Socialist Action /May 2001
Trade Union Convoy Brings Aid to Victims
of Chechnya War
By XAVIER ROUSSELIN
Xavier Rousselin is one of the organizers of
the Trade Union Convoy for Chechnya.
In the suburbs of Grozny, not a single building
has been spared, although only some of them have been completely demolished.
The closer you get to the center of town, the worse the level of destruction.
The center of Grozny is a field of ruins. Before
the war, more than 500,000 people lived in the city. There were no more
than 80,000 at the beginning of the autumn. There were certainly still less
this winter. The inhabitants had no heating worthy of the name, in the glacial
winter of the northern Caucasus. Access to running water and gas has still
not been restored and the majority of the city's population does not receive
food aid.
The battles are far from over. In the city, the
military are omnipresent. They are on the roofs. They patrol in tanks or
in jeeps, but more rarely on foot. They are at the entrance to all public
buildings. They control all movement and have set up large-caliber artillery.
On the main roads there are checkpoints every 500
meters. According to the mayor of Grozny, who was nominated by the Russian
authorities, there are between 15 and 20 people killed in the city every
day. You can see that from the behavior of the soldiers, who are obviously
afraid.
In the eyes of the Russian soldiers the Chechnyan
population is suspect. This war is not a war between a regular army and
"terrorist" bands, as the regime claims. It is essentially a war
against the civil population carried out in the name of the struggle against
"terrorism."
It is the civilians who have been massively displaced
and who are the victim of the actions of the Russian army. Thus, at the
end of November, Russian soldiers, in the name of the struggle against "terrorism,"
used bulldozers and tanks to destroy the little market stalls at the center
of Grozny. This market was one of the signs of the return of a less abnormal
life, selling things like socks, oil lamps, soap, drinks, and some foodstuffs.
This war has as its basis Russia's imperial grandeur,
but it would be wrong to reduce it to a simple power quest by a central
regime seeking to affirm itself. This region has been of strategic importance
to Russia for a very long time.
Since the Ukraine became independent, the western
part of the Caucasus controls Russian access to the Black Sea. The east
of the Caucasus concentrates formidable oil resources, while the port of
Novorossisk is now the main point of exit by sea for Russian oil (670,000
barrels a day in 2000, or 60 percent of total exports by sea).
The oil of the Caspian basin is normally carried
by the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline, which runs through Dagestan and Chechnya.
The Russian company responsible for managing the network of pipelines is
constructing a bypass north of Chechnya with the help of the European Bank.
Currently a good part of Baku's oil is going by train, because of the war.
A long struggle for self-determination
The Russian (and for 60 years Soviet) desire to
dominate the region has always come up against Chechen resistance. It needed
a century of war for the Tsarist armies to conquer this territory half the
size of Belgium and for 50 years the Russians have launched big offensives
seeking to destroy this million-strong people. In 1944, Stalin deported
all the Chechens to Kazakhstan.
When Yeltsin wished to weaken the central power
in the USSR at the time of its death agony, he encouraged all the local
regimes to take as much power as they were capable of. Chechnya proclaimed
its independence in 1991. The Red Army withdrew, leaving its lavish stocks
of arms.
The process of privatization of the economy in
Chechnya had exactly the same consequences as everywhere else in the ex-USSR.
Corruption developed. The private appropriation of the means of production
created gigantic inequalities. The standard of living of the majority of
the population fell by 50 percent, and mafias of every kind prospered.
Dudayev, the Chechnyan president, came to power
on the basis of a nationalist and democratic upsurge. He was elected with
80 percent of votes and was regarded as a sort of "father" of
the Chechnyan nation: he had led it to its independence. However, once in
power he fell to enriching himself through trafficking in oil and weapons.
The Russian regime and its generals had never accepted
the independence of Chechnya. Yeltsin waged an initial war against Chechnya
in December 1994. It was a crushing defeat for the remains of the Soviet
army. Grozny and Chechnya were seriously destroyed. But Russia was obliged
to negotiate and officially recognize the country's independence, following
which Aslan Maskhadov was elected president of the Chechnyan republic.
On the economic level the period after the first
war was marked by the absence of any policy of reconstruction. The sole
economic development was parasitic: trafficking in oil and arms. It is estimated
that only 10 percent of the population enjoys legal employment. Wages and
pensions of government employees were no longer paid.
Direct levies from oil in the pipelines were exacted
in an increasingly arbitrary manner. Criminality and kidnapping spread.
Up to 2000 people were held illegally in Chechnya.
At the same time NGO workers became the target
of choice for the hostage takers. Six members of the Red Cross were assassinated
in 1996, and four British telecommunication technicians were decapitated
in December 1998.
This period was also marked by the appearance of
the Wahhabite current. It proclaims a fundamentalist version of Islam. It
was set up in the beginning of the 1990s by pilgrims returning from Mecca.
This form of Islam is very different from the very tolerant version of the
religion (in relation to alcohol in particular) that had prevailed in Chechnya
up to that time.
