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The activities of the CSMR Union in 2002 were focused on the following directions:
— campaign for the military reform based on abolishment of obligatory conscription and creation professional armed forces;
— campaign for peaceful settlement of Chechen conflict;
— active participation in cooperation with HR NGO and other democratic forces to advocate Human Rights protection goals and development of civic society;
— developing constructive dialogue between the UCSMR and executive and legislative authorities based on the results of 2001 Civic Forum;
— enhancing the mechanisms of soldiers protection in court trials.
The practical results of the UCSMR activities on the above mentioned directions see below.
Solution of individual complaints on human rights violations and other serious problems of human rights protection in the armed forces
The continuing deterioration of the HR situation in the armed forces resulted in leaving the military units by large groups of soldiers which came straight to the soldiers mothers organizations protesting against beatings, tortures and humiliation, mainly by officers. In September, 2002, group of 54 soldiers left their unit in Volgogradskaya oblast and marched 90 km to Volgograd soldiers mothers organization-member of the UCSMR. The soldiers mothers collected their statements addressed to the Volgograd soldiers mothers NGO «Association of soldiers parents» (Chairwomen Tatiana Zazulenko) and also to the local military prosecutor. The soldiers told about the shameful and cruel beatings by their commander who blamed them in armoured troop-carrier «disappearance». The case, because of soldiers mothers efforts in Volgograd and Moscow, received quite a broad publicity in the central and regional mass-media and resulted in the criminal investigation of the regiment officers actions. The commander of the military had to leave his post. To the end of 2002 the criminal investigation of the Volgograd case still did not come to the end.
In November-December, 2002, three groups of soldiers (6, 9 and 16 soldiers) came to the UCSMR office, complaining about beatings and tortures by the officers, and in the beginning of January, 2003, 24 soldiers came to St.-Petersburg soldiers mothers NGO from the nearby town. The UCSMR involved the Main Military Prosecutor in the investigation of the officers’ criminal actions.
The reaction of the military authorities on «mass deserting» was aimed mainly against soldiers mothers NGO. In TV interview the Minister of Defense stated that «the so called committees of soldiers mothers» act out of the frame of their charters. The Main Military Prosecutor in his interview to «Krasnaya Zwezda» (14-01-03), official newspaper of the Ministry of Defense, though mentioned of constructive work done by many soldiers mothers NGO, noticed that some of them are unscrupulous in search of financing and act against low involving in its violations soldiers and their parents. In answer to the Minister of Defense, V. Melnikova, Responsible Secretary of the UCSMR, stated in TV interview, that the Minister must not forget about his main task — reforming the armed forces, and in this sphere the soldiers mothers NGO are ready to help the Minister. But soldiers mothers are not able to see any progress in military reform. At the same time V. Melnikova underline that the UCSMR is open to any inspections of tax control and other authorities concerned.
In 2002 the member of the UCSMR (Ida Kuklina) entered the Commission for Human Rights of the President of Russian Federation. At the Commission meeting with the President (10th of December) the UCSMR proposed:
— to issue the Presidential Decree to increase pensions to war-disabled soldiers by conscription (invalids of 3rd degree). At the moment such soldiers receive pension (1566 rubles per month) which is too small to live;
— to initiate adoption of Law on obligatory identifying registration of military and of identification of military. The state and the power structures should be really responsible for search of missing persons and for identification of every soldier or officer who lost his live in the armed conflicts;
— to issue the official Report of the Presidential Commission on prisoners of war, interned and missing persons on work of all power structures concerning search for missing persons since 1994 with proposals how to improve situation in this sphere. The number of missing person in the North Caucasus at present exceeds 2000 people. None of power structures made all the necessary efforts to save these people, though, because of the UCSMR lobbying in the State Duma, there are enough budget resources to finance the search for missing persons and identification of killed military;
— to order the Ministry of Defense and other power structures to publish the full list of human losses during Chechen wars;
— to issue the Presidential Decree prohibiting return of soldiers — victims of HR violations, who left their military units because of danger for their life and health, to the same unit and establishing the rule to transfer them to another military unit. In the 2002 the UCSMR was informed of several cases of suicides which happened when soldiers who left their units because of tortures and humiliations were returned back to the same military units.
In 2002 the UCSMR (Moscow office) received 1935 initial complaints on human rights violations (i. e. not counting the repeated visits of the same people and complaints received by post), including:
— tortures, beatings, humiliations etc. — 352,
— violations of right for health — 406,
— complaints on human rights violations connected with the war in Chechnya — 179;
— blackmailing — 55;
— search of missing person (excluding Chechnya) — 96;
— criminal cases of various nature — 254.
The UCSMR received 1032 initial written complaints on human rights violations, including 181 letters concerning killed and missing soldiers in Chechnya, 351 letters — about violations of right for health and 375 complaints on tortures, beatings and humiliation.
