IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service on Meskhetians and Dukhobors in Georgia
Reply-To: [email protected]
Sender: [email protected]
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2001 18:29:55 +0200 (EET)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Subject: IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service on Meskhetians and Dukhobors in Georgia
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Institute for War & Peace Reporting <[email protected]>
IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service on Meskhetians and
Dukhobors in Georgia
WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 106, November 20,
2001
ARMENIA: ECONOMIC DIVISION WIDENS The poor get poorer and the richer
get richer in Armenia's corruption-ridden society. By Peter Magdashian
in Yerevan
GEORGIA: NATO HOPES ON HOLD Tbilisi now accepts that membership of
the Western military alliance is a long way off. By Dursun Dzlieradze
in Tbilisi
GEORGIA: UNWANTED MESKHETIANS Deported from southern Georgia by
Stalin, Meskhetian Turks are finding it hard to return to their
homeland. By Zaza Baazov in Tbilisi
GEORGIA: DUKHOBOR TRIBULATIONS Persecuted by the Soviets, hounded by
nationalists, Georgia's Dukhobor community are now falling victim to
ethnic Armenian separatists. By Dursun Kamikadze in Tbilisi
********** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net **************
EDITOR'S NOTE - In light of the Afghan conflict, IWPR will be
archiving any relevant articles from all our services:
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?intcrisis_index.html
A Crisis Reporting Network site features reports by IWPR and its
partners:
http://www.crisisreport.org
We also strongly urge readers to subscribe to IWPR's Balkan Crisis
Report, Reporting Central Asia and Tribunal Update:
http://www.mystery.com/ml/iwpr.html
OPPORTUNITY TO JOIN OUR TEAM - IWPR requires a Fundraising & Grants
Manager to meet the needs of its projects across 18 countries and
territories in the Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia. For full
details visit:
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?top_opportunities.html, or send a resume
to Lloyd Donaldson: [email protected]
********** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net
******************************
...............
GEORGIA: UNWANTED MESKHETIANS
Deported from southern Georgia by Stalin, Meskhetian Turks are finding
it hard to return to their homeland.
By Zaza Baazov in Tbilisi
Fearful of provoking ethnic tensions, the authorities in Tbilisi are
hindering the repatriation of Meskhetian Turks to the south of the
country.
Ethnic Armenians, who constitute 90 per cent of the population in the
Djavakheti region, oppose the return of this group, deported by Stalin
back in 1944 to remote parts of Central Asia.
Repatriation of Meskhetians was one of the stipulations laid down by
the Council of Europe when Georgia joined the organisation in 1999.
Over the last few years, separatist Armenians have stepped up their
calls for Djavakheti's secession and the last thing they want is the
appearance of tens of thousands of Meskhetian Turks.
Melik Raisian, an ethnic Armenian deputy from the region, said any
talk of the Meskhetians' return was unrealistic. He said they have
nowhere to return to and that any attempt to bring them back would be
a "catalyst for confrontation".
Georgian nationalists are also against repatriation - unhappy at the
extra economic burden the move will incur. Many say Georgia already
has enough on its plate coping with a third of a million refugees from
the Abkhazia civil war in the early Nineties.
But it is the fear of sparking ethnic conflict which is the main
reason why the government is stalling on repatriation.
Legislation has been held up in parliament and a bureaucratic
minefield set up for Meskhetians attempting to take up the right to
live and work in Georgia.
The Council of Europe insisted that legislation facilitating the
community's return should have been in place by July this year - and
that thirty thousand or so Meskhetians, who've expressed a desire to
come back, should be able to do so within the next ten years.
The council has threatened to impose sanctions on Tbilisi if it
continues to resist its requests.
The Meskhetian community numbered about 100,000 when they were
forcibly deported in just three days in late 1944 by Stalin's henchman
Lavrenti Beria, on the grounds they were all potential Turkish spies.
Their exile to remote areas of Central Asia continued despite the
break-up of the Soviet Union. Growing independence and nationalist
movements worsened the situation for many for the community.
The worst incident occurred back in 1989 when there was a massacre of
Meskhetians in the Fergana valley region of Uzbekistan. Other groups
in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar have fallen victim to
pogroms over the years.
In the late Eighties, a few hundred were allowed to return to Georgia
but hardly encouraged to start a new life. They were given no
financial assistance or citizenship and were accommodated in temporary
lodgings where many bearly eke out a living.
They became victims again when nationalist ideology came to the fore
under the presidency of Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the early Nineties.
Returnees were trucked to the border with Turkey. A slogan of the day
went "Not a single Turk on Georgian territory!"
"Today the Meskhetians are one of the last of the deported people with
no right to return to their homeland," stated a fact-finding mission
of the EU organistation, the Federal Union of European Nationalities,
in 1998.
Iasin Khasanov and his wife who live in an old hostel in Tbilisi were
two of those allowed to return to the country. They fled the Fergana
massacres but are still waiting for their son and grandson - currently
in Azerbaijan - to join them. The latter are unable to get passports
or working permits.
President Shevardnadze's government has been plagued by separatism
over his nine years in office and is naturally keen to avoid seeing
another region seek autonomy or independence.
