Army Tests Alternative Service
By Sarah Karush
The Associated Press
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Misha Japaridze / The Associated Press
Orderly Viktor Baranov helping a patient stand up in a hospital in Nizhny Novgorod.
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NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Central Russia - Lieutenant General Lev Pavlov, a battle-hardened career soldier, says his own courage pales compared to that of 20 conscripts who have opted to serve as hospital orderlies rather than take up arms in the military. As chairperson of the military affairs committee of Nizhny Novgorod, about 400 kilometers east of Moscow, Pavlov commands a detachment of young pacifists on the front lines of a national debate over alternative civilian service - a right guaranteed by the Constitution but long ignored in practice. That debate inched a step closer to resolution Thursday when the cabinet approved a draft law on alternative service. On Friday, however, the judicial board on civilian cases in the Nizhny Novgorod regional court annulled Mayor Yury Lebedev's resolution introducing alternative service. While politicians in Moscow argue over the form alternative service should take, officials in Nizhny Novgorod decided last fall not to wait for a federal law. The city's draft board allowed 20 young men to sign up for alternative service, and in January, Pavlov's soldiers donned hospital scrubs and began taking orders from nurses at the city's Hospital of Emergency Medical Care. Prosecutors challenged the decision in court, saying Lebedev overstepped his authority in authorizing the move. In January, a district court rejected the prosecutors' arguments, and the prosecutors appealed, leading to Friday's decision. Lawyers for the mayor said they would appeal the ruling and insisted it would not immediately affect the 20 men working in the hospital, according to Russian media. The conscripts do everything from pushing gurneys to emptying bed pans. They deliver lab samples and take out the trash, running up and down the stairs of the nine-story hospital with only one working elevator. They help feed and wash patients and deliver corpses to the morgue. "This is enormous physical labor," Pavlov said, adding that the daily contact with death would be too much for many young men. "I personally would never have done it." The 1993 Constitution gives conscientious objectors the right to choose alternative civilian service, a practice adopted long ago by other European countries that rely on conscription to staff their armies. But the Russian military has resisted making alternative service a reality, fearing it would cause its ranks to dwindle. Over the past decade, some courts have ruled in favor of conscientious objectors who insist on their right to alternative service. But in the absence of a civilian-service system, those who win such cases have simply not served at all. In other cases, local prosecutors have brought criminal charges against conscientious objectors. The government's bill, which is expected to be passed by the State Duma, would end this legal limbo. Human-rights advocates, however, have criticized the bill as unfair because it would require young men opting for alternative service to serve four years, twice the time conscripts spend in the army. Those who agree to serve in civilian positions in military units would have to serve only three years, Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Mat vi yenko said Thursday. She named the fire service, nursing homes and orphanages as possible places where alternative service could be done. Human-rights advocates say making alternative service twice as long as army service effectively turns it into a punishment. They say that the military need not worry about losing conscripts. In fact, with a civilian-service system in place, those without firm pacifist beliefs would be less inclined to abuse the system, activists say. As it stands now, draftees could claim their right to alternative service without having to actually serve. Of the 60 people who applied for alternative service, 20 of them withdrew their applications as soon as it became clear the experiment was going forward, Pavlov said. Those who stayed on - even after a visit to the morgue organized by the draft board - were truly committed to the idea, he said. "I could have just closed the door on the draft officials and hid, but I wanted to honestly stand up for my right to alternative service," said Yev geny Nagor nov, who at 26 was less than a year away from becoming ineligible for the draft. Nagornov, who has a degree in history, spends much of his time in the hospital helping elderly patients into wheelchairs and wheeling them to the X-ray room and back again. The patients on his floor lavish praise on him and the other conscripts. "What would I have done without you?" 81-year-old Natalya Solodov ni ko va asks Nagornov as he helps her retrieve her coat before checking out. The alternative-service experiment has helped the hospital plug a gaping hole in its staff that has forced nurses to take on the work of orderlies. In recent years, few people have been willing to work for the 500 ruble ($16.60) monthly salary paid to orderlies. The conscripts receive the 500 ruble salary, plus a stipend for food and transport. That totals about 1,500 rubles and is well worth the cost, Pav lov said. "We are using this to address the city's needs," he said.
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