Rob Hornstra (1975) is a documentary photographer. Since he graduated he has worked predominantly on long-term projects, both at home and on the other side of the world. His work is characterised by a stylised rawness, with a large dose of intrinsic engagement. He has published three books on his own which, despite increasing print runs, sell out ever faster. He has been commissioned by international newspapers and magazines to produce documentary series. He has also taken part in numerous (solo) exhibitions in the Netherlands and abroad. In addition to his own work as a documentary maker, he is the founder and artistic director of FOTODOK – Space for Documentary Photography.
Arnold van Bruggen (1979) is a writer and filmmaker. With his journalistic production agency Prospektor he has written and filmed numerous stories. In 2001 he published his first major reportage about the presidential elections in Iran. In 2004, his first film ‘Amsterdam-Kosovo’, about the dilemmas of humanitarian aid was selected for the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Over the last few years Arnold has travelled to many corners of the earth, particularly Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Arnold believes in the power of a well-told story to connect people with worlds they don’t know themselves; from the Mennonite Church in Amsterdam and the uprising of Georgian prisoners of war on the island of Texel to daily life in the small, unknown country of Abkhazia. His articles reflect his personal engagement in and love for the tragic absurdity of the documentary stories he looks for.
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ARCHIVECONFLICT NORTH CAUCASUS
Weapon-handling instructions on the wall of a school in Sogratl, Dagestan.
Taimuraz Tsirigov does not expect peace between the Ossetians and Ingush to last.
After two devastating wars, Grozny, Chechnya, has been completely rebuilt with the help of billion-dollar subsidies from Russia.
Aligan Ganiev, 23, lost his sight and an arm in a bomb attack at a local restaurant.
From the Caucasus' impenetrable forests and mountains, Islamist rebels are engaged in a struggle for independence from Russia, with the goal of forming the “Caucasus Emirate.”
The conflict is not confined to the North Caucasus, however. In recent years, attacks on an airport, a theater and the metro in Moscow have resulted in dozens of civilian casualties.
After protests against the Vladimir Putin-Dmitri Medvedev leadership in Moscow in late 2011, the rebel leader Dokku Umarov announced that ordinary Russians would no longer be targeted. And since then, there have been no major terrorist attacks outside the North Caucasus.
In the Caucasus itself, however, the violence continues unabated.
According to the independent blog Caucasian Knot, in 2012 alone, about 600 people were killed in militant attacks and counterterrorism operations, and 500 were wounded. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in October that more than 300 were killed in the three previous months.
Human rights groups say the Russian government's response to the insurgency has often been brutal. In recent years, hundreds of primarily young men have been taken from their homes in the Caucasus region by security forces, according to the annual reports of Human Rights Watch on Russia.
Many are imprisoned after halfhearted trials; others simply disappear, according to Amnesty International’s briefing to the U.N. Committee against Torture.
During extensive counterterrorism operations, villages are sealed off, and men are arrested and taken away in unmarked vehicles. Local lawyers in cities like Nalchik and Khazvyurt showed us their filing cabinets and computers, filled with testimonials and evidence of beatings and torture in photos taken by the lawyers.
"On paper, human rights are well defined here," said a lawyer in Chechnya who represents many families of terrorism defendants. He would speak only on condition of anonymity because, he said, many of his colleagues have been murdered.
"But the moment you are up against a uniform and a gun, you can forget it."
Human rights organizations such as Memorial in Russia try to defend young men wrongly accused of having terrorist links. The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, is swamped with cases brought against the Russian government by families who say sons or fathers have been kidnapped by security forces.
Russia colonized the North Caucasus during the First Caucasian War between 1817 and 1864. One could argue that conflict was never fully resolved. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, no decade passed peacefully. And the situation has not improved in the 20 years since; if anything, it has worsened.
Russia is now fighting a renewed battle against a bloody insurgency to which it has yet to find an answer.
– Arnold van Bruggen, Special to CNN