Reply #31: They did it in Russia... [View All]

[Karenina]

http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/specials/women/world/world022400.html

Russia's powerhouses of dissent: mothers

# The Soldiers' Mothers Committee takes on the military in ways others can't

Judith Matloff
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
MOSCOW | published 02.24.00


For five months, five days a week, Yelena Makarova telephoned the Ministry of Defense hotline seeking news of her nephew Andrei. She suspected the boy was missing in action in Chechnya. Each time, the reply was polite, but noncommittal. "We don't have any information," she was told.

Finally, Mrs. Makarova followed the path of thousands of Russian women before her. She contacted the Soldiers' Mothers Committee, a national group that boldly challenges, scolds, and cajoles Russia's male-dominated military bureaucracy into helping families find information about sons or relatives.

True to form, within a few hours, a committee member had located the youth. He was alive. And yes, he was in Chechnya.