The Prague Post
December 5th, 2008
Prague Property

Charity faces terrorist claim

Leader of People in Need calls for better dialogue with Russian officials over Chechnya dispute

Simon Panek, head of People in Need, says authorities need to foster communication, not fear.
By Matt Reynolds
 Staff Writer, The Prague Post
April 14, 2005


Simon Panek heads relief and development at the Prague-based charity People in Need. The job means feeding and building shelter for refugees and disaster victims in some of the world's poorest and sometimes most hazardous places such as Afghanistan, Bosnia and, this year, Sri Lanka.

Lately it has also meant reading the tea leaves of numerous Russian inspectors, police officers and bureaucrats. Since police shot dead a Chechen rebel in December who was hiding out in a building used by People in Need in Grozny, and found a weapons cache in the basement, local officials have been paying regular visits to the charity's headquarters in the neighboring Russian Republic of Ingushetia. The charity's expired registration permit awaits renewal, and a March 23 story in the Russian weekly Arguments and Facts linked the charity to Chechen fighters, running a picture of its local head, Marek Vozka, holding a machine gun.

The charity is cooperating with investigations into the shooting of the rebel found in their building, whom its leaders say had no formal connection to their Chechen mission.

Panek, just back from Sri Lanka, spoke March 31 about the "absurd" article in Arguments and Facts, the charity's "transparent, humanitarian work" and the need for better dialogue with Russian officials. "After all," he said, "We're both on the same side: building a stable Chechnya."

The Prague Post: What do you know about the rebel shot dead by Russian forces in your basement?

Simon Panek: It happened in a house we run for the psychological and social support of women in Grozny. We use about 20 buildings. Police found him hiding there. They also found weapons. He was the brother of one of our workers.

TPP: Does that employee still work for you?

SP: She's in police custody. We called for an investigation into why he was misusing our building, which we're cooperating with fully. The Chechen Interior Ministry said the fighter claimed to be working for our charity, but they found he wasn't. So, obviously, we have no connection to insurgents.

SIMON PANEK

• Job Title: Director of relief and development, People in Need

• Age: 37

• Previous job: Adviser to former President Vaclav Havel

• Background: Student leader in the 1989 revolution, co-founder of People in Need

People in Need in Chechnya (since 2000)

• 5 Czech workers

• 180 local workers

• Budget of 100 million Kc ($4.3 million)

• Distributes food to 30,000 people a month, runs 10 schools for refugees and 30 after-school clubs
On the other hand, it's impossible for us to know who our Chechen employees associate with in their free time, and everyone they're related to. In Chechnya, family means extended family, maybe 100 people. There's probably not a single family without some connection, or past connection, to insurgent groups.

TPP: One of your former guards is also suspected of ties to rebel groups.

SP: He's a good example of the difficulty of working in Chechnya. He was an employee of the Interior Ministry, licensed to carry a gun. He guarded one of our warehouses part time. If the Interior Ministry can't guarantee its employees are clean, what chance does a humanitarian organization have?

TPP: How have authorities behaved since they found the fighter hiding in you basement?

SP: We are visited regularly by police, and by tons of inspectors — three times by the fire inspectors, for example, twice by the employment office. That's in the last three months. We used to see them once every one to two years.

Our request to renew our registration, which expired in December, keeps getting postponed.

TPP: Do you think the government is trying to force you out?

SP: Don't misunderstand — the inspections aren't illegal or improper. But when you look at the quantity, it can't be coincidence. It's a way of putting pressure on our organization, complicating our work.

I'm sure there is also a legitimate misunderstanding. There's not much dialogue between humanitarian organizations and authorities. I can believe they really suspect we are working with terrorists.

All we can do is be as transparent as possible. Our work is well documented. We cooperate closely with the United Nations, which means monthly reports and audits. On the other hand, if they are looking for a pretext to kick us out, there's nothing we can really do.

TPP: So you don't know which it is?

SP: No. It's clear that the inspectors who visit us don't know what we do. We need to communicate better with them. On the other hand, it's absurd to think terrorists would look to us for support. We are a poor humanitarian organization, under the spotlight of Russian security services. There are easier channels for them, such as foreign banks, businesses, connections across the border in Azerbaijan.

TPP: Can you explain the Arguments and Facts picture of your director with a machine gun?

SP: The picture came from a computer seized during a recent inspection. Anyone who's been in the North Caucasus knows weapons are everywhere. Our director posed for the picture as a personal souvenir. The gun belonged to one of his security guards.

TPP: Will you stay in Chechnya?

SP: We plan to stay at least three more years. The past five years brought many improvements: 200,000 refugees have returned. There is electricity, gas. The number of checkpoints between our headquarters in Ingushetia and Grozny has gone from 13 to two.

The challenge now is to switch from humanitarian aid to development aid ... [and] instead support small business and agriculture. Most people outside Grozny are still subsistence farmers.

TPP: Do you think you'll be allowed to stay?

SP: I hope so. We'd like very much to have a dialogue with the Russian authorities. We'd like to explain what we do and how we do it.



Matt Reynolds can be reached at mreynolds@praguepost.com




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