USG HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE STILL NEEDED IN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MOSCOW 003088 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PREF EAID KDEM PINR RS SUBJECT: USG HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE STILL NEEDED IN CHECHNYA AND INGUSHETIYA ¶1. (SBU) Summary: During a recent trip to the North Caucasus, poloff spent three days in Chechnya and two in Ingushetiya monitoring humanitarian assistance programs funded by the Department's Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). Beneficiaries of the programs, internally-displaced persons from the two Chechen wars and the conflict over the Prigorodniy region in neighboring North Ossetia, were grateful for the USG assistance, but weary of the extreme conditions in which they lived. Although the active phase of the conflicts ended some years ago, neither the federal government nor the governments of Chechnya and Ingushetiya are planning comprehensive, sustainable means to provide for the basic needs of these beneficiaries. U.S. assistance continues to make a meaningful contribution to improving the lives of displaced persons in both Chechnya and Ingushetiya. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) From September 21-27, poloff visited several programs in Chechnya and Ingushetiya sponsored by PRM to assist internally-displaced persons. Security for the visit was provided by the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) contingent based in Vladikavkaz. Due to UNDSS and GOR security regulations, travel in Chechnya was on a pre-determined route in an armored vehicle accompanied by Russian MVD troops in two armored UAZ jeeps, and two Chechen traffic police cars. On September 22 poloff discussed a shelter rehabilitation project undertaken in Ulus Kert village in the Shatoy region of Chechnya with representatives of the Danish Refugee Council, an FY'08 PRM implementing partner. Shortly before the visit the local office of the Federal Security Service (FSB) had warned against traveling to Ulus Kert, so members of DRC's team briefed poloff in its Groznyy office. Poloff also visited projects for shelter rehabilitation, water/sanitation and garbage collection in Groznyy implemented by the International Rescue Committee (IRC). On September 23, implementing partners UNICEF and the World Food Program (WFP) showed us a UNICEF-sponsored health project with the Ministry of Health and school-based psycho-social centers it set up in state-run schools. WFP highlighted a school feeding program for first and second graders for which PRM provided funding in FY'08 to continue the program through December. (Note: The Chechen government has promised to take on full responsibility for its school feeding program for primary and secondary students in January ¶2009. End Note). On September 24 poloff joined the new head of UNHCR's Regional Office for the North Caucasus in her initial meeting with Akhmet Ismailov, Advisor on Humanitarian Affairs to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov; visited a temporary accommodation center in Groznyy, met with lawyers who provide legal assistance and consultations to internally-displaced persons in Chechnya; and stopped by a WFP Food for Work site at a state farm along the federal highway near the border with Ingushetiya. ¶3. (SBU) Travel in Ingushetiya was also in an armored vehicle provided by UNDSS, but despite the republic's recent volatility and high number of politically-motivated killings, there were only two MVD soldiers with us rather than the eight who accompanied our movements in Chechnya. Poloff spent September 25 with representatives of implementing partner World Vision International and observed a medical center in the village of Sleptsovskaya, visited a pre-school center to combat gender-based violence in the village of Voznesenovskaya, and met with internally-displaced persons (IDPs) in a spontaneous settlement at a former machinery factory. On September 26 we accompanied the acting head of International Medical Corps (IMC) to psycho-social rehabilitation projects in Nazran and the nearby town of Troitskaya, a water sanitation project and secondary school sewing project in Troitskaya and a health care project at a state-run tuberculosis hospital. We also spoke with residents at two spontaneous settlements at which IMC has provided street lights in order to reduce gender-based violence. Housing Still a Problem for Displaced Persons -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Years after the end of the Chechen wars and the fighting over the Prigorodniy region of North Ossetia, thousands of people remain without homes, living in desperate conditions in makeshift housing in deserted government buildings and formerly state-run factories. While there are no official statistics on IDPs remaining from the conflicts in Chechnya, as of August 31 UNHCR's implementing partner Vesta LLC had registered 4,838 persons (1,028 families) at the 20 temporary collective centers and settlements in Chechnya. UNHCR estimates an additional 50,000 persons remain displaced within Chechnya, residing in the private sector, mostly with friends or relatives. According to MOSCOW 00003088 002 OF 004 UNHCR, since 2007 it has noted a gradual shift in the main reason for not returning to Chechnya: from security concerns and lawlessness to lack of shelter and employment prospects. From May to August 2008, the Chechen government allocated 380 new apartments in Groznyy to people in need, some of whom were displaced persons (276 families) who lived in temporary accommodation centers. ¶5. (SBU) One of the two families with whom we spoke at a squalid former hospital facility on Koltsovo Street (now euphemistically referred to as "dormitories" since Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov declared several months ago that Chechnya no longer had a problem with displaced persons) was not from Groznyy, but wanted to stay in the capital rather than return to their native village. The day we visited residents were visibly uneasy because local authorities had told them that morning that they had to leave the building before nightfall. A same-day intervention by