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Vahagn Chakhalyan's Letter To The Georgian President

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  • Vahagn Chakhalyan's Letter To The Georgian President

    VAHAGN CHAKHALYAN'S LETTER TO THE GEORGIAN PRESIDENT

    LRAGIR.AM
    15:44:22 - 30/03/2009

    After Georgia gained its independence, Gamsakhurdia and Shevardnadze
    administrations initiated the policy of ignoring the problems of
    Javakheti and fostered the perception of us, Javakheti Armenians,
    as separatists, with the ensuing suppression of this imaginary
    separatism. You also, unfortunately, continued the short-sighted
    policy of your predecessors by presenting the Javakheti Armenians as a
    particularly dangerous element for the integrity of the country. You
    have even assigned the very fact that Javakheti has not yet seceded
    to your flexible preventive actions.

    You declared to the whole world that Javakheti Armenians only lack
    the knowledge of the Georgian language in order to become equal and
    integrated citizens, but these "stubborn" and "ungrateful" people
    are persistently boycotting the multi-million-worth language training
    programs initiated by the state.

    Mr. President, believe me that if someone wishes to learn, no obstacles
    can prevent him from doing it. Conversely, in the 21st century,
    no money, or coercion can make people do whatever is contrary to
    their will.

    In the worst case, they will be obliged to take the path of protest
    or emigration...

    Therefore, it is necessary to take measures so that each representative
    of a national minority living in Georgia feels the need to study
    Georgian. Although, in order to make this possible, it is necessary
    to undertake practical steps to guarantee equality, the rule of law
    and freedom of all the peoples living in Georgia. That is the point.

    Whereas you proved unable to offer Javakheti Armenians the democratic
    conditions, with the exception of constructing new buildings of prison,
    prosecutor's office, police and court, doubling the number of military
    and regional police employees, strengthening the regional structures
    of special services, as well as persecuting and expulsing the people
    fighting for the rights of Javakheti Armenians, i.e. for real, not
    formal and temporal stability.

    Furthermore, your gravest mistake was the appointment of a person
    mastered in small and big provocations to the position of Chief of
    Police of Akhalkalaki district, which is a crucial post in terms
    of suppression of Javakheti, and giving him the unlimited power to
    hold Javakheti Armenians in leash. Wasn't it clear to you that only
    short-term "stability" could be achieved through repression, whereas
    in the long run it would only increase the alienation and distrust
    among Javakheti Armenians towards the Georgian authorities?

    Or, maybe, that was exactly Your goal?

    Mr. President, how long do you intend to continue this policy inherited
    from your predecessors? Is it not the time to undertake the important
    mission of solving the political, linguistic, cultural, educational
    and socio-economic problems facing the Javakheti Armenians, at least,
    solving them gradually, step by step...

    Is it not enough, that the representatives of the central authorities
    in their private conversations shift the main "blame" for their
    inaction in dealing with the problems of national minorities
    on the resistance of the "majority" - the titular nation? Yes,
    "the majority" has its fears based on the distressing 20-year
    experience. Nevertheless, the same majority realizes very well,
    perhaps even much better, than the authorities themselves, that if
    the teaching in the Ossetian language had not been banned in the
    schools in Tskhinvali, many of the losses would not have happened...

    Is it not the time to put an end to the approach of the authorities,
    who make economic concessions to the clans blossoming in Javakheti
    (which are actually installed and nursed from the center), rather
    than address serious problems? Such short-sighted policy not only
    fails to unleash the Javakheti knot, but, on the contrary, makes it
    more and more tangled and uncontrolled day by day...

    Is it not the time to take practical steps to restore the gradually
    declining confidence of the Javakheti Armenian population in
    the central authorities of Georgia? You have that power, which,
    unfortunately, you have never tried to use up to this day.

    The Javakheti Armenians are ready to dialogue. We still want to hope
    that we will not be forced to seek the solutions to the problems
    existing between our two friendly peoples in the European and
    International structures. There is only one thing that remains -
    for you to accept the invitation to dialogue.

    Try to do it today.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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