Transitions Online, Czech Republic
May 12 2006
Georgia’s Contagious Separatism
by David Young
11 May 2006
Georgian leaders promise new roads and development in a bid to subdue
demands for greater autonomy by Armenians in the country’s south.
TBILISI, Georgia | It seems only natural for minorities in the former
Soviet Union to feel a constant pull toward separatism. Their
national borders were drawn almost arbitrarily – often to encourage
conflicts – and a nascent sense of self-determination that followed
the end of Soviet communism certainly plays a role in the region’s
separatism, even today. Georgians, in particular, have witnessed
their share of nationalist struggles, together leaving thousands dead
and hundreds of thousands homeless.
In Georgia’s region of Javakheti, however, the potential for conflict
has always rested just beneath the surface, requiring a greater and
untapped impetus to inspire rebellion. As Georgia’s southernmost
region, Javakheti shares a border with Armenia, but not just a
border: More than 90 percent of its people have language or cultural
ties to the neighboring state. Despite being born in Georgia, few of
these people, many of them descendants of Armenian families moved to
Georgia in the early Soviet period, feel any allegiance to Georgia at
all. Culturally, linguistically, and politically, most Georgian
nationals in Javakheti are Armenian.
And while any unrest in Javakheti pales in comparison to the tension
in Abkhazia and South Ossetia – Georgia’s authentic separatist
regions, which enjoy de facto autonomy under Russian patronage –
Javakheti has all the makings of a civil ethnic conflict. Not only is
Armenian the most common language, but Javakheti has a better
relationship with Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, than it does with the
Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The central government provides little
financial assistance to Javakheti, citing economic difficulties and
limited resources, which inevitably leave the underdeveloped region’s
infrastructure in pieces and the people alienated.
Unlike in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, calls for secession or reunion
with the “home country” have never been quite as loud in Javakheti.
Yet the signs can be read of unrest tethered to economic and cultural
concerns – both typical catalysts for heating up conflicts.
Armenian political groups on both sides of the border continuously
push Tbilisi to give the Armenian language equal official status to
the Georgian tongue in the Javakheti region. Armenian is already
spoken in the schools, despite a law that requires public schools in
Georgia to teach the Georgian language and Georgian history above all
others. Javakheti’s Armenians neither speak the Georgian language nor
know the history of Georgians. When fewer than one in 10 people in
the region speak Georgian and when the local bureaucracies and
infrastructure are entirely sustained by Armenians, such a law could
hardly be enforced.
Javakh Armenians’ demands go beyond language rights. They call for
mandatory teaching of Armenian history in local schools, an end to
the general `Georgianization’ of Armenian culture and heritage, a
Georgian minority rights law, the construction of a highway linking
Javakheti to Yerevan (which Armenia will finance), and the
recognition of Javakheti political movements pushing for the region’s
political autonomy.
RUSSIA AND THE BASE
Perhaps the most important immediate concern for Armenians living in
Javakheti is the Russian military base in Akhalkalaki, the region’s
capital. After years of negotiations, Russia has agreed to withdraw
by the end of 2007 from the base that has been a crutch to
Javakheti’s economy since its opening in the mid-1990s when Georgia
agreed to the Russian military presence in order to stabilize the
recently independent country. Upwards of 10,000 locals are dependent
on the income of the thousand or so, mostly Armenian, workers at the
base. Moreover, the Russian troops consume a big slice of Javakheti’s
farm products – the region’s primary source of income. President
Mikheil Saakashvili has promised that the Georgian government will
fill the void left by the Russian military, whose departure is a
great cause for celebration in Tbilisi, despite years of protest by
Armenians living both in Armenia and Javakheti. Specifically,
Saakashvili proposed to use the produce consumed by Russian troops to
feed Georgian troops instead, but many analysts have suggested that
the region produces far more potatoes and milk than the Georgian army
can consume. Besides, inviting Georgian soldiers to Akhalkalaki would
likely add kindling to the tension. Recognizing this, Saakashvili
altered his remedy on a visit to Javakheti in late April, saying
“We’re not planning to set up a new military unit” there and offering
social programs and business training for people affected by the
Russian pullout.
“These people must not feel they will lose out on the deal. On the
contrary, they must benefit from the fact that Georgia is
developing,” Saakashvili said, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
reported.
Another solution put forward recently by Parliamentary Speaker Nino
Burjanadze is to establish `food processing enterprises’ in
Akhalkalaki to create new jobs. The ethnic Armenians in Javakheti are
understandably skeptical.
For its part, Russia has its own ambitions in a Caucasus that has
looked increasingly to the West to provide its necessary political
and economic support. Armenia happily gives Moscow its desired
influence in the southern Caucasus, in exchange for Russian
protection from Armenia’s neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan, both of
which maintain strict blockades at their borders with Armenia. The
dispute over Turkish responsibility for the mass killing and abuse of
Armenians during and after World War I has long frozen
Armenian-Turkish relations. And Azerbaijan is no friendlier, having
been humiliated by Russian-backed Armenia in the early 1990s in the
Nagorno-Karabakh war and forced to tolerate an island of
Armenian-dominated land in the middle of its territory.
