Женщины и дети: право на жизнь

During several years I have been working in the Human Rights Center “Memorial”. From the residents of the Chechen Republic I have heard hundred stories about atrocities conducted by servicemen to defenseless peaceful people during so-called “counterterrorist operation”. This operation was started by Moscow in autumn of 1999. Both relatives of the suffered citizens and victims of the violence suffered from servicemen have approached us. I had heard about rocket attacks of settlements, bombardments, kidnappings, murders and extrajudicial executions of defenseless citizens, tortures and mockeries in so-called “filtration camps” and other places of illegal detention of the people which were practically in each Russian military division located on the territory of our republic.

I remember well the story of the young man, the 37-years resident of the city of Grozny. We shall call him Ayub.

On January 23rd of 2001 Ayub was driving with passengers on the car. He was detained by the Russian servicemen on the checkpoint # 51 in the settlement of Tashkala in Grozny’s Staropromyslovski highway. Having checked the documents, one of the servicemen ordered Ayub to drive the car aside. He told Ayub that they had some materials discrediting him and he would be detained until “clarification would be made”. By a portable radio-set the servicemen called for the special group. The passengers were forced to leave the car and lay down on the ground.

The relative of Ayub, who happened to be in the car with him, flatly refused to obey the command of the servicemen. She requested to tell her what the reason of suspecting Ayub was, and why it was not possible to clarify everything right away. The woman together with Ayub was pushed into the vehicle, in which two servicemen sat as well. Then they were accompanied by four cars “UAZ” to the 36-th sector (Staropromyslovski district). In the settlement of Ivanov the relative of Ayub was dropped out of the car. He managed to ask her to inform his relatives about his detention. After that Ayub was carried further. Some time later they arrived to the edge of the settlement in the closed zone. The vehicles approached a three-storeyed house of grey color where there were several civil vehicles. The gate was protected by guards. Ahead, according to the victim, down to Terski range there was an open space.

Ayub was taken inside of the building, handcuffs were put on the hands and he was blindfolded. Then he was led on a dark corridor, on the way he was beaten with legs and butts. He tried to find out, what the matter was, why he had been detained, asked to give him explanation, but nobody listened to him. Until 17:00 he was kept in that house, then through the other exit taken to the courtyard fenced with concrete plates. He was taken to a premise, which led to the cellar. It appeared that it was a tortured chamber. Through a small window a fuel-lubricating tank dug in the ground was seen.

Ayub was placed on an iron chair, a trunk and hands pulled together with belts, and it was not possible to move, the head was put on a metal ring with electrical cables and the current was turned on. As Ayub told, the pain was so terrible, that it twisted the whole body. He did not remember, how long the torture continued, because he often lost consciousness. Two times he was brought round, making injections in the hand and the neck. According to the man, he was tortured during three-four hours with small breaks between.

After severe tortures Ayub was brought to the tank divided into three compartments, the middle hatch was removed, then the bandage and handcuffs were removed and he was thrown downwards. Hitting a blunt subject, he fell into water. The water reached his waist, and there were some detained people in it. He managed to rise on his legs only by help of a man of about 50-years and a young girl.

The girl’s name, who came to help the beaten Ayub, was Rosa; she was from the town of Shali. The man, who introduced himself as Kharon, was the resident of the settlement Novy Aldy. They were imprisoned for about two months. As Ayub has told, both were in awful state. Kharon lacked his left ear, his face and body had been crippled by tortures and beatings with legs, butts and iron armature. This special treatment m was explained with the fact, probably, that during “sweep operation”, as he had told, the weapon was found in his house.

Rosa, a beautiful girl of 22-25 years, had been detained at the checkpoint. Allegedly, she was “suspected” in being the sniper. She was naked up to the waist, and in order to hide her nakedness she had to sit in water up to the shoulders. She had light cuts on the belly and the side made by a knife, a hip of the right leg was pierced with a sharp subject. Ayub gave her his shirt.

Totally there were six people in the tank: Ayub, Rosa, Kharon, two more men and one girl from Staropromyslovski district, she was 16 years by sight. Her name was Taisa. She was very beautiful brunette of small height though her face was black and blue and in bruises.

It is not possible to describe with words what these beasts did to the arrested people. As Ayub told, instead of meal some leftovers were given in a day period. Nobody was taken to the toilet. Moreover, “the fighters with terrorism” removed the hatch and made their natural needs directly on the people in the tank. The people had to make their needs straight in the water in the tank.

When they were called for interrogations, a rope ladder was pulled down from above. Those, who could not climb independently, were put handcuffs on the hands and dragged upwards. Shouts and groans of the tortured people were constantly heard from the torture chamber. Sometimes the Russian servicemen practiced “collective actions”: they put all the people in a row and started severely beating them. But the worst, most painful and humiliating thing was when these animals, forcing girls to stand with the hands extended forward, raped them in front of the other prisoners. And they did it in the most sophisticated forms. The detained men had to look at it. Later Rosa confessed, that sometimes she was “passed” through 20-30 people. As for Taisa, she was pregnant. Kharon was also raped.

The relatives rescued Ayub out of this hell on the fourth day, on January 28. They paid two thousand US dollars to the servicemen. Before his release the girls and the men had asked him to inform their relatives about them and do everything to save them from these fascists. Actually, Taisa had told, that she would not have life anymore, and she was lost for herself and for her relatives.

In the morning of the 28-th of January Ayub was released. Only passport was returned to him. Money (about seven thousand rubles), his car and the documents for it were not given back. He accomplished his cellmates’ request. He went to Shali and informed relatives of Rosa, and then visited relatives of other fellow-sufferers. Rosa was ransomed in two weeks for four thousand dollars. According to Ayub, first she had been taken to the military base Khankala, and then released from there. Тaisa was released the same way and for the same amount of money. But later Ayub was told, that the girl had died some time later after her release. After the funeral her relatives left for Belgium. Ayub did not know what happened to the men, but hoped that they were lucky to be pulled out from this terrible place. Of course, having paid the big amount of money. During first two-three years of “counterterrorist operation” on the territory of the Chechen Republic the practice of paying ransom by the relatives to release the people detained by the Russian servicemen was widespread. It also happened that servicemen sold bodies of brutally tortured victims to the relatives. And it was considered as a big success if servicemen agreed to retrieve the crippled body of the person. Very often the bodies of victims of extrajudicial executions were thrown out by servicemen in deserted places, or buried in the outskirts of settlements. It is certainly awful, but it is the reality. The servicemen killed and abducted people here, raped women, brutally punished the defenseless old men, women and children, and were not accounted for anything. But I hope that sooner or later, all of them, starting from the private soldier and the general and finishing with the high level officials, would pay for everything they had committed. It is not the 19-th century and even not the middle of the 20-th century when it is possible to hide the monstrous crimes against unarmed peaceful people. It is already 21- century. The example of the colonel Gvishiani who in 1944 had burnt alive 700 unarmed peaceful residents of the settlement of Khaibakh and then calmly died in his bed surrounded by loving relatives, will not repeat anymore.”

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