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  • Language Rights Issue Fuel Discord In Georgia

    LANGUAGE RIGHTS ISSUE FUEL DISCORD IN GEORGIA
    Paul Rimple

    EurasiaNet, NY
    March 30 2006

    Discontent is rising within Georgia's Armenian community, the
    country's largest ethnic minority, driven by complaints concerning
    the central government's language policy, as well as perceptions
    of discrimination. The building tension between ethnic Armenians
    and Georgian government officials has been linked to recent rioting
    and violence.

    A March 9 altercation between ethnic Armenians and Svans in the Kvemo
    Kartli village of Tsalka led to the death of 24-year-old Gevork
    Gevorkian, an ethnic Armenian, and incited a mob to raid a local
    administrative building. Two days later, in response to Gevorkian's
    death, several hundred protestors in Akhalkalaki, a predominantly
    ethnic Armenian town in the neighboring region of Samtskhe-Javakheti,
    stormed the local branch of Tbilisi State University, a court building
    and the office of a Georgian Orthodox Church archbishop.

    Responding to the violence, Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze on March
    13 placed the blame on "serious forces, who [are] try[ing] to trigger
    destabilization in this region," the Civil Georgia web site reported.

    Some ethnic minorities in the region have a different interpretation.

    "The murder of the Armenian [Gevork Gevorkian] wasn't a political act,
    it was criminal," suggested Makhare Matsukov, an Akhalkalaki business
    leader and ethnic Greek. "But politics created the situation that
    exists in Tsalka and the situation here in Akhalkalaki."

    Local leaders say that protests are the only way they can get the
    central government to listen to their complaints. There is talk
    of boycotting local elections in October if no progress is made in
    opening a dialogue with the central authorities in Tbilisi.

    Frustration with what is perceived as the central government's
    disregard for Georgia's Armenian minority prevails in both Tsalka
    and Akhalkalaki, but the roots of the particular issues differ.

    Once numbering 30,000, Tsalka's Greek population is now about 1,500
    and shrinking. A mass exodus occurred during the 1990s when thousands
    of families relocated to Greece for work. As Greeks left, natural
    disaster victims from the northern Georgian region of Svaneti and
    the western Black Sea region of Achara began to move into vacant homes.

    Squatters took over many abandoned houses; pillagers ransacked
    others. As economic conditions in Tsalka worsened, and the town's
    crime rate increased, remaining villagers (12,000 Armenians, 1,500
    Azeris and 1,500 Greeks) started to view their "guests" as a threat.

    "Before the Svans arrived, there was never any trouble in Tsalka. Why
    doesn't the government do something to help? Is it because we aren't
    Georgian?" fumed Armen Darbinyan, an ethnic Armenian and chairman
    of the Javakheti Citizens Forum, a non-governmental organization
    sponsored by the European Center for Minority Issues.

    Meanwhile, in Akhalkalaki, many say that the strained relationship
    with Tbilisi (which locals call "Georgia") began after the 2003 Rose
    Revolution. After coming to power, President Mikheil Saakahsvili's
    administration overhauled the local political machinery, replacing
    local officials with appointees from Tbilisi. First Deputy Governor
    Armen Amirkhanyan said many local residents in this poverty-stricken
    area believed the changes were driven by prejudice. Ethnic Armenians
    make up 60 percent of the region, and "their rights must be defended,"
    Amirkhanyan added.

    The need to have a working knowledge of Georgian lies at the heart
    of most complaints.

    Georgian government statistics on election registration estimate
    the number of ethnic Armenians in Akhalkalaki at 95.8 percent of the
    town's population of 10,000. (Local Armenians put the number at 98
    percent.) Since the entire region of Samtskhe-Javakheti functions
    primarily in Armenian, few Akhalkalaki residents speak Georgian. At
    the same time, Russian is frequently spoken thanks to the presence
    of a former Russian military base.

    "We can't get good jobs unless we speak Georgian, but how can you learn
    Georgian so well when you're 30 or 40 years old?" said a resident of
    Ninotsminda, a nearby village not far from the Armenian border. "If
    we can't get work here, we will continue to move to Russia for work,
    if we can get visas." Unofficial estimates put the number of Javakheti
    men who work seasonally in Russia at 80 percent.

    Incentives offered by the Saakashvili government to promote Georgian
    language instruction, as well as to promote the integration of
    Armenians into the Georgian mainstream, have fallen flat, according
    to Javakheti residents. "In 2004, Saakashvili came to Akhalkalaki
    and promised to integrate 100 students into the university system in
    Tbilisi and Kutaisi with stipends," said Akhalkalaki Mayor Iricya
    Nairi. "That's great, we thought." But Nairi claims local students
    couldn't pass the Georgian language university entry exams, which
    were a result of the government's education reforms.

    Darbinyan says that he doesn't understand how people are expected to
    learn Georgian well enough to pass exams, when they have few chances to
    learn it. Out of Akhalkalaki's five secondary schools, only one teaches
    courses in Georgian. Three teach in Armenian and one in Russian.

    Mayor Nairi cites the recent influx of Georgian students to the
    Akhalkalaki branch of Tbilisi State University as further evidence
    that the government does not want to treat ethnic Armenians equally.

    After Georgian students were brought to Akhalkalaki to study for
    free, Nairi charged, the number of Armenians studying at the local
    university dropped to four. By contrast, he said, under former
    president Eduard Shevardnadze 60 percent of the university's 650
    students were Armenian. "Why would they open a university here and
    bring Georgians if they didn't plan to change the demographics of
    our region?" he wondered.

    Deputy Education and Science Minister Bela Tsipuria, however,
    rejects the contention. "The only reason Georgian students are
    studying in Akhalkalaki is because the competition to study there is
    lower than in Tbilisi or Kutaisi," Tsipuria stated. Complaints about
    the difficulty of Georgia's new university entrance exams were not
    limited to Javakheti, she added. "Young people today have to work
    hard to compete in modern Georgia. This is an entirely new concept."

    Tsipuria argues that Javakheti's problems have more to do with a lack
    of educational opportunities than language - a problem not unique to
    Samtskhe-Javakheti. President Saakashvili, she stressed, has promised
    that hundreds of Armenian students will have the opportunity to
    receive sufficient education to find work within the civil service.

    The government is currently training teachers and introducing new
    methodology, Tsipuria continued. "But people don't understand these
    things take time."

    First Deputy Governor Amirkhanyan believes that education reform must
    be accomplished while taking the interests of national minorities
    into account. "We must learn Georgian if we want to get ahead. It
    would be easier on all levels, from civic positions to farmers who
    commute to Tbilisi to sell their goods."

    The issue seems to spill over easily into other areas, as well. The
    February dismissal of three ethnic Armenian judges for allegedly having
    an insufficient knowledge of Georgian has generated considerable
    resentment. "If you don't know the state language, then you must
    go!" commented Nairi.

    Similarly, the archbishop's office was targeted by locals who assume
    that the Georgian Orthodox Church is attempting to exercise excessive
    influence in the region. The office was rumored to contain a cache
    of weapons. The cache never materialized.

    Calls have gone out recently for Samtskhe-Javakheti to be made an
    autonomous region, with broader self-governance rights, and for
    Armenian to be named the region's official language. Local leaders
    and most activists, however, maintain that protests against perceived
    cultural assimilation should not be interpreted as a separatist
    drive. Said Javakheti Citizens Forum Chairman Darbinyan: "They call
    us separatists because we're asking for cultural autonomy, but we
    want democracy and decentralization."

    Editor's Note: Paul Rimple is a freelance journalist based in Tbilisi.
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