Agency of the antimilitarist action

Issue 26 * November 26, 1999

Published by the Antimilitarist Radical Association (ARA),

an association of the Transnational Radical Party,

in Russian and English languages

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ARA - ANTIMILITARIST RADICAL ASSOCIATION

Pechatnikov Per. 6 -- 103045 Moscow -- Russia

Tel. +7-095-2081805, 2084902

Fax +7-095-2081805

mailto:ara@glasnet.ru

http://www.ara.ru

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TELEX

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MEMBER OF THE ARA GENERAL COUNCIL DEPUTY OF THE STATE DUMA

BOROVOI PROPOSES AN ANTI-WAR RESOLUTION

Moscow, November 16. An independent Duma deputy Konstantin

Borovoi (leader of the Party for

the Economic Freedom) proposed to the Chamber to adopt an

appeal to president Boris Elzin calling the president "to stop

illegal military operations on the Chechen territory". The

draft resolution, proposed by Borovoi, calls the official

Moscow to begin negotiations "with the President of Chechen

republic, elected according to the law". The document also asks

to "stop immediately the illegal propaganda of war through the

principal mass media and the military censorship over certain

media". On Tuesday at a sitting of the Duma Borovoi informed

his colleagues that the day before he had proposed this

document to the attention of the Council of the Chamber,

however, the Council did not discuss it. The Deputy asked the

leadership of the Duma to distribute this document among all

deputies of his Chamber. (Polit.Ru)

THE CASE OF NEVEROVSKII: THE ARA APPEALS TO THE OFFICE OF THE

PROCURATOR-GENERAL

Moscow, November 19. ARA Secretary Nikolai Khramov has sent an

appeal to the Procurator-General ad interim of the Russian

Federation Vladimir Ustinov asking him to control the

legitimacy of criminal proceedings instituted by the office of

the Public Prosecutor of Obninsk against ARA member Dmitrii

Neverovskii, accused of "evading the military service". "There

are valid grounds to consider, - says the appeal - that the

criminal proceedings against D. Neverovskii were instituted for

two reasons: 1) in order to intimidate other conscripts in

Kaluga region where the number of conscientious objectors is

rather great; 2) in order to squeeze on the mother of Dmitrii

Neverovskii - Ta'yana Mikhailovna Kotlyar, a candidate for the

next State Duma".

A CONSCIENTIOUS OBEJECTOR, ACCUSED OF "EVADING THE MILITARY

SERVICE", IS ACQUITTED BY THE COURT

Slantsy (Leningrad region), November 22. The City Court has

acquitted for the lack of corpus delicti conscientious objector

Aleksandr Egorov , accused

according to Art. 328.1 of the Russian Criminal Code. Earlier

the same Court had rejected his complaint against the

enlistment commission that had decided to call him up although

he had applied for the alternative civilian service in

accordance with Art. 59.3 of the Russian Constitution. The

prosecutor has presented his cassasion protest to the Court of

Leningrad Region.

CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS IN

NOVGOROD

Novgorod, November 24. According to the information of the

"Centre for peace-keeping and public progress" Asta@mail.natm.ru>, in Novgorod criminal proceedings were

instituted against Arkadii Zarakovskii (Art. 328.1 of the

Russian Criminal Code), conscientious objector. Since 1997 he

has been fighting in Court for his constitutional right to

perform the alternative civilian service instead of the

military service.

A RADICAL TABLE NEAR THE DUMA: YOU ARE WELCOME, SIGN IT!

Moscow, November 24. The militants of the ARA and of the

Radical Party have place their table to collect signatures at

the entrance to the State Duma in Okhotnyj Rjad. They asked the

deputies going to the morning session to sign the petition "The

Third millennium without conscription slavery", addressed to

the next Parliament. In one hour and a half (!) they managed to

collect only one (1) signatures - that of a pensioner passing

by.