Yet regardless of any real or exaggerated threat to Armenia, Russia
has always been eager to manipulate the region’s conflicts – much to
Tbilisi’s fury – in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh.
And for years some in Tbilisi have accused Russia of colluding and
inciting conflict in Javakheti, most recently in March after
Armenians stormed a courtroom and a university building in
Akhalkalaki, two days after an ethnic Armenian was killed in a fight
in a neighboring region. As Georgian politicians often do, Parliament
Speaker Burjanadze hinted that outsiders were fomenting separatism
among the Armenian minority. The protests and general unrest in
Javakheti, she suggested, could be attributed to `external forces …
serious forces, who try to trigger destabilization in this region,”
the website Civil Georgia reported. This was seen as a coded punch at
Russia for its military presence in Akhalkalaki. Some Tbilisi
officials alleged that weapons belonging to Parvents, a Javakh
paramilitary group, could be traced to the Akhalkalaki base and were
used in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Naturally, Russia continues to
deny this, and as recently as 26 April, Georgia’s own interior
minister, Vano Merabishvili, said Moscow has had nothing to do with
the recent unrest in Javakheti, despite Russia’s regional interests.
MOUTHPIECES
Much of the public outcry over Tbilisi’s poor treatment of its
Armenian citizens actually comes from political parties in the
Armenian ruling coalition, which have a greater capacity for
political mudslinging than their relatively disorganized and
inexperienced Javakh counterparts. One party, Zor Airenik (Mighty
Homeland) was even formed by natives of Javakheti who now live in
Armenia (there are more than 100,000 such emigrants, most of whom
left for economic reasons). And other parties, such as Nor Serund
(New Generation), the Armenian Democratic-Liberal Union, and Ramkavar
Azatakan all have similar agendas for the security the Armenians in
Javakheti who, they say, live in fear of ethnically motivated
harassment and violence. Nearly all these parties argue that
increased political autonomy and self-governance in Javakheti are
warranted given Javakheti’s ostracized culture and its security
concerns.
These moderate parties often call on the Saakashvili administration
to pay more attention to the needs of Javakheti and its residents,
while seldom encouraging the outright secession of Javakheti. Merely
calling for `political autonomy’ was deemed separatist enough for
Tbilisi to prohibit Virk, a local political movement in Javakheti,
from registering as a political party in July 2002. No wonder then
that most ethnic Armenians who run for Georgia’s parliament do so
under the auspices of a mainstream party – like Saakashvili’s
National Movement Party – while openly defending the interests of
Georgia’s ethnic Armenians.
The Armenian lobby in the Georgian parliament is far from united,
though. A handful of parliamentarians, among them Van Baiburt, a
native of Javakheti, often hear voices saying they aren’t hard enough
for Javakh interests. On 16 March, Baiburt caused grumbling in
Javakheti when he said, `The Georgian authorities are not imposing
any restrictions on Georgia’s Armenian population,’ and went on, `The
government has agreed to allow official business to be conducted in
Armenian in the area’ because Tbilisi understands that it is
`unreasonable’ to expect and demand that Armenians suddenly speak
Georgian. And in any case, he noted, it is unrealistic for
Javakheti’s civil society to demand a heightened status for the
Armenian language in Javakheti.
In an October 2005 interview, Baiburt even indicated that he believed
Russia and Armenian radicals were to blame for Javakheti’s dangerous
separatist leanings. Unsurprisingly, then, Javakheti’s moderate
politicians – and certainly the radical ones – feel abandoned by
politicians like Baiburt. As a result, Javakh Armenians feel they
must look for help from Armenia and, to a lesser extent, Javakheti’s
local government and civil society.
In response, the Georgian government and media often paint
Javakheti’s Armenian advocacy groups as instigators of separatist and
anti-Tbilisi sentiment in the region, and the authorities cite such
concerns as a basis for keeping civil-society groups from becoming
recognized political parties. While Virk’s political ambition has
received the most attention, other local civic organizations, such as
the United Javakh-Democratic Alliance (a union of eight youth
organizations) and Javakh, another group also pushing for political
autonomy, are encountering equal resistance for allegedly instigating
violence. Virk leader David Rstakian, however, attributes the
relative calm in Javakheti (compared to South Ossetia and Abkhazia)
to the restraint of these demonized groups, which he says actually
prevent Armenian protests from escalating into outright separatism.
In the past, Rstakian has also insisted that outright secession or
reunion with Armenia is not necessary to ensure the safety and
prosperity of the Javakh people.
The United Javakh-Democratic Alliance leader takes a less measured
tone. Vahan Chakhalian has said that the Russian withdrawal will
leave local Armenians defenseless and that his organization would be
forced to retaliate if Georgian troops tried to use the base –
regardless of whether they, too, would purchase much of the locally
grown produce. Such declarations are eerily similar to those put
forward by Abkhazian and South Ossetian separatists in the early
1990s, immediately preceding two very bloody and still unresolved
conflicts.
