Chechnya - DHA: 01.Jun-31.Jul.97
Chechnya - DHA: 01.Jun-31.Jul.97
Chechnya
Humanitarian Situation Report
1 June-31 July 1997
SITUATION REPORT OF THE DHA COORDINATOR
Based on field reports
GENERAL
On 31 May elections for mayor of the Chechen capital of Grozny were
declared invalid after less than a third of voters participated and
voting irregularities were reported. Among the dozen competing
candidates was the current mayor of Grozny, Lecha Dudayev, a nephew of
the late Dzhokhar Dudayev, the first Chechen separatist leader.
On 1 June an Austrian businessman and five other persons taken hostage
in Chechnya a month earlier were freed during an operation conducted by
Chechen police to counter a wave of kidnappings. On 6 June four Russian
journalists held captive in Chechnya for more than three months were
released. However, on 11 June masked gunmen in front of many witnesses
seized two Russian television journalists in the afternoon in the centre
of Grozny. On 16 June four Russians and two Chechens were released
during further raids by the security forces, but the journalists were
not among them.
On 28 June three federal policemen were abducted by Chechens after an
incident on the border. In the following week, the French head of the
MSF-France office in Ingushetia and two British humanitarian workers
working at the Centre for Peace and Community Development in Grozny were
kidnapped. In both cases, the workers were taken from their residences
at night. In the same period, a Slovak engineer was abducted by gunmen
in the centre of Nazran (Ingushetia) in broad daylight.
Shortly afterwards, on 8 July, 10 federal policemen were killed and 12
wounded in Daghestan, not far from the Chechen border, when a
remote-controlled bomb attached to a roadside tree exploded. At the
same time, inside Chechnya, unidentified attackers ambushed and killed
Ruslan Dayev, a local warlord, while a field commander for the Chechens
known as Khattab -- an Arab using only one name -- survived an
assassination attempt when a land-mine detonated early. In North
Ossetia, unidentified gunmen stopped a bus travelling from
Kabardino-Balkaria to Chechnya and abducted four Chechen men, saying
they wished to exchange them for an Ossetian woman kidnapped the
previous month. The Ossetians released them towards the end of July,
and it was believed that there had been a corresponding release by
Chechens.
On 15 July, a WFP vehicle was briefly stopped by "policemen" -- who, it
later appeared, were bogus -- on a highway in Ingushetia. A few days
later, 16 Ingush customs officers and border guards were taken hostage
on the border by 30 armed Chechens who stated that they wished to go to
North Ossetia to release some Chechens held hostage there. One Ingush
policeman was killed during the incident. The hostages were released a
few days later.
On 24 July a large group of illegal alcohol dealers, accompanying a
convoy of 150 tank trucks, engaged in heavy firing with Russian border
guards as they tried to cross the border from Georgia into North
Ossetia. The border guards eventually gained control of the situation
and confiscated large quantities of arms and money, as well as the
alcohol. No casualties were reported. Some days later, a private
dispute led a man to throw a grenade in Vladikavkaz railway station.
Three persons were injured.
On 4 August Shmidt Dzoblayev, secretary-general of the Assembly of
Patriotic Forces of Russia, who had been seized in Chechnya in December
1996 while a member of a North Ossetian delegation which was attempting
to hold talks with the Chechen leadership in Grozny and held hostage
since then, was released. (Four other delegation members and the police
escort had been released some weeks after the incident.)
A car bomb exploded outside the Grozny office of Chechen commander
Salman Raduyev on 29 July, killing three persons. Raduyev, known for
his attacks during the Chechnya war on Kislyar and Pervomaiskoye in
Daghestan and for his subsequent refusal to place his forces under the
control of the Chechen president, subsequently blamed Moscow for the
attack.
Unknown persons on the night of 22-23 July robbed the OSCE office in
Grozny of US$ 30,000 in cash, computers, files and a Nissan jeep. Two
Chechen guards were abducted, of whom one was released outside the
town. It was also reported that thieves in Chechnya had stolen 12
kilometres of disused railroad track (both the rails and the wooden
sleepers).
