Stalin's Last Victims Trickle Home to Georgia

Nearly 60 years after Stalin deported them from Soviet Georgia, members of the Meskhetian Turkish community are on the brink of returning home.

Georgia agreed to facilitate the minority's return when it joined the Council of Europe in 1999, but the necessary legislation was not enacted until 2007. (See Tbilisi Criticised Over Repatriation Requests [3]on delays to the process.)

The Meskhetians now have until the end of this year to receive "repatriate" status, which will put them on the fast track to acquiring citizenship and the other rights.

Members of this Muslim group from what is now part of Samtse-Javakheti region of south-western Georgia generally call themselves Ahiska Turks, while Georgian officials describe them as Meskhetian Muslims.

The Meskhetians were one of several ethnic groups, also including the Chechens, the Kalmyks, the Crimean Tatars and others, who were exiled en masse from the Caucasus region to Siberia or Central Asia during the Second World War, out of a paranoid concern that they might be less than loyal in case of invasion. In November 1944, all the Meskhetians were rounded up and despatched to Central Asia, with thousands dying en route in disease-ridden cattle trucks.

Unlike most of the other groups, the Meskhetians were not allowed to go home after Stalin's death, but remained in Central Asia.

In 1989, tens of thousands of them fled ethnic violence in Uzbekistan that targeted their community. Most ended up in Azerbaijan or southern Russia – much nearer home, but still not quite there. Around 10,000 who lived in Russia's Krasnodar region were resettled in the United States following clashes with the local population, but the majority of exiles remained in limbo.

Kamal Qahramanov's life story is one of repeated exile and relocation. Born near Georgia's border with Turkey in 1927, he was part of the deportations to Central Asia in 1944, where he lived until the 1989 bloodshed in Uzbekistan. Fleeing the violence, he ended up in Azerbaijan, where he now lives in the village of Fatalikend in the Saatli region.

Although he spent his childhood years there, Qahramanov cannot remember much about Georgia.

"If possible I will return. But I know nothing about Georgia. They say there are mountains and forests there," he said. "If I go back, I will be a farmer like my forebears," Qahramanov said.

Georgia's ministry for refugees stopped accepting applications from would-be repatriates at the start of January 2010, by which time there were about 8,800 people on the list, the vast majority of them currently resident in Azerbaijan.

The ministry now has a special commission going through the applications, most of which contain errors or lack crucial supporting documents. Applicants will be given four months to correct these problems. Irakli Kokaia, who heads the ministerial department dealing with the repatriation process, said failure to do so would result in the application being shelved.

Repatriate status will give the Meskhetians the right to take out Georgian citizenship, thus clearing the way to buying property and land, and to obtaining an education.

This will free them of the bureaucratic obstacles that faced the small number of Meskhetians who moved to Georgia under their own steam in past years. Shamsaddin Sarvarov, chairman of Vatan, the Meskhetians' organisation in Azerbaijan, said he was in touch with around 40 families who had done so.

"They can't get registered [for residence], they aren't assigned housing, and they have problems getting their children educated," he said, adding optimistically that "all these problems will be resolved soon".

When it comes to those going through the formal repatriation process, Nugzar Tsiklauri, who chairs a parliamentary committee dealing with diaspora issues, said Georgia was hoping foreign donors would step in to help.

Tsiklauri said he did not know where in Georgia the Meskhetians would be housed.

This is a sensitive issue – much of the current population of Samtskhe-Javakheti consists of ethnic Armenians. Given the legacy of hostilities with both Turkey and Azerbaijan, the Armenians may not welcome the arrival of a Turkish-speaking group in their midst.

Melsa Torosyan, chairman of Nor Akunk, an activist group in the town of Akhalkalaki, couched these concerns using careful language, suggesting that the region was simply too impoverished to accept incomers.

"I agree that the mistakes of the past have to be corrected. But we mustn't make other mistakes," he said. "Our region doesn't have factories and the people don't have work, yet they want to bring in new arrivals."

Torosyan argues that the authorities should ensure there is funding, work and an integration programme for the Meskhetians before settling them anywhere, and also prepare local residents so that they will accept them.

"The repatriates will definitely have problems with the local population, of that I'm certain. It isn't just the ethnic factor – in fact that the least of the concerns," he said. "What's more important is how land is distributed. Alkhalkalaki residents don't have so much land that they can share it. Various problems may arise, and the locals will always seek to pin the causes of conflict on the newcomers. One can only guess where that will lead."

Ethnic Georgians in the south of the country also expressed concerns about the plan.

"Let them give work to locals first, and only then bring in others, whoever they might be," Temur Zazadze, a resident of Tmogvi in the Aspindze district, said. "There's so much unemployment that this is just going to increase the competition. There isn't enough land – I've got three sons and the land isn't sufficient to divide among them."

Tsiklauri pointed out that the total number of settlers were really quite small, and they were people who were keen to be part of Georgia.

"I think it's premature to say these people are going to have problems when they arrive. We're talking about 6,000 people in a country of five million," he said. "On top of that, these are people who – despite the decades that have passed since they were deported – have always pushed to return and regarded Georgia as their homeland."

Maia Tsiklauri works for Liberali magazine in Georgia; Kenan Guluzade is editor of the analitika.az website in Azerbaijan.