Rana Raj Rana

On December 14, RIA Novosti reported that the military commander of the North Caucasus Military District, Colonel General Gennady Troshev, had met with a representative of the International Committee for the Red Cross in the North Caucasus, Raj Rana.During this meeting, Rana was said to have "admitted that the representatives of its humanitarian mission did not make a distinction between the peaceful populace of Chechnya and the rebels."This, he added, had been "a mistake.""During the meeting," it was reported, General Troshev also expressed an interest "in the methods of work of the representatives of the Red Cross in the Chechen Republic and, in particular, in the question of to whom they provided aid."

To conclude, one can speculate as to the reasons behind this new crackdown by the FSB and the Russian military, but it is clear that it must inevitably endanger Chechen refugees, and especially children, as they confront a third harsh North Caucasus winter with many of them living in exposed tent camps.

Civil/Military: Multi-national and multi-agency response at major disasters: This article by Raj Rana, independent consultant and Project Advisor for the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University, is the first in a two-part series that examines the theme of multi-agency and multi-national response to natural disasters and armed conflicts.

Raj Rana, Emergency Operations Coordinator, Directorate of Operations, International Committee of the Red Cross