Darkness and light: snapshots from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine
The Piano
“Last October I visited the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Donetsk oblast. The OSCE team accompanied Dutch investigators to the site of the MH 17 crash. [When Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 came down in the area of Snezhnoe, Donetsk, on 17 July 2014, the SMM was the only international body able to gain access to the site. In the following weeks, the team paved the way for an emergency response corridor that allowed air disaster experts from the Netherlands, Malaysia and Australia to recover the human bodies and salvage aircraft wreckage for examination to determine the causes of the tragedy.]
The Dutch air disaster experts could not deal directly with the armed separatist groups so it fell to the OSCE to organize their visit. I found myself in the somewhat surreal situation of travelling in a large convoy through separatist-held territory, escorted by members of a police force we do not recognize, who are from a ministry of security we do not recognize, across a border we do not recognize, to meet a minister for emergencies from a government we do not recognize and to team up with a group of firemen/rescue workers from an agency we do not recognize. The strange thing was, everybody knew each other and in fact recognized each other.
Then came the sobering sight of what was left of flight MH 17. Nothing can prepare you for the sheer devastation and spread of the various sections of the aircraft. This was complemented by a display of Grad missile fire between the parties about 1.5km away. If it had got closer I would not have had a lot of faith in our OSCE issue flak jackets and helmets. Thankfully, phone calls were made and they postponed the war for a few hours.
The day was spent watching rescue workers sift through the wreckage, looking for any obvious remains and collecting personal items. The amazing thing was that so much was intact. Seats, luggage, passports, books, mail, all the detritus of life was strewn around the area. Some of the monitors in the team had been present when the SMM first accessed the crash site, when it was not belongings that were the issue but the sight of charred and broken bodies, many still strapped into their seats.
We moved to a second site where the cockpit had fallen, close to a village. On the day of the crash, bodies had fallen onto the village as well as bits of aircraft. Now, months later, we took a break here from our work. The mayor came and the villagers provided coffee and cake. So here we were, this strange group, OSCE, armed separatists, ministers, police, firemen and villagers, drinking coffee against the backdrop of a smashed airliner.
What we were doing was trying to find clues that would help the authorities identify those who perished, people who had no interest in the Crimea, the Donbas or any other corner of Ukraine. They were innocent people caught up in the lunacy of the situation. In a way, they represent all the innocent people who are still caught up in this lunacy. Like the airplane passengers, they have no real say.
Working as a monitor can mean many things: facilitating dialogue, negotiating the tricky political waters of engagement with separatist groups, and above all building relationships with the people of Ukraine. It can also mean witnessing events that will scar them forever, even if they do not yet realize it.
But why “The Piano”? The photo depicts what was for me the most poignant of all my memories of that day. The toy survived…the child did not. Why was this allowed to happen in Europe in 2014?”
A Promise
“On 1 October 2014, the SMM was notified by local sources about the shelling of a school in one of the northern districts of the city of Donetsk. Monitors were dispatched to the scene. We saw multiple hot rocket cases protruding from the ground in front of an elementary school. Debris littered the area. There were two dead bodies of elderly people at the school’s main entrance. One was a teacher, the other the grandfather of one of the schoolchildren, we learned. We went to the basement, where we saw dozens of shell-shocked schoolchildren and their parents. One woman showed us a small, green plastic bag with a scarf in it, saying it was all she had and that she had not eaten for days because of the constant shelling. Many others questioned the SMM's relevance. Some accused it of being unable to stop the conflict.
In the middle of this heart-rending scene – the pain reinforced by the terrified looks in the surrounding children’s eyes – we said to them that we were there to tell the world about their suffering, to bear witness to the world that there was no louder plea for peace than the silence of a child in a school basement seeking cover from falling bombs. We then went outside and saw that six more dead bodies were lying on the adjacent street: a man lying with a loaf of bread under his arm, a woman near a bus stop, two charred bodies in a minivan hit by one of the rockets and two elderly men outside the destroyed minivan. The shelling started again and we had to look for cover.
Later that day we wrote a Spot Report on the incident, which was soon published by the OSCE’s Vienna headquarters. Numerous delegations and world leaders reacted to the information we had provided. We felt that we had attracted the world’s attention and achingly hoped that we had thereby kept a small promise, made to the suffering kids and parents in that basement.”
