MINELRES: Caucasus Reporting Service No. 225: excerpts

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WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 225, April 01, 2004.

CAUCASUS NEWS UPDATE APRIL 1, 2004

GEORGIA: AZERBAIJANIS OPT FOR SAAKASHVILI
The Azerbaijani community in Kvemo Kartli was fiercely pro-Shevardnadze
once, but loyalties change fast.
By Tea Lobzhanidze in Kvemo Kartli

RACE AGAINST TIME FOR CIRCASSIAN IN TURKEY
Can the North Caucasian diaspora in Turkey grasp an opportunity to
revive their historic languages?
By Zeynel Besler in Istanbul

LANDMINE THREAT HAUNTS AZERBAIJAN
Almost ten years after the end of the Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan is
still struggling to combat the landmine scourge. 
By Zarema Velikhanova in Baku

GEORGIA: SAAKASHVILLI POLL LANDSLIDE
Election gives Saakashvili control and leaves Ajarian leader out in the
cold.
By Margarita Akhvlediani in Batumi and Tbilisi

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...................

GEORGIA: AZERBAIJANIS OPT FOR SAAKASHVILI

The Azerbaijani community in Kvemo Kartli was fiercely pro-Shevardnadze
once, but loyalties change fast.

By Tea Lobzhanidze in Kvemo Kartli 

Ethnic-Azerbaijanis in Georgia's Kvemo Kartli region, once a stronghold
of Eduard Shevardnadze, flocked to the new, revolutionary powers in
Tbilisi in recent parliamentary elections - but from expediency as much
as choice.

After loyalty to Shevardnadze through most of the 1990s, the large
Azerbaijani community would not appear to be a natural supporter of
Mikhail Saakashvili. The American-trained lawyer overthrew the former
longtime communist boss and Soviet foreign minister in a peaceful
revolution in November and was elected president in January.

But in parliamentary elections on March 28, 76 per cent of votes cast in
Kvemo Kartli were for Saakashvili's National Movement-Democrats. The
level of support in the southeastern province was even higher than the
landslide figure nationally of 67 per cent.

Azerbaijanis say the abrupt shift in loyalty reflects the delicate
relationship between Georgia's largest ethnic minority and the central
authorities. In Kvemo Kartli, the 223,000 Azerbaijanis are the main
group, accounting for 45 per cent of the population, which, in addition
to Georgians, includes Russians, Armenians and others. Most Azerbaijanis
there are unable to speak Georgian.

"The government has the power and Azerbaijanis know that if they don't
support it they will not be trusted and therefore, in the end, lose out.
So we have no other choice," Kamandar Ismailov, deputy administration
head in the town of Marneuli, told IWPR. "We supported Shevardnadze. We
are afraid that the opposition often changes its opinion. It can use us,
then simply forget about us."

In the past, such loyalty was in part ensured by the vote rigging so
prevalent across Georgia. In the most recent elections, there were also
reports of numerous, though not systematic irregularities. The chairman
of the Central Electoral Commission, Zurab Tchiaberashvili, spoke of
"alarming" incidents.

Another factor swinging the vote has been a series of well-timed moves
by Saakashvili, for whom uniting this fractured country is a chief goal,
including his visit to Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliev in Baku in
March. Saakashvili has also turned on the charm, telling Georgia's
approximately 285,000 Azerbaijanis they are a "national treasure".

Azerbaijani representatives say that in any case their community, as an
ethnic minority, has little option other than backing the will of the
majority.

But the culture of almost automatic allegiance to those in power has
been particularly tested in recent months.

For several years, the local governor was Levan Mamaladze, a key
Shevardnadze ally. In any kind of poll he could count on almost
unanimous support, while public protests were unheard of. But Mamaladze
was ejected after Saakashvili's rise and, in the face of a corruption
investigation opened in December, fled the country. He is now on
Interpol's wanted list.

"We were very frightened when the revolution happened. Everyone said
then that Georgia's new authorities would put the non-Georgian
population under a strong pressure," Rafik Gajiev, member of the
non-government organisation Geirati, which represents ethnic minorities
of Kvemo Kartli, told IWPR.

"No one has ever tried to find out whether Mamaladze was corrupted or
not. We lived in peace, worked and supported our families. Mamaladze
treated us with respect, often we addressed him with requests and he
always responded with understanding," Gajiev said.

Between September and December of 2003, the governor was Zurab
Kobiashvili, before he too was removed. In his place came a National
Movement party member,  32-year-old Zurab Melikishvili, though this time
only for two months.

Since February, the post has been filled by Soso Mazmishvili, just 30
and an active member of the National Movement.

Despite early wariness, he and his new region have begun to warm to each
other. "I declare my absolute trust in you and will see that each of you
have your rights protected," he told a community meeting soon after
taking office.

Ismailov said that although Mazmishvili had little to show for his rule
so far, he was part of Saakashvili's team and therefore "we support him
all the same".

Gajiev credited the latest governor with improving gas and electricity
supplies and said, "We'll give him time."

"The country has a government again, and that's the most important
thing," he went on. "We Azerbaijanians have a special respect for
stability." 

Mazmishvili says one priority is to help overcome the language barrier:
90 per cent of Azerbaijanis in the region do not speak Georgian.

He has also vowed to end what he described as crooked land deals under
which a few dozen Azerbaijanis ended up with farms of 100 to 700
hectares on which they used large numbers of barely paid Azerbaijani
workers. The landowners then depended on the local authorities and the
hired hands on their bosses.

