THE OSCE CHALLENGED - NHC/IHF

PART II: OSCE PRIORITIES AND PERSPECTIVES FROM CIVIL SOCIETY
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mr. andrew cunningham (msf netherlands) on impunity in the caucasus:
“The outside world is morally complicit”

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Impunity reigns in the Caucasus, says Mr. Andrew Cunningham, MSF Netherlands’ Head of Mission in the Russian Federation. He argues that too much attention is given to the problems this impunity poses for aid workers, and not enough to the resulting trauma for the local population. Disappearances, rape, torture, murder, and common crimes abound, without the perpetrators having to fear any punishment. Such crimes are committed by all sides, state and non-state perpetrators alike, according to Mr. Cunningham. And they commit these crimes with a variety of motives.
People in Ingushetia, Dagestan, and Chechnya are traumatised by impunity, they are either direct victims or indirect ones: through fear for their own safety, through worry about relatives who have disappeared, or through the decrease of assistance, due to security concerns, humanitarian organizations can offer them. Many people in the Caucasus think that the outside world’s indifference to their fate is based on ignorance. Not so, says Mr. Cunningham; the world knows what is happening, but doesn’t interfere for geopolitical reasons. In that sense, the outside world is morally complicit.
Finally, Mr. Cunningham mentions one more disappearance in the North-Caucasus: that of the OSCE.
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“It seems a bit odd that a humanitarian medical organization has been asked to give a presentation on impunity in the Caucasus. We are not a human rights organization; we treat the sick. Maybe we received this invitation because we have suffered from disappearances, too? If so, it seems to me that too much focus is placed on the aid workers being kidnapped—be they expatriates or national staff—and not enough on the day-to-day trauma of the population, whether in Ingushetia, Dagestan, Chechnya, or elsewhere. NGOs sometimes speak more of their trauma and suffering than of the population’s. Focus should rather lay on those who have no choice in their suffering.
But we of course have been affected ourselves. We have had more than our fair share of kidnappings, and MSF now suffers from another kidnapping—Arjan Erkel, our Head of Mission in Dagestan, kidnapped in Makhachkala, Dagestan, in August 2002. Such events traumatize us as individuals and devastate the families of those affected, and they force us to question as an organization how we can—and sometimes even if we can—provide aid.
Kidnappings limit our ability to respond to the needs of those we are committed to support.

But who is responsible for this situation? And who pays the price? Responsibility is extremely difficult to assign, but it is at least clear that the Russian government has a responsibility to protect aid workers and to respond to these criminal actions. Arjan’s kidnapping occurred, after all, not in the war-zone of Chechnya, but in a city hundreds of kilometres away, in another republic. Who pays the price of such kidnappings is easier to figure out—in our case Arjan and his family, and in every case the people of the Caucasus.
Thinking about this topic I was reminded of Solzhenitsyn’s book ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ (?). The Gulag Archipelago was Stalin’s vast network of hidden prison camps for political prisoners. Solzhenitsyn describes in graphic detail the brutal, inhuman and barbarous nature of this prison system.
Two impressions have remained with me after reading these descriptions: the first is wonder, at the cruelty humans are capable of, especially when propagated by the unchecked power of a monster such as Stalin’s police state, but the second is marvel, at the ability of humans to survive such devastating inhumanity.
In our work in support of those suffering in the Caucasus we see all of this: hidden prisoners, unchecked brutality, impunity, etcetera, but also survival. But in the case of the Caucasus, it is much less clear who is the bad guy, for on all sides—and there are more than two—we can find examples of brutality and disappearances, of fear and anxiety.

But what is the actual situation on the ground? What sort of violence and insecurity are we talking about? For one, disappearances. Any number of different ways of making a person disappear can be found: being detained, being arrested, being kidnapped, being taken away, tortured or killed, and never returned. People disappear from their homes, from the street, from work; for hours, for days, for months or for years. Some never come back. Most that do return, are traumatized. Families are left dazed, fearful, angry and disempowered.
And as a final perversion of human values, some families have to bankrupt themselves to buy back the bodies of their dead. Can you imagine the impact on a family, the humiliation and the shame?

