Who would not want to see some silver lining to the case of Andrei Sychyov, the conscript who recently lost both his legs due to vicious beatings inflicted on him by older conscripts? There might be one — but only if this tragedy finally spurs the Russian government into taking lasting measures to stem rampant abuses in the armed forces.
Unfortunately, a glance at history does not inspire much hope. The Sychyov case is not the first incident of army brutality to shock the Russian public, and earlier incidents got little enduring response from the government. In the late 1990s, for example, national television showed footage of three conscripts cruelly abusing a large group of new recruits at night in the barracks. The abusers had filmed their orgy of violence as a perverse souvenir of their “good times” in the armed forces. After a public outcry, the government prosecuted the abusers but did nothing to address the larger problem.
Now, the government has gone out of its way to compensate Sychyov’s family and prosecute the people who beat him so badly on New Year’s Eve. But it isn’t taking the steps necessary toward fundamental change to resolve the problem of widespread violence against conscripts, because it has been in denial about the extent of violent abuse in the armed forces. Over the past 15 years, consecutive governments have chosen not to address this very difficult issue, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of a culture of abuse in the armed forces.
Since at least 1989, soldiers’ mothers groups have been providing the government and public with graphic evidence that these abuses amount not to a few horrible outbreaks of excess but a disease that infects vast parts of the entire armed forces. Nonetheless, governments have consistently sought to downplay the problem, calling the abuses isolated excesses and blaming them on the metaphoric few “bad apples.” As a result, they have fought the symptoms without addressing the disease.
The question now is whether the Sychyov case will prove to be the turning point. At first glance, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov’s speech to the State Duma on Feb. 15 — his major policy statement in response to the case — is not promising.
Where one might have expected a degree of humility in acknowledgement of Sychyov’s ordeal, Ivanov started off his speech with a blistering attack on everyone but the armed forces. He blamed society at large as well as the media for abusive practices in the armed forces, arguing that hazing “starts in Russian kindergartens” and charging that violence and other “subversive” programming on television undermined the moral fabric of Russia society.
It is cruelly ironic that in searching for the broader causes of violent hazing Ivanov focused on society but not on the armed forces themselves, stating that they are “one of the most law-abiding institutions in our society.” He downplayed the extent of violent hazing, using figures that reveal more about the extent to which army officers ignore evidence of abuse than about the extent of hazing itself.
Ivanov did outline some steps to combat abuses. Among others, Ivanov spoke of measures to improve reporting on incidents of hazing by officers; the creation of joint working groups of the Defense Ministry and the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office to monitor problem units; the introduction of civilian control over the armed forces; the creation of a professional layer of non-commissioned officers; and the reduction of compulsory military service to one year.
These measures could help end abuse, but only if the government makes them a priority and implements them consistently.
Meanwhile, as soldiers’ mothers committees have been arguing for years, there is evidence the abuse is widespread. In late 2004, Human Rights Watch published the findings of a multi-year research project on abuses in the armed forces.
We argued that such violent abuses persisted mainly because of a systematic lack of oversight. Commanding officers deliberately ignore evidence of abuses, actively try to avoid coming across such evidence, and routinely fail to take punitive steps against perpetrators. Their superiors ignore these failings and refuse to penalize them for it. Hence, while military prosecutors have taken up some cases, the vast majority go unpunished. Structural problems, such as the absence of professional non-commissioned officers, exacerbate the lack of effective oversight.
The measures Ivanov proposed in the State Duma tackle many of these problems. If they are all effectively implemented, they could help expose and change the culture that contributes to hazing. But the risk is that, as in the past, implementation of these measures will be lackluster at best, or flawed.
The following steps could help to ensure a break with the past to end this evil:
- The Defense Ministry should implement zero tolerance for officers who fail to carefully monitor their troops for evidence of abuses and address abuses. Officers who fail to do so should be consistently punished, including through demotion or dismissal. The Defense Ministry and other ministries should mobilize resources to monitor the conduct of officers in this respect.
- The vast majority of soldiers who flee their units do so to escape abuses, but the military responds by returning these men to their units or punishing them for going absent without leave. No effort is made to document and address the abuse that drove them to flee. The joint working groups of the Defense Ministry and Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office should monitor not only problem units but should also investigate all cases of absence-without-leave to determine the reasons for flight. Officers in cases where soldiers fled to escape abuses should be properly punished.
- The government should establish civilian oversight mechanisms that allow representatives from ombudsman’s offices, nongovernmental groups and the Public Chamber to monitor military bases. Information collected by these civilian monitors should be used in assessing whether officers are appropriately enforcing discipline in their ranks.
- Professional noncommissioned officers should receive thorough training on preventing abuses. Their efforts to stop abuses should be closely monitored, and punitive measures should be imposed whenever they fail in this duty.
Abuse in the army will end only when there is a fundamental change in the military culture from the rule of the strongest to the rule of law. These steps are essential to promoting this change and will be effective only if the government commits itself. Anyone who has heard or read Ivanov’s speech will doubt that the government is ready to do so. If these steps aren’t taken, we can expect another gruesome incident to shake us all up again before too long.
*Diederik Lohman is a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch and was the director of its Moscow office from 1997 to 2002. He is the author of “The Wrongs of Passage,” a Human Rights Watch report on violent hazing in the Russian army.