The authorities "clung to us and we clung to them", said Ali, a
small-scale farmer from Gardabani, who asked for his last name not to be
used and, like most Azerbaijanis here, was reluctant to discuss the
controversy.

Tea Lobzhanidze is a correspondent for IWPR's Caucasus newspaper,
Panorama.


RACE AGAINST TIME FOR CIRCASSIAN IN TURKEY

Can the North Caucasian diaspora in Turkey grasp an opportunity to
revive their historic languages?

By Zeynel Besler in Istanbul 

New legislation in Turkey is opening the way for a possible renaissance
of the Circassian and Abkhaz languages, spoken by the descendants of
exiles from the North Caucasus. But leading members of the diaspora
community fear that it may be too late to revive widespread use of their
mother tongues.

As Turkey pursues membership of the European Union, new regulations came
into force last November allowing for long neglected minority languages,
such as Kurdish, Circassian, Abkhaz and Laz, to be taught in private
institutions. Teaching of all of them had been banned since the
foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923.

In fact, many associations of Circassians and Abkhaz (in Turkey they are
all generally called "Cerkez" - Cherkess or Circassian) had already been
running language courses without official permission and were tolerated
by the authorities. 

The problem was these courses were of poor quality and usually taken by
untrained teacher. This reflects, says Arslan Toughuj, a young
Circassian student, a wider lack of commitment to these languages, "
Despite the restrictions in the law, we were not really subject to the
level of linguistic oppression that the Kurds were. We already had these
language courses. But within a few weeks of one of them opening only a
handful of pupils could be bothered to turn up!  

"These classes spectacularly failed to capture the interest of the
ordinary people. We ourselves have been indifferent to our language. I
do not understand all the fuss created around the change in the law."

Another innovation permits the broadcast of programmes in minority
languages on television and radio, so long as Turkish translation or
subtitles were provided. This was approved in December by the Radio and
Television High Commission, the independent state body that regulates
broadcasting on radio and television. 

But large sections of public opinion greeted the reforms with suspicion.
The liberal daily newspaper, Vatan, ran the headline "Circassian
language and cultural demands", with a large exclamation mark next to
it. However, the same week, the paper published a number of interviews
with leading Turkish cinema actors and actresses of Circassian origin,
such as Turkan Soray, Esref Kolcak and Ediz Hun, none of whom had
previously identified themselves in public as being Circassian.

Turkey has a large North Caucasian diaspora that stems from the Russian
conquest of the North Caucasus in 1864. An estimated one million
Circassians, 150 thousand Abkhazians and smaller numbers of Ossetians,
Chechens, Karachais, Balkars and Dagestanis were forced to leave their
homeland and settled in various parts of the then Ottoman Empire,
founding nearly a thousand ethnic enclaves in the heartland of Turkey.

Some diaspora organisations claim there are between five and seven
million people of North Caucasian descent living in Turkey, but a much
more realistic figure is around two to two and a half million.

The Cherkess always had a reputation for being a highly influential
diaspora group, loyal to the Turkish state and holding high office in
the civil service, army and security services.

However, mass migration from the countryside to the cities in the 1960s
and 70s also deprived a new generation of knowledge of their historical
languages.

Intellectuals and linguists are now sounding alarm bells and saying
that, if no effort is made, knowledge of these languages could be
extinct in 50 years' time. Well-known Turkish liberal journalist and
political analyst, Cengiz Candar, commented that "[the Cherkess']
attempts to revive their culture and languages are acts of rightful
resistance to the historical injustices meted out on them".

However, nationalist commentators on both Left and Right see the
campaign of cultural liberalisation as a threat to Turkish statehood.
Emin Colasan, a columnist in the mass circulation daily paper Hurriyet,
said that the Cherkess were loyal citizens but their aspirations were
being exploited by "proponents of the EU" and "agent provocateurs". 

The Circassians and Abkhaz have more practical issues to worry about,
given that actual usage of their languages has declined precipitately. A
pressing problem is what script a written form of these languages should
be written in. In their homelands, both languages have been written in
the Cyrillic script since the late 1930s and almost no one in the
diaspora, bar a few thousand educated activists, understands it. 

Many foreign scholars of Caucasian languages like George Hewitt,
professor of Caucasian languages at the School of Oriental and African
Studies at the University of London, question the wisdom of using the
Cyrillic alphabet at all, saying the Latin script is better suited both
to the complex sound systems of the languages, and compatible with most
modern computer keyboards.

However, there is virtually no published literature in the Latin script
in Circassian and Abkhaz and almost no teachers familiar with it.
Professor Muhadin Kumakhov, a well-known Moscow-based Circassian
linguist, has voiced fears that adoption of the Latin script would drive
the North Caucasian and diaspora communities even further apart.

Very few Turkish Circassians have gone back permanently to their
historic homeland. One who has is Ibrahim Chetaw, a Circassian from
Turkey who settled in the North Caucasian republic of Adygeia. He warns
that this may be a last chance to pass on the historical language to the
next generation.

"If we cannot organise proper language courses with trained teachers and
modern teaching materials this time too, we will give our children the
impression that our languages cannot really be taught," Ibrahim said.
"By doing so we will have wasted yet another historical opportunity for
the survival of our language and culture in the Diaspora."

Zeynel A. Besler is a research student at the School of Slavonic and
East European Studies, University of London.

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ISSN: 1477-7959 Copyright (c) 2004 The Institute for War & Peace
Reporting 

CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE No. 225