UNHCR partner Vesta LLC staved off the eviction, and Vesta was subsequently able to arrange for a pre-fab, box-tent accommodation to be erected for one family in Groznyy and for the other -- a single mother with two children -- to move to a nearby facility while she awaits receipt of a land plot in her home village. We do not know of the fate of the other families who lived there. (Note: The internet-based Caucasian Knot reported shortly after our visit that 26 families were again served notice on September 30 to leave the facility, which health authorities said was needed to house a children's health clinic. According to press reports, on October 9 seven families from another temporary accommodation center were also evicted. Vesta's representatives were quite active on the day of our visit assisting residents of the Koltsovo temporary accommodation center, but the fact that its residents were similarly harassed by authorities one week after our visit showed the need for its case workers to make more than once monthly visits to these centers. End Note.). ¶6. (SBU) The situation for residents poloff visited of spontaneous settlements in former state-owned factories in Ingushetiya is less dire, and not only because the local government has not served them with notice to vacate. These settlements were cleaner and seemed more permanent, and PRM's implementing partner IMC had recently installed street lighting at several of them to reduce gender-based violence. Residents' complaints, however, were the same -- neither the federal nor the local government was doing anything to provide them permanent housing. While some of the ethnic Chechens told us they wanted to return to Chechnya, most of the ethnic Ingush from Chechnya and the Prigorodniy region in North Ossetia said they wanted to stay in Ingushetiya. They said the Ingush government did nothing to provide them legal permanent residency in Ingushetiya, preferring instead to keep them at the temporary settlements where they are not eligible for greater public assistance. ¶7. (SBU) While UNHCR staff said that there were a number of federal and local programs focusing on the reconstruction and rehabilitation of housing in Chechnya, including in rural areas, some of these areas lack the ability to absorb returnees and in others, security concerns, such as landmines and armed clashes between law enforcement and insurgents, continue to be a problem. DRC representatives briefed us on one PRM-funded program in the village of Ulus Kert in the Shatoy region of central Chechnya that is part of a USD 600,000 project (of which over half is for building materials),pursuant to which DRC will reconstruct 60 houses in Chechnya, primarily clustered in rural areas. Beneficiaries have provided most of the labor, although DRC has hired work crews for those beneficiaries who could not perform the work themselves. DRC's manager for this project told us that prices for most construction materials (cement being the lone exception) have increased dramatically since it started. He cited as reasons increased demand from three sources: the construction boom in Groznyy; demand for the 2014 Winter Olympic venues going up in Sochi; and, most recently, the rebuilding of South Ossetia after the August 2008 conflict there. ¶8. (SBU) Poloff also visited three small residential reconstruction projects in Groznyy implemented by IRC. In this program beneficiaries were provided shelter material (bricks, doors, windows and metal roofing material) to rehabilitate at least one warm, dry room in which they could live while repairing the remainder of the house on their own. All of the beneficiaries with whom we met were grateful for the assistance, which enabled them to get back to their ordinary lives -- grandparents tending their gardens, some lucky parents working at odd-jobs, and children continuing their education at nearby primary and secondary schools. In all cases IRC worked with the Chechen government to find MOSCOW 00003088 003 OF 004 beneficiaries who had clear title to their homes and who were registered with the government as wishing to return to their homes. The dollar value of actual assistance was very small in each case, since most of the houses required only a new tin roof and the repair of one wall. ¶9. (SBU) Another IRC project visited was part of the rehabilitation of 6,000 meters of the Groznyy's city water pipe system. Poloff's visit to the work on Zozuli Street prompted some residents to stream out onto the unpaved, rutted street (under the watchful glare of our armed MVD escort) to thank the USG for providing them with clean water directly to their homes. The neighborhood's senior statesman, an old man wearing a traditional Chechen skullcap, noted that thanks to the USG assistance (installing polyethylene pipe) residents no longer needed to pay one ruble for each pail of water formerly carried by hand one kilometer back to their homes. ¶10. (SBU) PRM has funded (and jointly with ECHO, the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department continues to fund) a UNICEF project to create psycho-social centers at schools in Urus-Martan that help students cope with the violence they have experienced as young children. Trained school psychiatrists and social workers with whom we spoke stressed the need for older students to become role models for younger students. At School Number 7 in Urus-Martan poloff also observed a WFP "Food for Education" program in which first and second graders were provided with a meal of hot porridge (buckwheat the day we visited) during school hours. Their teacher, a young Chechen woman wearing the headscarf required of all female Chechen government employees, said that there was a noticeable improvement in the children's academic performance due to the school feeding program. In a September 24 meeting, Akhmed Ismailov, Advisor on Humanitarian Assistance to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, thanked poloff for PRM's assistance in extending the school feeding program through December. He confirmed that the Chechen government was committed to taking over this program beginning in January 2009 but asked poloff if the USG could support a pilot program to feed