OMON

File:Omon-logo.jpg

The OMON insignia ("Tiger" unit)

OMON (Russian: Отряд милиции особого назначения; Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya, Special Purpose Police Squad) is a generic name for the system of special units of militsiya (police) within the Russian and earlier the Soviet MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs). As of 2008, there is an OMON unit in every oblast of Russia, as well as in many major cities; for example, there is an OMON unit within the Moscow City police department, and a separate unit within Moscow Oblast police department. Their motto is "We know no mercy and do not ask for any." OMON also continues to exist in Belarus and some other countries following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

History

OMON in Saint Petersburg

OMON originated in 1979, when the first group was founded in preparation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, to ensure that there were no terrorist attacks like the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Subsequently, the unit was utilized in emergencies such as high-risk arrests, hostage crises, as well as in response to acts of terrorism.

The OMON system itself is the successor of that group and was founded in 1987, with the commando duties largely taken over by the SOBR (dangerous ciminals) and Vityaz (counter-terrorism) units of the MVD. The OMON units were initially used as the riot police used to control and stop demonstrations and hooliganism, as well as other emergency situations, but later became accustomed to a wider range of police operations, including cordon and street patrol actions, and even paramilitary and military-style operations.

High-profile operations

• On January 20, 1991, the Riga OMON attacked Latvia's Interior Ministry, killing six people during the January 1991 events in Latvia (following the republic's declaration of independence). Seven OMON members were subsequently found guilty by the Riga District Court and received suspended sentences.

• A series of hit-and-run attacks on border outposts of the newly-independent Republic of Lithuania during the January-July of 1991, resulting in several summary execution-style deaths of the unarmed customs officers, were attributed to OMON. Some sources say that the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had lost control of the unit. Lithuanian government continues to demand that the persons suspected in these incidents should be tried in Lithuania.

• Violent and often armed clashes between the Georgian SSR's OMON and the opponents of the Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia prior to the Georgian Civil War of 1991-1993.

• The April-May 1991 Operation Ring by the Azeri SSR OMON and the Soviet Army against the Armenian irregular units in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, resulting in a number of people being killed and the thousands of displaced Armenians.

• Defence of the villagers of Khojaly by the post-Soviet Azeri OMON members and volunteers against the Armenian insurgents and the Russian Army forces prior and during the Khojaly massacre on February 25 1992. Most of the group died during the ensuing massacre in which several hundred of Azeri civilians died.

• The Moscow OMON and units brought from the other cities took part in the events of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, during which they behaved brutally, beating up unresisting people including members of the Supreme Soviet of Russia.

• Cordon duties during the Russia's mass hostage crises, including the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis and the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis.

OMON cordon during a Dissenters March in April 2007

• Breaking up of several opposition rallies (including Dissenters' Marches since 2006), sparking reports of police brutality, including excessive use of force and arbitrary detention of participants. In November 2007, the brutal actions of OMON militsya against peaceful demonstrators and arrests of opposition figures were harshly criticised by the European Union institutions and governments.

• In June 2007, OMON failed to protect the gay rights activists, including the European Parliament members, from hate violence in Moscow, detaining the activists instead of the attackers. This is because they were instructed to do so, as the mayor of Moscow did not allow the parade to take place.

In Chechnya

The force was active in the First Chechen War where the unit was used as light infantry and in the notorious zachistka "mopping-up" operations. In February 1996, a group of 37 officers of the Novosibirsk OMON were captured by the Chechen militants during the Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis and 17 of them were later swapped for the Chechen fighters captured in the same incident. In August 1996, group of 30 Chechen OMON members were reportedly captured and executed in Grozny, the Chechen capital, during the battle for the city.

OMON is active in the Second Chechen War. Almost every Russian city sends, on a regular basis, small units of police (often composed of OMON members) for tours of duty in Chechnya lasting several months, while the Chechen Republic also formed its own OMON detachment. The force sustained heavy losses in the second conflict as well, including from the March 2000 ambush which killed more than 30 OMON servicemen from Perm (including nine captured and executed), the July 2000 suicide bombing which inflicted more than 100 casualties at the OMON base in Argun, and the April 2002 attack which killed 21 Chechen OMON troopers in central Grozny.

