In the 16 years since a 1994 ceasefire agreement put the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed mainly-Armenian populated territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold, peace remains as elusive as ever. The war fought in the early 1990s left over 25,000 dead and forced a million to flee their homes.

Since June 2008 Onnik Krikorian has been using new and social media to connect alternative voices in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Diasporas of both countries. A cross-border project initiated in September 2009 has since given birth to Caucasus Conflict Voices, a collection of contributions to date from Armenian and Azerbaijani bloggers.

The first collection includes color photographs by Onnik Krikorian alongside contributions from himself as well as Zamira Abbasova, Marine Ejuryan, Aygun Janmammadova, Sasun Khachatryan, Scary Azeri, Yelena Osipova, Liana Aghajanian, Kevork Oskanian, and Arpine Porsughyan.

It can be freely downloaded in PDF format (1.7mb) from the project site at
http://www.oneworld.am/diversity/blogs.html.

IDP, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

With some very real doubts and concerns raised by Moscow’s inability to withdraw its troops from urban centers such as Gori as well as ethnic-Georgian populated towns and villages in West Georgia and South Ossetia, the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Tbilisi is considerable.

And while the number of IDPs varies given the random and uncoordinated nature of their arrival in the Georgian capital, one thing is certain. They number in their tens of thousands and create further problems for a country still having to deal with hundreds of thousands of displaced persons from previous conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. UNHCR has already detailed the extent of the problem and its contribution to a $58.5 million emergency fund.

The latest estimates of displacement related to the conflict total more than 158,700 people – based on figures provided by the Georgian and Russian governments. It is reported that up to 30,000 people are displaced within South Ossetia. In addition, some 98,000 people are displaced in Georgia proper, including most of the population of the town of Gori. Russian officials in North Ossetia indicate some 30,000 people from South Ossetia are still in the Russian Federation.

UNHCR urgently needs additional funds to ensure continued assistance to the newly displaced population in the Caucasus region. Our part of the US$58.5 million Georgia Crisis flash appeal, launched yesterday in New York, amounts to US$16 million for the next six months. This will cover UNHCR’s protection, shelter and assistance programmes for the newly displaced in the Caucasus region.

The full post is available on The Caucasian Knot.

IDP Collective Centre, Kutaisi, Imereti Region, Republic of Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / NKTA 2007

As part of the work shot for the Newport Kutaisi Association it only seemed natural to visit two collective centers inhabited by ethnic Georgians displaced during fighting in Abkhazia in the early 1990s for background contextual shots to illustrate the social situation in Georgia’s second largest city. Having shot a lot of work on IDPs and refugees in Armenia, it was interesting to do something similar in Georgia, and not least because the Urban Institute is operating a voucher system modeled after one implemented in Armenia’s second largest city, Gyumri.

Based on the highly successful USAID Armenia Housing Purchase Voucher Program implemented by the Urban Institute from 2000- 2005 for households displaced from the 1988 Earthquake, The U.S. Department of State BPRM awarded a Cooperative Agreement to UI to pilot a similar voucher program to provide permanent shelter to families displaced from the civil conflicts in Georgia in the early 1990’s. Kutaisi, Georgia’s second largest city, was selected as the venue because of its high concentration of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia. The pilot is testing the concept in the local context and demonstrating the approach to all stakeholders, including the Government of Georgia and the donor community, to inform a broader national housing strategy and to garner support for a potential roll-out of a larger program.

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Drakhtik, Gegharkunik Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Tufenkian Foundation 2006

Today saw another trip out into the regions for Armenia for the Tufenkian Foundation. Anyway, the trip today was to take a look some more of their projects, but this time in the village of Drakhtik close to Lake Sevan in the Gegharkunik region of the Republic. Armenia Now wrote something on the Tufenkian Foundation’s work in Drakhtik some time back.

In 1999, the Tufenkian Foundation (established by businessman James Tufenkian of New York) began a cooperative with sheep farmers in this region that starts out as an investment by the humanitarian organization but ends as a business deal between the villagers and the entrepreneur - best known for handmade carpets woven from the very sheep making all the noise on this Armenian hillside. (Tufenkian also owns a carpet factory in Tibet, where his first rugs were produced 16 years ago.)

The program works like this:

Ten families in villages like Drakhtik and nearby Jil are given a “grant” of 258 sheep (collectively) - 250 of which are female. Families are selected on the basis of their experience at raising sheep, and on their current economic status (i.e., whether anyone in the family is working).

Further, the village is given $4,500 — $3,000 for wheat to sustain the herd during the winter, and $1,500 for start up expenses, such as building barns and paying for vaccinations.

For two years, the sheep farmers owe the Foundation nothing. Then, at the end of the third year, they start paying back their “grant” - 50 sheep the third year, then 100 the fourth and fifth years. The Foundation will then use the sheep paid off from one village to begin the same program in another.

