LANGUAGE RIGHTS ISSUE FUEL DISCORD IN GEORGIA

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From Eurasianet.org

Civil Society:
LANGUAGE RIGHTS ISSUE FUEL DISCORD IN GEORGIA
Paul Rimple: 3/30/06

Discontent is rising within Georgias Armenian community, the countrys
largest ethnic minority, driven by complaints concerning the central
governments language policy, as well as perceptions of discrimination. The
building tension between ethnic Armenians and Georgian government
officials has been linked to recent rioting and violence. A March 9
altercation between ethnic Armenians and Svans in the Kvemo Kartli village
of Tsalka led to the death of 24-year-old Gevork Gevorkian, an ethnic
Armenian, and incited a mob to raid a local administrative building. Two
days later, in response to Gevorkians death, several hundred protestors in
Akhalkalaki, a predominantly ethnic Armenian town in the neighboring
region of Samtskhe-Javakheti, stormed the local branch of Tbilisi State
University, a court building and the office of a Georgian Orthodox Church
archbishop.

Responding to the violence, Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze on March 13
placed the blame on serious forces, who [are] try[ing] to trigger
destabilization in this region, the Civil Georgia web site reported. Some
ethnic minorities in the region have a different interpretation. The
murder of the Armenian [Gevork Gevorkian] wasn't a political act, it was
criminal, suggested Makhare Matsukov, an Akhalkalaki business leader and
ethnic Greek. But politics created the situation that exists in Tsalka and
the situation here in Akhalkalaki. Local leaders say that protests are the
only way they can get the central government to listen to their
complaints. There is talk of boycotting local elections in October if no
progress is made in opening a dialogue with the central authorities in
Tbilisi.

Frustration with what is perceived as the central governments disregard
for Georgias Armenian minority prevails in both Tsalka and Akhalkalaki,
but the roots of the particular issues differ. Once numbering 30,000,
Tsalkas Greek population is now about 1,500 and shrinking. A mass exodus
occurred during the 1990s when thousands of families relocated to Greece
for work. As Greeks left, natural disaster victims from the northern
Georgian region of Svaneti and the western Black Sea region of Achara
began to move into vacant homes. Squatters took over many abandoned
houses; pillagers ransacked others. As economic conditions in Tsalka
worsened, and the towns crime rate increased, remaining villagers (12,000
Armenians, 1,500 Azeris and 1,500 Greeks) started to view their guests as
a threat.

Before the Svans arrived, there was never any trouble in Tsalka. Why
doesn't the government do something to help? Is it because we aren't
Georgian? fumed Armen Darbinyan, an ethnic Armenian and chairman of the
Javakheti Citizens Forum, a non-governmental organization sponsored by the
European Center for Minority Issues. Meanwhile, in Akhalkalaki, many say
that the strained relationship with Tbilisi (which locals call Georgia)
began after the 2003 Rose Revolution.  After coming to power, President
Mikheil Saakahsvili's administration overhauled the local political
machinery, replacing local officials with appointees from Tbilisi. First
Deputy Governor Armen Amirkhanyan said many local residents in this
poverty-stricken area believed the changes were driven by prejudice.
Ethnic Armenians make up 60 percent of the region, and their rights must
be defended, Amirkhanyan added. The need to have a working knowledge of
Georgian lies at the heart of most complaints.

Georgian government statistics on election registration estimate the
number of ethnic Armenians in Akhalkalaki at 95.8 percent of the towns
population of 10,000. (Local Armenians put the number at 98 percent.)
Since the entire region of Samtskhe-Javakheti functions primarily in
Armenian, few Akhalkalaki residents speak Georgian. At the same time,
Russian is frequently spoken thanks to the presence of a former Russian
military base. We cant get good jobs unless we speak Georgian, but how can
you learn Georgian so well when you're 30 or 40 years old? said a resident
of Ninotsminda, a nearby village not far from the Armenian border. If we
cant get work here, we will continue to move to Russia for work, if we can
get visas. Unofficial estimates put the number of Javakheti men who work
seasonally in Russia at 80 percent.

Incentives offered by the Saakashvili government to promote Georgian
language instruction, as well as to promote the integration of Armenians
into the Georgian mainstream, have fallen flat, according to Javakheti
residents. In 2004, Saakashvili came to Akhalkalaki and promised to
integrate 100 students into the university system in Tbilisi and Kutaisi
with stipends, said Akhalkalaki Mayor Iricya Nairi. Thats great, we
thought. But Nairi claims local students couldn't pass the Georgian
language university entry exams, which were a result of the governments
education reforms. Darbinyan says that he doesn't understand how people are
expected to learn Georgian well enough to pass exams, when they have few
chances to learn it. Out of Akhalkalakis five secondary schools, only one
teaches courses in Georgian. Three teach in Armenian and one in Russian.

Mayor Nairi cites the recent influx of Georgian students to the
Akhalkalaki branch of Tbilisi State University as further evidence that
the government does not want to treat ethnic Armenians equally. After
Georgian students were brought to Akhalkalaki to study for free, Nairi
charged, the number of Armenians studying at the local university dropped
to four. By contrast, he said, under former president Eduard Shevardnadze
60 percent of the universitys 650 students were Armenian. Why would they
open a university here and bring Georgians if they didn't plan to change
the demographics of our region? he wondered. Deputy Education and Science
Minister Bela Tsipuria, however, rejects the contention. The only reason
Georgian students are studying in Akhalkalaki is because the competition
to study there is lower than in Tbilisi or Kutaisi, Tsipuria stated.
Complaints about the difficulty of Georgias new university entrance exams
were not limited to Javakheti, she added. Young people today have to work
hard to compete in modern Georgia. This is an entirely new concept.

Tsipuria argues that Javakheti's problems have more to do with a lack of
educational opportunities than language a problem not unique to
Samtskhe-Javakheti. President Saakashvili, she stressed, has promised that
hundreds of Armenian students will have the opportunity to receive
sufficient education to find work within the civil service. The government
is currently training teachers and introducing new methodology, Tsipuria
continued. But people don't understand these things take time.

First Deputy Governor Amirkhanyan believes that education reform must be
accomplished while taking the interests of national minorities into
account. We must learn Georgian if we want to get ahead. It would be
easier on all levels, from civic positions to farmers who commute to
Tbilisi to sell their goods. The issue seems to spill over easily into
other areas, as well. The February dismissal of three ethnic Armenian
judges for allegedly having an insufficient knowledge of Georgian has
generated considerable resentment.  If you don't know the state language,
then you must go! commented Nairi.

Similarly, the archbishops office was targeted by locals who assume that
the Georgian Orthodox Church is attempting to exercise excessive influence
in the region. The office was rumored to contain a cache of weapons. The
cache never materialized. Calls have gone out recently for
Samtskhe-Javakheti to be made an autonomous region, with broader
self-governance rights, and for Armenian to be named the regions official
language. Local leaders and most activists, however, maintain that
protests against perceived cultural assimilation should not be interpreted
as a separatist drive. Said Javakheti Citizens Forum Chairman Darbinyan:
They call us separatists because were asking for cultural autonomy, but we
want democracy and decentralization.


Editors Note: Paul Rimple is a freelance journalist based in Tbilisi.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/civilsociety/articles/eav033006.shtml