kindergarten students in the coming year. ¶11. (SBU) Poloff also met with representatives of several implementing partners through which UNHCR also supports the provision of legal assistance to displaced persons in Chechnya using PRM funds. In addition to Vesta LLC, participants included the Nizam Counseling Center and the Chechnya office of the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Group. These lawyers have been quite successful in advising displaced persons as to their legal rights to compensation, particularly in preparing cases against the GOR at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg. The lawyers said that -- so far -- they have not received any interference from the Chechen government, but noted that their cases are against the Russian federal government and not against the local government. Improving Medical Care in Ingushetiya -------------- ¶12. (SBU) The primary focus of PRM-funded projects we visited in Ingushetiya was to provide improved access to medical care for displaced persons from Chechnya and the Prigorodniy region. Poloff visited a bustling medical center run by WVI in the town of Sleptsovskaya outside Nazran, located on the North Caucasus Federal Highway that connects Ingushetiya and Chechnya. The clinic's director cited tuberculosis and anemia as the major health problems among the IDPs, the later caused by poor diet. The clinic provides a wide range of medical services, including pre-natal, pediatric and psychiatric counseling in addition to general health care The basic laboratory conducts blood and urine tests whose results are accepted at the local state-run hospital if further care was required. The clinic distributes medicine, although during our visit it had temporarily discontinued dispensing while it waited for renewal of its registration with Ingushetiya's Ministry of Health. During this period, patients were receiving free medicine from the program at the pharmacy at a state-run medical facility pursuant to a special agreement between the clinic and the medical facility. The director of the clinic told us that it does not deny medical care to anyone who asks for it, although over 70 percent of its patients are people displaced from either Chechnya or Prigorodniy. The clinic's proximity to Chechnya also meant that some nearby residents from there came to take advantage of the free medical care it provided. ¶13. (SBU) PRM implementing partner IMC also runs a smaller MOSCOW 00003088 004 OF 004 clinic several kilometers away at a nearby spontaneous settlement in Sleptsovskaya. Some of the patients at the IMC-sponsored clinic said they come for medical care at least once a month. IMC also provided assistance to Ingushetiya's tuberculosis hospital in Troitskaya, a picturesque former Cossack town outside Nazran where several members of one the town's remaining ethnic Russian families were notoriously murdered in July 2007. While the hospital is open to anyone residing in Ingushetiya, a large number of patients are the children of displaced persons. The IMC assistance included improvements to the laboratory, repairing the water supply, creating a "child friendly space" for younger patients and upgrading the hospital's kitchen. The head of the hospital was greatly appreciative of USG support, which she contrasted with the recent inspection by Ingushetiya government officials who levied a fine against the hospital for having old fire extinguishers (which, she asserted, were still functional). Before we left she asked for additional assistance to fund much-needed repairs to the toilets and bathing areas of the children's ward. ¶14. (SBU) WVI also runs a highly successful kindergarten program at School Number 2 in Voznesenovskaya designed to prepare IDP children to do well when they start first grade. Poloff observed a class that had only been going on for a few weeks in which the youngsters were being taught in Russian, the language of formal education in public schools in Ingushetiya. This was the second year of the program and the head of the school said that in September first grade teachers squabbled among themselves to be assigned students who had participated in the initial program last year because they were better adapted to learning and easier to teach. ¶15. (SBU) We met with deputy head of Troitskaya Kazbek Dzhankhotov several kilometers outside of town where IMC had repaired a water pump that allowed the town's residents a steady supply of water. Dzhankhotov was extremely appreciative of our assistance, praised the cooperation with IMC, and expressed hope the USG would provide more assistance in Troitskaya. (Note: As a tragic reminder of the violence which currently plagues Ingushetiya, an unidentified gunman shot and killed Dzhankhotov on October 16 as he was standing outside the town's main administrative building. End Note.). Comment -------------- ¶16. (SBU) PRM's small assistance program in Chechnya and Ingushetiya continues to make a meaningful contribution to improving the lives of displaced persons there and is appreciated by both the beneficiaries and those government officials who see how it makes a difference. The assistance, especially basic shelter reconstruction, has changed the lives of the beneficiaries and their families and put the U.S. in a positive light. Unfortunately, the security situation in Chechnya and Ingushetiya has meant that there has been little publicity for some of these PRM-funded projects. In the next year the costs of providing the assistance we have been giving in both Chechnya and Ingushetiya will increase as prices for construction materials go up and as our implementing partners take additional security measures to protect their staff. Federal and local government leaders appear less interested in solving these most difficult remaining cases than spending money on newer projects like holding the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, rebuilding South Ossetia, and constructing the largest mosque in Europe in memory of an assassinated father. While it is easy to note these excesses and point fingers at this lack of leadership, in the end it is the displaced persons in Chechnya and Ingushetiya who will continue to suffer. BEYRLE