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  • Focus on Mesketian Turks

    Reuters, UK
    June 9 2005

    KYRGYZSTAN: Focus on Mesketian Turks

    Source: IRIN

    BISHKEK, 9 June (IRIN) - The status of thousands of Mesketian Turks
    living in Kyrgyzstan remains unresolved, more than half a century
    after being deported to the former Soviet republic by Stalin in the
    forties.

    "Several days ago, I was very sick but I could not get treatment in
    hospital because I do not have citizenship, I still have the red
    Soviet passport. I am an invalid (disabled person). Last year I paid
    US $50 to lie in hospital," with tears in her eyes, Gulchehra
    Hazikova, a 48-year-old Meshitin-Turk, told IRIN in Novopavlovka
    village, near the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.

    "After the events in Ferghana valley in 1989 [ethnic riots that led
    to an exodus] I moved with my family to Kabardino-Balkaria [in the
    north Caucasus region of the Russian Federation]. I came to
    Kyrgyzstan in 1993, but still cannot get Kyrgyz citizenship," Faramuz
    Ahmedov, another Mesketian Turk from the same community, said.

    Nearly 100,000 Meskhetian Turks were deported to Central Asia from
    their native Georgia in 1944 on Stalin's orders. Russia considered
    the Meskhetian Turks a problem on several fronts. As Turkish-speaking
    Muslims, Meskhetian Turks had strong social ties to Turkey and proved
    to be resistant as a group to Soviet assimilation. Roughly 15,000
    people died of starvation or cold en route.

    It has been suggested that Stalin saw Meskhetians as potential
    troublemakers, despite the fact that Meskhetians had exhibited no
    signs of disloyalty. On the contrary, more than half the 40,000
    Meskhetian Turks in the Red Army died fighting Nazi forces.

    In the 60 years since deportation, Meskhetian Turks have integrated
    into the region with varying degrees of success but their sense of
    ethnic and social identity remains strong. They continue to lobby for
    repatriation to Georgia. In Kyrgyzstan they are often subject to
    discriminatory and abusive treatment by the local authorities who may
    grant or may withhold residence permits.

    In June 1989 tragedy struck the Meskhetian community a second time.
    The outbreak of ethnic violence in the Ferghana Valley area of
    Uzbekistan prompted them to uproot themselves again. Meskhetians were
    once again scattered across Central Asia, Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan
    and Turkey.

    According to Gulkiz Gasanova, executive secretary of the Turkish
    National Centre in Bishkek, an NGO supporting the group, there are at
    least 2,000 people in Kyrgyzstan are in the same situation as
    Gulchehra and Faramuz, rendering them effectively stateless.

    The official Meshketian Turk population in Kyrgyzstan is put at more
    than 33,000 people but the unofficial figure is around 50,000 people.
    Many of them have had their ethnic and national identity erased and
    their passports simply state they are Azerbaijani, Georgian or
    Armenian.

    "It is very sad that I cannot even have my native nationality," Umar
    Uysupov, a Meskhetian Turkish elder living in Ala-Archa, a village
    close to the capital, noted, as he showed IRIN his Soviet-era
    passport that records his nationality as Georgian. The majority of
    Meshketian Turks, after the events in the Uzbek part of the Ferghana
    valley, moved to Russia and Azerbaijan. This wave of Meshketian
    migration to Kyrgyzstan was from 1993-1997. But many returned to
    Central Asia to be with relatives, as it was difficult to secure
    permits to stay in Russia.

    Those who stayed in Kyrgyzstan were promised that after five years
    they would be eligible for citizenship but most are still waiting.

    "We raised this issue with the National Committee on Citizenship
    within the Ministry of Internal affairs and even asked former
    president Akaev but there were only promises. We have asked UNHCR
    [office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] here
    and now we are waiting for its response," added Gasanova.

    "I went to Azerbaijan in 1989 from Fergana and lived there for six
    years, in an old railway carriage, it was very difficult. I could not
    get permission to stay there, so I moved to Kyrgyzstan in 1995
    because my brother was there, and helped me. You cannot imagine, I
    had nothing; I left everything in my house in Ferghana. Now here I
    have [a] two rooms house, which we built ourselves but still do not
    have Kyrgyz citizenship," Hazikova told IRIN.

    The group say they suffer discrimination, a lack of medical treatment
    and no proper jobs or education.

    "I cannot work legally here because it is necessary to have [a]
    passport. My passport is not valid now," Ahmedov told IRIN. "I am
    afraid to go out, because the police stop me frequently."

    Kyrgyz authorities say the problem is basically administrative. "If a
    person have been living in Kyrgyzstan for more than five years,
    he/she can apply for Kyrgyz citizenship through the local district,"
    Erkin Arapbaev, deputy head of the passport section of the Kyrgyz
    Ministry of Interior Affairs, told IRIN.

    "There are some categories of people who apply but do not have the
    right documents. People themselves have to gather documents, it is
    not our obligation," Arapbaev said.

    Many Meshketian Turks have married locally, which creates further
    problems. The majority are living without marriage certificates or
    birth certificates for their children, though in some cases bribery
    may help obtain the documents.

    "Children who are born to parents who do not have citizenship, like
    many Meshketian Turks, do not have documents, so they cannot get
    medical treatment, they cannot go to school, so education among this
    group is very low," commented Gasanova.

    Many are hoping the recent regime change in Bishkek will mean a
    change of policy towards Meshketian Turks and other former Soviet
    citizens such as Kurds and some Uzbeks who have no legal status in
    Kyrgyzstan.
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