For draftees and their parents there was regular weekly consultations in the frames of the Human Rights School of the UCSMR. The member of the UCSMR Coordination council Liubov Kuznetsova organized two meetings in the military commissariat of her district with mothers of soldiers who entered the military service during last conscription period.
Altogether the total number of conscripts, soldiers and their parents, who came for help to the UCSMR office in Moscow, exceeded 10000 people. Practically 100 percent of individual complaints on human rights violations were solved successfully. The total number of visitors to Russian soldiers mothers NGO-members of the UCSMR is about 40 000 people.
The special attention of the UCSMR was directed to protection of soldiers’ rights in court trials. In the frames of the project «Court protection for soldiers of Russia» the UCSMR informs draftees, soldiers and their parents how to use court trials to defend their rights, monitors various court trials to protect soldiers’ interests and trains the members of the regional committees of soldiers mothers to use effectively possibilities of HR protection in military courts. In Moscow the UCSMR members participated in more than 50 court trials. The Final report on the project will be presented in 2003, when the terms of the project would be over.
The UCSMR continued to work actively with mass-media. The Union of the Committees of soldiers mothers of Russia is grateful to Russian and foreign mass-media community in Moscow for its interest in the problems of HR protection of draftees, soldiers and their parents. The members of the UCSMR gave more than 200 interviews to Russian and foreign journalists. They participated in numerous TV and Radio programs. Several articles of the UCSMR members authors were published in the newspapers and magazines. There were numerous press-conferences of the UCSMR on the questions of vital importance for soldiers mothers.
The UCSMR representatives took part in numerous conferences in Moscow, discussing problems of HR protection, antiterrorism and human rights, civic control over power structures, gender equality, situation in the North Caucasus and others.
Forums of the UCSMR and others Human Rights activities
In March of 2002 the Union of the CSMR called the Third International Congress of Soldiers Mothers «For Life and Freedom» (the first Congress was called in February, 1995 and the second one — in March, 2000). 100 soldiers mothers HR NGO and 14 Russian and foreign NGO participated in the Congress. Among participants of the Congress there were foreign delegates, deputies of the State Duma, politicians, representatives of all kinds of military authorities. Many of soldiers mothers organizations could not send their delegates to Moscow as they were not able to find a source of financing to cover transport expenses. Nevertheless, in addition to the participants of the Congress, more than 150 soldiers mothers NGO supported all the Resolutions adopted by the Congress in Moscow. The List of the Congress Resolutions is as follows:
— On military reform;
— On Chechen war;
— On negative consequences of continuing military operation in Chechnya;
— On violations of draftees legal rights;
— On inadmissibility of school education militarization;
— On necessity to guarantee court protection for soldiers;
— On inadmissibility to deprive military killed in Chechnya of personal identification;
— Statement addressed to the President, the Government and the Federal legislative authorities on necessity to reform budget process and budget classification concerning military expenses;
— Statement addressed to Human Rights and Women International NGO, to General Secretary of the UN, to Council of Europe and to other international organizations supporting the principle of gender equality in the maintenance peace and security.
The Congress evaluated the human rights situation in Russia, confirmed the antiwar position of soldiers mothers NGO and worked out the strategy of peaceful and human rights activities of the organization.
After the Congress the Conference of the UCSMR to hear Reports and elect new executive bodies took place. The participants approved the Report of the Responsible Secretary of the UCSMR concerning activities of the UCSMR in the last years and elected the main executive bodies — Coordination council and Secretariat of the UCSMR. The Conference decided to renew publication of newspaper — «The UCSMR News» (the first attempt of newspaper publication was interrupted because of absence of financial resources). To the end of 2002 the first three copies of newspaper were published by initiative and with help of the soldiers mothers committee in Balakovo (Chairwomen Lidia Swiridova).
The USCMR members on the regular basis visited military hospitals, Chief of Staffs of various kind of troops, military units and Military Prosecutors offices in Moscow and Moskovskaya oblast, often participated actively in the meetings of the Main Military Prosecutor Board. The main reasons for these visits were to achieve the mutual understanding on the problems of human rights protection of soldiers and their parents in the armed forces, to establish the working contacts with the military officials and to solve successfully the most serious individual complaints on the violations of human rights.
In July, 2002, the USCMR lawyer Anna Beliakova presented the UCSMR Alternative Report on tortures in the Russian armed forces to the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva.
