<nettime> Chechnya infos(x3)

["Mihajlo Acimovic" <skladiste1@angelfire.com>]

original sender: "Comite Tchetchenie" <comitetchetchenie@hotmail.com>

*begin forwarded message*

N01

- Prayer Vigil, Moscow

02/11/99 Chris Hunter, Moscow

The prayer vigil continues in its fifth day today. Viktor Popkov and
Mikhail Roshchin have been joined in the fast by Yuri Samodurov,
coordinator of the Sakharov Museum in Moscow. Well-wishers regularly visit
the site of the vigil from 10am to 10pm, beside the offices of Russian
human rights organization 'Memorial'. People of various confessions,
Russian Orthodox, Quakers, Muslims, visit and pray together at the site. 

A major challenge to those participating in the vigil is the increasingly
cold weather. The local militia have refused permission for a tent to be
erected at the site. A small cloth canopy is the only shelter, which is
occupied mainly by the altar. 

Your letters to the Mayor of Moscow in support of the vigil and requesting
that permission be granted for a winter tent to be erected at the site
would be helpful. Without adequate shelter, the cold will be unbearable
when the freezing weather arrives. 

Letters can be sent to:

Mayor of Moscow Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov,
Moscow Town Hall ('Meriya'),
Ulitsa Tverskaya 13,
Moscow,
Russian Federation
Fax: +7-095-2343295

The Centre for Peacemaking and Community Development is happy to pass on
messages of support the organizers and friends of the vigil in Moscow

(email: peacecentre@glasnet.ru).

N02

(NewYork, November 10, 1999) Human Rights Watch researchers on the
Chechen-Ingush border have learned of new Russian attacks over the past
three days in the central and western parts of Chechnya.  The attacks have
taken a heavy toll on civilians. 

Witnesses report that heavy bombing in the Chechen capital of Grozny left
at least eight civilians dead on Sunday, November 7. Vakha, a
forty-year-old businessman, reported that a series of four explosions on
Lenin Street near a railroad tunnel overturned a truck transporting
civilians, killing eight people inside. The witness saw the bodies being
carried away for burial only minutes after the explosion. 
Seventy-year-old Ali Magomadov saw five of his neighbors killed in an air
attack on the Oktyabrskii district of Grozny on Friday morning, November
5, and said there were no sheets to wrap the bodies.  Shelling continued
on Sunday and Monday, he reported. 

Six airplanes were involved in the attack around midday on Sunday.  The
aircraft began bombing the northern part of the city, and then shifted to
the city center where the truck was hit.  According to Vakha, the attack
could have been aimed at what he believed was the residence of a Chechen
commander, some 200 yards away.  However, Vakha and three others who saw
casualties of bombs attacks on Grozny over the past four days claimed that
they saw only civilian casualties. 

Witness accounts contradict recent claims by Russian officials that
civilians are not suffering unduly.  On Friday, Valery Manilov, first
deputy chief of Russia's general staff, said, Attempts to convince the
world that...we are using disproportionate force, that the refugees are in
a horrible situation this is not at all true...  Russian authorities have
barred foreign journalists from entering Chechnya, making it impossible to
confirm witness accounts. 

Having heard of the attacks in Grozny, Roza, 42, came from a nearby suburb
to look for her husband.  She found only the remains of their apartment
building, which was hit in the Sunday attack.  She told Human Rights Watch
that she feared her husband might remain in the rubble. I saw with my own
eyes pieces of human bodies scattered in the street, Roza said. 

Russian aircraft also continued to bomb Urus-Martan, a town fifteen miles
south of Grozny, over the weekend. 

A fifty-two year-old engineer, also named Vakha, reported that water is so
scarce in Grozny that people are melting the season's first snow for
consumption.  He fled the capital only this morning, repeating claims made
by numerous witnesses that civilians are crouching in basements for hours
during bombing runs, with little to eat and only firewood for heat.  One
witness said, What is sad is that the ones who remain in Grozny are those
who cannot leave because of old age, infirmity, or +AFs-the need to care
for+AF0- sick relatives.  I stayed to care for my ill sister until
yesterday, when I left her with elderly neighbors. 

During visits to the Chechen border, Human Rights Watch researchers have
also learned that people driving vehicles must wait up to three days to
leave the war-torn republic.  Russian authorities have recently
established a more rapid screening procedure permitting Chechens to leave,
reducing significantly the estimated 40,000-person backlog of last week. 
However, approximately two thousand people still line the highway out of
Chechnya waiting to pass multiple checkpoints spread over four miles. 
Although persons on foot or using public transportation may now cross the
border into the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia within hours,
those in their own vehicles have waited up to three days to depart
Chechnya. 


