Russia: 2005 Rafto Laureate Says First Step Toward Chechen Peace Must Come From Moscow
Lidiya Yusupova, a lawyer from the Chechen capital Grozny, on 6 October is set to receive this year`s prestigious Rafto human-rights prize.
Yusupova has spent the last five years heading the Grozny office of Russia`s Memorial rights-watchdog group. During that time, she has documented numerous atrocities against civilians committed by both Russian and Chechen security forces, including disappearances, summary executions, torture, and rape. She has also helped victims navigate the republic`s nascent, and largely dysfunctional, judicial system in hopes of bringing to justice the perpetrators of violence. She told RFE/RL that it is the Kremlin -- and not the Chechens -- who must take the first step toward peace.
Prague, 4 November 2005 (RFE/RL) -- It has been nearly 11 years since Russia launched the first of its two wars in Chechnya. In that time, Memorial has estimated that up to 75,000 civilians have died, both Russian and Chechen.
Yusupova has headed Memorial`s Grozny office since 2000, following the beginning of the second Chechen war in 1999. Since she took the position, Russia has declared a formal end to hostilities and ushered in what it called a postconflict stage of "normalization," with elections and the adoption of a new constitution.
But in fact, according to Yusupova, very little has changed.
"The situation has moved a little in another direction," Yusupova said. "But the effect has stayed the same. The human-rights violations and state-level terror is still there. There`s an outer shell where they`ve created certain state institutions in the republic -- we now have a judicial system, a system of law enforcement. But beyond all that, there`s been no stabilization in the republic."
Yusupova was speaking from Bergen, Norway, where on 6 October she will become the 19th recipient of the Rafto Prize for human rights.
Past recipients of the award include Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and Iranian rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, both of whom went on to become Nobel Peace Prize laureates. In 1995, the Rafto Prize went to the Committee of Soldiers` Mothers, whose work defending human rights within the Russian military took on special urgency during the first Chechen war (1994-96).
Ten years later, Chechnya has devolved from an official military conflict to a guerrilla war involving Russian troops, pro-Moscow Chechen forces, criminal bands, and separatist groups whose agendas have grown increasingly extremist.
Yusupova -- who also won the 2004 Martin Ennals Award for human rights -- said some of the players have changed, but the violence remains the same.
"All the methods we`ve seen from the federal forces -- I mean Russian -- still exist: mopping-up operations, extrajudicial executions, illegal detentions, robbery, harassment," Yusupova said. "But today it is done, at some level, jointly -- I emphasize, jointly -- by representatives of the Russian forces and Chechens who have been selected from a number of local Chechens, people who now get their directives from the federal center. So the people involved have changed to a certain degree."
Rafto Foundation Chairman Arne Lynngard said this year`s award will serve to remind the world that, at a time when Iraq and Afghanistan have diverted much media attention, Chechnya remains one of the world`s most entrenched and devastating conflicts.
Lynngard praised Yusupova and Memorial for continuing their work under nearly impossible conditions. The rights group is one of very few still operating in Chechnya.
RFE/RL
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