As the normal birthrate for sheep is one offspring per year, even given natural losses, farmers will greatly increase herd sizes and the number of sheep they get to divide among themselves.

Further, from the moment the sheep arrive in the village, families begin processing the byproducts - milk, cheese, butter, yogurt - for personal use and to sell to nearby towns. And, in addition to the dairy products, Tufenkian’s carpet factory buys the wool - which is why in these villages a very special breed “koridel”, peculiar to the Caucasus, is raised, as experts at Tufenkian Armenian Carpets have learned its unique wool is best suited for their hand-woven rugs.

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The New York Times has an interesting article on tourism to the Black Sea holiday resort town of Batumi in the Republic of Georgia. According to the article, over 300,000 tourists are likely to visit this part of Armenia’s northern neighbor in 2006. However, the growing popularity of Batumi for vacations has come at a cost.

Marina Gahukidze checked into the Meskheti, a hotel in this faded resort town, in 1993, and never left. She and her husband have raised three children in a 10th-floor room with a balcony and a view of the beach.

[…]

The hotel overlooks a gray pebble beach on the Black Sea and rolling green hills, a picturesque scene that resembles Northern California. It is a subtropical town with velvety springs and mild winters. It’s just that the hotel is occupied by refugees, not tourists.

But the summer of 2006 will be the Gahukidze family’s last in the region of Ajaria, a ribbon of coastal land that includes Batumi and was wrenched two years ago from a renegade, separatist leader, Aslan Abashidze. The family is finally moving out, as this former resort town and oil port built by French architects in the 19th century embarks on a crash development program to bring back the tourists.

[…]

The refugees in Batumi come from a still-unresolved conflict in Abkhazia, the other resort district — and therein lies the secret of the money now pouring into Batumi, and the effort to move Ms. Gahukidze from her room.

Georgian officials hope to use Batumi to demonstrate to the other breakaway regions the potential rewards that follow when a separatist region becomes part of a recognized state.

The city, they say, is becoming a showcase of how quickly one of the so-called “frozen conflicts” of the former Soviet Union — Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been fought over by Armenia and Azerbaijan; Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia; and Transnistria in Moldova — can thaw out.

[…]

In the largest investment to date, the TuranAlem bank of Kazakhstan bought 21 hotels — including the Meskheti, where Ms. Gahukidze lives. As part of the investment, the bank will pay each family $7,000 to move out, enough for a modest apartment in an outlying district.

When the refugees are gone, the Kazakh investors will raze and rebuild some hotels and refurbish others. The hotels are now home to 1,912 families, or about 6,000 people. So far, 1,400 people have moved out.

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Refugee, Silikyan, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1994

After mentioning the problem of Internally Placed Persons (IDPs) as a result of cross border shelling, landmines, the deterioration of infrastructure and a lack of investment in areas bordering Azerbaijan it was coincidental but interesting to be asked by Hetq Online to interview the new Country Director of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) this morning. I had previously interviewed Engebretsen’s predecessor a year and half or so ago.

Central to this brief interview was the issue of possibly inflated figure for the number of refugees and IDPs in Armenia and the necessity for allowing refugees and IDPs to return to their homes in the event of a peace deal being signed to end the conflict over Nagorno Karabakh. Regardless of what many Armenians might think, the return of territory and the right to return for Azerbaijani refugees will be part of any deal.

OK: When I interviewed your predecessor, Tim Straight, about a year and a half ago, he mentioned that a survey on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) was going to be taken in Armenia in cooperation with the Armenian Government. This is a new focus for the NRC, and I wondered has the survey been held and what were the findings?

KE: It was held and the result was that the figures for the number of IDPs in Armenia decreased considerably from 70,000 to 8,000.

OK: That’s quite a decrease. We’re talking about those regions of Armenia bordering Azerbaijan where there’s still a problem with landmines as well as a lack of infrastructure and investment so what’s the reason for this reduction?

KE: That’s still a problem, but I don’t know what the reason is for this reduction. However, I would suspect that the explanation is the same when it comes to refugees and the population in general. A lot of people flee the country for a while. They go to Russia or the United States and we hope that they’ll come back one day.

OK: There’s been a survey on IDPs, but another contentious issue is the number of refugees [from Azerbaijan] in the country. We’re still working with the figure of over 250,000, but I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that it might be as low as 80-90,000. It’s significantly smaller as well. Does anybody know?

KE: No one knows, but UNHCR is holding a survey now and I think that the number of refugees in Armenia will also be lowered quite a lot as well. The Government has its figure, but we think that it’s too high and UNHCR is absolutely certain that this number will go down after the survey is completed this year.

OK: At the moment there’s a lot of talk about the return of IDPs in Azerbaijan and refugees in Armenia to their former homes in and around Nagorno Karabakh once a peace deal is signed. Most recently, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State referred to this issue and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is also including the matter on its agenda. Is the Norwegian Refugee Council and UNHCR involved in this matter?

