The 30 March the Government approved the abolition of 9 out of 25 present draft deferments. The Ministry of Defense promises to shorten the term of military service to 12 months from 2008. The 1 April mass protest actions against cutting draft deferments were held all over the country. Demonstrators demanded a building up of the professional army and resignation of Minister of Defense, Sergey Ivanov. Human rights activists call on to distrust the Ministry of Defense and the Minister himself. (05-APR-06)
Text: HRH/Moscow: by Yanina Savenko. Source: www.rian.ru, http://polit.ru/news, www.svobodanews.ru, http://demos-center.ru. Photos: www.photoxpress.ru.
Now the bill, proposed by the Ministry of Defense, will be submitted to the State Duma for consideration. According to deputies, the document has a good chance to be approved. The draft deferments are planned to be curtailed from the 1 of January 2007. The Ministry of Defense explains the main reason for cutting draft deferments due to a plan to shorten the term of military service from the year 2007 up to 18 months and from the year 2008 up to 12 months. During the period from the 1 April to the 30 June 124550 Russians at the age from 18 to 27 will be called up.
Novelties of the draft 2006
According to the Colonel General Vasiliy Smirnov, deputy chief of the General Staff, since 2006 all draftees and their parents will be informed in the recruiting centres about the place of serving their tours of duty and about the
number of their military unit. the Chechen Republic won’t be in the list of “official itineraries”, – ‘promised’ general Smirnov. – All conscripts who go to a military unit in groups of more than 40 persons will be accompanied by a doctor. Now not more than 54 persons can be transported in a third-class railroad car – earlier 87 conscripts were carried in such a car. Besides, the government has approved a drastic reduction of military chairs in civil institutes of higher education: only 35 “elite” institutes from 229 institutes, which have military chairs, will be able to keep the right for their graduates not to serve in the Russian army at the time of peace. Soldiers serving on a contract basis, who will cancel the contract before its expiration will be punished. They must return to the State money spent for their studying in the educational institution.
Curtailment of the draft deferments is the infringement of the Family Code of the Russian Federation
– The document proposed by the military and approved by the government is contrary to the legislation currently in force. The abolition of the draft deferments for those who care for ill relatives and aged parents or for those who nurse a baby doesn’t correspond to legal regulations of the Family Code of the Russian Federation. If this bill is passed, citizens will be able to appeal against it in the Constitutional Court, – said the Chairwoman of the Union of Soldiers Mothers Committees of the Russian Federation, Valentina Melnikova. She advised disabled persons and pensioners, whose young man would be called up and taken away to bring an action against the Ministry of Defense in court in order to make the Ministry of Defense pay them pensions from its own funds.
The problem of “dedovshchina” won’t disappear
Valentina Melnikova calls on everybody to distrust the Ministry of Defense and its head Sergey Ivanov. She draws attention to the fact, that the abolished draft deferments are numbered in the bill, but there are only verbal statements about the cutting down the term of military service and there is no mention in the document concerning this promise. According to the Chairwoman of the Board of the “Mothers Right” Foundation Veronika Marchenko, the cutting down a term of military service won’t solve the problem of “dedovshchina” (brutal rule of elders) in the Russian military, because a conscript can become disabled or perish not only in a year but also in a few weeks after the beginning of the military service. And there are countless numbers of such examples. According to the Mothers Right Foundation, 3000 soldiers perish in the Russian army every year in the time of peace.
Mass protest actions against the draft
The 1 April, on the day the spring draft starts, protest actions against mandatory military service and for the professional army were held in more than 30 regions of the Russian Federation. Demonstrators protested against the curtailment of the draft deferments and demanded resignation of Minister of Defense, Sergey Ivanov. In Moscow 300 persons, advancing slogans “The Army is Slavery”, “Draft: No”, “Draft is a school of baseness”, gathered in a rally organized by the Republican Party, The Union of Soldiers Mothers Committees and the League for the Drafts Abolition. Recently 10 000 signatures, collected for the resignation of the Minister of Defense, have been delivered to the Administration of the President. Commenting on this situation, Sergey Ivanov said: “I think I shouldn’t pay attention to such whistle…”
