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Rally held in Grozny against sending of Chechen conscripts to Russian regions

By Ruslan Isayev

GROZNY, Chechnya – A rally was held in Grozny today against the sending of Chechen conscripts to serve in army regiments located in the Russian regions. The protest action, in which more than 30 people took part, was organized by the recently-created Public Chamber of the Chechen Republic.

The rally’s participants – parents of young men of call-up age – expressed their unwillingness to let their children go to Russia to do their military service.

Nearly all the parents agree that their sons must serve in the army, but only within the borders of Chechnya.

“We need to restore the republic. By all means let them help in the city’s reconstruction, but I don’t want my three sons to be taken to a Russian region where officers who have served in the Chechen wars will mock them and torment them,”  one of the participants in the action, Magomed-Emin Zalayev, told PW’s correspondent.

Sayd-Emin Dzhabrailov, who is head of the Public Chamber, points out that Chechen conscripts will have a hard time in the present-day Russian army. “Life will be very difficult for them there. The other men can mock and provoke them as much as they like. The situation in the army now is bad, and so we’re supporting their plea to be allowed to serve in Chechnya,” he said.

The Russian army’s spring call-up got underway at the beginning of March. This year there are plans to send up to 30,000 conscripts from Chechnya. At the republic’s military registration and enlistment office it is thought that this figure is unlikely to be attained, but there is confidence that it will be possible to recruit a third of the projected number.

The wishes of the parents of the Chechen conscripts also clash with President Putin's decree which prohibits conscripts undergoing fixed-term service from serving in Chechnya. There are also plans for all conscripts from Chechnya to serve in so-called “elite” military units which by their very nature are unable to take part in military operations in Chechnya, such as the Space Troops, the Russian Navy and others.

(MD/T)

  RELATED ARTICLES:
 · Chechnya must provide 30,000 conscripts for the Russian army (PW, 11.1.2007)
 · Chechen youths are being called up to the Russian army (PW, 6. 10. 2001)