On 3 June the Russian and Chechen governments agreed on a new plan to
finance the reconstruction of Chechnya through barter deals with Russian
regions and ex-Soviet republics indebted to Moscow; this was intended to
enable Chechnya to receive economic aid without Russia funding it from
the federal budget. On 10 June First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly
Chubais and Security Council Ivan Rybkin stated that an article in the
1997 federal budget qualified Chechnya for economic assistance in the
amount of US$ 90 million. At about the same time, President Yeltsin
appointed Boris Agapov, ex-Vice President of Ingushetia, as one of the
Deputy Secretaries of the Security Council. Early in August, Mr. Rybkin
stated that US$ 120 million could be made available for Chechnya.
On 4 June Movladi Udugov, First Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya,
stated that his republic was ready to guarantee the safety of a
150-kilometre oil pipeline from the Caspian to the Black Sea by
providing, if necessary, a special military unit. On 12 June in Baku
the Russian Fuel and Energy Ministry and the Chechen and Azeri State oil
companies signed an economic agreement on transporting oil from the new
Azerbaijan oilfields through Chechnya to the Russian port of
Novorossiisk. In the meantime, the Chechen oil company Yunko re-started
its refinery and reportedly produced in the first six months of 1997,
from Chechen crude, 15,000 MTs of fuel oil and 5,000 MTs of diesel.
On the same day, in Moscow, a banking agreement enabling the Chechen
National Bank to open an account at the Russian Central Bank and to make
financial transactions with business and other entities anywhere in the
Russian Federation was signed by federal and Chechen representatives.
The following day, in Moscow and Grozny, an agreement on customs matters
was signed by Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin and Chechen President
Aslan Maskhadov. As a result of this, federal and Chechen border
services began talks designed to enable direct flights from Grozny
airport to CIS countries. On 15 July, federal and Chechen
representatives signed an agreement for joint action against kidnapping,
terrorism, smuggling, recruitment of mercenaries and economic crimes.
On 8 June Aslan Maskhadov, President of Chechnya, promulgated Islamic
law in the republic: it was announced that the official alphabet would
be converted from Latin to Arabic letters, a state Islamic bank would be
established and Islamic courts would start functioning. Early in
August, President Maskhadov announced that Chechnya would soon issue its
own passports and vehicle number plates, and open an embassy in Moscow.
Chechen Vice Prime Minister Shamil Basayev, a former field commander and
organiser of the hostage-taking raid at Budyonnovsk in June 1995,
resigned from the Chechen Government on 10 July. His colleague Abu
Movsayev, the head of the Chechen security service, followed him into
resignation on 19 July.
On 14 July, following shooting incidents against Ingush returnees in the
Prigorodny District of North Ossetia, President Aushev of Ingushetia
sent a message to President Yeltsin warning that the situation could
become "uncontrollable at any minute". The following day, one person
died and seventeen -- including a UNHCR local monitor -- were wounded
when unidentified persons fired an anti-tank rocket at a bus carrying
Ingush near the village of Dachnoye in the Prigorodny District of North
Ossetia .
The situation in the Prigorodny District deteriorated even further on 29
July when two cars were blown up by land-mines. Learning that one North
Ossetian policemen had been killed and six Ossetian civilians wounded, a
group of 150 Ossetians attacked a camp for Ingush returnees in the
Prigorodny District, killing one Ingush, wounding several, and
destroying 85 temporary homes. Federal Interior Ministry troops were
deployed to restore order. The following day there were two incidents
in which shots were fired from across the Ingush border at two Ossetian
police posts. Two Ossetians were wounded. In a pursuit operation by
Ossetians, four fighters -- Ingush or Chechens -- were killed.
President Aushev of Ingushetia called for federal rule in the Prigorodny
District of North Ossetia. After meetings of the Security Council of
the Russian Federation, in which the President Aushev and President
Galazov of North Ossetia participated, it was decided not to impose
federal rule -- it was felt that this might inflame the situation
further -- but to introduce joint police patrols of Ingush and North
Ossetians, each patrol led by a federal officer.
