Nuncio says poverty, resources, instability make Caucasus volatile
By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

Catholic News Service
Sept 15 2004

ROME (CNS) — The poverty, political instability and major energy
resources found in the Caucasus region have combined to make it a
potential “powder keg” for violence on an international scale, said
the nuncio to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Ethnic and religious differences, independence movements and the fight
for territorial control have sparked “a confrontation without limits
and without morality,” said Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, the nuncio.

An interview the archbishop gave to a Catholic newspaper in Trent,
Italy, was republished in early September by SIR, the news agency of
the Italian bishops’ conference.

He spoke after the deaths of more than 300 children and adults in a
school in Beslan in Russia’s North Ossetia province.

The main suspects were from the neighboring province of Chechnya,
where battles have raged in a fight for independence from Russia. On a
smaller scale, South Ossetia, which is part of Georgia, has experienced
violence by residents fighting for independence or for reunification
with Russia.

The Caucasus region, Archbishop Gugerotti said, is a mix of East and
West and has vast gas and petroleum reserves. It generally includes
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and parts of southern Russia.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1990, he said, “instability
generated poverty, which was aggravated by a series of population
shifts and an influx of refugees, which make the Caucasus an ideal
basin for terrorism and subversion in general.”

“To avoid letting this transform into a situation like that of
the Balkans (in the early 1990s), it is indispensable that the
international community not abandon us. Not even Russia, acting
alone, can get out of this crisis because the hotspots of tensions
are infinite,” Archbishop Gugerotti said.

The archbishop said that the old communist structures that provided
security have eroded and there has been difficulty in establishing
new structures throughout the region.

Many of the region’s people “do not feel protected by any functioning
system,” he said. “Then there also is the painful perception that
people find themselves facing an almost inevitable escalation” of
insecurity and danger.

A political solution is needed to resolve the conflicting aspirations
of the various communities present in the region, the archbishop said.

“New formulas to pacify the region” must be found, he said; otherwise
there is risk of “a generalized explosion.”

Archbishop Gugerotti said religious leaders in the region have
a serious responsibility to educate their communities for peace,
dialogue and respect for others.

“The situation requires a movement of contact between religious leaders
to reinforce positive values … and curb the risks of manipulating
religion, which some try to do, finding easy success amid ignorance
and poverty,” he said.