DMITRII NEVEROVSKII SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS OF IMPRISONMENT

Obninsk (Kaluga region), November 25. The trial of Dmitrii

Neverovskii, a militant of the ARA that conscientiously

objected to protest against the Chechen war, has finished with

the verdict of guilty. The President of the Obninsk City Court

Yakov Makarovkii, who has been personally conducting the

process, sentenced Neverovskii to two years of imprisonment. In

his last word Dmitrii Neverovski said that the war in Chechnya

was a crime and once again confirmed that he conscientiously

objected. He was arrested in the courtroom. Since the right to

conscientiously objected was recognised in Russia (1992) this

is the second case of imprisonment of a conscientious objector.

The previous case concerned Vadim Nazarov (Sochi), his verdict

was abrogated by cassation. Find the materials of the case of

Dmitrii Neverovskii in the next issue.

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THE THIRD MILLENNIUM WITHOUT CONSCRIPTION SLAVERY

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By November 23, 1999 we managed to collect 6752 signatures in

73 Russian regions under the petition "The Third millennium

without conscription slavery". The regions where more than 10

signatures have been collected:

Moscow.....................................4157

Moscow region...............................623

Volgograd region............................170

Komi republic...............................149

Kaluga region...............................145

Udmurtiya...................................140

Krasnodar territory.........................139

Yaroslavl' region...........................104

Tver' region................................100

Tula region.. ...............................90

Ryazan' region...............................73

Stavropol' territory.........................60

Oryol region.................................55

Rostov region................................55

Penza region.................................53

Mary-El republic.............................50

Sankt Petersburg and Leningrad region........43

Chelyabinsk region...........................43

Krasnoyarsk territory........................42

Nizhnii Novgorod region......................42

Orenburg region..............................41

Voronezh region..............................28

Vladimir region..............................24

Mordoviya....................................23

Saratov region...............................18

Ekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk region...........12

Lipetsk region...............................12

Novosibirsk region...........................11

Smolensk region..............................11

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THE SECOND PAGE

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Evidence of War Crimes in Chechnya

(New York, November 3, 1999) -- A Human Rights Watch team in

Ingushetia has interviewed nine witnesses to Russia's October

21 attack on the Grozny Central Market. Their testimonies

suggest the assault may have been a serious violation of the

laws of war, and Human Rights Watch urges the Russian

authorities to vigorously investigate the incident and publish

their findings.

The testimonies also indicate that Chechen fighters may have

situated a key command post within or adjacent to the market.

This too would be a serious violation, as the Chechen forces

are obliged to respect international law prohibiting use of the

civilian population to shield military objects.

Three large explosions ripped through the Chechen capital's

downtown bazaar at approximately 5:00 p.m. on October 21,

killing an estimated 140 people and wounding about 260,

according to Chechen estimates. After initially denying any

role, some Russian authorities acknowledged their involvement

in the blast, but said they had struck legitimate Chechen

military targets. The witness testimony, however, suggests that

the Russian attack may have been illegal, as the use of

powerful explosive devices in a congested civilian marketplace

at an especially crowded time of day is likely to have been

both indiscriminate and disproportionate.

The Geneva Conventions and their protocols, to which Russia is

a party, as well as the customary international law of war,

emphasise the principle of civilian immunity. This body of law

prohibits attacks - even when aimed at legitimate military

targets - if they are indiscriminate or disproportionately

harmful to civilians. Humanitarian law also requires

precautions to protect the civilian population, such as

effective advance warning.

The witnesses were all interviewed separately and at length.

They indicated there may have been legitimate military targets

in the market. One forty-year-old woman said she heard that a

number of Chechen fighters had been killed and wounded in the

blast, and that the injured combatants had been sent to the

nearby Urus-Martan hospital. Another 35-year-old woman wounded

in the attack told Human Rights Watch that Chechen military

commander Shamil Basayev had his headquarters in a corner of

the market near a group of stalls selling automatic weapons,

pistols and ammunition. However, neither the importance of

Basayev's headquarters, nor the possibility of arms merchants

in the bazaar, justifies the tremendous amount of force used

against the market.

