Caucasus Reporting Service No. 353

[Institute for War & Peace Reporting]

WELCOME TO IWPR'S CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE, No. 353, August 16, 2006

CAUCASUS NEWS UPDATE AUGUST 16

CHECHNYA: THE HIDDEN WAR Inhabitants of mountain villages are unable to go home 
because of continuing violence between federal forces and rebels. By Asya 
Umarova in Yarysh-Mardy 

KARABAKH:  THE LAST OF THE AZERIS The few remaining Azerbaijanis of Karabakh 
tell their stories. By Karine Ohanian in Stepanakert.

ARMENIANS FLOCK TO GEORGIAN COAST Georgia's Black Sea tourist industry revived 
by Armenian holidaymakers. By Eteri Turadze in Batumi

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CAUCASUS NEWS UPDATE AUGUST 16

August 16 Armenian president Robert Kocharian took part as an observer in talks 
between Russia and five other ex-Soviet states in Sochi about strengthening 
relations in the Eurasian Economic Community. The previous day Kocharian held 
talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin. 

August 16 One Russian soldier was killed and two were wounded when their 
vehicle was fired on outside Nazran, Ingushetia. 

August 16 Scottish footballer Ian Porterfield was named as the new coach of the 
Armenian football team.

August 15 The CIS peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia said they had started a 
patrolling mission in the lower Kodori Gorge jointly with the United Nations. 

August 15 Yashar Aliev was named as Azerbaijan's new ambassador to the USA in 
succession to Hafiz Pashayev, who has been held the post since 1993. Pashayev 
was named deputy foreign minister and Agshin Mekhtiev was named Azerbaijan's 
new ambassador to the United Nations. 

August 14 Georgians and Abkhaz commemorated the 14th anniversary of the war in 
Abkhazia. Abkhaz leader Sergei Bagapsh sent a letter to the United Nations, 
Russia and the UN Secretary General's Group of Friends, demanding that they 
call on Georgia to undertake not to renew hostilities. 

August 14 The rail link between Tbilisi and Akhalkalaki in southern Georgia was 
reopened after a three-year gap.

August 14 Georgian foreign minister Gela Bezhuashvili protested to Moscow about 
delays in reopening the border crossing at Verkhny Lars into Russia, which was 
closed on July 8 for "repair work."

August 14 United Nations high commissioner on refugees António Guterres began a 
visit to the three countries of the South Caucasus. 

August 14 The Grand insurance company began paying out compensation to 
relatives of victims of the Armenian air crash in the Black Sea in May. ArmInfo 
news agency said each family was receiving up to 20,000 dollars. Three days 
earlier, a memorial was unveiled in Yerevan to victims of the crash. 

August 14 A group in the Californian state senate formed the Assembly Armenian 
American Legislative Caucus with the aim of passing legislation to help 
California's Armenian community.

August 12 Azerbaijan said it was planning to bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. 

August 11 The US Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 
Europe issued a statement calling on all parties in the conflicts in Georgia 
"to continue showing restraint while refraining from words or actions that 
could worsen the situation on the ground." 

August 10 Shahin Agabeili, editor-in-chief of the nationalist Azerbaijani 
newspaper Milli Yol was sentenced to one year's hard labour after being found 
guilty of slandering a parliamentary deputy from the governing party. 

August 10 The prosecutor of the Nazran region Girikhan Khazbiev survived an 
assassination attempt, but his brother was killed and 13 others were wounded. 

August 9 Russian president Vladimir Putin had a working meeting with Chechen 
prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov. 

COMING UP... 

August 20 The United Nations is due to send a monitoring mission to the upper 
part of the gorge, scene of a recent big Georgian security operation. 


CHECHNYA: THE HIDDEN WAR 

Inhabitants of mountain villages are unable to go home because of continuing 
violence between federal forces and rebels. 

By Asya Umarova in Yarysh-Mardy 

In the village of Yarysh-Mardy in the hills south of the Chechen capital Grozny 
there is no sign of life. 

Yarysh-Mardy used to have a population of 620, a school, a library, a cultural 
centre, a post office and a mosque.  Now there is nothing.  

