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TITLE: Truth To Be Buried With Unidentified Remains |
AUTHOR: Artyom Vernidoub |
PUB: Gazeta ru |
DATE: March 10, 2001 |
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Only 10 of 48 dead bodies found in a mass grave in Zdorovye dacha settlement near Grozny have been identified. Grozny inhabitants refuse to take part in identification procedures, and there is no way bodies can be kept in the half-ruined city. Therefore, republican prosecutors have ruled that in the nearest future all unidentified bodies will be buried, and each grave will bear a plate with a number.10 bodies that were identified happened to belong to people who were reported missing after December 12 purge operation conducted by the federal troops in Dolinskoye settlement. Officials at the prosecutor's office for the Republic of Chechnya hold that the majority of the remains found in Zdorovye belong to rebels' mercenaries, left behind by Chechen bandits during the retreat from Grozny. Local Chechens insist that many of the dead are victims of the so-called "clean up" or purge operations. To get to the truth a thorough examination of the remains is needed, as well as the identification of the bodies. And that is the main problem the prosecutor of Chechnya Vsevolod Chernov is faced with. Dozens of half-putrefied bodies, transported by investigators from Zdorovye settlement, have been kept in a hangar at the outskirts of Grozny for a week already. In the half-ruined Grozny there is no morgue, let alone refrigerating equipment, where bodies could be preserved from further decay. Besides, it gets warmer each day in Grozny, and there is no way to keep the remains. The cost of the bodies' transportation to Rostov, where in the Russian Heath Ministry's forensic lab is located, is reported as too high. Notwithstanding daily appeals of the prosecutor's office distributed via local media, Chechen nationals categorically refuse to come to the hangar and help identify the bodies. "People, whose bodies we found in Zdorovye, died some three-six months ago," said the prosecutor of Chechnya Vsevolod Chernov. "Relatives have long since lost connection with them, however, they never informed the authorities of their disappearance. I am convinced, that many Chechens know the dead well and even know how they died, but would not help the investigators: evidently, they are afraid to arouse suspicion of their own ties with rebels." Therefore, investigators may only count on their own resources. Investigators have looked into materials gathered by earlier launched probes into disappearance of people, analyzed military operations, conducted in the area end of last year, and consequently, identities of 7 dead were established. 3 other bodies were identified by Grozny residents. "All those identified are either rebels, or civilians, who cooperated with rebels," said Vsevolod Chernov, "The most well-known among the dead is the man who was an emir in the field commander Khattab's retinue.** I would rather not give the names, why traumatize relatives again? As the investigation has established, end of last year a heavy fight took place in Zdorovye: a large group of rebels was ambushed by the federal troops. Trying to break through the encirclement, they left their wounded behind, and even finished off some of them. Therefore, we cannot say for sure that the dead fell victims to mass reprisals". Representatives of the human rights watch organization Memorial, who visited Grozny last week, do not agree with the prosecutor's conclusions. At a news conference on Monday Memorial activists showed the journalists photographs of the remains they had taken in Chechnya. The bodies bear evidence of both gunshot and stab wounds, the ears on several corpses are cut off, and many of the bodies bear traces of shots in the head and have their hands tied, the human rights advocates said. "Thus, the discovered bodies are an evidence of military crimes perpetrated by federal forces," executive director of Memorial Tatyana Kasatkina has said. At the same time, she said she does not insist that "the military command or civilian authorities outside Chechnya had any knowledge of these out-of-court executions". According to the data provided by Memorial, over 500 Chechens are reported missing***. Many of them vanished during purge operations, conducted by the military. The most recent clean up operation held last Friday in the settlement of Dzhalka ended with a scandal. Local FSB (Federal Security Service) department suspected 13 local Chechens of being involved in a number of acts of terrorism. Chechens were detained in their houses early in the morning, FSB officers literally dragged them out of beds, offering no explanation to their family members. But after female residents of Dzhalka blocked Gudermes-Argun railroad, demanding to free their husbands, investigators from the Chechen prosecutor's office and Akhmad Kadyrov arrived in the settlement. Desperate women would not listen to officials, they stubbornly demanded to let their husbands go. As a result, investigators were compelled to launch investigation into unlawful arrest. "The operation aimed at detention of those men developed so fast, we simply had no time to wait for the prosecutor to issue a warrant,"law enforcers explained later, trying to justify their actions. "Besides, because of the delay, we failed to detain some of the bandits, they managed to escape." Consequently, 6 Chechens were set free on Sunday morning, and 4 others early on Monday. "Not enough evidence,"law enforces said ruefully. But then, was there enough evidence against those who went missing after December 12 cleansing operation in Dolinskoye, and whose bodies later were discovered in Zdorovye mass grave? That, along with many other questions is to be answered by the investigators. The investigation in Zdorovye mass grave is still on, but the prosecutor's office has already made a decision to bury the bodies. It is no longer possible to keep 38 bodies in the hangar in Grozny, they say. Every grave will be assigned an identification number. All bodies will be video-taped, pictured, and finger-prints of each body will be taken. That is exactly what Russian authorities did with the unidentified remains of soldiers who died during the first war in Chechnya. 205 bodies of Russian military servicemen kept in Rostov lab fridges for several years were eventually buried in Moscow suburban town of Noginsk, each grave bearing a number plate. END |