Moving repair

What is the situation with immigrants from Donbass in Ukraine? Why far from all the victims of Putin's propaganda chose the Russian route? Who helps Donetsk in the arrangement? Are there equal to the rights of imaginary "punishers" and pro -Ukrainian activists? What to do with displaced persons further?

The coordinator of the project “Without borders” Maxim Butkevich told the faces of the stereotypes and problems that have to be overcome by helping people who fled from the war.

- Who are they - immigrants from Donbass? Why do some flee to Russia, while others remained in Ukraine?

• There is no short answer. They are very different, this is a cut of the pre -war society of Donbass.

There were several waves of immigrants. At first - those who were dangerous to stay there. When I was there in May last year during the so -called referendum, some activists lived in half -conspiratorial apartments. Other famous pro -Ukrainian activists continued their work. There was a vacuum in Donetsk, but at any moment a truck with armed people could come ... This was the first, relatively few wave.

Then the stream of those who fled from the war went to get into a relatively safe territory. Here was the whole range of social strata, professional groups, beliefs. There were people who were extremely incredulous about the "bloody junta", although they did not like what happened on the territory of the so -called DPR and LPR.

Political views only conditionally determined the direction of departure - the Russian Federation or the safe territory of Ukraine. Of course, those who were afraid of the "punishers of the fascist-Kyiv junta" tried to get to Russia. There were a lot of intimidated Kiselev-TV. During this so-called referendum, an employee of one of the "election commissions", explaining to me and colleagues how the voting process works, at some point burst into tears. It was a plot on the outskirts of Donetsk. Everything was terrible there - people put their crosses, accompanied by a young man in camouflage with an ax behind the belt that looked at how they voted. There were no booths, no urn for voting. When this woman from the “Electoral Commission” was asked why she was crying, she explained that they were waiting for, how at any moment a group of punishers of the “Right Sector” could burst into them, they can be taken out and executed at the walls of the school where voting took place. We could not even tell them that this was absurd because we could not afford to light up: the ax could be put into action.

When the fighting moved to the hot phase, people simply chose the safest route. Those who lived close to the Russian border went to Russia. Departure to the territory of Ukraine passed through many checkpoints controlled by a variety of groups.

Another factor is whether it was for anyone to shelter the immigrants for the first time. Many in Russia had friends and relatives. If someone had someone in Kyiv, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, they went there regardless of political beliefs. Many Ukrainian journalists did not understand this then and called the "our former fellow citizens" who went to Russia. This is a egregious absurdity. They are not former, but our current fellow citizens who need to help and protect them regardless of where they left. We try to convey this to journalists.

- Was Ukraine as a state ready to receive so many immigrants?

• Ukraine was not ready at all. And this is understandable: except for the natural disasters, before there was nothing like this.

The first statement of public organizations that it was necessary to make efforts to accommodate immigrants on March 14, 2014 at a joint press conference in which we participated. We already worked with refugees and understood that Ukraine cannot avoid mass relocation. Then there was one of the peaks of volunteer activities in Ukraine, but we said that some things are not within the power of volunteers: they did not have a large round press that solved state issues.

In the then press release, we included seven points of the recommendations of the authorities. In a terrible dream, we could not imagine what scale forced resettlement would be, because then there were no events in the Donbass. Two points of these seven were made regardless of us, because the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health reacted adequately. It was about taking children to school without bureaucratic obstacles, as well as registration for free medical care without reference to the place of registration. In many regions, this was done immediately.

Two or three points were completed in six months: unification of the registration system of immigrants and financial assistance. But the rest of the points were not made at all, including the first point: the definition or creation of a single executive body working with immigrants. This was done in Georgia after the first Abkhaz war. Many mistakes were made there, but it was done correctly. In Ukraine, there is still no such body and will not be in the near future. This gave rise to bureaucratic football of departments, sticking out complex issues at each other.

- What is the status of a displaced person? What are the legal framework of your work?

• In the new Ukrainian legislation, the status of a migrant is already determined, but this is a separate story. Until October 2014, there was nothing like this. Somewhere they were recorded. And somewhere not. Local bodies recorded them in arbitrary forms. It was not clear what these documents oblige to, and officials used them rather as a barrier than as a means of help.