Control and discipline is questionable in Chechnya, where the members of the group were noted to engage in or fall victim of several deadly friendly fire and fratricide incidents. In the bloodiest incident, at least 24 Russian OMON officers were killed and more than 30 wounded when two units (from Moscow and Sergiyev Posad) fired on each other in Grozny on March 2, 2000. Among other incidents, several Chechen OMON servicemen were abducted and executed in Grozny by the Russian military servicemen in November 2000, members of the Chechen OMON clashed with the Ingush police on the Chechen-Ingush border resulting in eight fatalities and about 20 injuries in September 2006, and the Chechen OMON clashed with a group of Chechen GRU commandos following a standoff in Grozny, resulting in five dead and several wounded in 2007.

In the course of the Chechen conflict the OMON was accused of severe human rights abuses, including abducting, torturing and killing civilians. As of 2000, the bulk of war crimes recorded by international organisations in Chechnya appeared to have been committed by the OMON. An OMON detachment from Moscow region took part in the April 1995 rampage in the village of Samashki, during which up to 300 civilians were reportedly killed in the result of a "cleansing operation" conducted there by the MVD forces. Two Russian OMON units (from St. Petersburg and Ryazan) were also linked with the Novye Aldi massacre in which at least 60 civilians were robbed and then killed by the Russian forces entering Grozny in February 2000. In 1999 a group of OMON members shot dead around 40 refugees near Grozny.

In April 2006, the European Court of Human Rights found Russia guilty of the forced disappearance of Shakhid Baysayev, a Chechen man who had gone missing after being detained in a March 2000 security sweep by the Russian OMON in Grozny. In 2007, the Khanty-Mansi OMON officer Sergei Lapin was sentenced for kidnapping and torture of a Chechen man in Grozny in 2001, with the Grozny court criticising the conduct of the OMON serving in Chechnya in broader terms. In an event related to Chechnya, several OMON officers were accused of starting the May 2007 wave of the ethnic violence in Stavropol by assisting in the racist murder of a local Chechen man.

Before and early during the Chechen wars, there were also OMON formations belonging the Interior Ministry of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (Chechnya's separatist government).

OMON in Russia

OMON personnel in Red Square, Moscow

Information from different sources suggests that there were between 5,500 and 9,000 OMON members stationed at population centers and transportation hubs around the country in the 1990s, yet by 2007 this number officially rose to about 20,000 nationwide. Members receive a comparatively small salary of about $700 per month in Moscow (regional units offer less). Most members retire at the age of approximately 45 years, and receive practically no financial aid from the state afterwards. They are also sometimes not paid for their service (in 2001, for example, some 50 OMON members from Moscow filed the lawsuit claiming they were not paid for one month of combat operations in Chechnya). Due to the use of OMON members in high risk situations, especially in Chechnya, the group often loses members in combat.

Members of OMON are supposed to be extremely fit and experts in small arms and hand-to-hand combat. Males between the ages of 22 and 30 who have completed their two-year military service can apply to join OMON (the application includes medical and psychological tests, and tests of speed and fitness). The initial training lasts for four months. The applicants are extensively trained in the use of different weaponry and close combat, and are also trained to follow orders at any cost. Special emphasis is put on urban combat and the entering and clearing of buildings. The training also includes legal training. The application procedure closes with a final test, where the applicant has to fight three to five trained members of OMON by hand wearing boxing gloves. Fewer than one in five applicants pass and are selected to join.

The OMON groups use a wide range of weapons, including but not limited to AK-74 assault rifle, AKS-74U carbine assault rifle, 9A-91 compact assault rifle, and PP-19 Bizon submachine gun. OMON units during a combat operations may also use other weaponry typical for the Russian light infantry (the OMON troops in Chechnya were sometimes called "OMON soldiers" in the reports, especially in the so-called active phases of the conflict), such as the PK machine gun, the GP-25 underbarrel grenade launcher for AK-74 or the GM-94 pump-action grenade launcher, and the Dragunov and Vintorez sniper rifles.

OMON vehicles include specially-equipped vans, buses and trucks of various types, as well as limited number of armoured personnel carriers (BTR-60, BTR-70 and BTR-80). OMON's headgear remains a black beret (they are thus sometimes called "Black Berets") although otherwise there were significant changes in uniform and insignia. The group members often use the blue urban camouflage uniforms and black face masks while on duty, and various Russian Army and Internal Troops uniforms while in Chechnya. OMON of the Chechen Republic also frequently wear American-made military uniforms (similar to these used by the separatist fighters).

See also

• Rus - A counter-terrorist and emergency situations unit of the Russian MVD
• SOBR - A system of the Russian MVD special units specializing in combating organized crime
• SWAT - The American model for the initial OMON squads
• Vityaz - Another counter-terrorist unit of the Russian MVD
• ZOMO - Former special police units in the People's Republic of Poland

External links

• Unofficial OMON webpage