KE: No, in Armenia we are not. However, our office in Baku is looking into this very carefully, of course. It should happen, but the situation in Azerbaijan is very different from that in Armenia because here we’re still struggling with the economy, whereas Azerbaijan has become very, very rich. If something were to happen regarding Nagorno Karabakh or the areas surrounding it, that would have to happen after some kind of peace deal.

OK: When some people talk of the return of IDPs to territory surrounding Nagorno Karabakh, and we’re talking about Azerbaijanis and Kurds, some Armenians don’t understand why there should be the “right to return” included in any peace deal. Maybe this is a political question, perhaps, but in your opinion, why is it important that refugees and IDPs have the “right to return?”

KE: Well, lets put Nagorno Karabakh aside and talk about the area surrounding it. As far as I understand, and this is accepted by Armenia as well, that land is considered to be an occupied area — a security zone around Karabakh. If there was an agreement then I guess that this area surrounding Karabakh would be given back to the Azeris. I don’t know much about this, but I think that this would be the situation.

If this happened, then of course the people that lived there would be entitled to return to their homes. That’s the way I see it.

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Refugee, Silikyan, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1994

Although as many as 20,000 civilians and combatants died during the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, the cost in terms of displaced persons was significantly more. Approximately 1 million Armenians and Azerbaijanis were forced to flee their homes in both republics during tit-for-tat expulsions and ethnic cleansing.

Yet, while the focus of the international community has been on IDPs and Refugees in Azerbaijan, that’s not to say that Armenia was spared. In 2004, I travelled to the north eastern Tavoush region of Armenia with Tim Straight, then head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Armenia. Although the Armenian government officially puts the number of refugees at 240,000, it is believed that most have left for Russia and other countries.

Informed sources estimate that there may be no more than 70,000 left in Armenia, but regardless, none are going to return to their former homes in Azerbaijan even if a peace deal is signed in 2006. Therefore, the question of compensation for refugees and IDPs on both sides still remains unanswered. This issue was touched upon in an interview I held with Straight in 2004.

Officially, there are 36,000 Azeri-owned houses that are now occupied by Armenians and I have no reason to believe that this number is incorrect. Those might sound like strange words today, fifteen or sixteen years later. That is, that they’re Azeri owned but that they’re occupied. Of course, these refugees fully consider them to be their houses. Legally, however, they’re not.

[…]

I’m not sure but comparing it to the Bosnian situation, a lot of the deals that were made when the Serbs left Bosnia and the Bosniaks were thrown out of Serbia were made under duress and were later declared null and void. However, that was also a completely different situation. There was a lot of focus, a lot of pressure, a lot of money and, in fact, a lot of everything in Bosnia.

Here in Armenia, there’s not a lot of donor presence, not a lot of focus, not a lot of interest and there will be no progress or decision made on this issue until a peace deal is signed. Do they own those houses or not? What about those 36,000 houses that Armenians have been living in for up to sixteen years? Can they be legally titled to those families? What about compensation to the Azeris that used to own them?

What about compensation for those Armenians with apartments in Baku?

None of that is going to be solved until there’s a peace agreement and it has to be part of any deal. You can’t make a durable peace agreement without addressing these issues and they’re horribly complicated. So, in as much as everybody says it’s important, yes it is, but we can’t do anything about it now. In cooperation with UNHCR all we can do is just say that there can’t be a peace agreement without addressing those issues.

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Refugee from Shahumian, Silikyan, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1994

RFE/RL has also published another piece in the puzzle surrounding ongoing negotiations to resolve the Karabakh conflict. As with every other disclosure surrounding the talks, the rumors circulating since the end of last year are gradually being confirmed. Many analysts believe that Armenia and Azerbaijan are the closest they’ve been to a peace deal.

Azerbaijan left on Tuesday the clearest indication yet that it is considering a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that would enable the predominantly Armenian population of the disputed region to determine its status at a referendum.

That the referendum option is at the heart of a peace accord currently discussed by the conflicting parties was also reportedly confirmed by government officials in Turkey, Azerbaijan’s closest ally.

[…]

Senior Armenian officials told RFE/RL last June that the parties are close to cutting a deal that would lead to an internationally supervised referendum on independence in Karabakh in 10 to 15 years from now. They claimed that the vote would follow the liberation of all but one of the seven Armenian-controlled districts in Azerbaijan that surround Karabakh. International mediators have refused to confirm or deny the claims.

When Oskanian and Mammadyarov meet we’ll know more. The meeting will set the agenda for the meeting between the two presidents on Friday. Some analysts suspect that a declaration regarding a future peace deal will be made by the two leaders although others warn that parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan during November might yet scupper the progress reportedly made.

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Georgien links to a new blog from Tbilisi. The blog, Beckilina, is by an American now living and working for the next two months at the Georgian Foundation for International and Strategic Studies. Beckita is researching women refugees from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It can be read online here.