CHECHNYA: CONDITIONS OF SURVIVAL
8. SHOW ME YOUR ID!
SOURCE. Ander Yandarov and Galina Zaurbekova, "O nekotorykh paradoksalistskikh tendentsiiakh v separatistskom konflikte" [On Some Paradoxical Tendencies in the Separatist Conflict] in Chechnia: ot konflikta k stabil'nosti (problemy rekonstruktsii) [Chechnya: From Conflict to Stability (Problems of Reconstruction]. Moscow: Institut etnologii i antropologii RAN. pp. 169-170.
This source draws our attention to an often overlooked but extremely important factor with a direct bearing on human rights -- namely, the problem of providing the inhabitants of Chechnya with new personal identification documents.
In today's Russia as in the USSR, the internal passport is an essential document which the citizen needs in any interaction with officialdom. But the separatist regime issued its own documents, marked by the silhouette of a wolf, the state symbol of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (to remind the bearers that they were now "free and equal like wolves.")
When the federal forces reoccupied Chechnya, the "wolf documents" suddenly became worse than useless. But the issue of new Russian identity documents proceeded slowly and was soon suspended on the grounds that there was a lack of application forms (?!). Substantial fees were also required. As a result, most people were left without identity documents of any kind. People without ID are at greatest risk of getting detained and taken off to filtration camps (in many cases never to return alive) during the notorious zachistki.
Later the authorities began to issue temporary papers (spravki) for use as alternative ID. But even these papers cost several hundred rubles. Most Chechens had lost their property in the war and been unemployed for several years. They simply did not have the money.
The authors portray the fate of refugees who returned to Chechnya after the bombing ceased only to find their former homes completely wrecked. If such a person then tried to leave the republic again without documents, "they would rob him at the checkpoint, and more often than not beat him. They would all seem enemies to him: the kontraktniki, the federals, the Wahhabites, the [insurgent] fighters. He would wander about, caught in a death trap. Many in that situation went insane. They lost the ability to react adequately to their surroundings. They didn't even understand when they heard the order: 'Halt! Hands up!" And they were shot dead without delay."
Those refugees who return and then manage to escape from Chechnya a second time are refused official registration as refugees. This deprives them of the right to temporary accommodation, food, and other humanitarian aid, and their children of the right to attend school. But they still count themselves lucky to be back in the fraternal Ingush republic. There are now about 100,000 such unrecognized refugees in Ingushetia. According to Valery Kuksa, the republic's minister of emergency situations, the federal authorities have given instructions that henceforth (as of January 2002) no further refugees from Chechnya are to be registered [www.friendly.narod.ru/2002e/info163e.htm].
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*** THIS IS CHECHNYA ***
To the director of the TV-6 television company, Yevgeny Kiselyov
Dear Uncle Zhenya!
My brother XXX and I wish you a happy New Year. We wish you health and much, much happiness. And we wish that you remain so honest and good!
Uncle Zhenya! My brother and I have a big request to you, to pass on our curses to Putin, to all the military who are bombing and killing all people and children. May their children remain without schools, without holiday trees, without homes, become like us. Let their mothers cry like our mothers cry. Let their children cry as the children of T., my mother's sister, are now crying.
T. was killed with four other women and a man who had gone to the river to collect water. They all leave children behind. May all this pain, all these tears return to them who are to blame and who are killing our people and children.
[Note. The author of the letter is 10 years old. Her brother is 8 years old.]
[Press release #162, 1/3/02]
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