There seems little hope of a solution to the problem. If Shevardnadze
is actively seen to assist the return of the Meskhetians he will anger
Armenian and Georgian nationalists. If he fails to accelerate the
process he will be penalised by the Council of Europe.
The Meskhetians, meanwhile, remain a pariah group wherever they
happens to be.
Zaza Baazov is a freelance journalist based in Tbilisi
GEORGIA: DUKHOBOR TRIBULATIONS
Persecuted by the Soviets, hounded by nationalists, Georgia's Dukhobor
community are now falling victim to ethnic Armenian separatists.
By Dursun Kamikadze in Tbilisi
Driving to the village of Gorelova in southern Georgia is a strange
experience. As you negotiate the pot-holed roads that wind awkwardly
up to this desolate plateau everything seems to change.
The weather turns to wind and rain, the villages into toy-town sets.
White and blue houses, fussed over streets and yards. It's another
world.
All the more so when you discover that village leaders on this
weather-beaten plateau in the Djavakheti region are women. In
Georgia's male-dominated society, the idea of the fairer-sex exerting
such authority is considered something close to heresy.
But time is running out for this unusual community. As ethnic tensions
escalate in the southern Georgian province of Djavakheti, the
Dukhobor, ethnic-Russians whose numbers have dwindled from tens of
thousands in the middle of the last century to just a few hundred,
are coming under increasing pressure to leave.
Armenian groups lobbying for the autonomy of the area which borders on
Armenia are keen to get rid of non-Armenian ethnic groups. For the
Dukhobors this is not the first time they have found themselves
victims of local ostracism.
Russian Quakers, their stand against Russian Orthodox beliefs led to
their forced resettlement in the Caucasus in the 1830s. They endured
religious persecution during the Soviet years. Then came the
nationalist hysteria of the early 1990s under President Zviad
Gamsakhurdia, when many non-Georgians left because of a deep sense of
insecurity and vulnerability.
"Some said that clashes between Armenian and Georgians would start
up," said Lyubov Deminova, a resident of Gorelovka. " We were in the
middle and stood to suffer the most."
When the exodus began, Georgian and Armenian organsations bought up
Dukhobor properties. "The auction was a vile and disgusting symbol of
our times," recalled one elderly Dukhobor.
But the new Georgian owners found the conditions here too harsh and
soon left. Armenians stayed in some of the houses, using others for
construction materials, and letting many go to rack and ruin.
As a result, the villages soon changed character. The blue and white
houses, with their turf rooves, storks for every chimney pot and yards
surrounded by blossoming ash bushes, soon turned derelict.
Dukhobors who remain feel alienated and intimidated by their Armenian
neighbours. " They want us to speak Armenian, but they have little
interest in speaking to us, and sometimes simply just tell us to 'get
lost!'" complained one villager.
More and more follow this advice. Many head for Russia, leaving what
they call their "native land".
The problem will likely get worse as Armenian separatist activity
fuelled by Yerevan increases. Right-wingers there are backing local
Armenian groups, like Javakhk, which is demanding autonomy for their
community. The latter are stirring up resentment against the Dukhobors
- although they deny they have anything to with the exodus of the
group, blaming Georgians instead.
Whatever the case, no one is trying to prevent the community from
leaving. Georgia's model matriarchy might not have that long to live.
Dursun Kamikadze is a freelance journalist based in Tbilisi
********** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net **************
IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service provides the regional and
international community with unique insiders' perspective on the
Caucasus. Using our network of local journalists, the service
publishes objective news and analysis from across the region on a
weekly basis.
The service forms part of IWPR's Caucasus Project which supports local
media development while encouraging better local and international
understanding of the region.
IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service is supported by the Regional Media
Fund of the Open Society Institute. The service is currently available
on the Web in English and in Russian. All IWPR's reporting services
including Balkan Crisis Reports, Reporting Central Asia and Tribunal
Update are available free of charge via e-mail subscription or direct
from the Web.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit Web page:
http://www.mystery.com/ml/iwpr.html
For further details on this project and other information services and
media programmes, visit IWPR's Website: <www.iwpr.net>
Editor-in-chief: Anthony Borden. Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan;
Assistant Editor: Philip O'Neil; Commissioning Editor: Marina Rennau
in Tbilisi; Associate Editors: Ara Tadevosian in Yerevan, Shahin
Rzayev in Baku and Zarina Kanukova in Nalchik. Editorial assistance:
Mirna Jancic and Heather Milner. To comment on this service, contact
IWPR's Programme Director: Alan Davis [email protected]
The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) is a London-based
independent non-profit organisation supporting regional media and
democratic change.
Lancaster House, 33 Islington High Street, London N1 9LH, United
Kingdom. Tel: (44 207) 713 7130; Fax: (44 207) 713 7140. E-mail:
[email protected]; Web: www.iwpr.net
The opinions expressed in IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service are those
of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the
publication or of IWPR.
Copyright (c) IWPR 2001
********** VISIT IWPR ON-LINE: www.iwpr.net **************
--
==============================================================
MINELRES - a forum for discussion on minorities in Central&Eastern
Europe
Submissions: [email protected]
Subscription/inquiries: [email protected]
List archive: http://www.riga.lv/minelres/archive.htm
==============================================================