The problem is that for internally displaced persons, unlike international forced migrants, there is no single international law. There is no Convention on internally displaced persons and obligations for states, since we are talking about their own citizens of these states. But there is a large complex of developed practices, generalized in the leading principles of UNKB UN on internal movement. Now in the world there are more internally displaced persons than refugees. There is something to draw conclusions from.

Ukrainian public organizations expected from the authorities the analysis of international practice and the development of strategy. As far as I know, nothing was done. We "pushed" separate points. There was a struggle for a separate law to help internally displaced persons. But the first in October last year, two decrees of the Cabinet of Ministers - No. 505 and No. 509 appeared. One set a single form of registration. The second determined material assistance for renting housing. It was impossible to rent housing with this money, but for those who lost everything at all, any penny was important. There were huge delays in payment and abuse, but these measures helped many. Why did the authorities need six months to accept this remains a mystery.

- But the Law on Perevolens was adopted as a result?

• Everything was even more fun with the law. For six months we fought for him, helped write a bill. And at some point, the parliament in a fire man voted for a completely different bill proposed by a group of deputies. I had to publicly ask the president to impose a veto. This was used by politicians: “Look, they pretend that they help, but in fact ...” But the veto was imposed. A more adequate bill was adopted on October 20, 2014, but a month to sign it as the president. As a result, the law on the protection of the rights and freedoms of internally displaced persons is very good, although we criticized a lot in it at the project stage.

What is good in it? It is finally determined who the internally moved faces are. Before the adoption of the law, it was believed that if a person left the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, he cannot be considered an internally displaced person. This put in the difficult position of the inhabitants of the frontline zone under fire. Half of the village was demolished, and people were told that they have no status, because there is Ukrainian power.

In addition, the law defines the obligations of the state in relation to internally displaced persons, their discrimination is especially prohibited.

Some disadvantages were corrected recently: the concept of "internally displaced person" was expanded to foreign citizens who are legally in Ukraine, as well as stateless persons, refugees and asylum seekers.

The law obliged the central authorities, including the Cabinet of Ministers, to develop and begin to embody a comprehensive strategic program within three months. It was not developed either after three months, nor after four or five. Now there is a completely declarative document, and it is impossible to rely on it. In its most important part, the law is simply not implemented.

- What problems are the immigrants face? Housing, work, where to attach a child, what else?

• Most problems are never resolved. The payments were insufficient, and some people, having shy here, returned back. Not because of discrimination or political views, but because they have some kind of housing there.

And those who remained, besides all other difficulties, are faced with discrimination - for example, when hiring housing. There are no research on this occasion, but we and other organizations have a lot of evidence that in Central and Western Ukraine (and not only there) the owners do not want to rent housing to people with registration in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. Some believe that the entire population of the occupied territories is to blame for what is happening. Fortunately, there are few of them. There are those who have a negative image of the "Donetsk" in their heads: people prone to criminal behavior, with whom it is difficult to solve household issues. Many are discriminated simply out of fear that they will not be able to pay, and then it will not be easy to evict them.

At the end of summer and partly in the fall of 2014, a wave of enmity language in relation to immigrants, more noticeable at the regional level, passed through the media. The immigrants branded as "who came up", carriers of lower moral standards, alien to the culture of Ukrainian -speaking regions that do not want to learn the Ukrainian language. Partially, this intensity managed to knock down. Many scandalous messages were fakes, non -compliance with professional standards. But so far, materials that stigmatizing immigrants appear in the media.

- Are there any complaints about immigrants? After all, many residents of Crimea and the East really did not accept the language policy of Kyiv.

• For Donbass, language conflicts were less characteristic than for Crimea. Crimea has always been a separate story, and it was necessary to work separately with it. For almost twenty -five years of independence, this was not done. The central government spat on other regions, but the Crimeans felt this particularly. At the same time, the attitude towards them is much more softer and friendly than to immigrants from the Donbass. They appeared earlier and aroused sympathy, especially since the previous political regime was associated with Donetsk. The phrase "Well, what do you behave like Donetsk" did not need an additional explanation. Subsequent events strengthened these stereotypes.

- A picture is walking along social networks: a car with Donetsk numbers in which music plays loudly, and men stand nearby and the seeds are scattering.

