CCTS
Newsletter

by Chris Hunter

...Several organisations with good local contacts and with maximum security arrangements have stayed on and are assisting the local population during the hard times in the post-war situation.

In Chechnya, unemployment is over 90%, the infrastructure is destroyed, 80% of Grozny's water is undrinkable and, according to recent OSCE findings, two thirds of the agricultural land is unusable due to landmines and pollution caused by the war. About 1.2 million landmines have reportedly been laid in Chechnya and 500 people await operations for prosthetic limbs. Humanitarian activity and work to strengthen civil society is being carried out on a small-scale by international organisations in Chechnya due to the deteriorated security situation. Ten Europeans have been kidnapped in the last three months, mainly for ransom. However, several organisations with good local contacts and with maximum security arrangements have stayed on and are assisting the local population during the hard times in the post-war situation.

The Centre for Peacemaking and Community Development (CPCD) opened a children's rehabilitation centre -- 'Little Star' -- in May 1997 in a former sanatorium for children on the edge of Grozny. Two Russian psychologists work alongside Chechen and Ingush teachers and nurses, who are being trained in skills for the assistance of traumatised children. The team spends one week per month in schools conducting basic training work for teachers in ways to recognise and assist children who have suffered trauma. Children with the deepest trauma are diagnosed and offered the chance to spend time in the Little Star centre. Little Star will also be offering support to child landmine victims from December 1997. The CPCD works alongside the Dutch Chechen relief committee, which assists children through local staff in the villages throughout Chechnya.

The CPCD is in the process of purchasing a grain mill to provide inhabitants of South West Chechnya with the chance to produce their own flour following the destruction of all grain mills in the area during the war. At present, people have to take their grain through border controls into Ingushetia to be processed at great cost and risk. The CPCD also plans to open up a vocational training centre in Grozny together with the local youth group 'Laman Az' (Voice of the Mountains) and the Union of North Caucasian Women. The centre will offer education in practical skills such as accountancy, languages, hairdressing, computer literacy and assist students to find work in those areas in co-operation with the local employment office. The CPCD is also assisting in equipping an orthopedic hospital in Grozny.

The Union of North Caucasian Women, supported by the CPCD and the German Heinrich Boll Stiftung, will hold an international women's congress at the beginning of November 1997. The congress, attended by women from Western and Eastern Europe, including regions affected by war such as Bosnia and Nagorno Karabakh, will focus on the role of women in rebuilding societies following the tragic consequences of armed conflict.

The CPCD will be supported by a grant from the European Union Democracy Programme- of TACIS from November 1997 for two years. These activities will include seminars on human rights, nonviolent conflict resolution, stress relief, how to set up and run an NGO, and the establishment of an email network for youth and women's groups in Chechnya, Daghestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia.

Hungarian Interchurch Aid also continues to work in Chechnya, providing support for income generating projects and distributing humanitarian aid. The British medical NGO MERLIN provides clean drinking water to many areas of Grozny and assists medical facilities throughout the republic. The British Halo Trust is engaged in demining work. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is working to repatriate internally displaced persons to Chechnya and is supporting income-generating and relief projects in the republic. The French NGO Medecins du Monde is particularly engaged in issues of mental health.

Conflict resolution and prevention exercises have been carried out by several organisations in the neighbouring North Caucasus republics of North Ossetia and Ingushetia since the three-day outbreak of armed conflict in the Prigorodnyi region of North Ossetia in 1992. The Ingush-based organisation ADEPT, VERTIC, Quaker Peace and Service, Mennonite Central Committee and International Alert are among these. No political settlement has yet been agreed regarding the Prigorodnyi region and only a small percentage of the 65,000 Ingush who fled their homes in 1992 have returned. There remains wide scope for reconstruction and reconciliation work on all levels from the grassroots to the leadership of the two republics to help resolve the conflict and prevent further violence.

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