Some remarks about Meskhetians
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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 02:08:40 +0300 (EET DST)
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Subject: Some remarks about Meskhetians
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Alexander Ossipov <[email protected]>
Some remarks about Meskhetians
I must welcome Liz Fuller's report on Meskhetians ( "AND HOME THERE'S
NO RETURNING", RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 2, No. 183, Part I, 22 September
1998). People, who are interested in the modern history and current
minorities issues of the Caucasian region, obviously lack information
on this group. I'd like to add some details to the report.
The borderland 'mop-up operation' of November 1944 took place in
Ahaltsikhe region (a part of the Georgian historical provice Meskhety)
and Ajara, the seaside autonomous republic of Georgia. According to
the official data from the Soviet archives, the number of displaced
persons reached 95,000 (and not 150-200 thousand), of them around
7,500 Turks, Kurds and Khemhins were from Ajara, the rest from
Meskhety. These figures look reliable, they coinside with estimates
based on censuses of 1897 and 1926 and other demographic data. These
people were sent to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kirgizia. After the
deportation itself demobilised soldiers and officers who belonged to
the deported groups, were also sent to exile. The total number of
persons who originated from Ahaltsikhe region and were taken under
official supervision in exile, reached 100,000. Deportees from
Meskhety (Akhaltsike region) were of different ethnic affiliation.
Around 4,500 were Kurds, 11-12,000 belonged to Terekemes (or
Karapapakhs, Azerbaijani-speaking semi-nomads), who were officially
considered to be Azeris, the rest belonged to the group which we know
as Meskhetian Turks. They are Sunni Muslims, their native language is
Turkish. Before WW II a small part of them was officially registered
as 'Georgians', the rest - as 'Azerbaijanians'. They were deported as
'Turks', the majority was registered at the places od exile as
'Turks', some part as 'Azeris'. Later, after 1956, when they were
released from the special regime of exile, around 2/3 of them received
passports where they were marked as 'Azeris', the rest as 'Turks' and
a very small part as 'Georgians'. Needless to say that this 'ethnic
division' was completely arbitrary.
The Meskhetian movement for repatriation emerged after 1956. One can
hardly say, that it 'split' in the late 60s. Really, there were two
orientations commonly known as 'Georgian' and 'Turkish'. There wasn't
any definite and firm frontier between them, many activists used to
change their views and to migrate from one group to the other. The
'pro-Georgian' group insisted on the Meskhetians' being ethnic
Georgians who were to be repatriated as Georgians. The 'Turkish' group
insisted on their repatriation to Georgia as Turks. There was no
movement for emigration to Turkey until the early 90s. Only two times
in 1970-71 some activists declared their willing to emigrate to Turkey
in case the Soviet government won't adopt and implement their demands
of repatriation to Georgia. This demarche didn't have any practical
output. In general, the process of constructing and inventing the
Meskhetian identity is still far from being completed.
Some small groups of Meskhetians, who declared themselves "Georgians',
were settled for the first time in some inner districts of Georgia in
the mid-70s, not 80s.
During and immediately after the Fergana massacre of June 1989, around
17,500 (not 4,500) Turks were evacuated from Fergana province to
Russia. Totally about 90,000 Meskhetians fled from Uzbekistan in
1989-91, around half of them migrated to Russia, the rest to
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Meskhetian forced migrants are
still deprived of residence permits in Krasnodar territory, or 'krai'
(appr. 11,500) and Kabardin-Balkarian Republic (est. 300-700). This
problem (residence permits and acknowledgement of Russian citizenship)
was solved in Budennovsk district of Stavropol krai (appr. 360
persons) only in 1997. Overwhelming majority of the Meskhetians belong
to rural population and only few of them live in 'cities'.
The Krasnodar authorities did their best to squeeze the Meskhetians
out of their territory. The situation became critical by the end of
1997 and I wrote about it (at least two of the 'Memorial' newsletters
were distributed by MINELRES). The situation significantly changed to
the best within the last 7 months, though we can hardly call it a
great success. Hopefully I will be able to describe the ongoing and
submit one more newsletter shortly.
Sasha Ossipov
--
Alexander Ossipov
The Memorial Human Rights Centre,
programme manager
Maly Karetny per. 12, Moscow, 103051, Russia
tel 7 095 282 08 16
fax 7 095 209 57 79
e-mail: <[email protected]>
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