• If the car was with Kyiv or Cherkasy numbers, they would not pay attention to this. Yes, this region has some specifics: there are many places for serving a sentence, an increased percentage of men who had problems with the law. But these differences are sometimes swollen. We will conduct a mental experiment: ten families from Donetsk moved to Lviv. Of these, nine try to integrate, know or teach Ukrainian, find work. And there is one family where they speak Russian stubbornly, are not interested in local traditions and does not support the current government (although they do not like the DPR militias who brought the mess to their native places). From these ten families, what will be visible? It is clear that the last - the first nine will be simply invisible. And it is precisely by the latter that they will judge all immigrants.

- Who took a greater part in the fate of the immigrants - the state or society, volunteers?

• Of course, volunteers. The volunteer movement is a phenomenon of a giant scale. It plays a crucial role in the help of immigrants, other vulnerable groups, and in helping the front. I am an international journalist, I visited different countries: I have never seen anything closely like anywhere. Most of this time the state did nothing - and it was good, because it at least did not interfere. A flexible, branched network structure was created, which allowed different people to be involved in varying degrees - money or participation.

- And what are the volunteers with the state?

• According to the current partially Soviet, and partially corrupt Ukrainian legislation, many volunteer initiatives that existed in a completely “Maidan” spirit could quickly be pressed. But the Maidan taught people to a certain type of behavior. If there is a problem, it must be solved. If you need money, I open the card, and give everyone its number to collect money. If you need to tie several different groups with each other, we buy the cheapest mobile phones, create a call center. We start a Facebook page. Many tools turned out to be surprisingly effective, but it is clear that if certain amounts are pumped through a person’s card, the tax office has every reason to press it. But I hope that the episodic "collisions" of the state will not become a trend: after February 2014, volunteers brought Ukraine as a state and society.

For immigrants, the state made too little, too late and partially not that. They did a lot without a state, and sometimes contrary to it. As we see now, a number of state bodies insert sticks into the wheels with immigrants who would like to integrate.

- To what extent does the representation of the immigrants about their future coincide with the representation of the state?

• Where the state has at least some strategy, it repeats the mistakes of other states. The emphasis is on the return. Migrants are assigned a temporary status. It is indicated that they need to help return, and this "help" looks very intrusive. There will be no complete return back, even if Ukrainian flags will be over Donetsk and Lugansk. Even if no one will pursue yesterday’s Ukrainian activists, many will not return there under any conditions. Either they have already lost everything there, or they will not want to watch how every day a person passes past you, who is not clear why they were not tried for war crimes or crimes against humanity. And about the fact that they can be held accountable, no one builds illusions. Many understand that this territory will remain depressive for a long time and opening their own business there and hope for the future of their children is pointless. Therefore, many are not going to return. Like all citizens of the country, they have the right to freely choose a place of residence, and you cannot hit them in rights.

- How to work with people who will be forced to remain in Ukraine, but will still adhere to pro -Russian views?

• So far, the state has prevails approaches that are concerned with me, and the Ukrainian human rights community: "We must keep this group of people under special control, and the special services should do this." One way or another, speech comes down to partial defeat in rights. The state wants more rights to interfere with private life, and this is very sad. It is clear that in wartime restrictions are inevitable, but where the line passes - here different people have different representations.

- And from your point of view?

• Now, in a couple of cases, they went too far. For me, the most sad case is the case of journalist Ruslan Kotsaba . He called for evading mobilization, participated in the propaganda programs of Russian television, was arrested by the SBU and accused of treason. I do not share Kotsaba, I do not share his views, but idiocy and state treason are still different things. If a person believes that it is not necessary to comply with some orders of the central authorities, then for this opinion it is pointless to judge him from tough accusations. He can shut up, but he will not stop thinking. This is the path to the creation of anti -Ukrainian and anti -democratic underground.

As in all other aspects of the current conflict, Ukraine is not unique. It is worried that all immigrants are united in one group, although among them there is a huge variety. Why is the pro -Ukrainian democratic activist, who was subjected to violence and persecution in Donetsk, is faced with defeat in rights, although he fought for these rights? Why put him in one boat with people of authoritarian, sometimes semi -fascist views that sympathize with aggression from a neighboring state? This is a failure strategy. If we want everything to be completely safe, then, as we know, we will have to turn the country into a concentration camp. Then it is not clear why Yanukovych was to overthrow: it was necessary, on the contrary, to give him dictatorial powers to stuff his pockets, and he would provide quiet, surface and stability.

But people chose freedom, albeit with risks, and this is the line that must be adhered to.