The Wahhabites experienced a certain success; they
had money. Some accused them of being financed and manipulated by the Russian
secret services. But they benefit also, undoubtedly, from petrodollars.
The Wahhabites recruited all the better because they could pay wages to
those who joined them. They threw themselves into political combat and succeeded
in imposing on the government the legal recognition of Islamic law.
Independence began, then, to turn sour for the
Chechnyan people. It was supposed to bring more freedom and ended up with
the imposition of reactionary laws contrary to Chechen traditions of tolerance.
In summer 1999, Yeltsin dismissed his third prime
minister of the year. He appointed Putin and the latter announced a merciless
struggle against the Chechnyan "bandits."
Having learnt its lessons from the first war and
NATO's strikes against Serbia, the Kremlin ordered a deluge of bombs on
Grozny. The city, where 40,000 people still lived, fell after four months
of intensive bombardments.
The majority of the population of Chechnya fled
the combat and took shelter in Ingushya. There were as many as 600,000 refugees.
Despite the return of some of them, there are still around 160,000 refugees
in Ingushya and 170,000 in Chechnya itself or 35 percent of the total Chechen
population.
Since the beginning of the war, the big powers
have not ceased to affirm their support to Putin's bellicose enterprise,
despite some verbal condemnations of Russian army excesses. One imagines
what the Western reaction would have been if Milosevic had used such methods
against Kosovo.
From the Russian point of view, the war in Chechnya
is at an impasse. The methods of total war push the majority of Chechnyan
men towards resistance. All men from 14 to 65 are considered as potential
combatants by the Russian army. To survive, the majority of these men have
no choice other than joining the refugee camps or the combatants. If Russian
military superiority is established, it remains incapable of stabilizing
the situation, even in the short term.
The conclusion is that only a political solution
can put an end to the war and that such a solution can only emerge through
the recognition of the legitimacy of the democratically elected Chechnyan
president, Aslan Maskhadov. The opening of negotiations with him is the
sole means of envisaging a peace process. Peace can only be established
through recognizing the right of the Chechnyans to self-determination.
Russian labor activists speak
It was in this context that French trade unionists
decided to set up a trade-union convoy for Chechnya to bring 22 tons of
flour to the refugees. This operation was an extension of identical operations
carried out in Bosnia and Kosovo. It was based on two French trade unions,
an association (Secours Ouvrier pour Bosnia), and activists in the Chechnya
committee.
The road was long (more than a month in total),
littered with problems (11 days held up in customs for example), and harrassed
by police (more than 17,000 rubles paid in various fines), but the flour
reached its destination. It was distributed in Chechnya, by NGOs independent
of the Russian authorities, to refugees who had received no food aid for
three months.
This convoy did not simply aim to bring trade-union
aid to the refugees. It also hoped to contact the trade unions of the federation
of Russia who opposed the war and were monitoring the refugees' situation.
When the convoy passed through Moscow, we were
able to have a discussion of several hours with some members of small radical
unions (Zachtchita, Sotsprof, Soviet Worker) concerning the trade-union
situation in Russia as well as their position on the war.
For them, the workers' movement in Russia is not
a single bloc. There is, certainly, much chauvinism, but the most radical
and independent unions are clearly against the war in Chechnya. But unhappily,
Russian workers have no means of communicating with their Chechnyan equivalents.
The radical unionists analyze the war as a conflict
of interests between the Russian nouveaux riches and the barons of Chechnya.
They believe that the intercommunal wars that are common in Russia are organized
by the state to divert attention from everyday problems.
They say that in Moscow 10 or 15 years ago Caucasian
hospitality was celebrated. Now people from the Caucasus are spoken of as
if they were criminals and bandits. But the outlook of ordinary people is
changing. The people have had enough of this war. Mothers no longer want
their sons to be used as cannon fodder.
Now public opinion is demanding that Russian troops
be bought home and the Chechnyans left to sort out their own affairs. The
current federal troops include conscripts who live in very harsh conditions
for minimal wages.
Despite their opposition to the war, these radical
trade unionists think that the independence of Chechnya will bring nothing
good to the Chechen people. Chechnya, they think, does not have sufficient
resources to survive; it will only be a puppet in the hands of the great
powers.
In Russia, the legal guarantees and rights of trade
unions are threatened by a revision of the labor code. The code currently
in force is inherited from the Soviet era. The governmental draft extends
the working day from eight to 12 hours and encourages flexibility. It legalizes
the non-payment of wages, removes any guarantee of employment for trade
unionists and reduces dismissal to a simple formality.
The FNPR (former official unions) have developed
an alternative draft that could serve as a trampoline to the adoption of
a lightly reworked version of the government proposals. The alternative
unions are all committed, in various degrees, to a fight against the new
code. Some support a third alternative draft strengthening the rights and
guarantees of workers, the so-called "Avaliani-Shein" draft.
