Chechens mark 10th anniversary of war

Kazakhstan's Chechen community marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the first Chechen war with an appeal to the international community to resolve their plight both at home and abroad. "The international community is not listening," father-of-four Sharpudin Hamidov, told IRIN in the commercial capital, Almaty. "I want this war to finish and return to my homeland," the 46-year-old exclaimed, recalling a Caucasian pride all too familiar among his countrymen in Kazakhstan - the largest host country to the Chechen diaspora in Asia. But that will prove difficult for the unemployed musician from Chechnya's southern Shalinskii region, close to the Dagestan border, who arrived five years earlier at the start of the second war in 1999. "We had no way of surviving. During the first Chechen war we lived in Dagestan and when the second began we moved to Kazakhstan." Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, largely Muslim Chechnya declared its independence from Russia under the leadership of Soviet air force general Dzhokhar Dudayev. On 11 December 1994, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered tanks and troops to quell the rebellion in the breakaway region and in the ensuing conflict thousands lost their lives, with thousands more fleeing the country altogether. Many joined relatives in Kazakhstan, who had lived in Central Asia's largest nation after being deported en mass there from 1944 to 1957 by Joseph Stalin. While officially more than 30,000 such Chechens enjoy Kazakh citizenship today, recent arrivals from Chechnya over the past decade face an undetermined status which prevents them from working or even remaining in the country legally. "We have no life conditions. What about the future of my children?" Hamidov's wife Aizan asked, stroking the blond locks of her five-year-old daughter's hair.

Some Chechens have had their passports ripped up by police

Sadly that is a question being asked by thousands of such refugees in the former Soviet republic. "This is one of the most difficult caseloads we have in Kazakhstan. It's politically very sensitive," Roka Kudo, a protection officer with the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Almaty told IRIN, estimating the number of Chechens that the agency recognises as refugees in the country at between 8,000 and 13,000. Under pressure from Moscow, which views the conflict in Chechnya as an internal matter, Astana has refused to acknowledge their refugee status altogether. "The position of the Kazakh authorities is very simple. There are no Chechen refugees in Kazakhstan," Kudo maintained. This policy is problematic, making issues of employment, shelter and access to social welfare - including education - for Chechen refugees in the country virtually impossible. Although UNHCR is working to find a mutually acceptable agreement with the authorities - something written and concrete that would provide Chechen refugees some kind of guaranteed legal status until the situation in their homeland improves - that has yet materialise. Like all foreigners entering the country, when they first come in, Chechens are required to register with the authorities for an initial three-month residency permit, followed by an additional three-month extension. Upon its completion, however, they are deemed illegal, with little opportunity of recourse. "Extensions after that point are very much discretionary," Kudo observed, noting some are denied extensions while others have had deportation stamps placed in their passports. Many Chechens interviewed by IRIN complained of paying bribes to corrupt officials for more time. "Police sometimes come and request money. I pay them because I have no choice," Hamidov conceded, who lives temporarily in a shed behind the home of a Chechen relative. Such stories don't surprise local rights activists though. "Without legal status, they have no legal protection," Eugeniy Zhovtis, director of Kazakhstan's International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, told IRIN. Although there was no public anti-Chechen sentiment in the country, their lack of legal status made them vulnerable to abuse and harassment, he asserted. Moreover, unable to return to Chechnya and incapable of working legally, Astana's position had made the group, many of whom work informally in local markets and bazaars, largely dependent on the Chechen diaspora for support. "Many work for their Chechen relatives," Roko said, noting formal employment of foreigners in Kazakhstan costs the employer upwards of US $1,000 in registration fees. But according to the Chechen diaspora group Vainakh, this is a situation that cannot continue. "We are trying to support these people, but need help," Akhmet Muradov, chairman of the group Vainakh, told IRIN, describing the war back in Chechnya as genocide. "This war needs to stop." Calling on the international community to assist in the voluntary repatriation of those Chechens who would like to return, as well as third-country resettlement possibilities for those who can't, he appealed to the humanitarian community to render direct support to the Chechen refugees living in Kazakhstan today. "They cannot work and cannot sustain themselves," Muradov said. Others, however, took a much broader view, appealing for an entire nation largely forgotten by the world media. "This is a day of great sadness and remembrance for the thousands of Chechens who have suffered so much," 36-year-old Ramazan Ahmetov, an active member of the Chechen community in Kazakhstan, told IRIN as he marked the 10-year anniversary. "People of the world have little idea about the reality of Chechnya. We need real help now - at any cost."