A Frontline Village Not Forgotten
“At the beginning of March, an OSCE monitoring team visited the village of Donetskyi in Luhansk oblast. Right on the line of contact, close to the town of Kirovsk, Donetskyi had been heavily shelled during the conflict and almost all of the buildings, including the school, clinic, fire station and village council, had been damaged. The monitors found a scene of desolation. Windows were smashed, roofs collapsed. Villagers told them that most of the destruction had been caused by fighting in late January. Of a pre-conflict population of 3,500, only 500 or so remained. Gas and electricity supplies had been cut off and water had to be trucked in. People were living in basements, lacking the most basic amenities. In the absence of heating, villagers had built fireplaces in front of the apartment blocks, at which they cooked their meals. Meals could also be taken at a soup kitchen, with food supplied by the armed forces of the so-called “Luhansk People’s Republic” (“LPR”).
Adding to the troubles of the local population, a bridge on the road to Kirovsk had been destroyed, so that the only way in and out of the village was by muddy tracks. Adding to the people’s fears was sniper fire in the outskirts of the settlement and the danger of mines. Despite everything, as a symbol of their defiance of all the troubles they had endured, some residents had written on the doors of their broken apartment buildings, “we are alive!”
Visiting frontline areas such as Donetskyi had been very difficult before the implementation of the ceasefire following the 12 February signing in Minsk of the “Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements”. The villagers told the OSCE monitors that they were the first international representatives to have come. They appealed to them for urgently needed help.
The SMM reported on the situation and also informed representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) about what they had found in Donetskyi. An ICRC team visited the village shortly afterwards to assess the situation and bring some immediate humanitarian aid, including medical treatment and plastic sheeting to cover broken windows.
On 15 March, OSCE monitors visited the village again. While the situation was still very difficult, the local people expressed gratitude for the fact that their situation had been noticed and relief at having received support from the ICRC. Villagers were beginning to return in small numbers. The SMM has patrolled the village several times since.”
Attempt to Facilitate a Local Ceasefire
“On 16 March 2015, at the Donetsk border crossing in the Russian Federation, the OSCE Observer Mission at the Russian Checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk was approached by a commander of the so-called “LPR” defence forces. He asked them to pass on to the SMM that he wished to discuss with them breaches of the ceasefire in his area of the “contact line”. His message was transmitted to the SMM team in Luhansk, which rang him.
The commander explained on the phone that there were regular ceasefire violations across the “contact line” in the vicinity of the villages of Frunze, Donetskyi and Zholobok (about 40 kilometres north-west of Luhansk). In his view, this was because it was unclear where exactly the line was on the ground, as the “contact line” on the map agreed by the sides on 21 February was too thick, and consequently the Ukrainian units opposite were always trying to push forward. The monitoring team agreed to meet him face-to-face to discuss the matter further.
At the meeting the next day in Stakhanov, the “LPR” commander said that he wished to meet the Ukrainian commander opposite to reach a local agreement on the precise positioning of the line on the ground. The OSCE monitors agreed to pass his proposal on to the Ukrainian military forces, with which the Mission was in daily contact and, if the Ukrainians were agreeable, to facilitate a meeting between the local “LPR” and Ukrainian commanders on the contact line, aimed at reaching a local agreement.
Following various discussions between the OSCE monitoring team and the Ukrainian military forces at local battalion, brigade and sector headquarter levels, the Ukrainian side agreed to a meeting on 20 April.
On the agreed day, having sought and received security guarantees from both sides, the OSCE SMM team sent patrols in their armoured vehicles simultaneously from the north and south of the “contact line”. While waiting with the “LPR” commander at a safe distance south of the line, the OSCE patrol received a call from the mirror OSCE patrol, which was waiting just north of the “contact line” for the Ukrainian commander to turn up. It relayed that it had just been informed by the Headquarters of the “Anti-Terrorism Operation” that the Ukrainian side would not participate in the meeting, due to alleged ceasefire violations the previous night by the “LPR” using small arms and artillery fire in the government-controlled areas of Stanytsia Luhanska, 16 km north-east of Luhansk, and Krymske, 5 km north-west of the meeting point.
While that meeting never took place, the OSCE monitoring team nevertheless continues to engage in bilateral discussions with the sides, encouraging them to meet, and also regularly patrols the area on both sides of the “contact line”, all aimed at reducing local tensions and ceasefire violations.”
Protecting the rights of a minority group
“In addition to monitoring, the OSCE SMM is dedicated to ensuring that human rights are protected, particularly those of internally displaced persons (IDPs), minorities and persons belonging to both groups.
In a city in our area of responsibility near Kramatorsk, we received a complaint from Roma IDPs. They said that they were being asked to pay a fee of a few hundred Ukrainian hryvnias to certain police officers. We spoke with the Roma, their representatives and the police. Shortly thereafter, the police chief reimbursed the money and personally apologized to the Roma. Furthermore, the police officers concerned were reprimanded and transferred to another area of responsibility.
Perhaps in the end our success will be measured by the way we could make a difference, in cases like these, one small step at a time.”