Donetsk: looking over his shoulder
In early November, in Donetsk – a golden autumn. On Pushkin Boulevard with colorful leaves for a moment as if suspended in the air and with a quiet rustle of falling at his feet. Pungent smell autumn foliage is mixed with the aroma of coffee, freshly-ground in road-trailer coffee shop. The head does not fit, that war very close. And if in the center of Donetsk, people began to slowly withdraw from the roar of explosions, on the outskirts of artillery fire and machine-gun fire is still an integral part of life – as, indeed, and controlled by Ukrainian authorities to the settlements located directly across the “contact line” separating government forces and pro-Russian “separatists”.
The war goes on, in October and November shelling increased, increased the number of civilian casualties. In Donetsk, still has a curfew from 23 to five in the morning. But the city is once again full of life: children play in the streets, in the center of expensive boutiques running again, just opened a brand new hypermarket welcomes shoppers crowd. Of the countless cafes, bars and restaurants can hear the music.
Life as it is. The usual normal life. But under the thin veneer of normality – the abyss of fear.
The bright, festive cafe my visa-a-vis glances over his shoulder at the gaggle of chattering ladies for cocktails. “Excuse me, we, of course, talking softly, but you never know … Overheard by calling ‘where necessary’ – and welcome to the basement.”
He smiles shyly and says, as if trying to justify that the MGB – Local “state security ministry” – is practically ubiquitous, it is everywhere ears, and manage any kind into it. And even if you sit meek as a lamb, one way or another with this soprikosneshsya. Just recently, the computer go haywire, and the specialist until versed with the “iron”, suddenly wondered whether to take a good lawyer. Son he finds himself in the MGB was taken away for a few weeks have passed, the family is torn, do not know what to do.
My companion sighs, staring into the tabletop, “Of course, I want to help. And I consulted with an attorney familiar – but what it can say .. From the basement one way – sharing. Well, or to redeem the human can, if there is a lot of money … And where do they ordinary people? So you think, and if I take away or, God forbid, someone from the family, you can not have to run, where to knock? Hopelessly it. “
And there ought to be something to advise … From an international human rights organization is expected on such matters Council – but to be honest, nothing constructive to offer fails. The conclusions of our research in the breakaway republics of Donbass ambiguous and disappointing: the local state security organs act outside the law, and in fact they were never decree. Anyone caught in the grindstone, helpless, and his family can only hope for the best.
“I have two and a half months each at the beginning of the war I stayed in one of the cellars – continues my companion. – We thought – everyone alive will not see, and when the exchange went, it was like a godsend … MGB – like a black hole sucks people there, as in the funnel. It remains only to keep his head down and pray that had passed … Talk about this can not be about the cellars they write, discuss, can not be … It is very lucidly explained: keep quiet and do not ask too many questions … Well, except about the prices people products pobuhtet – this is the maximum permitted. ” I nod, sipping orange juice from thin glass. Freshly squeezed.
The guy I meet the next day, too, from time to time looking over his shoulder: “People are even with each other can not speak freely – they are afraid someone will inform: a neighbor, a colleague, or just a person sitting next to you in the bus … everything is literally steeped in fear, but in fact detention as such is now not so much. Mass detentions were in the 14th year, and then less and less – and this is understandable, whom they ‘develop’? Ukrainian activists pouezzhali, people pro-Ukrainian-minded, critical thinkers, who could not keep quiet – I think no more. And who he was – learned: just that – and to the basement, where they can beat, torture, and no one will help. ” We slowly go on an evening city, autumn leaves rustle in the wind. I stole a look over his shoulder …
After a couple of days already on the “one” side, in Mariupol, a man from Novoazovsk, in the recent past, trading in products and spare parts for cars, tells us with a colleague at the end of 2015 – beginning of 2016 spent five and a half months in the basement of the MGB chamber DNR on suspicion of working for the Ukrainian security Service. About three out of five and a half months he was kept chained to the pipe so that it could only sit crouched or lying on the floor on all fours to move a couple of meters. He was beaten, hung by handcuffs, twisting arms, electric shocks and starved. But it seems that most of it is not plagued by the memories of the suffering experienced by individuals, and the idea that it is all the time kept ‘chained like an animal, like a wild animal. How can you treat a person? .. Is not this like human beings? .. I want them to pay for it. “
In the two and a half years, while there is a war, Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of people who were victims of arbitrary detention and torture in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. We put these questions to the de facto authorities, but all in vain. None of the interviewed victims still did not wait for justice. But impunity is not eternal, and the guilty will be brought bills for all – and that’s because of this, with whom it was impossible “to treat”. Just can not.
Sourse, 29/11/2016