All the houses were completely destroyed back in 1999, at the beginning of the 
second Chechen campaign.  Since then, the village has become overgrown with 
vegetation and has become a closed zone. There are dangers everywhere - mainly 
so-called  "butterfly mines", dropped from aeroplanes, and unexploded ordnance. 
 

Even the few wild animals you see are wounded or maimed: wild boars and pigs 
that are missing a leg, birds with no wings or hares without ears.  

This is a picture of devastation repeated across the hills of Chechnya. 
Although the authorities in Moscow have declared the war against rebels won, 
the residents of these villagers say they see no prospect of getting back to 
normal life any time soon.

The villagers of Yarysh-Mardy have made a series of official requests for help. 
A letter from the residents to prominent Russian human rights activist Svetlana 
Gannushkina begins, "We, the residents of Yarysh-Mardy, have applied to various 
authorities, from the regional level to the President of the Chechen Republic 
for a solution to our problems and the restoration of our rights.  However, it 
is clear from the inaction of the government agencies and the replies we have 
received from them, that the regeneration of the village has been left to the 
mercy of fate and abandoned by the authorities."  

Sporadic military action is continuing in the mountains of Chechnya, despite 
the official proclamation of peace.

"Certain villages are still being bombed and shot at," said Shamil Tangiev, 
head of the human rights organisation Memorial in Grozny. "People do not 
understand why this is happening, since the authorities have announced several 
times that military action in Chechnya ended in 2002; that there is peace in 
the republic; a government has been formed; there is a legal system and law and 
order has been re-established. 

"Unbearable living conditions mean that we are seeing constant displacement 
from the mountains to the plains of the republic.  In the on-going clashes 
between the federal soldiers and the fighters in Chechnya's mountainous areas, 
the civilian population is generally the victim." 

The mountain villagers are mostly forced to live with relatives or in makeshift 
accommodation in other parts of Chechnya.

Memorial reported that in 2002, two and a half thousand people from mountain 
villages in southeastern Chechnya were uprooted by fighting. However, because 
these people were displaced within Chechnya itself, their plight has not been 
dealt with by the republic's migration department.

Markha Akhmadova, head of the demographics department of the government 
statistics agency Chechenstat, told IWPR, "The mountain villagers want to go 
home to their own land, but the army is there.  They can't let them into their 
villages because they still haven't been de-mined and it's simply too dangerous 
to live there."

Akhmadova said it is impossible to determine how many people have moved from 
one village to another, since they stay registered in their original homes in 
order to get compensation for their destroyed property. 

The villagers' main request is for rehabilitation work to begin so they can go 
home. 

Ruslan Musayev, a regional government official in Grozny, told IWPR 
reconstruction work would be finished by the end of the year in Yarysh-Mardy. 
But villagers say they see no signs of progress. And other villages have the 
same complaints. 

"In Nozhai-Yurt, Vedeno and Kurchaloi regions many villages have been 
deserted," said Khazmat Gadayev, who comes from one of Chechnya's mountain 
settlements. "The federal soldiers are driving people out of the mountains on 
purpose. The village of Alkhazurovo was recently surrounded - they spent three 
to four days carrying out a 'mop up' operation there.  They do it on purpose, 
to keep people in a state of fear.  But people are sick and tired of war."

Musayev described how the village of Kharsenoi has been so completely razed 
that not even the foundations of houses remain.  "There was shooting there 
every night," he said. "They said they were shooting at the detachment of Doku 
Umarov's [the rebel leader of Chechnya].  The residents still haven't been 
allowed back there."

Musayev said that in two other villagers, Zumsoi and Bugaroi, federal troops 
had rounded up all the young men in a barn and threatened to set fire to it so 
that the fighters would not have any support. "Because of this ceaseless 
tyranny, almost everyone left a long time ago," he said. 

Another villager, who asked not to be named, said that in Shatoi an unshaven 
villager, a well-known alcoholic, had been arrested by Russian soldiers when he 
went to get firewood in the forest with an axe. 

"The military does what it likes here," said the villager. "They blow up 
houses, if they are of no strategic use to them, especially if there is no one 
living in them.  But in spite of all this, many people, especially the elderly, 
want to go back to their homes.  They want to be buried next to their 
ancestors."