Towards the end of July interest was expressed in Moscow in a possible
meeting between President Yeltsin and President Maskhadov. The first
Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya, Movladi Udugov, stated that the
Chechen side would propose a draft which would be in accordance with the
terms of a peace agreement signed earlier in the year by the two
presidents and would give Chechnya the status of an independent state.
President Yeltsin was reported to have expressed interest in an
agreement which would grant a status similar to that of semi-autonomous
Tatarstan.
In an effort to reduce tension in the Prigorodny District of North
Ossetia, President Yeltsin met on 8 August with the presidents of
Ingushetia and North Ossetia. He urged both to declare a moratorium on
territorial claims.
DELIVERY OF HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
Assessment missions continued to various sites in Chechnya; agreements
were signed for rehabilitation of three schools, four water
installations and a number of medical facilities.
As of 25 July, 3,168 displaced persons from Ingushetia and
Kabardino-Balkaria have returned to Chechnya on 35 convoys organised by
UNHCR. As of 15 July, 5,659 persons have been assisted in their return
movement to Chechnya from Daghestan. From March to the end of July, 222
persons were assisted in their return movement from Ingushetia to the
Prigorodny district of North Ossetia. In addition, on 1 July UNHCR
repatriated a first group of 10 persons from North Ossetia to the South
Ossetia region of Georgia. It is hoped that the rate of return to
Chechnya will increase and that this will lead to the return of some
15,000 people by the end of the summer.
The target figure for the return of Ingush to the Prigorodny district
of North Ossetia had been 3,000 persons by the end of this year, but
this is now unlikely.
Pending the return of displaced persons to Chechnya, WFP has been
continuing regular food distributions using resources from the 1996
Appeal. Distribution in Ingushetia and North Ossetia was completed at
the end of July. WFP is also providing materials for returnee packages
in the form of bulk food and humanitarian daily rations as well as some
food for collective centres in Chechnya. WFP will terminate its food
distribution in Daghestan by 15 August and press announcements for this
purpose were made on 18 July. A quantity of food -- principally family
food parcels, and some vegetable oil -- is being transferred from
Daghestan to Stavropol Territory where it will be distributed through
the Ministry of Social Protection with some input into this process by
UNHCR.
WHO is about to re-open, in Vladikavkaz, a centre to provide and fit
prosthetic devices for amputees. WHO is also working on a tuberculosis
programme for which it has received an earmarked contribution.
Given that the return movement could be jeopardised if the integration
programme were announced too soon, it has been decided to concentrate
all efforts on return for the next three months and to announce the
integration programme at the end of September. The programme is
expected to involve around 5,000 persons in each of three regions:
Ingushetia, Daghestan and Kabardino-Balkaria.
A much larger integration situation exists in Stavropol Territory, which
has received some 60,000 displaced persons from Chechnya (registered and
unregistered). It is estimated that none of this group will return to
Chechnya. A list of small-scale rehabilitation projects for collective
centres and hospitals has been prepared and is being discussed with the
local authorities in Stavropol.
DHA ACTIVITIES
DHA participated in the rotating NGO meeting (chaired in turn by DHA,
ICRC and the NGO Coordinator) on 4 June. NGOs reported on their
humanitarian activities in various regions of the Russian Federation.
The worsening security in Chechnya was noted, as was the continuing need
to provide humanitarian assistance to other republics. It was also
considered that it was important to make a greater effort to promote
understanding among Russian public opinion of what humanitarian
assistance is, and what are the requirements for it to be delivered
successfully. In informal consultations after the meeting, NGO
participants agreed to write to TACIS to urge continued funding for the
NGO coordination project, which was providing a valuable link between
NGOs and government departments.
At a meeting with the Deputy Secretary of the Security Council on 10
June, DHA discussed ways in which UN monitoring of activities in
Chechnya could be arranged in a secure manner. The problems of customs
clearance and other implementation difficulties were raised.
