Study: Brutal rites await new soldiers

The hazing system has created a culture of revenge, one group says.
TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL
MOSCOW -- When Alexei began his two-year compulsory military service with an elite paratrooper regiment in Novorossisk last September, he was inducted into a life of starvation and beatings.
Just 18, he, along with other new Russian conscripts, saw his meager salary of 160 rubles ($8) stolen, his plate raided at meal times, his care packages from home taken. Every night, older conscripts would make the new arrivals do push-ups and sit-ups until 5 a.m., leaving them just an hour to sleep and so tired they would fall asleep standing on the parade square.
Then, his mother called to inquire why her son had not received his packages. "After the phone call, everything got worse. My commanding officer began to beat me up every day," he remembered.
That meant open season for the older conscripts, too. They broke his nose and bruised his body; he lost nearly 30 pounds from his already thin frame and was put in hospital for an ulcer.
Got it
After nine months, he could bear it no more. His mother had a doctor write a letter saying she was seriously ill and required her son at home. There, he had a hospital doctor declare him unfit for service for psychological reasons.
His is a story that Human Rights Watch says is repeated thousands of times each year in military units across Russia, where suicide rates among soldiers are increasing and tens of thousands of conscripts run away from their units.
In a new study, the Wrongs of Passage, the group says that severe physical, emotional and even sexual abuse in a hazing system known as dedovshchina (rule of the grandfathers) is creating a culture of revenge that is undermining the ability of Russia's army to function.
"This is a very big human-rights problem, one of the biggest that Russia has," said Diederik Lohman, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch and author of the report. "When their sons are 10, families begin worrying about how to keep them out of the army."
About the study
The study, which took three years to complete, includes interviews with more than 100 conscripts and their families from more than 50 units in 25 regions across Russia. Most of these conscripts are deserters, and all reported systematic abuse that included deprivation of food and sleep, confiscation of salaries and regular beatings with bed posts, stools and even fire extinguishers at the hands of the grandfathers -- the senior conscripts. In a few cases, drunken older soldiers would force new conscripts to simulate sex acts with each other.
Lohman said the group recognizes that initiation rituals are a part of most modern armies. But in Russia, he said, the psychology of creating a cohesive group whose members are willing to die for each other has been lost -- replaced by conscripts' need for revenge when they are no longer the newcomers.
The Russian military prosecutor's office acknowledges the problem, though it has not commented on the report. A spokesman said that this year, there have been 3,200 cases of soldiers --including 400 officers -- convicted of beatings and other violations of the military code of conduct. He also acknowledged 100 suicides. Other reports suggest nearly double that number.