VZCZCXRO9509
RR RUEHLN RUEHPOD RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHMO #3088/01 2941308
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 201308Z OCT 08
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0434
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

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