AZERI TV ACCUSES TBILISI OF PRO-ARMENIAN BIAS

Lider TV, Azerbaijan
Sept 25 2005

The Azeri TV station Lider has accused the Georgian authorities of
pro-Armenian bias. It said that whereas Tbilisi has been spending money
on improving the infrastructure in the Armenian-populated Javakhetia
region, local Azeris have been denied the right to buy land or study
in their own language. The following is an excerpt from report by
Azerbaijani TV station Lider on 25 September; subheadings have been
inserted editorially:

[Presenter] Our sources in Tbilisi told us an interesting story last
week. They said that two thirds of the 275m-dollar-fund from the
US Millennium Challenge Account [MCA] for Georgia will be spent on
infrastructure and new roads in Javakhetia where ethnic Armenians live.

[Passage omitted: Ethnic Armenians want autonomy from Tbilisi; police
in Akhalkalaki protested against appointment of a new police chief]

Over 3,000 ethnic Azeri officials replaced

However, the Azerbaijani-populated areas have neither a police
chief nor a high-ranking police officer whereas low-ranking officers
have been dismissed from their posts one by one. A total of 3,400
Azerbaijanis in various posts have been replaced by Georgians since
[Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili has come to power. The
policy of discrimination against Georgia’s ethnic Azerbaijanis does
not end there.

[Correspondent over video of Azeris in Georgia] Reports on ethnic
Azerbaijanis in Georgia seemed to be an everyday occurrence which
cannot surprise anyone. Surprising though is another thing. Why does
the Georgian government creates artificial problems which can aggravate
the situation? Why is Tbilisi not treating other ethnic minorities,
for example, Armenians similarly?

[Passage omitted: says that Azerbaijanis in Georgia are the only
ethnos who have repeatedly proved their loyalty to Georgia and quotes
Saakashvili’s interview with Lider TV two years ago]

Nevertheless, it is not hard to prove that everything has gone from
bad to worse over the last two years. Let us take the problem of
land. Although the land reform is now under way, this process cannot
be classified as a reform but the seizure of the Azeri-populated
lands. The lands in the Azerbaijani villages are being transferred
to the Georgian-owned companies but taking no heed of the opinions
of locals, people told a Lider TV correspondent in Georgia. Whenever
people protest against this process, kangaroo courts confirm the
decisions by the executive authorities. There is not a single body
for the helpless Azerbaijanis to lodge their complaints with.

[First unidentified man] Under the new law, the Azerbaijanis here have
been deprived of the right to land. I will be prepared to repeat this
to Saakashvili. The Azerbaijanis are being deprived of their lands. Our
village owns 600-700 ha of lands, of which 70-75 ha are possessed by
a dozen of villagers. The rest is owned by top businessmen.

As for another problem, i.e. the problem of language, it has two
aims. One of them is designed for the future and the other one for
the past. The Azerbaijanis were first uprooted when their historic
villages were renamed.

These villages were groundlessly renamed under [former President
Eduard] Shevardnadze and when we told the Azerbaijani presidential
executive staff and the media about that at the time, they asked us
why we had renamed Ganca. Thirty two villages fell victim to that.

Ban on native language has far-reaching aims

[Correspondent] Second, by restricting the use of the mother tongue,
they are trying to rob our compatriots of their future. Under the
newly-adopted law on education, schools for ethnic minorities will
start teaching in Georgian in the next three years. So, in a short
while, everything will be taught in Georgian. An ethnic language will
be taught as a foreign language.

[Second unidentified man] From 2007, when the law comes into force,
history, geography, mathematics, physics, nature and a series of
social subjects will be taught in Georgian at the non-Georgian
speaking schools. We simply cannot understand this. This just shows
that they are closing down the Azerbaijani-language schools. How can
a pupil study in two languages? What is it for? The aim is to make
the non-Georgians illiterate here.