10 - 12 trucks for
the transfer, allotting one truck per family.
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