Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

NKR: Return Of Refugees Instead Resolution

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • NKR: Return Of Refugees Instead Resolution

    RETURN OF REFUGEES INSTEAD RESOLUTION

    Azat Artsakh - Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
    16 May 05

    In several of my articles I have touched upon the problem of refugees
    in the post-Soviet space, as well as outside it in the context of
    resolution of ethnic and political conflicts. It was mentioned that
    the degree of urgency of this problem is determined by the degree
    of willingness of the conflicts sides, as well as the international
    mediators, to accept a resolution through compromise. This equally
    refers to the problem of resolution of the conflict of Nagorno
    Karabakh. One can hardly find an ethnic and political conflict during
    which the military actions do not result in partial or complete
    ethnic cleansing, that is emergence of refugees and deportees (we
    will use the word 'refugee' for both). However, in the process of
    settlement of these conflicts the problem of return of refugees to
    their former places of residence is either considered as one of the
    pressing problems or is not touched upon at all. For example, in the
    peace process of the conflicts of Nagorno Karabakh and Abkhazia the
    problem of refugees is drown to the foreground. This problem once
    used to be primary in the conflicts between Osetia and Ingushia,
    Georgia and Osia. Whereas, so far no one has insisted on the return
    of the Russian-speaking population of Chechnya (Russians, Ukrainians,
    Armenians, Georgians, etc.) as one of the primary steps in conflict
    resolution. Moreover, the question of return of tens of thousand
    native Chechens who had had to leave for Ingushetia and other places
    in the Russian Federation was not discussed at all. This is not
    accidental. The emergence of the factor of refugees is determined
    by the reluctance of one or all the parties of the conflict to solve
    it through peace talks, no matter how long it may last. In so far as
    mainly the problem of status of this or that state (in other words,
    the problem of self-determination of the nation) underlies ethnic
    and political conflicts, ethnic cleansing represents to the conflict
    parties an extremely effective method of accelerating the political
    resolution of the conflict in favour of one of the parties. For
    example, there was a time when the Communist leaders of Azerbaijan
    adopted a line of artificially changing the demographic state of
    the Autonomous Region of Nagorno Karabakh (NKAR) in favour of the
    Azerbaijani population, aiming to dissolve the Armenian sovereignty
    on the basis of the will of the majority of inhabitants of NKAR, which
    would be represented ethnic Azerbaijanis, as the Baku authorities had
    planned. However, they did not manage to fulfil their plan. Facing
    the constitutional decision of the February 20, 1988 meeting of
    the NKAR Soviet of People's Deputies containing a request to the
    central authorities of the Union to join the autonomous region to
    the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan, the Baku authorities
    undertook ethnic cleansings of Armenians both in the territory of the
    autonomous region and in the entire republic of Azerbaijan presenting
    their actions as the consequences of the territorial claims of Armenia
    against Azerbaijan. Thereby the Azerbaijani authorities tried hard
    (as they do now) to reshape the problem of self-determination into
    a territorial dispute. And as the government of the Union came to a
    legal deadlock because of the imperfection of the Constitution of the
    USSR, not only it did not prevent the ethnic cleansing of Armenians
    in Azerbaijan, but also actively accelerated the process through the
    military action named "Koltso" in NKAR and the district of Getashen
    in May 1991 to maintain passport control there. However, the plan
    was not brought into being; first because of the dissolution of the
    Soviet Union in December 1991, and second, the pull-out of Russian
    troops from Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh. This was followed by
    military actions between the two states, Azerbaijan and NKR, as a
    resultof which the Azerbaijani population left Nagorno Karabakh. Here
    is another example. Before the military actions in Abkhazia (before the
    Georgian population leaved Abkhazia) the constitutional solution of the
    Abkhazian issue supposed that the sovereign republic would remain in
    Georgia because the majority of the population of the Autonomous Soviet
    Socialist Republic of Abkhazia were ethnic Georgians. Consequently,
    the resolution of the Abkhazian issue on the basis of the will of the
    native population of the sovereignty (that is, the Abkhazians, reduced
    from an ethnic majority to an ethnic minority in their home land under
    the Soviet rule) required a change in the demographic picture of the
    republic in favour of the Abkhazian population, which was achieved
    through military actions. I gave these two examples to clarify why
    in the case of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and Georgian - Abkhazian
    conflict Azerbaijan and Georgia insist on the return of the refugees,
    while Karabakh and Abkhazia demand the solution of the question of
    status. The party for whom the demographic situation is favourable