The DHA Coordinator and the Senior Officer visited Ingushetia, North
Ossetia, Stavropol Territory and Rostov Region from 24 to 28 June.
Meetings were held with the president of Ingushetia, the Prime Minister
of North Ossetia, the first deputy presidential representative to
Ingushetia and North Ossetia, one of the Russian Federation Security
Council representatives in Chechnya, various officials in Stavropol
Territory and Rostov Region and UN field staff.
The DHA Coordinator addressed a donors meeting in Geneva on 3 July (see
below for points discussed).
The DHA Coordinator, the UNHCR Director for Europe and the DHA Senior
Officer visited Ingushetia and North Ossetia on 19 and 20 July.
Meetings were held with the presidents of Ingushetia and North Ossetia
and with one of the Russian Federation Security Council representatives
in Chechnya. Subsequently a further meeting was held with the Deputy
Secretary of the Security Council.
On 23 July the DHA Coordinator and the Senior Officer took part in an
NGO meeting in Sergeev Posad (ex-Zagorsk) devoted to the problems of
displaced persons in general, including displaced persons from Chechnya
who had relocated away from the North Caucasus and persons displaced
from other republics of the former Soviet Union.
As a result of the various reviews that were made, and taking account of
the worsening security situation in Chechnya, Ingushetia and North
Ossetia , it was decided that (1) every effort should be made to achieve
a successful return movement, while operating in conditions of security;
(2) the Chechnya operation should be concluded in 1997, on the
understanding that, given the lateness of contributions, some activities
would continue in the early months of 1998 using 1997 funds; (3)
security risks should not be taken simply in order to prepare monitoring
reports; (4) there would not be a need for an inter-agency appeal in
1998; (5) activities should be continued in the Prigorodny District of
North Ossetia but with a lower profile and (6) some integration
activities might continue in 1998 in Stavropol Territory. These points
were also made by the DHA Coordinator at the donors meeting.
On 4 August DHA participated in a meeting with ECHO and NGOs, in the
course of which ECHO indicated that its assistance was strictly intended
for emergency situations. Thus, in the Russian Federation, ECHO
principally had in mind the North Caucasus. If there were project
proposals which had more of a reconstruction character -- as was the
case with some proposals related to Chechnya -- these should be referred
to TACIS.
OTHER ISSUES
Security
In the light of the security situation described in Section I, proposals
are under consideration to raise the UN security level to a higher
phase. In the meantime, the Designated Official for Security, who is
also the DHA Coordinator, has ruled that international staff should no
longer stay overnight in Ingushetia. Field staff who were residing
there have thus moved to Vladikavkaz. Security precautions have been
enhanced in Daghestan. A Landrover with anti-mine protection installed
has been transferred from the Georgia programme for use in Chechnya.
This report is available on the internet through RELIEFWEB:
http://www.reliefweb.int
United Nations Office in the Russian Federation - Moscow
Mr. Viktor Andreev
Tel.: (7503) 232 22 27 - 232 30 11
Fax: (7503) 232 30 17
Inter-Agency Support Branch (IASB) - Geneva
Mr. David Bassiouni - Chief
Mr. Arjun Katoch
Tel.: (41 22) 788.1401
Fax: (41 22) 788.6386
Registry E-Mail:
Rosemary.Addo-Yirenkyi@dha.unicc.org
Complex Emergency Division (CED) - New York
Mr. Bradley Foerster
Tel.: (1 212) 963.1834
Fax: (1 212) 963.3630
E-Mail: Foerster@un.org
Press to contact (DHA-Geneva)
Ms. Madeleine Moulin-Acevedo
Tel.: (41 22) 917.2856
Fax: (41 22) 917.0023
Telex: 414242 DHA CH
E-Mail: Moulin-Acevedo@dha.unicc.org
distributed by
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Volunteers in Technical Assistance
Disaster Information Center lists: listproc@vita.org
sitreps nat-dsr
appeal fireline
web: www.vita.org glrgn dprk
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
comments/suggestions/requests to incident@vita.org