The Russian federal armed forces would not comment on the claims made by 
villagers and there is no mechanism for the villagers to complain.

Memorial says soldiers never reveal which units they are serving in and it is 
virtually impossible to bring them to account. For example, after an air strike 
and mopping-up operation against the village of Zumsoi last year, three adult 
men and a 15-year-old boy were detained and have not been seen again. 

Shamil Tangiev of Memorial said that many villagers would accept the stationing 
of military units in mountain villagers, "so that there would be no opportunity 
for fighters to be there and people will not be accused of collaborating with 
the armed groups. And they can be helped in rebuilding so that they can begin 
to put their life in order. But so far the authorities have not responded 
properly".

Asya Umarova is a correspondent for Chechenskoe Obshchestvo newspaper


KARABAKH:  THE LAST OF THE AZERIS  

The few remaining Azerbaijanis of Karabakh tell their stories.

By Karine Ohanian in Stepanakert.

They mostly go unnoticed and bear Armenian names, but Nagorny Karabakh, on the 
surface a completely Armenian territory, has a quiet population of Azerbaijanis.

Many of them have been separated by war from children or close relatives living 
on the other side of the conflict divide. 

It comes as a surprise to many outsiders to learn that there are Azerbaijanis 
still here at all. There are of course far fewer of them than before the war, 
when around one quarter of the population of Nagorny Karabakh was Azerbaijani. 
Almost all of them fled in the great refugee upheavals of the conflict. But 
there are more than a handful left: they are mainly people who married 
Armenians and their children.  

According to the national statistics bureau of Nagorny-Karabakh, Azerbaijanis 
are classed as one of the ethnic minorities of Karabakh. Official figures will 
be published next month. But it is hard to calculate the real numbers because 
most of them have changed their surnames or use married Armenian names.

Sixty-year-old Nailya Jafarova, not her real name, has lived in Stepanakert 
since 1968. "I can't remember a case when an Armenian has ever said, 'Get out 
of Karabakh!'" she told IWPR. 

She said the only time she had suffered abuse was at the height of the 1991-4 
war when she was queuing for milk and another woman told her she had no right 
to be there - but she was defended by others in the queue. "There was no need 
for me to answer because others answered for me - Armenians who saw me as a 
human being, not just a representative of one nationality," she said.  

Nailya was heading for an academic career in the Azerbaijan Academy of 
Sciences, when she fell in love and followed her Armenian husband to Karabakh. 
She said her parents were not so much unhappy with her marrying an Armenian, as 
her moving far away. 

Her husband was killed by an artillery shell during the war and she was left 
with two children. She now has three grandchildren.  

"In Karabakh, I don't have problems because I am an Azerbaijani.  I have the 
same difficulties as everyone in Karabakh - difficulties with finding work, low 
pay, no social security. But I am on good terms with everyone.  The one problem 
which is worse for me now is that I haven't seen my relatives from Baku for a 
very long time," she said.

"I've been in touch with my relatives several times - either over the internet, 
or through my niece in Moscow - and they suggest we meet on neutral territory, 
in a little place in Georgia called Sadakhlo.  But I would far prefer to go to 
Baku. All my relations have had children and grandchildren - I want to see them 
all. And I want to visit my parents' grave."

She says her children feel Armenian, but they still speak Azeri and sometimes 
watch Azerbaijani television, which can be seen in Karabakh. And she continues 
to cook her favourite Azerbaijani specialities, which her friends and 
grandchildren adore.  

Seda Ghazarian, a former registry officer, who conducted marriage ceremonies 
for 25 years, said that in Soviet times Armenian-Azerbaijani marriages were 
rare in the Armenian-majority town of Stepanakert, capital of Karabakh, but 
were more common in the Azerbaijani-majority town of Shushi (known by the 
Azerbaijanis as Shusha). Armenian women were much more likely to marry 
Azerbaijanis than vice versa.

Sixty-eight-year-old Asya, an Armenian, who now lives in the village of 
Gharabulakh had four children by her Azerbaijani husband. When the Karabakh 
crisis began, she was forced to have medical treatment in Ashgabat in 
Turkmenistan: she could not be treated in Stepanakert because she was married 
to an Azerbaijani, nor in Baku, because she was an Armenian.

