Dear friends:

I will speak about the campaign, about the civil battle, which is to become first for our Movement - first in a chronological sense at least, if not in sense of importance degree. I mean the battle for alternative civilian service, for the soonest adoption by the State Duma the law on alternative civilian service passed there already in the first reading, and for the law which would respond in a maximum degree to our demands.

Perhaps, it would not be an exaggeration to say that military reform has now no opponents in Russia. Everybody is for military reform here. The question is only, what do you mean under military reform. For some people it means boots cleanly washed in Indian Ocean, more cannon fodder and - the main thing - as mush as possible money. For the others, military reform is realizing the complex of imaginations, ideas and urgent measures which, as it seems to me, unite us in this hall.

Exactly the same is the situation with alternative civilian service. Nobody in our country needs today to be convinced that alternative civilian service must be introduced. The only question is, how to understand it. Mr Zhirinovsky expressed his understanding by simple way: "There are some rascals, they don't want serve in the army. OK, let them clean lavatories in barracks!" By a little bit more soft way the same idea is formulated in the proposals of Defense Ministry sent to the authors of the draft law in Duma. Shortly, these proposals could be summarized as follows. First, alternative civilian service should be granted only on religious grounds, supposedly - with enclosed certificate from a church. Second, its duration must exceed up to two or better three times duration of the military service. And third - the conscientious objectors must serve although without weapon but still in the framework of the auxiliary units of the army. By other words, it is matter of the noncombatant military service.

I would like to draw your attention once more to this fact: we should struggle exactly for alternative civilian service and not for noncombatant alternative service as it is mistakenly stated in the report prepared by Mr Smirnov. There is Defense Ministry already which fights for alternative noncombatant service. And it fights against us.

Alternative service should be exactly a civilian service. It should have nothing common neither with armed forces, nor with military industrial complex, nor with any other military or para-military institution. It is not only question of human rights. It's clear, that a pacifist which doesn't intend to have anything common with army, will not work neither in military hospital, nor as military interpreter, as it was discussed here. But this question is more wide: it touches the problem of conversion of military structures into civilian ones, the conversion of the "defense public mentality", if you want. Alternative civilian service is able to undermine the monopoly of generals on "serving Fatherland" (or "community service" - what you prefer...)

Second point. The right to refuse military service in favour of alternative civilian service must be an everybody's civil right. It means that every citizen reached the conscription age, should have possibility to declare that his convictions prevent him from army service and on this ground he should be allowed to perform alternative civilian service. No commission - in spite of its name, recruitment or what else - should have right to judge the sincerity of anybody's convictions, by other words: they cannot decide, if you really are "a pacifist" or you just fool them.

And the third point. Alternative civilian service should contribute into transition from the concept of security understood as "defense of Fatherland" to the concept of security based on the collective collaboration of all the members of international community, based on the sovranational fullpower delegated by states to the sovranational institutions: a UN police, or - if you want - a UN army which Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali wrote about in his "An Agenda For Peace". But not solely: there is a need, for instance, for international humanitarian aid units or for "civil corps for democracy" which could assist in establishing democracy in the Third World countries. Of course, it much more wide problem, how to reform international law and international institutions. However even now, even in this draft law, the possibility to perform alternative civilian service out of Russian territory should be provided for conscientious objectors.

The Malkin - Savitsky bill on alternative civilian service prepared in Duma doesn't respond to any of the principles which I told about. This principles are specified in the appeal to the both chamber of Russian parliament and to the president of Federation, which was prepared by the Transnational Radical Party and Anti-militarist Radical Association. Together with Russian Committee of Soldiers' Mothers and with militants of soldiers' mothers committees throughout Russia we managed till now to collect about 8,000 signatures under this appeal. On October 4 the State Duma will renew its work after vacations. And in some days we present the collected signatures to the members of Duma. And then... then everything will be up to all us. But first of all - up to the members of Duma who are present in this hall. It's up to you, what for a law do we get finally.

And to conclude, I would like to express four wishes to our Movement.

It seems to me, there is a danger we should try to avoid. We must not become a sort of new DOSAAF ("Voluntary Society to Assist Army, Air Force and Navy", a "public organization" in Soviet era - note of translator). Let's not forget: army for society, not society for army.

On the other hand, we should not become "pacifists". I use this word with quotation marks, meaning those "pacifists" who in the '30s practically assisted to release World War II by preaching non-resistance to Hitler by force, or those in the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s calling upon for unilateral disarmament of their own countries in front of Soviet military threat (this I use already without quotation marks). In any case, the Smerdyakov's wish "to eliminate all the soldiers" should be not our position. We must realize that for a while there is a need in the world for a force able to impel any Hussein, Mladic, Milosevic, or whomever else intending to challenge the international law, to restore order as it was done during the "Desert Storm" operation or as it is happening now in Bosnia. There is a need for world policeman, if you want. Currently NATO is playing such a role. But it should be a UN army, an army of the whole international community.

The third wish. Our movement must stay on both legs. From one hand, we must lean on parliamentarians, who are present now in this hall, or on those absent here and now but ready to struggle for military reform in Duma. Perhaps, there is even a need for an intergroup for military reform. But it is impossible to lean only on one leg - it's very easy to fall down. That's why we need the second leg too. I mean the civil activists, who would be ready to act out of parliaments, on the streets and squares of our cities, following the principles of Gandhian political nonviolence: to organize demonstrations, petitions, hunger strikes and even actions of civil disobedience if necessary - remember Gandhi's Great Salt March!

And, finally, the last wish. Sure, our congresses must be a place also to discuss, to exchange views and opinions. But nevertheless, as it seems to me, we should not simply speak in subjunctive mode or simply criticize some malevolent enemies of military reform. We are obliged to become a political force, which would be able to establish some concrete and achievable goals - both in short and long-term perspective, - to define precise terms which are necessary to obtain results, and to draft the exact amount of personal and financial resources need for achievement the established goals.

I'm sure, our movement has future. And there will be more than enough job for those in Russia who call themselves "anti-militarists" and "advocates of military reform".

Well, let's work, dear friends!