On the other side of the border, Dashnaktsutiun, a radical
century-old political party in Armenia and a member, although not an
influential one, in the ruling parliamentary coalition, often reacts
heatedly to Tbilisi’s policies in Javakheti, even warning that
discriminatory policies in Javakheti give the people `no other choice
than the use of force to protect their interests and dignity.’
So far, the bulk of the political parties and movements in Javakheti
are not pushing for violent resistance, but they are pushing for
cultural and political autonomy, if not outright secession and
reunification with Armenia. But Javakh Armenians may not need much
saber rattling to push them over the edge, as events in the last year
illustrate.
APPROACHING THE THRESHOLD
The past year has seen local Armenians take to the streets on several
occasions, flying several metaphorical banners of resistance. In
March 2005, 6,000 Javakh Armenians rallied in Akhalkalaki to protest
a resolution in the Georgian parliament that called for the
withdrawal of the Russian base. They also aired many other
grievances.
In July, Armenians from the city of Samsar refused to allow a group
of students and nuns from Tbilisi to restore a nearby medieval
church, accusing them of intent to `Georgianize’ the Armenian church
and culture. The dispute quickly turned physical and left a number of
people seriously injured. The same day, in Akhalkalaki, a number of
Javakh Armenians and Greeks decried “Georgianization” in a protest at
a Georgian school.
In October, Tbilisi tax officials closed 10 small Armenian-owned
shops in Akhalkalaki for financial irregularities, setting off
protests by hundreds in front of the district’s state administration
building. Local police tried to disband the demonstrators with rubber
truncheons and by firing gunshots into the air, injuring many of
them.
And this year on 9 March, an ethnic Armenian was killed in a bar
fight in Tsalka, a city in Javakheti’s neighboring Kvemo-Kartli
region; soon afterward, hundreds of ethnic Armenians marched in
memory of the man they called a victim of the climate of ethnic
intolerance. The jail holding the suspected killers was soon
surrounded by protesters calling for swift justice.
Only two days later, Armenians gathered in Akhalkalaki to protest the
dismissal of an ethnic Armenian judge, the latest of several fired
(the protestors said) for not knowing and using the Georgian language
in court. To reinforce the now-frequent demand that the Armenian
tongue be given equal status with Georgian, the protesters raided a
local courtroom, ousted a Georgian judge, and then stormed a Georgian
Orthodox church and the local branch of Tbilisi State University.
United Javakh issued a statement condemning the judges’ dismissals as
`cynically trampling on the rights of the Armenian-populated region.’
More broadly, the statement warned that the “destructive trends in
the Georgian government’s policy” illustrated Tbilisi’s desire to
`crush the will of Javakh’s Armenian population to protect its right
to live in its motherland.”
A Georgian ombudsman quickly tried to cut the tension with a finding
that the Tsalka bar fight was merely a `communal crime’ with no
ethnic basis, and other Georgian officials continue to maintain that
the judges were fired for misconduct alone. Nevertheless, in the past
Tbilisi has appointed a number of judges in Javakheti who speak no
Armenian and must use translators to conduct judicial proceedings,
much to the frustration of local Armenians, who charge Tbilisi with
cultural imperialism.
In the last two months, Javakhetians have held a number of organized
and spontaneous protest rallies and physically blockaded the Russian
military withdrawal. Eager to facilitate the departure of the Russian
troops, Saakashvili on 28 April asked his Armenian counterpart,
Robert Kocharian, to help ease the tension in Javakheti.
MEETING HALFWAY?
While visiting Akhalkalaki on 19 April, Saakashvili pledged to put an
end to Javakheti’s isolation in Georgia, beginning with the
construction of a road from Akhalkalaki to the capital of the
neighboring Samtskhe region, Akhaltsikhe, and another connecting
Akhalkalaki to Tbilisi. Funded by the U.S. Millennium Challenge
Account, these infrastructure developments would boost local
agriculture and attract new business to the area. “Roads and
development: These are what Javakheti needs now,” he said.
With policies like these, it seems that Tbilisi is hoping to recruit
friendly Javakh Armenians by encouraging interaction between
Georgia’s diverse ethnicities. Georgian decision makers may reckon
that better transport will lead to better cooperation and perhaps
enough assimilation to quell separatist rhetoric and ambitions.
In fact, if national policies like these actually come to fruition,
they could help integrate and intertwine the Georgian and Armenian
communities through significant economic and humanitarian gains. But
these are not the gains that the Armenians insist they need most: For
instance, Javakheti will get an important highway, but it traverses
the 300 kilometers to Tbilisi, not Yerevan.
Tbilisi refuses to give Javakheti a broader self-governance or
autonomy package because such policies are seen as just as likely to
isolate Javakheti even further. Worse still, loosening the leash
might set a dangerous precedent for successful separatism. So it
seems, then, that the politicians have no choice but to return to the
scales and reset the balance for another day of gambling, perhaps
hoping simply to break even.
David Young works for the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and
International Studies in Tbilisi.