    demands the discussion of the question of status. And vice versa, the
    party for whom the demographic picture is unfavourable is first of all
    concerned about changing the situation by this parameter. The proof
    to the vital interest of Baku in re-drawing the demographic picture
    in the area of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict was the OSCE monitoring
    of the territories controlled by the NKR authorities undertaken by
    official Baku, its aim being finding facts on settlement there. Taken
    by surprise by the information of the OSCE fact-finding group that
    the region of Kelbajar is inhabited by a small group of Armenian
    citizens who had been deported from Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad and
    other areas in the neighbour republic, the vice foreign minister of
    Azerbaijan Araz Azimov demanded from the OSCE mission to take actions
    at deporting those people. Azimov's actions can be understood as the
    reluctance of Azerbaijan to have Armenians living in their territory
    even as citizens of Azerbaijan. Whereas, the return of the refugees
    is practically impossible without the final political (or political
    and legal) resolution of the ethnic and political conflict, because
    the voluntary return of refugees to their former places of residence
    is possible only in case of providing guarantees for political, legal
    and social security there. However, no one can give such guarantees
    to the refugees unless the final political and legal resolution of
    the issue is reached. In this respect it is interesting to read the
    letter of the Georgian refugee from South Osia Henrich Geladze in the
    Georgian newspaper "Sakartvelo " (# 53, 1998). He writes that despite
    the pledges of the Tbilisi authorities that the Georgians who had left
    South Osia could be sure to go back to their homes, they will never go
    back unless the full authority of Georgia is restored there. Moreover,
    Geladze writes that they still remember the tragic fate of the Georgian
    refugees who hurried to return to the region of Gali of Abkhazia.
    In reference to the Karabakh issue the words of Henrich Geladze mean
    that the Azerbaijani refugees from Nagorno Karabakh will never come
    back unless Azerbaijan gets full control of Nagorno Karabakh. This
    answers the question why not very long ago Baku authorities turned down
    the proposal of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, at the heart of which
    the idea of a "common state" was placed which excluded relationships
    of subordination between Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh. It turned
    out that the authorities of Baku were rather interested in a resolution
    which would enable changing the demographic picture of Nagorno Karabakh
    in favour of the Azerbaijani population by subsequent dissolution
    of the Armenian statehood which is still unrecognized than in the
    territorial integrity of Azerbaijan actually presupposed by the idea
    of a "common state". It is clear that no single Armenian of Nagorno
    Karabakh will accept such a scenario of "resolution". Thus we come to
    the conclusion that including the issue of return of refugees in the
    resolution plan as one of the primary steps on the way of conciliation,
    in fact, drags the process of political resolution of the issue into
    a deadlock. Experience shows that in those cases when the conflict
    parties are sincerely willing to discuss the fundamental issue of
    ethnic and political conflicts, the issue of formation of a national
    state with territorial integrity, the problem of refugees immediately
    loses its relevance and sometimes it is even forgotten. Currently,
    the same state of affairs is in Transdnestria. What is more, the
    issue of refugees is even forgotten in the cases when a resolution
    through military force is imposed on one of the conflict parties.
    For instance, today no one remembers the refugees who used to live
    in Serbian Krajina because Croatia has once and for withdrawn all
    the problems of this state from the agenda by occupying this area
    inhabited with Serbs with the tacit approval of the international
    community. At present no one speaks about the refugees in Bosnia and
    Herzegovina. It is notable that the new authorities in the face of the
    president Mikhail Sahakashvili who seems to sincerely want to solve
    the problem of Abkhazia and South Osia as rapidly as possible, have
    come to speak about more frequently about the necessity of economic
    and democratic development of Georgia as the primary condition for the
    voluntary return of Abkhazians to the Georgian republic than to extend
    unreal ultimatums to the Abkhazian party. To sum up we can say that
    all the efforts to solve such a sensitive humanitarian problem as the
    return of refugees in the course of peace resolution practically do not
    have any prospect. This statement is based on the thing that the fact
    of existence of refugees is an immediate consequence of the absence
    of a final political and legal resolution of this or that ethnic and
    political conflict which lies on two planes: "self-determination
    of nations" and "territorial integrity of the country". It goes
    without saying that the voluntary return of refugees (which can be
    only voluntary) is possible only after the final resolution of the
    conflict is reached.

    ALEXANDER GRIGORIAN. 16-05-2005

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Working...
X