Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

"Moscow's hand" discovered in Djavakhetia

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

  • "Moscow's hand" discovered in Djavakhetia

    Agency WPS
    DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
    March 31, 2006 Friday

    "MOSCOW'S HAND" DISCOVERED IN DJAVAKHETIA

    by Yuri Simonjan

    TBILISI IS CONVINCED THAT THE RUSSIANS ENCOURAGE ARMENIAN SEPARATISTS
    IN SOUTH GEORGIA; Official Tbilisi found another pretext to pin the
    blame on Russia.


    The forecasts that without a solution to the problems of Abkhazia and
    Tskhinvali found, Georgia may encounter a similar problem with
    Armenian-populated Djavakhetia seem to be coming to pass. Mass
    rallies took place in the district center of Akhalkalaki last week.
    Demands of the autonomous status for the region were made in the
    presence of several emissaries from Yerevan.

    The latest protest actions were sparked by the murder of Gevork
    Gevorkjan, 25, an Armenian from the town of Tsalka (his two friends
    were injured). Some media outlets including Russian ones immediately
    branded the murder as ethnic (allegedly the Svans, a Georgian ethnic
    group, were after the Armenians). The same opinion was aired at the
    rallies in Akhalkalaki. In the meantime, everything was more banal
    than that. Gevorkjan was killed in a drunken scuffle with the ethnic
    Svans moved to the Tsalka district several years ago after an
    ecological catastrophe on their native land. A bar brawl rapidly
    developed into a stabbing outside.

    Armenian politicians in Djavakhetia and Armenia itself have a
    different opinion. Albert Bazejan, National Revival Party leader,
    said in Yerevan that the Armenian authorities should take an active
    part in what he termed as "Akhalkalaki processes". "We do not need
    another hostile neighbor," Bazejan was quoted as saying. "Along with
    the social problems of the Armenian population, there are also some
    political matters that have to be addressed and the questions of
    survival of ethnic identity. I'd say it's time we discussed the
    status of cultural autonomy for the region."

    "Statements like that encourage separatism in Djavakhetia and have a
    thoroughly negative effect on the Georgian-Armenian relations," said
    Van Vaiburt, a deputy in the parliament of Georgia and one of the
    chairmen of the Union of Georgian Armenians. The lawmaker is
    convinced that most Armenians in Djavakhetia do not care about
    "autonomization".

    Another lawmaker, Gamlet Movsesjan, believes that social problems may
    deteriorate into political even without deliberate provocations. He
    says that abatement of tension in the area requires new jobs for the
    locals and help in selling the harvest. "The Russian military base in
    Akhalkalaki will be closed in 2007. The president promised that all
    citizens of Georgia employed there will be offered jobs with similar
    salaries but nothing at all has been done to this end so far,"
    Movsesjan said.

    Several non-government organizations of Djavakhetia put forth a
    demand to make Armenian the state language. The petition will soon be
    forwarded to the Armenian deputies of the parliament of Georgia. What
    will come of the idea is easy to predict.

    For the time being, official Tbilisi does not overestimate the danger
    the rallies in Akhalkalaki pose. Some representatives of the
    political establishment commented - traditionally - that the rallies
    in Djavakhetia were probably incited from abroad, i.e. from Moscow.
    Nino Burdzhanadze of the parliament said, "Certain forces are trying
    to drive a wedge between the Armenian and Georgian population of the
    Akhalkalaki district of Georgia." She hinted as well that the rallies
    could be provoked by the Russian military base command. Base
    Second-in-Command, Colonel Igor Luzhnikov, denied involvement. "We
    have nothing to do with the protests," he said.

    Even some political circles in Armenia do not rule out the
    possibility of involvement of "a certain third force" in the rallies
    in Akhalkalaki. Stepan Gregorian, Director of the Analytical Center
    for Globalization and Regional Cooperation, believes that Moscow may
    be indirectly interested in deterioration of the Georgian-Armenian
    relations. "The scope of the Armenia-NATO cooperation plans worries
    Moscow. The two signed the IPAP now long ago. A crisis in the
    relations with Georgia will leave Armenia in a ring of hostile
    countries - Turkey, Azerbaijan... Moscow will then be all it will be
    able to turn to for assistance," the analyst said.

    Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 28, 2006, p. 5

    Translated by A. Ignatkin
Working...
X