MINELRES: Caucasus Reporting Service No. 220: Chechens Shun Dagestan Draft Drive

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WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 220, February 26,
2004

CAUCASUS NEWS UPDATE February 26

RUSSIA "FORCING" CAMP CLOSURES  Chechen refugees in Ingushetia's tent
camps are coming under intense pressure go home.  By Umalt Dudayev in
Bart camp, Ingushetia

CHECHENS SHUN DAGESTAN DRAFT DRIVE  Moscow's attempt to conscript ethnic
Chechens in Dagestan has run into difficulties.  By Musa Musayev in
Khasavyurt

ARMENIA: TEACHER CULL UNDER SCRUTINY  Doubts are being raised about how
a wholesale lay-off of teachers in Armenia is being carried out.  By
Naira Melkumian in Yerevan

COMMENT: RHETORIC AND REALITY IN AZERBAIJAN  Lending the West's stamp of
approval to Azerbaijan's flawed TV legislation would do the country a
disservice.  By Whit Mason with Rashid Hajili in Baku

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CHECHENS SHUN DAGESTAN DRAFT DRIVE

Moscow's attempt to conscript ethnic Chechens in Dagestan has run into
difficulties.

By Musa Musayev in Khasavyurt

The border towns between Dagestan and Chechnya are full of stories about
who has managed to avoid conscription into the army - and what happens
if they do not.

One oft-repeated story concerns a group of Chechens from the Leninaul
village in Dagestan's Kazbek district who were drafted into the armed
forces but served only a month and a half there. According to rumour,
the conscripts' parents went to collect their children from the unit,
and found them suffering injuries ranging from fractures to bruises.

Kazbek, along with two other regions of Dagestan, Khasavyurt and Novolak
are populated by native Chechens who came back to their homeland from
Kazakstan, to which they had been deported in February 1944. There are
now more than 100,000 in the region. 

During the first Chechen conflict of 1994-6, almost all Dagestani
Chechens refused to serve in the Russian army and many fought on the
opposing side with the pro-independence rebels.

Last autumn, the Russian authorities made a drive to recruit young
Chechen males to the army but gave up the attempt. They blamed "lack of
financial resources" but it was universally accepted that the task was
simply impossible.

In Dagestan, however, they have tried harder over the past three years -
with very mixed results. A particular focus has been Khasavyurt on
Dagestan's border with Chechnya, which has a quarter of a million people
in the town and surrounding area.

Zaur Omarov who is the acting head of Dagestan's recruitment centre says
that across the republic they managed to draft more than 5,000 young men
into the army last autumn. He conceded that in three areas, Kaspiisk,
Akushinsk and Khasavyurt the conscription quota had not been met. 

Local Dagestanis say military service can be avoided for around 1000 US
dollars, although no one says this publicly. And the highest avoidance
rate is among the ethnic Chechens.

"It used to be a disgrace to avoid military service," said Arsen
Adilsultanov, a sports teacher who works at a school in the village of
Nuradilov in the Khasavyurt district. "But now it is absurd to join an
army that is waging a war against our homeland, killing children, old
people and women. This is precisely why many of the conscripts' parents
are not letting their children serve. They've had first-hand experience
of the terrors of war."

Local Chechens say that the few young men who did serve were
discriminated against and abused because of their nationality.

Nonna Sultankhanova, a reporter for the Chechen newspaper Niyso,
published in Dagestan, says, "Chechen conscripts are treated with
disdain and labelled as '[former Chechen president Jokhar] Dudayev's
spies', in the best case. No propaganda about the necessity to serve in
the army can convince conscripts when they see their relatives and
neighbours returning from the army maimed."

Another Chechen journalist, Zainab Magomedsharipova, pointed out that
Chechens have another reason to dislike the army. When the whole country
celebrates February 23 as the Day of the Russian Army, for the Chechens
it is the day of the Stalinist deportations in 1944 and a day of
mourning. 

Adam Jasuev from Osmanyurt village was the only Chechen in his unit when
he served in the army in the Urals city of Ekaterinburg and discovered
that one of the soldiers in the outfit was an officer who had previously
served in Chechnya. He said that the officer told him, "I'll make you
dance to my tune!" At a line-up, Adam then stepped out to the front
without permission and declared in front of everyone, "I am a Chechen
and I am proud of it, but I am not guilty of what is happening in
Chechnya." He says after that he was not persecuted, but was left in
peace. 

While he was serving, his parents received letters of gratitude from the
army, and he returned home a senior sergeant. His father Bilal recalls
that when his son was drafted he told the officer who came to pick up
Adam, "You are responsible for my son. If anything happens to him, I'll
find you anywhere."

However, Bilal Jasuev is not prepared to see his younger son, Adlan, be
drafted too.

"I am not letting him go to the army," said Bilal. "In our village,
which has five thousand households, no one has served in the army,
except my older son. And my son must not be an exception among his
peers." 

An official in the Khasavyurt town draft office who declined to be named
said that faced with such resistance, they had planned to draft a much
reduced number of military-age men but had failed to meet even that
target. "We planned to draft 430 people, but instead we got 340," the
official said. "During every drafting campaign we notify them three
times each, but they just ignore it."

According to the Khasavyurt draft office, they know that 2,840 Chechens
in the Khasavyurt and Novolak districts are evading military service,
while the real numbers may be much higher. Officials say a similar
pattern of low conscription is repeated across the entire region.

Aigazi Mutalimov, deputy military commissar of Khasavyurt, says that
parents have just one argument - that their children will be mistreated.
He said that the number of Chechens willing to serve is going up. 

"They are just sick of hiding all the time," Mutalimov said. "It's hard
to get a job, make a career or move somewhere without military
registration. But even now we still have to visit the same house several
times and outside office hours."

Official figures say that 42 Dagestanis have deserted from the Russian
army over the last few years, but these are in fact only the ones who
have never been found again. For most parents, never letting their sons
go, by whatever method, is the best means of prevention.

Taxi driver Mairbek said his son is about to be drafted into the army,
but he has no intention of letting him go, "I'll try to find a way for
him to avoid this fate. I have about six months to come up with a
solution."

Musa Musayev is a journalist with Dagestanskaya Pravda newspaper.

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CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE No. 220