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N03

Subject: APPEAL OF CHECHEN AND GEORGIAN NGOs TO PREVENT ECOLOGICAL
CATASTROPHE IN CHECHNYA
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 22:37:13 +0400
Organization: EISD Centre "Rio"

INTERNATIONAL WEEK OF PROTEST ACTION AGAINST THE WAR IN CHECHNYA Joint
Appeal of the Georgian and Chechen non-governmental organisations to Civic
environmental organisation and all people in the World. 

On November 8, 1999 in Tbilisi a meeting of environmental NGOs from
Georgia and Chechnya was held which discussed the ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS of
the WAR IN CHECHNYA.  We address you with the appeal to do everything in
your power in order to stop this cruel war, as a result of which the whole
nation id being extinguished and most beautiful nature of the Caucasus is
being destroyed.  This war is doubtlessly leading to the global
environmental catastrophe due to the bombing and rocket shooting on
enormous quantity of chemical and oil refinery plants on the territory of
the Chechen Republic of Ichkerya (these factories amounted to 30% of the
whole industry capacity in the former USSR while, at the same time the
territory of the Chechen Republic then has amounted only to 0.08% of the
territory of the USSR). 

The Situation in Chechnya and in the Caucasus is being complicated by the
fact that, near the capital of Chechnya, on the Karakh Mountain at the
river Terek flowing into the Caspian Sea, a huge disposal site for the
radioactive waste is being situated. This specialised complex ("Radon") 
was built during the Soviet times in 1965. The radioactive sources buried
there include: +Cobalt -60;, Plutonium <EN DASH Beryl, Radium <EN DASH
226, Caesium <EN DASH 137, Thorium, Thulium -170, Iridium - 192,
Americium<EN DASH 241, Iod<EN DASH 131, etc. Their volume is 906m3. 

In the surroundings of the city of Grozny in various regions at the
factories and enterprises one can find 67 different sources of radiation
with long periods of semi-fusion. And these units everyday are subjected
to the rocket shootings and bombings.  According to the data of the
scientists from Georgia, Chechnya and other countries of Caucasus, in case
of un-hermetisation of only one disposal site +Radon; this region will
become lifeless.  In connection with this threat of destruction hanging
above Chechnya and the Caucasian region, we are organising an
international week of protest actions against the war in Chechnya on
November 15-22.  During this week, and namely on November 18-19, the OSCE
Summit will be taking place in Istanbul, Turkey.  We appeal to all, for
whom the peace on the earth is precious and who wants to contribute in the
protection of universal human rights, to join us and organise protest
actions with the slogans to immediately stop the war on the territory of
Chechnya. 

By taking this initiative the NGOs of Georgia and Chechnya consider that
the joining of actions of people from different countries for peace and
refusal from the violence, can play important role in the timely
resolution of the arms conflict in Chechnya and can prevent the
environmental catastrophe.  We believe that at the verge of the third
millennium the humankind does not have the right to resolve the conflict
issues by way of violence and arms. Any conflict issues should be resolved
at the negotiation table. We believe in the possibility of solving the
conflict in Chechnya in a peaceful way.  OSCE has already recognised that
the situation of the refugees from Chechnya is a humanitarian catastrophe.
We do not want to allow the environmental disaster.. 

The Protest Week, in which thousand of people will take place, will help
establish the relations that are based on the refusal from violence and
will give the possibility to prepare the ground for stepping into the next
millennium without the wars.  We have great hopes in your resolution and
support. On behalf of the participants of the Meeting:  Nana Nemsadze,
Chairperson, The Green Movement of Georgia Anna Abramishvili, Chairperson,
The Foundation of the Solidarity of the Caucasian People Nato Kirvalidze,
President, Environmental Information and Sustainable Development Centre
+Rio; (Georgia) Giorgi Dartsimelia, Director, Georgia Youth EcoMovement
Ramzan Goitemirov, Chairman, Caucasian Ecological Council Rustam Nasaev,
Deputy Chairman, The Green Movement of Chechen Republic of Ichkerya
Ibragim Yakhyaev, International Historical-cum-Educational Charity and
Human Rights Society +Memorial;  (Branch in the Chechen Republic of
Ichkerya)  Adlan Dinaev, President of non-governmental organisation Laman
Az (the Chechen Republic of Ichkerya) 

--- End Forwarded Message ---


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