Forward
November 10, 1999

By S.A. Greene, Special Correspondent

Moscow - The Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry is saying that elements of the government of Kazakhstan may have been behind a fire that destroyed the UCSJ's office in Almaty earlier this month.

On Thursday, November 4, a fire gutted the UCSJ bureau in Kazakhstan's former capital. No one was hurt but all of the office equipment and files were destroyed, according to an internal UCSJ account of the incident.

The fire will pose a setback to the human rights group's efforts in Kazakhstan and illustrates the difficulties faced by grassroots organizations pressing for human rights and democracy in the lands of the former Soviet Union.

The internal account said there is no proof the fire was set by authorities, but it went on to say, "all democratic organizations in Almaty were sure that it was done by the authorities because [our] Bureau was and is [the] only independent grassroots body in the county and irritated the government."

The president of the Union of Councils, Yosef Abramowitz confirmed that assessment.

"There's no great tradition of law enforcement or low of human rights monitoring," he said. "I can't prove that it was the authorities. But we have no other clues right now."

The fire broke out at about 7:20pm approximately 20 minutes after the staff had left the office. According to the account, staff who witnessed the attempts to extinguish the fire called the firefighters "very unprofessional". In particular, firefighters wasted time battering down the office's iron door before taking any other measures and continued to flood the office well after the fore was put out, the account said.

"Rather than go in through the windows, they kept beating on the door," said the director of Union of Councils International Bureaus, Leonid Stonov.

Witnesses could not be reached for comment. In addition to computers and technical equipment, the fire destroyed nearly six years of paper and electronic archives - which Mr. Stonov called "irreplaceable" - and a 150 volume library of human rights materials in Russian, Kazakh, and English donated by the George Soros' Open Society Institute in Budapest, Hungary.

The bureau opened as a center not only for Jewish concerns but also for human rights activities in general, Mr. Stonov said. Each week, 20 or so people would come to the bureau to report on loved ones detained by the Kazakh authorities and on alleged human rights abuses. The bureau employed a lawyer to assist in such cases, who is "often successful" Mr. Stonov said.

"Maybe this is one of the reasons for this persecution of our bureau," he said.

[In Washington, an official at the embassy of Kazakhstan, Kairat Umarov, said that he was unaware of the incident but that "nothing of this kind could have happened" with the government's involvement and that there had been "no incidents like this with Jews" before. Rather, he said that relations with the Jews were good, that the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev had visited Israel a few years ago, that the prime minister, Kassymzhomart Tokayev, had met with the American Jewish Committee in New York recently and that the country was moving quickly in the direction of democracy. "Anyone could make allegations," he said. Until the investigations are complete Mr. Umarov said, it would be difficult to draw any conclusions. "Maybe some office worker forget something" that could have started the fire, he suggested]

Through its activities, the bureau won widespread support particularly from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and Western embassies in Almaty, Mr. Stonov said. Yevgeny Zhovtis, the bureau's director was awarded the "Democracy and Civil Society Award" by America and the European Union in 1998.

But the bureau has also attracted harassment. Mostly, Mr. Stonov said, it was limited to problems with registration and other bureaucratic formalities.

Mr. Stonov said he believed harassment hadn't been more overt because, "We were too well known and too well supported."

But the bureau's seven full-time activists never had any doubts where they stood with the authorities. "The General Prosecutor's office, KGB and Ministry of Interior had our Bureau, especially after two conferences about reforms of the penitentiary and judicial system and because of the legal help that our lawyer successfully gave to people," the account reads.

Kazakhstan, which became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, has come under international criticism for failing to guarantee the rights and freedoms promised in its 1995 constitution. In January 1999, OSCE cited the government for violations in presidential elections. In these elections, the government barred some opposition candidates from running. One opposition leader was sentenced to jail for insulting the president.

In that atmosphere, the UCSJ bureau published regular bulletins on violations of human and press freedoms, Mr. Stonov said.

The fire department and the Ministry of Interior have begun an investigation into the fire - including interrogations of Mr. Zhovtis and his deputy, Zhamis Turmagambet - bet no criminal case has been opened.

Representatives from the OSCE and the American Embassy have warned the government about the necessity of an objective investigation, the account says.

It will take about a month and at least $15,000 to get the bureau back on its feet, Mr. Stonov said.

"We're just going to have to rebuild," Mr. Abramowitz said. "Now more than ever, it's clear just how important this outpost is."

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