Witnesses said that the central market was thronged by hundreds

of shoppers at the time of the attack. The shopping arcade, a

narrow, informal bazaar stretching for some 400 yards along the

trolley tracks in central Grozny, runs perpendicular to

Prospekt Svobody street, the capital's central thoroughfare.

"You can buy everything you need there," said Zalina

Amirkhanova, a 17-year-old nursing student injured in the

blast. "Vendors sell anything from second-hand clothes to

vegetables, meat, flowers, eggs, jewelry, and medicine." Her

upper right arm was seriously wounded.

Customers included Chechens as well as ethnic Russians and

Ingush. "It was the main place to buy produce and household

goods," explained Bella Titiyeva, a 27-year-old pharmacist. "I

shopped there almost every day." The bazaar included dozens of

small stalls jammed against one another. Immediately before the

attack, the bazaar was "so packed that I had to almost push my

way through," recalled Shamil, a 42-year-old math teacher whose

right foot was injured. The market was particularly crowded at

the time of the blast, as it was filled with shoppers on their

way home from work.

The first explosion hit a building about fifty yards northeast

of the central bazaar. Most of the marketplace deaths came from

the second and third explosions, however, which occurred within

100 yards of each other in the central bazaar area.

The second explosion hit a building adjacent to a Number 7 bus,

which was caught in traffic at the corner of Prospekt Svobody

and Mira Streets. "I saw the building explode and then glass

flew everywhere," recalled a 63-year-old female bus passenger.

"I then looked down and thought, 'Where is my arm?'" Part of

her right arm was blown off. As she crawled off the ruined bus,

the witness saw the bodies of two children who were "less than

10 years old," lying dead on the pavement.

The second blast caught Bella Titiyeva in the center of the

market, "near the flowers and confectionery stalls," while she

was shopping for toiletries with a friend. "There were bodies

everywhere," she recalled; her lower leg was shattered by the

blast, and her calf muscle was shredded. Her mother recalled

that "it was hard to get to my daughter, because there were so

many bodies strewn around."

Another 34-year-old woman, wounded in her right leg, discovered

her 16-year-old son's body lying between two stalls. She said

the top of his head had been blown off.

Many of the blasts' victims were brought to the central Grozny

hospital, where doctors operated by candlelight. "The first

floor was packed with wounded and dead people," recalled one

25-year-old man who brought his brother to the hospital. "They

were putting them on the balconies, the floors, everywhere."

Some of the wounded were evacuated across the Ingush border

that same night. Others, however, were taken across 24 or 48

hours later, and therefore faced lengthy delays by Russian

troops attempting to seal the border. "I waited with my

daughter in an ambulance for 24 hours at the Russian

checkpoint," Bella Titiyeva's mother recalled. "They wouldn't

let us through, even though they could see she needed urgent

attention." According to Ingushetia hospital officials, the

medical condition of some blast victims deteriorated as a

result of the border delays.

Although there is some evidence that there may have been

legitimate military targets located near or within the Grozny

bazaar, the size and extent of the blasts, combined with the

large number of noncombatants in the immediate vicinity,

strongly suggests that the Russian attack was grossly

disproportionate.

If Chechen commander Shamil Basayev did indeed situate his

headquarters within the Grozny market, that too would be a

serious abuse of international law. Although Chechen fighters

are not parties to the Geneva Conventions, as individuals

within the territory of a state party [Russia], they are bound

to respect the basic precept of civilian immunity. Human Rights

Watch calls upon Chechen commanders to immediately redeploy

their troops, headquarters, and weapons storage facilities out

of populated areas.

For Further Information:

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Russian Federation, Moscow 103064, A/Ya 409

Tel: 7 095 2506852

Fax: 7 095 250 6853

Website

English: http://www.hrw.org

Russian: http://www.hrw.org/russian

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