Varying media accounts of Defense Minister Serdyukov’s meeting Thursday with defenders of conscript rights lead one to think they attended different meetings.
But the Defense Minister deserves praise for facing some of the army’s sharpest critics. And for apparently saying he wants to meet them routinely, according to Krasnaya zvezda. His predecessors rarely did.
The headline story from the meeting was Serdyukov’s offer for civilian activists to accompany conscripts through the induction process until they reach their place of service, and settle into their units. He also offered fuller access to the military’s bases.
RIA Novosti quoted him:
“We want to propose an option for accompanying conscripts: take part in the callup commission, and then go with them to units and see how they are billeted.”
He added that he is prepared to let civilian representatives into all military units, with the exception of an unknown number of secret ones.
According to ITAR-TASS, he said:
“The Defense Ministry on the whole is interested in public organizations having access to military units.”
So Serdyukov bowed to greater civilian involvement, if not control or oversight, and also stumped for his efforts to ‘humanize’ conscript service in the armed forces.
His offer was interesting for the catch it included . . . these civil society representatives have to participate in the callup commission before they can go with new soldiers to their units.
Maybe Serdyukov thinks they won’t take up the offer. Maybe he thinks, if they do, they’ll dirty their hands in the difficult work of deciding who has to serve, or doesn’t, and where. Maybe sorting through far-from-ideal candidates and still trying to meet manpower quotas will temper their criticism.
But it may give conscript rights activists even better insight into induction process problems and abuses than they already have. We’ll see.
Serdyukov touted efforts to enable conscripts, especially those with dependent parents and children, to serve as close to home as possible, rather than sending them as far away as possible like in the past.
But Valentina Melnikova of the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers (SKSM or СКСМ) believes no one is fulfilling Serdyukov’s order to assign draftees closer to home:
“In military commissariats no one pays attention to this.”
According to Lenta.ru, Serdyukov cited his other innovations – introducing a rest hour after lunch, lifting virtually all restrictions on the use of cell phones by conscripts, giving them a chance to earn a weekend pass, and freeing them from all housekeeping and maintenance chores in their barracks, units, and garrisons. But neither Serdyukov nor the media could say how widely these initiatives have been implemented.
According to Krasnaya zvezda, Serdyukov wants to revive moribund parents’ committees introduced several years ago, but found impractical when young men served in remote areas far from home. If they’re closer to home, their parents might be able to visit their units. Serdyukov also mentioned the 4-year-old Defense Ministry Public Council. Krasnaya zvezda reported that Melnikova is heading its working group to coordinate its activities with other public and human rights organizations. Serdyukov expressed the hope that such a unification of efforts will be beneficial.
IA Regnum reports that Petersburg’s Ella Polyakova gave Serdyukov a detailed report on violations of conscript rights complete with statistics, concrete examples, and proposals to better protect them.
Polyakova would like to remove examining physicians from the callup commission, and from the control of the voyenkomat. She said their qualifications need improvement also. She objected to Serdyukov’s cuts in military medicine and called for better psychiatric assistance for conscripts in their units.
Polyakova says Serdyukov’s officer cuts have worsened the situation in the barracks. Sergeants who were supposed to replace officers are ill-prepared for greater responsibility, and barracks violence has spiked as a result. The Main Military Prosecutor’s figures support her. Sergey Fridinskiy recently reported that hazing and other barracks violence increased 50 percent in the first five months of 2010.
Newsru.com reported Tatyana Kuznetsova’s concern about the army stretching its definition of fitness and taking men who should be deferred or exempt for health reasons:
“But, as we know, right away, having just reached the troops, many guys turned up in hospitals which were overflowing. Like in a war, they laid in three rows, on the floor, in corridors. These boys were called up sick, with chronic illnesses that weren’t discovered during the callup. They weren’t discovered on purpose.”
All in all, it’s clear that, no matter how often they get together, Defense Minister Serdyukov and human rights activists will continue to disagree about the state of the army and how to change it.
According to IA Regnum, when Serdyukov said there’s no money for contract service, the activists asked him to explain:
“. . . how much money is being expended from budgets at all levels to fulfill the conscription plan in the ranks of the armed forces, as a result of which young men who are sick, invalids, and psychologically unstable end up in the army. And next compare this with the amounts of expenditures to dismiss conscripts from the army after several months for health reasons, and to pay compensation to the families of those who have died or become invalids in peacetime.”
Russian Defense Policy 