Agence France Presse — English
April 16, 2005 Saturday 3:03 AM GMT

Refugee aid breeds resentment in Azerbaijan

by Simon Ostrovsky

KURDAMIR, Azerbaijan April 16

Already too dark indoors, a few old men sat outside a ramshackle
teahouse to catch the last rays of the afternoon sun as they played
dominoes in this dusty town in central Azerbaijan.

“There hasn’t been any electricity in the whole neighborhood for
seven hours,” complained one, “nowhere except there,” he added,
gesturing at a rickety apartment block inhabited by refugees from the
Nagorny-Karabakh war.

Hundreds of thousands of Azeri refugees from a conflict that erupted
in last days of the Soviet Union still live in destitute housing and
camps scattered around the republic.

But the regular aid that they receive both from the government and
foreign aid agencies has stoked resentment in the poor communities to
which they have been resettled.

“They get a lot of help and we get nothing,” said 75-year-old Gara,
who said his 24 US dollars a month pension was only enough to cover
energy and water costs, but left little for food.

A regular supply of free electricity is just one of the benefits that
ordinary residents in Kurdamir wish they could share.

In an area where jobs are scarce and pensions low, they say the food
aid refugees receive, as well as tax benefits and a clean water
supply mean life is easier for those who fled their homes more than a
decade ago.

Azerbaijan will spend 60 million US dollars on aid to refugees this
year and foreign aid groups are expected to pitch in an additional 30
million US dollars according to the government.

And though billions of US dollars have been invested into the Caspian
nation as a BP-led consortium prepares to launch a massive pipeline
to deliver oil from here to Western markets, nearly half of the
country lives below the poverty line.

Azerbaijan and its rival Armenia fought a bloody war for Karabakh, a
predominantly Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan’s internationally
recognized borders until a ceasefire was signed in 1994.

Pro-Armenian forces won control of Karabakh and seven surrounding
regions at the cost of about 25,000 dead from both sides. About a
million people on both sides, 750,000 of them Azeris, were driven
from their homes.

And though conditions in the camps remain poor, aid groups have begun
to indicate that in poverty-stricken Azerbaijan, there is more
suffering outside the camps than inside.

More than 90 percent of refugees consume acceptable amounts of food,
but according to a recent study by the World Food Program (WFP) up to
600,000 ordinary people in rural areas are “food insecure” causing
malnutrition mainly among children.

“It is an issue which needs to be addressed. Twenty four percent of
children in some areas are stunted and suffer from malnutrition,”
said Rahman Chowdhury, WFP director in Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile the aid refugees receive, which is sometimes in excess of
their needs, is sold on to local residents, according to a Peace
Corps volunteer who works with refugee and local children in
Kurdamir.

As she sat by candlelight because of a power cut, Lisa Min said there
was “less resentment than you would expect,” between the two
communities, but goods like vegetable oil given to refugees in large
quantities often find their way onto the market.

Instead of taking steps to integrate refugees into communities and
invest money into developing towns, Azerbaijan’s government has done
everything to make sure refugees stay in camps, against the advice of
aid agencies.

“We want them to live in concentration so that when the occupied
territories are liberated it will be easier to move them back in,”
Azerbaijan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ali Hasanov told AFP.

The high level of government support that they receive is designed to
create incentives for the refugees to stay put, Hasanov said, but it
has also given grounds for jealousy from their impoverished
neighbors.

With Armenia and Azerbaijan no closer to reaching a lasting
settlement than they were when the tense ceasefire was reached,
humanitarian organizations have pushed the government to look at
other options.

According to the WFP’s Chowdhury, “living in the camps is not ideal,
not for a long time, they do not have opportunities to work outside
and this causes grievances and tensions,” with the local communities.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress