DON NOT TAKE PART IN THE WAR CRIMES OF THE REGIME - CONSCIENTIOUSLY OBJECT!

TO RUSSIAN BOYS OF MY AGE, DUE FOR CALL UP

Kaluga, Prison IZ-37/1, December 30, 1999

I appeal to you from the prison of Kaluga region. I am here because on November 25, 1999 the Court of my city, Obninsk, sentenced me to two years of imprisonment according to Art. 328 of the Russian Criminal Code for a crime I did non commit: "evasion from the military service".

I did no evade the military service. I openly conscientiously objected because of my right, guaranteed both to me and you by Art. 59.3. of the Russian Constitution. I neither escaped nor hid myself from the Military Commissariat. I was fighting to exercise my constitutional right.

I am an antimilitarist. I consider it inadmissible to use of the army in the internal police operations, against Russian citizens. I consider it inadmissible to use the army against peaceful population.

In 1995 I stopped coming to the military training lessons in my University because of the Chechen war. I consider the Chechen war a crime. The pilot who bombs a village, destroys houses, kills women and children is a war criminal. The soldier whose missile hits the market in Grozny and kills 100 people is a criminal.

I am not the only one to apply for the alternative civilian service instead of the military service. This was the choice of thousands of boys of my age. Now there are too many of us. So many that the generals need to put one of us into prison. Even against the law. To put someone into prison in order to frighten the others - those who are fighting against the military and juridical machine for the execution of their constitutional rights.

Here in the prison cell I am not sorry for my choice - not for a minute, not for an instance. My conviction that mine was the right choice grows every day of this war that the Russian army is fighting against the Chechen people: it's a long time that this war is being waged against the people, the defenceless women, children and old men in the beleaguered city of Grozny - not against criminals and terrorists.

Guys, we may try to stop this folly - but there must be many of us. And the generals with their Military Commissariats, their obedient "prosecutors" and "judges" should not manage to frighten us.

Do not agree to become cannon-fodder, do not go humbly in the barracks to be killed or - even worse - to become killers. Do not take part in the war crimes of the regime: neither as its executors in the front line, nor as its assistance in the home front, nor as its accomplices in a quite place.

They may frighten us, menace us, violate the laws and the Constitution, they may even put us into prison. There is one thing they cannot do: make us serve them and become their accomplices. Their apparent "force" is in our lack of self-confidence, our fear, our indifference. We are stronger because without us they are impotent.

Dmitry NEVEROVSKY