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Stalin's Last Victims, Meskhetian Turks, Trickle Home To Georgia

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  • Stalin's Last Victims, Meskhetian Turks, Trickle Home To Georgia

    STALIN'S LAST VICTIMS, MESKHETIAN TURKS, TRICKLE HOME TO GEORGIA
    By Kenan Guluzade, Maia Tsiklauri

    Institute for War and Peace Reporting IWPR
    March 28, 2011

    Government prepares to admit Meskhetian Turks, though locals may not
    welcome their return.

    Nearly 60 years after Stalin deported them from Soviet Georgia, members
    of the Meskhetian Turkish community are on the brink of returning home.

    Georgia agreed to facilitate the minority's return when it joined
    the Council of Europe in 1999, but the necessary legislation was not
    enacted until 2007. (See (See Tbilisi Criticised Over Repatriation
    Requests on delays to the process.)

    The Meskhetians now have until the end of this year to receive
    "repatriate" status, which will put them on the fast track to acquiring
    citizenship and the other rights.

    Members of this Muslim group from what is now part of Samtse-Javakheti
    region of south-western Georgia generally call themselves Ahiska Turks,
    while Georgian officials describe them as Meskhetian Muslims.

    The Meskhetians were one of several ethnic groups, also including
    the Chechens, the Kalmyks, the Crimean Tatars and others, who were
    exiled en masse from the Caucasus region to Siberia or Central Asia
    during the Second World War, out of a paranoid concern that they
    might be less than loyal in case of invasion. In November 1944,
    all the Meskhetians were rounded up and despatched to Central Asia,
    with thousands dying en route in disease-ridden cattle trucks.

    Unlike most of the other groups, the Meskhetians were not allowed to
    go home after Stalin's death, but remained in Central Asia.

    In 1989, tens of thousands of them fled ethnic violence in Uzbekistan
    that targeted their community. Most ended up in Azerbaijan or southern
    Russia - much nearer home, but still not quite there. Around 10,000
    who lived in Russia's Krasnodar region were resettled in the United
    States following clashes with the local population, but the majority
    of exiles remained in limbo.

    Kamal Qahramanov's life story is one of repeated exile and relocation.

    Born near Georgia's border with Turkey in 1927, he was part of
    the deportations to Central Asia in 1944, where he lived until the
    1989 bloodshed in Uzbekistan. Fleeing the violence, he ended up in
    Azerbaijan, where he now lives in the village of Fatalikend in the
    Saatli region.

    Although he spent his childhood years there, Qahramanov cannot remember
    much about Georgia.

    "If possible I will return. But I know nothing about Georgia. They
    say there are mountains and forests there," he said. "If I go back,
    I will be a farmer like my forebears," Qahramanov said.

    Georgia's ministry for refugees stopped accepting applications from
    would-be repatriates at the start of January 2010, by which time
    there were about 8,800 people on the list, the vast majority of them
    currently resident in Azerbaijan.

    The ministry now has a special commission going through the
    applications, most of which contain errors or lack crucial supporting
    documents. Applicants will be given four months to correct these
    problems. Irakli Kokaia, who heads the ministerial department dealing
    with the repatriation process, said failure to do so would result in
    the application being shelved.

    Repatriate status will give the Meskhetians the right to take out
    Georgian citizenship, thus clearing the way to buying property and
    land, and to obtaining an education.

    This will free them of the bureaucratic obstacles that faced the small
    number of Meskhetians who moved to Georgia under their own steam in
    past years. Shamsaddin Sarvarov, chairman of Vatan, the Meskhetians'
    organisation in Azerbaijan, said he was in touch with around 40
    families who had done so.

    "They can't get registered [for residence], they aren't assigned
    housing, and they have problems getting their children educated,"
    he said, adding optimistically that "all these problems will be
    resolved soon".

    When it comes to those going through the formal repatriation process,
    Nugzar Tsiklauri, who chairs a parliamentary committee dealing with
    diaspora issues, said Georgia was hoping foreign donors would step
    in to help.

    Tsiklauri said he did not know where in Georgia the Meskhetians would
    be housed.

    This is a sensitive issue - much of the current population of
    Samtskhe-Javakheti consists of ethnic Armenians. Given the legacy of
    hostilities with both Turkey and Azerbaijan, the Armenians may not
    welcome the arrival of a Turkish-speaking group in their midst.

    Melsa Torosyan, chairman of Nor Akunk, an activist group in the town of
    Akhalkalaki, couched these concerns using careful language, suggesting
    that the region was simply too impoverished to accept incomers.

    "I agree that the mistakes of the past have to be corrected. But
    we mustn't make other mistakes," he said. "Our region doesn't have
    factories and the people don't have work, yet they want to bring in
    new arrivals."

    Torosyan argues that the authorities should ensure there is funding,
    work and an integration programme for the Meskhetians before settling
    them anywhere, and also prepare local residents so that they will
    accept them.

    "The repatriates will definitely have problems with the local
    population, of that I'm certain. It isn't just the ethnic factor
    - in fact that the least of the concerns," he said. "What's more
    important is how land is distributed. Alkhalkalaki residents don't
    have so much land that they can share it. Various problems may arise,
    and the locals will always seek to pin the causes of conflict on the
    newcomers. One can only guess where that will lead."

    Ethnic Georgians in the south of the country also expressed concerns
    about the plan.

    "Let them give work to locals first, and only then bring in others,
    whoever they might be," Temur Zazadze, a resident of Tmogvi in the
    Aspindze district, said. "There's so much unemployment that this is
    just going to increase the competition. There isn't enough land - I've
    got three sons and the land isn't sufficient to divide among them."

    Tsiklauri pointed out that the total number of settlers were really
    quite small, and they were people who were keen to be part of Georgia.

    "I think it's premature to say these people are going to have problems
    when they arrive. We're talking about 6,000 people in a country of
    five million," he said. "On top of that, these are people who -
    despite the decades that have passed since they were deported -
    have always pushed to return and regarded Georgia as their homeland."

    Maia Tsiklauri works for Liberali magazine in Georgia; Kenan Guluzade
    is editor of the analitika.az website in Azerbaijan.




    From: A. Papazian
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