Why do people disappear? It is hard to say. Maybe they knew the wrong people, or the wrong things. Or maybe they simply didn’t know the right people. Maybe it was for money, maybe for information. Maybe as punishment, or maybe as a warning. Maybe because they worked for the pro-Russian administration, maybe because they worked for a humanitarian agency, or maybe they were thought to be connected to the rebels. Or maybe because one was simply in the wrong age-bracket, for example, of ‘fighting age’.
Other types of violence abound, and we witness the effects in our work, be it on people’s minds or on their bodies. We see victims of rape, of torture, and of any number of other violent incidents. There are innumerable ways one can be hurt in Chechnya: by landmines, explosions, aerial bombings, fire from attack helicopters, fire-fights, security sweeps. Our surgeons see the damage on the bodies of civilians and our counsellors see the effects on their minds, day after day.

So Chechnya is one big morass of disappearances and violence. What about culpability? That is: what about blame? What mechanism is in place to bring justice?
Again, I would like to stress that all sides are complicit, state and non-state perpetrators alike. Finding out who is to blame, who to pin responsibility on, or who to prosecute, is a nearly impossible task, I’m afraid. Everyone blames everyone else. The administration, the criminal groups, the rebels, the military, the Ministry of the Interior, or the FSB; take your pick who is behind it all. Who works for whom, who is connected to whom, and who is the impetus for any given disappearance? It’s hard to tell. But that is not our duty. The international community, together with the Russian government, should figure it out.
I am not a human rights lawyer, but it seems to me that without being able to figure out who deserves blame—assigning culpability—what we are left with is impunity. Impunity is the possibility of committing crimes—from common robberies to rape, torture, murders, and kidnappings—without having to face, much less suffer, any punishment. And therefore, there is an implicit approval of the morality of these crimes.

So regarding disappearances, torture and rape, is there a situation of impunity in the Caucasus? I believe so. In a normal place, and in normal times such a situation of disappearances and violence could not be allowed to exist, it must be that those responsible feel that they have impunity.
What does this mean, then, for people in the Caucasus, and also for humanitarian organizations?
For people it means a realisation that they are not safe, that they are not protected, and that no one cares for their situation and rights. They are at the mercy of those who operate with impunity—men with guns. Many people feel lost, forgotten and abandoned: ‘If only the outside world knew what we go through, surely something would be done about it!’, many voices cry out. If it were only true. Which it most definitely is not. Geopolitics will not allow it.
What we see is the subsequent trauma. People brought to the edge by constant insecurity, fear, and anxiety. Almost everyone has lost someone, be it by war, a terrorist act, crime, or a disappearance.
For humanitarian organizations it means fear, quite honestly. How could an organization’s security be guaranteed in such a situation of impunity? Impunity then affects the population twofold, by affecting them directly and also by limiting the assistance from organizations severely constrained by security concerns. I have never been to Chechnya, and probably I never will be, during my tenure as Head of Mission. Does this limit my ability to suggest to you what the true situation is like? Certainly. Does it also mean that we speak out with fear and trepidation for the potential consequences? Of course.
But we have to face more than just security concerns, for the humanitarian space in the Caucasus has been warped in perverse and tragic ways. Administrative and bureaucratic barriers abound. Rhetoric of respecting humanitarian action is one thing; facilitation on the ground does not necessarily follow. And a recent development is that barriers put in place in Chechnya long ago are now being put in place in Ingushetia.

Let me speak a few words about Ingushetia. There are still around 70,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Ingushetia. Most have lived there for years, and most who remain, would like to stay, even when living in miserable conditions in tent camps or in improvised settlements. I have been in Ingushetia, and have seen it myself: IDPs living in improvised hovels in abandoned factories with leaking roofs, in dilapidated warehouses, or in old cow sheds with dirt floors.
Why do they not want to return? Mostly for fear of the persistent insecurity in Chechnya, or because they had been traumatized there. They do not trust the situation in Chechnya, and they do not trust that the government can provide the conditions for a normal existence, such as proper health care. Men of fighting age also fear returning due to the risk of being picked up.

Meetings such as this are good—but where is the effect on the ground? What role is there for the international community? I guess that is one topic for today. But I feel compelled to mention one more disappearance in the North-Caucasus, and that is the disappearance of the OSCE.
In conclusion, there has been a rumour circulating recently that the war is over in Chechnya and that things are becoming normal again. Normality is subjective, of course. But I think that such disappearances, violence and impunity never should be considered normal. And none of what I have said is new. So why is this situation allowed to continue?”

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