The problem of military reform
In 2002 the military authorities undertake the new attempt to avoid abolishment of involuntary conscription in spite of deepening crisis in the armed forces and evident necessity to reform the military sphere. The proposed plan of «military construction» which Chief of Staff should work out and to present it for adoption by the Russian Government in June, 2003, is, in fact, the plan to postpone the creation of professional army to undefined future, at least to the second decade of the century. The project of this document, in fact, repeats the similar plans which appeared in 1992 and in 1996, demonstrating the absence of constructive conception of military reform in the circles of military leadership. The arguments of military concerning the high price of military reform and lack of financial resources in the country the soldiers mothers do not see as serious: for many years soldiers mothers NGO insisted on the transparency of military budget, stating that the main thing which the country needs for military reform is political will and civic control over military expenditures (see the Resolutions of the International Congresses of Soldiers Mothers «For Life and Freedom», the article expressing soldiers mothers opinion on the matter in «Pravozaschitnik» magazine, # 2, 2002 etc.).
To advocate military reform on the base of abolishment of involuntary conscription the UCSMR actively participated in the Working group preparing the necessary documents for special session of Democratic Meeting on military reform. Democratic meeting is a form of cooperation between the HR and peaceful NGO, on one hand, and democratic political parties, on the other hand. Unfortunately, the contradictions between political parties, first of all Jabloko and Union of Rights Forces, prolonged the preparation to the said Democratic Meeting session beyond the year of 2002. In December, 2002, the soldiers mothers presented their view on the problem of military reform to the President V. Putin on the meeting of Commission for Human Rights of the President of Russian Federation, unfortunately without any visible results.
Peaceful activities of the UCSMR
In October, 2002, the Union of the CSMR called the Conference «Chechen dead-end: where to search the road to peace?». The participants of the Conference included 80 representatives of regional soldiers mothers NGO, military officials from power structures (the Ministry of Defense , Main Military Prosecutor office, Ministry of Interior Affairs, Federal Border Troops and others), Deputy of the Head of Chechen Administration, Mufty (religious leader) of Chechnya, representatives of Chechen NGO, of peaceful and HR Russia NGO, the group of Chechen refugees who arrived to Moscow being on hunger strike, the former Secretary of Security council Ivan Rybkin, Deputies of the State Duma, among them B. Nemtsov and A. Aslahanov, and others. The participants discussed the wide circle of problems connected with the present situation in Chechnya. The soldiers mothers asked Chechen refugees to stop the hunger strike and they agreed to do it.
The Statement adopted by the Conference expressed the common opinion of participants concerning the policy of Federal authorities in Chechnya. The soldiers mothers, among other things, underlined that they lost their faith in the state power of Russia which is not capable to maintain civic peace in the country and to accept the burden of responsibility before the present and future generations for the consequences of Chechen war, for violation of the UN Charter and other norms of international law concerning human rights, dignity of human beings, gender equality and equality of large and small nations. The soldiers mothers noted, that the so called anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya is, by itself, a powerful stimulator of state and non-state, transnational terrorism, that military leadership resist all the attempts to stop the war and to settle the conflict by peaceful political means. The soldiers mothers insisted on broad involving of women NGO in the conflict resolution, urged to break the information blockade around situation in Chechnya and called to the members of the Security Council of the UN to discuss the problem on its meeting.
The UCSMR continued their activities directed to attraction of public opinion to the problem of human losses in Chechnya. The answers of the Ministry of Defense to the letters of the UCSMR on the matter were strictly negative. The Ministry refuses to publish the list of killed and wounded military in Chechnya using the absolutely unconvincing argument that families of killed soldier could suffer because of terrorist actions against them. In fact, the military just deny citizens of Russia access to the so called secret information. The Nyzhny Novgorod Committee of soldiers mothers (Chairwomen Natalia Zhukova) with the help of other NGO-members of the UCSMR began its own project to create full data base of killed and wounded soldiers in the North Caucasus.
The UCSMR continued to work on the problem of missing soldiers in Chechnya. Regular letters with the Lists of missing soldiers were sent to all power structures — Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior Affairs etc. The UCSMR also closely cooperated with the Presidential commission on prisoners of war, interned and missing persons (the member of the UCSMR Maria Fedulova is a member of this Commission by the Presidential Decree). The UCSMR members participated in the Parliamentary hearings on missing persons in Chechnya, but there is no evidence that the situation with search for missing person is changing to the better.
The UCSMR Responsible Secretary Valentina Melnikova discussed situation in Chechnya with PACE Special Reporters on Human Rights.
Work with the legislative authorities
The UCSMR Commission on work with the legislative and executive state bodies (Secretary of the Commission Julia Goriatcheva) is doing the constant monitoring of the changes in the military and HR legislation of Russian Federation, including statements and other legal documents of the Government, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health Protection, Ministry of Justice, orders of power structures commanders, concerning conscription, military service, rights of citizens disabled during military service, the rights of their parents and other HR problems in the armed forces. The regular information surveys on the matter are placed in the Internet-sites http://www.demokratia.ru and http://www.hroc.org/ under the title «Army and Human Rights».
