MINELRES: Caucasus Reporting Service: Armenia: Yezidi minority loses land

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WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 140, August 1st,
2002.

CAUCASUS NEWS UPDATE AUGUST 1

CHECHNYA: IS KREMLIN PREPARING TO NEGOTIATE? President Vladimir Putin
may be manoeuvring to sideline the military and lay the ground for
negotiations with Chechen rebels. By Sanobar Shermatova in Moscow

PEACETIME DEATHS ROW IN AZERBAIJAN The Azerbaijani army is accused of
criminal negligence as many young conscripts die of heatstroke. By
Mamed Suleimanov in Baku

GEORGIAN VILLAGERS HAGGLE WITH OIL GIANT As the start date for the
Baku-Ceyhan pipeline nears, villagers along the route are asking what
they will get out of it. By Giorgy Kupatadze in Nazarlo

ARMENIA: YEZIDIS LOSING THEIR LAND Villagers from Armenia's largest
minority community have lost their grazing pastures and are being
forced to leave. By Zhanna Aleksanian in Zovuni

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ARMENIA: YEZIDIS LOSING THEIR LAND

Villagers from Armenia's largest minority community have lost their
grazing pastures and are being forced to leave.

By Zhanna Aleksanian in Zovuni

Yezidi Kurds have lived in the village of Zovuni in the Kotaik region
of central Armenia since 1915. But many of them will not stay much
longer.

"Armenia is our home, our motherland," said Aziz Tamoyan, chairman of
the National Union of Yezidis. "The graves of our departed are here.
How can we leave all this?"

Officially, there are 60,000 Yezidis in Armenia, making them the
country's largest minority group. They are non-Muslim Kurds, many of
whom have lived in the region since the Russo-Turkish wars of the 19th
century. Others left Turkey together with the mass flight of Armenians
in 1915. Tamoyan estimates the real population figure may have dropped
to 30,000.

The community has no representation in the presidential apparatus or
parliament. They have no schools, special classes in Armenian schools
or textbooks. The last teacher of the Yezidi Kurdish language in
Zovuni died recently.

In Zovuni, the Kurds live peacefully alongside Armenian families. Many
of them are godparents to each other's children. They are always
invited to each other's weddings. The Yezidis have no complaints
against Armenians - only against the latter's bureaucrats.

"We are informing you that if our pastures are not returned to us, we
will say 'Take our houses, take our cattle, we are leaving Armenia,'"
reads an open letter with thousands of signatures, sent to the
president, prime minister and parliament of Armenia. "We cannot live
like this any more and we leave our fate to the will of God."

The Yezidis complain that recent land reforms have cheated them of the
mountain pastures, where they grazed their cattle and therefore of the
main means of feeding their families.

The problem arose last year when the Armenian government decided,
under its privatisation programme, to put up for auction plots of land
under the control of the Kotaik district. As a result, 25 Yezidi
families lost their pastures and many of them sold their cattle.

The president's adviser on national minorities Razmik Davoyan said,
"These are not the time-honoured lands of the Yezidis and therefore
they were put up for auction. However, the only people who lost their
lands were those who did not put in their applications in on time or
whose applications did not meet the right requirements."

Yezidi village elder Serzhik Avetisian said that local people knew
nothing about the auction until it was actually held. "No one came to
the village and told us anything," he said. "It's true there were
announcements in the papers, but no one in the village reads the
papers."

Majit Amarian was forced to sell 90 cattle from his herd, as he had
nowhere to graze them. The minority have been allowed to use the
pastures only to the end of this year. "I've been supporting a family
of 20 with these cattle," he said.

Tamoyan charges that the auction was politically motivated and its aim
was to drive the community out of Armenia.

Local people told how Lyuda Ohanesian, who acquired much of the Kotaik
land, visited the region with her relatives and threatened the
Yezidis, telling them to get out of Armenia. "Armenia belongs to the
Armenians and your place is on the other side of Mount Ararat,"
Ohanesian said, according to the shepherds.

They also say that they hear similar statements every day from others,
including the local authorities.

Outside Zovuni in the hamlet of Avo live around 1500 Yezidis. The
streets are not asphalted and there is water and mud everywhere. The
electricity power lines pass through this part of the village and you
hear their buzz wherever you go.

This part of the village has a terrible health record. 73-year-old Oro
Avdalian says that his wife, brother and sister-in-law have all died
from different diseases, while many of his 11 children and 60
grandchildren are sick. The authorities have promised to move the
community from this place several times, but nothing has happened.

The minority has great difficulty communicating its problems to the
outside world. The National Union of Yezidis puts out a newspaper
called "Yezdikhana," with a print-run of 1,000 copies, but it comes
out infrequently, when the publishers get hold of money. The Armenian
government gives the paper a yearly grant of one million drams (less
than 2000 US dollars.)

The arrival of a journalist created a huge stir in the village. People
said excitedly that the coming article would solve their problems. "If
people read about this on the Internet, people will come and help us,"
Tamoyan said. "The Internet will save us."

None of the Yezidis said there were any inter-communal tensions
between them and the Armeians. One of them, a young man by the name of
Tornik, just said sadly, "Why am I at fault because I was born a
Yezidi?"

Zhanna Alexanian is a journalist with Armenia Now, www.armenia.now.com

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