Soviet prisoners end up on Swiss farm

Press, 14 December 1982, Page 24

Soviet prisoners end up on Swiss farm

From ‘The Economist,’ London

One of the cheerier corners of international politics in the • 1980 s is the fact that, if you are a Soviet conscript, you may unexpectedly find yourself living on a Swiss farm. Seven Soviet soldiers captured by the guerrillas in Afghanistan are now guests of the Swiss Government The latest two arrived early this month; several more are expected to join them before long. It took a lot of negotiation by the International Red Cross to get both the Afghans and the Soviet Government to agree to having the prisoners handed over for interment in Switzerland. The Red Cross first suggested that India should take them; the Afghans objected. Then Pakistan was thought of; the Russians did not agree. The Red Cross fell back on Switzerland.

But the supply of snags was not exhausted, the Swiss Federal Government has no prisons of its own so it asked the canton of Bern to take the young men. The request was: prevent them from escaping, keep them busy, but do not treat them like ordinary prisoners. The guards at the low-secur-ity prison of St-Jean in Cernier did their best They took their charges cycling in the Jura hills and one day escorted them ’ to a horse fair. The thoroughly bewildered prisoners then understandably objected to being locked up at night. Three set up a rumpus and one tried to escape. He has since been heard to say that when he returns to Russia he intends to leave a hundred grieving “widows” and a hun-

dred little Yuris behind him. The Bernese returned the prisoners to the Federal Government.

. They were then sent to the army disciplinary barracks on the Zugerberg in central Switzerland — the first time most Swiss bad ever heard of such an establishment. At their new home there are no barbed-wire fences, no watchtowers, only an isolated farm on which the prisoners work, subject to military discipline, under the orders of one of the Swiss army’s few professional non-commissioned officers.

They are visited regularly by a Red Cross delegate and Soviet consular official. The Soviet embassy has also put a part-time interpreter at their disposal, but there is little difficulty on that score: a cow is very much the same every- - where.