To the President, Government, State Duma and Council of Federation the UCSMR sent 9 letters concerning military budget, problems of searching of missing persons, pensions for disabled soldiers, and military reform. Members of the UCSMR participated in Parliamentary hearings concerning missing persons, educational reform and the alternative service law. Several amendments were prepared for the various legislative projects and most of them were adopted by the State Duma.
Cooperation with HR and other democratic organizations
In 2002 the UCSMR continued to cooperate closely with friendly women, human rights and peaceful NGO abroad.
The representative of Danish Socialist Folkeparty participated in the Third Congress of Soldiers Mothers «For Life and Freedom» in February. In September the UCSMR delegation visited Denmark to take part in the Conference on peace and HR.
In April the UCSMR delegation visited Switzerland to take part in the Conference of Transnational Radical Party and to discuss the problems of cooperation with friendly Swiss NGO «Women for Peace».
Valentina Melnikova with delegation of other Russian HR NGO visited Germany in April to meet the Minister for Foreign affairs and deputies of Bundestag.
In June the UCSMR delegation went to Austria to participate in the regional Conference of Women Waging Peace (USA).
In October the UCSMR delegation visited Sweden as the guests-participants of the Jubilee Conference of the friendly women NGO «Kvinnliga Bilkaren».
In November Valentina Melnikova visited France to take part in the Conference of French-Russian Society (in Avon) on the peaceful settlement of armed conflicts.
The Human Rights Watch in its Report on the illegal draftees’ detentions in Russian cities (November, 2002) used the materials, prepared for this Report by the UCSMR, and expressed special gratitude to Anna Beliakova, lawyer of the UCSMR, for her helpful work in the course of this Report preparation.
The UCSMR, in spite of very limited financial resources, used every opportunity to develop cooperation with the regional members of the Union in order to support their activities on the regional level.
The delegation of the UCSMR was present on the annual conference of the Committee of soldiers mothers in Vladimir in May and on the Jubilee conference of this organization in November.
The UCSMR supported the election campaign of Natalia Serdiukova, the Chairwomen of the Sochi Committee of soldiers mothers, on the elections to the Krasnodarsky Legislative Assembly. Natalia Serdiukova won the elections in her election district in November. But as not enough people participated in elections (21,4 percent instead of necessary minimum of 25 percent) there should be new round of elections in this district in 2003.
The UCSMR delegation participated in the Conference «North Caucasus — pain of mothers» in Budennovsk (May). The Union of the CSMR members helped their colleagues from the local committee of soldiers mothers to establish working contacts with the military prosecutor and with commanders of military units in this region.
Valentina Melnikova together with the Chairwomen of Nyzhny Novgorod Committee of soldiers mothers Natalia Zhukova participated in the Conference of soldiers mothers committees of the Far East in Khabarovsk.
The UCSMR closely cooperated with Russian HR NGO on the problems of HR protection and development of civic society in Russia (People’s Assembly and other NGO-participants of Civic Forum of 2001. The members of the CSMR Union took active part in the work of Democratic Meeting, mentioned above, especially in the meeting on court reform.
Charity activities
In general the UCSMR is not involved in charity activities and distribution of humanitarian help. But always there are several cases when the soldiers mothers could not refuse to search for help to disabled soldiers.
Lidia Nikova worked with the wife of Military attaché and other diplomatic wives from German Embassy and helped them to make a present — computer — to disabled (3rd degree) in Chechnya soldier Andrei Dolgushev from Kirovskaya oblast. By official request of the UCSMR, prepared by Lidia Nikova, the regional administration gave to the soldier new apartments in the town with functioning rehabilitation center (the family of four people, including bed-invalid, lived before in one room on the third floor, so the bed-invalid soldier could not be moved outside this room).
Ludmila Obraztsova for several years visits and supports the bed-invalid soldier Eugeny Gorbunov in the hospital where the soldier receives medical treatment free of charge because of the UCSMR efforts.
Natalia Shwol with help of medical authorities of the Ministry of Defense put bed-invalid soldier Alexander Paiusov from Stavropol to sanatorium for special medical treatment. Natalia Shwol and Maria Fedulova managed to include bed-invalid soldier Dmitry Sidorov in the rehabilitation program of Moscow Government. Dmitry, by the UCSMR request, received also computer from Moscow authorities.
It is necessary to underline that all members of the UCSMR are volunteers. The biggest part of the UCSMR activities were done by its-members on voluntary basis, without any financing. The only projects, financed from external sources, were Congress «For Life and Freedom», the Conference «Chechen dead-end: where to search the road to peace?» and micro-TASIS (European Commission) project «Court protection for soldiers of Russia».
The Responsible Secretary of the UCSMR
Valentina Melnikova
Secretary of the UCSMR Analytical and Information Commission
Ida Kuklina
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