She was still in Ashgabat when she found out that her home town had been 
captured by the Armenians and her family had fled to Baku. Asya returned to 
Karabakh to look after her ill mother and to wait for the war to end so she 
could be reunited with her children. Her wait lasted 14 years, during which 
time eight grandchildren were born to her, whom she never saw. 

Then she got a letter from her daughter which read, "Dear Mummy, I dream about 
you all the time, and every morning I wake up in tears!  God grant that this 
damned war stops and that we can put our arms around you again.  Please look 
after yourself!  Have pity on and forgive your innocent, tormented children!"

Asya cried as she said, "How many nights are there in 14 years?  Every one of 
those nights I longed for my children to come to me in a dream.  Then the sun 
came out for me."

She got a letter from her son and they arranged to meet in Georgia, "They 
didn't let us over the border - because neither of our passports were in order. 
 But when they found out we hadn't seen each other for 14 years - they let us 
through.  My son held out his arms and came towards me.  For two minutes I was 
as good as dead in his arms.  Passers-by kept asking what had happened.  They 
cried too."

Often an Armenian name conceals an Azerbaijani.  Alexander, 52, and has an 
Armenian surname, but everyone knows he is actually an Azerbaijani, bearing the 
name of his mother's first husband. But he says he feels Armenian, "When I 
turned four, for several years my father's family wanted me to be circumcised 
like Azerbaijani boys.  Mum and I objected.  Relations with my father's 
relatives have been strained ever since.  See them now?  No, I wouldn't want 
to."

Alexander fought in the Karabakh war, like virtually all males in region.  "I 
defended my homeland - it is every man's duty to do that," he said. Today this 
good-natured man and his son work for a construction company in Karabakh and 
friends and colleagues speak highly of him.

"I am a simple working man, and I have learned a simple truth in life - that it 
is a man's work and his character that are important, not his nationality," he 
said. 

Sixty-five-year-old Svetlana Gevorkian, who has lived in Stepanakert all her 
life, says that there are actually several mixed Armenian-Azerbaijani families 
living on her street.

"They live here as we do," she said. "No one is drawing a line between 
Armenians and Azerbaijanis."  Svetlana confirmed that, as for many people of 
her generation, Azerbaijani culture was part of her life. 

"I can speak Azeri because I studied Azeri at school and not Armenian.  And I 
still remember my teacher was called Maleika Mamedova. Her husband was 
Armenian.  And the language was mainly used in the market - there were mostly 
Azerbaijanis trading there and we spoke to them in their language."

She confirms that her generation still has memories and knowledge of 
Azerbaijan, but this is slowly dying out. 

 "We would love to know what people in Azerbaijan think about the war.  
Sometimes we switch on AzTV, we get their First Channel with interference, but 
when you always hear the same thing over and over again - that they must fight, 
fight, fight, - I get anxious and switch off, and then don't turn it on again 
for ages," she said.  

"The only link to Azerbaijan here now is that Azerchai tea is still sold here. 
I don't know how they get it in - it used to be very good quality, but now it's 
not so good."

Karine Ohanian is a freelance journalist in Stepanakert, Nagorny Karabakh.  


ARMENIANS FLOCK TO GEORGIAN COAST 

Georgia's Black Sea tourist industry revived by Armenian holidaymakers.

By Eteri Turadze in Batumi

"A bottle of Georgian wine please," ordered the customer at a seaside café.  
"Wine? Sorry," said the waiter, " we've only got Armenian cognac...." 

This recent exchange occurred not in Russia where Georgian wine is currently 
banned but in Georgia's Black Sea resort of Batumi, which is enjoying an 
unprecedented influx of Armenian tourists.

According to Georgia's department for tourism and resorts, 2006 is breaking all 
records for the number of foreign tourists visiting the country since it gained 
independence in 1992. The Black Sea autonomous republic of Ajaria and its 
capital Batumi are the main destinations, with a total of 250,000-300,000 
holiday- makers expected there this year. 

Of the foreign tourists, 70 per cent are from neighbouring landlocked Armenia. 
"We expect around 55,000 visitors from Armenia during the holiday season.  This 
is three times as many as last year," said Saba Kiknadze head of the local 
tourist department.