The alternative unions have led numerous protests
against the new code, including two national mobilizations (May 17, 2000,
and Dec. 1, 2000). But employees are generally not very conscious of the
legal aspects and are mobilized weakly in most enterprises, with the FNPR
asking them to wait patiently while the issue is settled by negotiations
at the top level.
Inside Ingushya's refugee camps
Another objective of the trade-union convoy was
to observe the situation of the refugees in Ingushya. We visited several
camps. The Sputnik camp outside Sleptsovska is near the frontier with Chechnya;
8954 people live there, under military tents in very bad condition. Two
nights before our visit, four tents caught fire after a gas leak. Some people
were injured.
We are welcomed by several women from the camp,
who express their despair at the silence of Westerners. However, when they
learn we are French, they thank us warmly for being here with them. They
give thanks to those who demonstrate outside the Russian embassy in Paris,
and who support the Chechnyan people.
Some mourn the loss of their families, their sons
and husbands, forcibly taken by the federal army. They have seen their daughters
raped, their children traumatized. "Only the Russians can kill or torture
children," they tell us.
Some men arrive. They tell us that they are ready
to return to Chechnya to fight, to avenge. One of them tells us: "Look
in what conditions we live. I am sure that in France, the dogs are better
treated than us!"
Very near here, we hear bombs falling at regular
intervals. The women tell us: "They want us to return to our homes,
but how? The Russians are still bombing what remains of our country."
Khazan Timiyeva and Zaina Idigova invite us into
their tent, containing 17 people, one a little girl of 22 days. She is called
Mecqua (Mecca), as a sign of hope. In this tent measuring approximately
20 square meters there are six beds of which two are stacked above each
other. The floor is wooden.
Four children are there who eat crusts of hard
bread. A little later, a little girl arrives, saying she is hungry. Despite
her tears, nothing will change the situation.
Three NGOs are working at Sputnik: Islamic Relief,
for food aid; PHO (a Polish NGO), which runs the kindergarten; and Medecins
du Monde, which has opened a little medical center.
The camp at Bart is nearer to Nazran. In each tent
about 30 refugees live, women, men, and children mixed. In the bigger tents,
there are up to 50 people.
Some 32,000 refugee children are between seven
and 12. Only 12,000 can go to school. The others receive no instruction
because of lack of international aid.
Things are still worse for children over 12. The
situation of children of pre-school age is also bad-of 20 kindergartens
existing in Ingushya before the war, 14 are partially or totally occupied
by refugees.
Food aid: only two NGOs-the Danish Refugees Council
and Hifswerk-work in the Bart camp. They distribute 3.5 kg of rice, 4.5
kg of sugar, 1 liter of oil and 13.5 kg of flour, per month and per person.
No meat or milk. Vegetables and fruits are only distributed to children
of 1 to 7 and irregularly at that. The 1370 children of less than 6 years
receive also receive small pots of food.
The Red Cross distributes bread (260 grams per
day and per person). Collective kitchens no longer function, but Emercom
considers that they are in working condition and refuses to repair them.
The inhabitants of the camp are tired of this situation.
Water: the hygiene situation is disastrous. The
Red Cross brings drinkable water every day and Emercom has built a water
line through the camp with several taps. In summer the refugees lacked drinkable
water. The other obvious problem seems to be washing clothes.
Bathrooms: There are two cabins with 12 showers
each, or 24 showers for 6318 people. There are not enough toilets for the
population of the camp and they are in an appalling state. Ironically, we
were told that as the kitchens do not work, there is no need for toilets.
The refugees also complain of lack of dustbins.
Health: the state of health of the refugees, physical
as well as mental, is alarming. There is an infirmary with an Ingush doctor
and one nurse. The distribution of medicines is very arbitrary. There is
an epidemic of hepatitis and another of tuberculosis. To separate the tubercolic
from the other refugees, they are kept in reserved tents.
Scabies is raging and the refugees suffer from
anemia because of lack of vitamins.
International aid for the Chechnyan refugees is
tragically weak. Comparisons with the aid (quite justifiably) given to Kosovo
shows the level of western cynicism. At Pristina, in November 1999, 326
international organizations were operating.
The situation of the people in Chechnya itself
is still worse. Whereas the UN estimates that 190,000 people are "vulnerable,"
only 130,000 receive food aid. All the others receive nothing.
In Grozny, the situation is particularly delicate.
The population has very little or no work. It has no possibility of living
from garden produce and, as the town is bristling with mines, the simple
search for wood for heating (indispensable for survival in the glacial Caucasian
winter) is a very high risk activity.
The international organizations cite the dangers
as justification for their inactivity. However, the Red Cross, which has
had six of its members assassinated in Chechnya, has resumed activities
in Grozny with an agency composed essentially of Chechens. In addition,
the representatives of the trade-union convoy were able to get to Grozny
without any special protection.
The alleged dangers have become an elegant pretext
for doing nothing that will in any way annoy the Russian government. If
the refugees and the inhabitants of Chechnya are alone it is because of
Western complicity with this dirty war and not because of a perfectly manageable
level of risk.
Socialist Action /May 2001 |