From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 7/6/2005 4:08 AM

The Right to be a Refugee<O:P> </O:P>

<O:P>21-24 June 2005</O:P>

On the eve of the ‘professional’ holiday “Universal Day of Refugees” (20 June), refugees from places of temporary relocation in Chechnya complain about harsh living conditions.  Migration officials disclaim accusations.<O:P> </O:P>

By Elina ERSENOEVA<O:P> </O:P>

More than five years have passed since the beginning of the second Chechen campaign and the words “refugees” and “temporary settlers” are to this day related to our republic.  Returning after the war from the neighboring Caucasian regions, Chechens having lost everything can not in any way demand their legal rights in the motherland.  Living in PTRs, they don’t receive their due monetary funds, basic provisions or medical aid.

PTRs are places of temporary relocation, an invention of Chechen and Ingush migration officials.  As a rule, PTR buildings are former dormitories adapted for the Chechen refugees returning from Ingushetia.

The living conditions in Chechnya’s best PTRs leave a lot to be desired: cramped rooms, shortage of food and medical supplies, unsanitary conditions, lack of cultural development for children, etc.

The main explanation is that the people in these lodgings occupied them in a terrible rush.  In 2003-2004 the problem of returning refugees from Ingushetia to Chechnya was more political than social.  The existence of tent-camps in Ingushetia called into question the claims that the situation in Chechnya was normalizing and that there was the possibility of a peaceful life there.

Promising refugees fast payment of compensations for destroyed homes, migration officials resettled the tent-camp habitants to PTRs in Chechnya.  After which, the officials happily forgot about the refugees – so say the refugees themselves.

There are currently 32 PTRs and 10 PCLs (places of compact living) in Chechnya.  About 6,500 families inhabit them.  That is to say, more than 37,000 people out of the total number of 250,000 refugees (figures according to human rights center ‘Memorial’).

Speaking with many people who live in the dormitories, one hears the same complaints –the administration, the difficult circumstances of living, shortage of alimentation.

Lacking the ability to work (for one reason or another), they must sell half of the humanitarian aid they receive in order to provide themselves with necessary products.

But since aid has not been distributed for the last two months, many order foodstuffs on credit from nearby stores. The buyers from PTRs owe several thousand rubles total. “And they pay us with nothing!” – an unhappy woman exclaimed with indignation.  “Neither we nor our husbands work.  When they convinced us to return from tent-camps in Ingushetia, they promised ‘golden mountains’, but now they cannot provide even the most necessary items.  Even for a piece of land in exchange for a lost house, which they must give quickly and without charge, they unofficially demand from us 80-100,000 rubles”.

However, official representatives of the PTRs put forward their version of the events.  According to them, many habitants having received compensation payments for destroyed homes and already returned to new homes, do not want to hand over in rent of a room in PTR. They take enough humanitarian aid and all complain that they have nothing.  A playground was built for the children, but the kids themselves destroyed it.

For example, Assistant to the Commandant of PTR No. 24 Isa Dalaev (incidently, the Commandant is Maisa Dadashevna Alkhanova and it is practically impossible to find her in the workplace) said: “Yes, humanitarian aid was definitely not received for the past two months, but it’s not our fault, rather it is the fault of the humanitarian organizations.  Recently, almost no one helps us except the Migration Service of the Chechen Republic.  And the PTR inhabitants themselves love to exaggerate.  Why is it that, for some reason, hardly any of them have admitted to receiving compensation (some of them even for homes in fine condition), but hold onto the dormitory rooms?  Because, they want us to appropriate pieces of land as well.  This although Uvais Deniev, the Curator of PTRs [UDM] clearly explained that plots of earth will only be given to those who lived in hotels or dormitories before 1994 and who have proof of this in their passports.”

Well Mister Deniev obviously forgot that these passports were long ago exchanged for a new version.  That’s how the former forced migrants live – they don’t know their legal rights and duties.  Through all truth and falsehood, they endeavor to survive today’s tough times.  Meanwhile, the propertied powers can find no time to pay the necessary attention to former refugees and inform them of their duties and rights.

Translated by Sarah SLY

"Chechen Society" newspaper, #12, 21-24 June 2005

http://www.chechensociety.net/cho/cho36/036_02_en.htm