Rights Group Warns Conscripts
By Galina Stolyarova
Staff Writer
As the autumn military draft draws closer — it begins on Oct. 1 — the Soldiers’ Mothers human rights group is campaigning to stop the illegal practice of military commissions confiscating the passports of those being conscripted. “Confiscation of passports has been routine for years, and it is completely illegal,” said Ella Polyakova, the chairwoman of the St. Petersburg-based Soldiers’ Mothers. She warned potential conscripts and their parents to be cautious, as the confiscations may have adverse consequences. Human rights advocates say the confiscation of passports is carried out for several reasons. “First of all, it makes it easy to send conscripts on missions to other countries; for example, that happened a lot during the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia,” Polyakova said. “Our organization knows of at least 300 young men whose passports were taken and who were promptly sent to South Ossetia.” “Hundreds of young men were sent to the war zone with no documents whatsoever on them,” Polyakova said. “In such a situation, their participation in military action cannot be proven. The men were risking their lives, without being payed and without even being awarded the official status of someone who has been sent on a military mission.” The Soldiers’ Mothers organization says this illegal practice of passport confiscation also helps military authorities to force conscripts to go into contract service when they have finished serving their obligatory conscription periods. The organization routinely receives complaints from recruits who are forced or tricked into signing contracts with the army and then have trouble getting out of them. A couple of years ago, in a widely publicized case in Pskov, around 500 young men were signed up by force. “This happens because Russia’s Defense Ministry sends illegal orders to various regions demanding certain numbers of contracts be signed by a specific deadline,” said Polyakova. “Regional commanders struggle to follow these orders.” The Russian army is struggling to get recruits. In 2008 a group of draftees serving with a detachment in a district on the outskirts of St. Petersburg tried to sue its commanders after allegedly being forced to sign up for regular service. Polyakova said that such practices, complete with threats and promises of nonexistent benefits, are commonplace in the Russian army. Soldiers’ Mothers submitted an official enquiry to the authorities of the Leningrad Military District asking officials to investigate the claims. The district military prosecutor’s office conducted a rapid investigation but nothing came of it. Andrei Kalikh, a leading expert at the Center for Democratic Development and Human Rights, said the confiscation of passports also makes it easier to send recruits into forced labor. This corrupt practice whereby recruits are sent off to build private summer houses or other constructions belonging to military chiefs or their civilian friends has long been the focus of investigations by organizations such as Soldiers’ Mothers and the Center for Democratic Development and Human Rights. “I personally know of one case in which a recruit spent a total of five years in slavery, being literally handed over from one owner to another,” Polyakova said, adding that although slavery is not uncommon, proving such cases in court is usually extremely difficult as victims are afraid to testify. In the most high profile of such soldier-turned-slave cases, in 2005, Leningrad Military District conscript Maxim Gugayev spent months in forced labor at a farm owned by a retired army officer in Krasnoye Selo. He weighed less than 40 kilograms and was suffering from concussion, bruised internal organs and burns to his feet caused by acid when he was finally admitted to hospital. Colonel Alexander Pogudin, who arranged Gugayev’s confinement at the farm, was fined 50,000 rubles ($1,600) in a subsequent court case. At the military hospital, Gugayev first told investigators he had been beaten by unknown assailants. But when he returned to his native Yaroslavl, he wrote an appeal to the St. Petersburg Military Prosecutor’s Office and described his forced confinement. Lawyers used Gugayev’s conflicting testimonies to help the colonel get off with just a fine. “Illegal passport confiscation is an integral part of the corrupt structure that is the Russian army — essentially it’s nothing more than yet another powerful state corporation,” Kalikh said.
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