Julia KALININA, Aleksandr KOLPAKOV

"Moskovksy Komsomolets", February 7, 1995, pp. 1-2

In a strict accordance with recommendations of Chechen Security Council, the first (military) step of constitutional order restoration is complete, and the second (peaceful) one is started. They consider that the main difference between those steps is that now the main role in restoration of order belongs to interior affairs bodies, while army will just help them as good as it can.

Starting of the second, peaceful step influenced status of Chechnia population in a hard manner. Army bombed and shot at cities and villages before, while now militia turns to each and every Chechen (and not Chechen) individually. The goal is to reveal and neutralize men of war. That is being tried to achieve like that: special militia squads occupy a village and search in every house, seizing values, optionally shooting at domestic animals. Of cause, women use to get in trouble.

Men from 18 till 50 years old endure the most. With no investigation they are called "men of war", put into helicopters, and transported to Mozdok filtration camp till person clarification. Moreover, camps are situated also in Stavropol prison and in Piatigorsk.

Chechens have not ever been eager to let Russian army pass into villages. However, in one village, Assinovskaya, they did it: elder men had a deal with Russian command, that they will let special squads pass into the village, will not oppose them, and militia squads will round all houses with them, see that there are no militarists, and be glad with each other.

They did it. Now only special militia squads live in Assinovskaya: its residents scattered to near towns and villages in a horror. Refugees from Assinovskaya may be met on every road and in every village. Besides, those, who was in Mozdok camp for eight days' person clarification, and were not "men of war". We have managed to meet one of them in a hospital.

Khasan Chitayev, 52. Right part of his face is fully a yellow-blue bruise. Speaks almost without any accent, engineer, graduated Moscow institute.

"I was captured in my house in Assinovskaya, beaten with gun butts, and tossed into a car, and beaten on the way. There were about 15 people in a truck. It stopped in the fields, and we were lied faces into the mud. I heard them talking by walkie-talkie: "How much you have? Ok, take five more, and we'll send a chopper". Simply on a road they stopped a truck, pushed five of us out, and kicked. Then put stripes on them. Special militia has green stripes with them. They put it on your arm,-- and now you are "man of war".

Mozdok camp is several carriages standing in a railway dead end. There were twelve of us in a cell. We were beaten all the time. Militia man stands at a water closet and uses his club on each and every. Beaten, beaten and beaten...

A furnace burned in the morning, and it was very hot. And a mug of water a day for ten people. Nothing more. No food during all eight days. Interrogated, and beaten again. I have my arm broken, and ribs broken. Tortured with electric shock, here spots on my hands! Wanted me to confess, that I'm "a man of war". I swear, I was close to do it. Thought, prison is better than those tortures. But, everybody in our cell was set free. My watch, money, leather jacket they seized in the beginning, and now they've taken even my boots. And said: "You disappear from North Osetia in 40 minutes, or we'll catch and imprison you again."

I don't know myself, how did I get here in Sleptsovsk, to my brother. I crawled. Now I undergo treatment."

Here is another story, though, 30 years old man asked not to call his name.

"I'm indebted my life to journalists and some lawyers, I don't know whom. Three days ago I thought that I'm a dead duck. On 24 January we all were arrested in Samashkin Post, 17 of us, all being peaceful citizens. They demanded of us to confess that we are of war. Then rose in a chopper, and beat with guns at faces; then shot one at his head and threw down, then the second, the third, the fourth... The end, I thought. But they beat me, and I went unconscious, maybe, that's why they didn't shoot me. I woke up when we went down. All my countrymen were awfully messed. When the helicopter landed, a major came and shouted at the officer in the chopper: "Whom did you bring? Did I say to bring those? No go and shoot'em!"

But we were not shot. A soldier told us: "If they will take you to Mozdok, you are dead." They tied our eyes and loaded us onto a helicopter. And kicked again and again. They beat off our teeth and kidneys. In Mozdok, militia specials jumped into the chopper and beat us at our heads with butts. When at last we could not stand, they threw us on the ground and told us to squat and rise. And killed who couldn't do it, shooting at napes. One Ingush man, 44 years old, could not rise. Then they kicked him at his groin, and smashed it to mess, and then shot him. Then they put a gun at my nape, but somebody kicked me at my side, and the bullet went aside. Then I shouted: "I'm peaceful, I live in Russia, I came hear to take away my mother." But they continued.

Then, with another man, they threw a grenade in his bosom, and told him to take it out with his hands tied behind him. And he tore binds and did it, and they did not beat him. Then they told another man to run and fall, and if he runs up to a heap of coal, he will live. But he did not reach it... The most terrible are "Riazansky Convoy". There are two convoys there, Kazansky and Riazansky. One Ingush man spit into soldier's face, and they rose his head and cut like a ram. Two Egyptian mercenaries were caught in Grozny and castrated as we looked at it. Then we were transferred to Federal Contra-Intelligence Service and put into a railway carriage.

They had three carriages, with 250-270 people in each, fed with zwiebacks, and 150 grammes of water a day. And many Russians, soldiers, who refused to fight. So, they made them to carry coal from one heap to another and back all the day, and to wash floor 40 times a day... Major of Federal Contra-Intelligence Service asked me: "Do you fight?" I said "No." -- "We'll see,"-- he said. And then journalists came, and representatives of European Countries Security Council, and set us free. 9 people. At last, I think, I will not die after that. And I advice who gets there: stick to Kazansky Convoy, they are more humane, and beat less."

Any man or woman of any age and nationality in Chechnia has now EQUAL possibility to turn out to be "man of war". Probably, it is the first positive sign of "legality and order restoration"...

Samashky -- Achkhoy-Martan -- Narzanj.