The local government in Ajaria was busy advertising the attractions of its 
resorts to Armenia long before the summer season started. It spent 20,000 laris 
(around 11,000 US dollars) printing publicity booklets, calendars, maps and 
films that were distributed in Armenia.

In May, the Georgian authorities opened a special train service from Yerevan to 
Batumi and back, especially for Armenian tourists. The train runs every other 
day and a ticket costs between 55 and 85 lari (around 30-50 dollars).

Suren Mkrtchian said his holiday company Eurasia and other Armenian tourist 
operator rent out hotels and bring their customers directly to them, generally 
for two weeks. 

The prices in Ajaria, with a bed costing between around ten and 100 dollars a 
night, were affordable for those holidaymakers from Armenia who spoke to IWPR.

"Prices are normal," said Levon Alkhazian, who is spending the second summer 
running here. "Batumi is gradually becoming a European-style resort."

Diana Haikian came to take a holiday in the resort town of Kobuleti in Ajaria 
on the recommendation of her cousin and used the new train service. She is with 
a group of 15 friends and colleagues.

"We are being served well at the hotel," said Diana. "There are places where we 
can sit and have fun in the evenings.  We've met a lot of our acquaintances 
from Yerevan.  I like it here but I have nothing to compare it with.  I have 
never been to European resorts and Russian resorts are both more expensive and 
dull."

Diana said she liked Ajaria so much she hoped to spend her honeymoon here next 
year. 

Tourist department head Saba Kiknadze says a number of factors are contributing 
to the Armenian tourism boom in Ajaria. 

"The first is, of course, the change in the situation in Georgia in general," 
said Kiknadze. "The image of our country is much better today than a couple of 
years ago.

"We will soon place our advertisement clips about Georgia on CNN and BBC and 
things with tourism will improve even further." 

But he admitted that infrastructure in Georgia is in need of improvement, "You 
cannot do everything at once.  We have changed a lot in Ajaria since last year."

Armenian capital has flooded into the region in the wake of Armenian tourists.

Armenian prime minister Andranik Margarian visited Batumi in May and won the 
support of the head of the local government Levan Varshalomidze for 
facilitating Armenian investment. Last year, President Robert Kocharian told 
Varshalomidze, "The big number of Armenian tourists who visited Ajaria this 
summer makes it clear that economic cooperation should be stepped up."

Armenian investment has been focussed so far on small businesses, such as 
family hotels and restaurants rather than large infrastructure projects. The 
cafes and other eateries have turned into small islands of Armenia, serving 
Armenian food and playing Armenian music.

The founder of an Armenian chain of restaurants Vartan Makarchian said proudly 
that the Georgian president himself had visited one of his outlets.

"Mikheil Saakashvili has had lunch with us twice," said Makarchian. "We were 
waiting for him yesterday too but he did not come.  Our popularity shot up 
after his visits."

Gogi Baghdadishvili's small café has a menu in four languages - Georgian, 
Russian, English and Armenian.

"Yes, the Armenians speak Russian too but their appetite will improve if they 
read the menu in their native tongue," confided Baghdadishvili. "This is 
business and the main rule is to attract customers."

But not all the locals are happy with the Armenian invasion. 

"I don't understand why we have to adapt to the visitors," complained Nargiz 
Diasamidze, a resident of Kobuleti. "It's the tourists themselves who should 
accept our customs.  You can hear Armenian music everywhere and Armenian meals 
are being sold everywhere. Don't they like ours?" 

"First, the Armenian will first rent the hotels here and then they will buy 
them," said Nugzar Chkonia, a worried Batumi resident.

But Guram Kharazi, who owns a private hotel in Kobuleti, is delighted with the 
influx of Armenian capital: he has rented out his hotel to an Armenian tourist 
agent.

"I used to spend the whole season looking for tourists and serving them but can 
relax now," said Kharazi. "I've been paid well and I will never sell my hotel, 
whatever money they offer me." 

Eteri Turadze is a reporter for the Batumelebi newspaper in Batumi.

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IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service provides the international community with a 
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ISSN: 1477-7959 Copyright (c) 2006 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting 

CAUCASUS REPORTING SERVICE No. 353