Tales from the ‘Black Garden’

By Stephanie Holmes
BBC News
September 28, 2007

The lives of thousands of young Azeris and Armenians have been scarred
by the bitter conflict over a mountainous region whose name means
"Black Garden".

I kept asking God: ‘Why? Why?’ Every day, every hour, I asked: ‘Why?’
Nobody answered me.
Vafa Farajova, Azeri journalist

Some 30,000 people were killed during the war over Nagorno-Karabakh in
the early 1990s, and little progress towards peace has been made since
a 1994 ceasefire.

The struggle for the mainly Armenian-populated region of Azerbaijan
remains unresolved, and hundreds of thousands of people are waiting to
return to their former homes.

For nearly 20 years Azeris and Karabakh Armenians have had no contact
with one another.

But a group of young journalists from both sides, who grew up during
the war, are now taking part in a project that brings them together to
make short documentary films.

They explore the impact of war on the two communities and the
absurdities of daily life under the conditions of frozen conflict.

Massive expulsions

The shared background for all the film-makers is what Laurence Broers,
an expert on the South Caucasus with conflict resolution group
Conciliation Resources, describes as the "massive mutual expulsions"
caused by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

One million Azeris were driven out of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding
regions by Armenian forces, or fled homes in Armenia.

Some 400,000 Armenians were also displaced from Azerbaijan or the
border regions of Armenia.

Twenty-year-old Suzanna Seyranyana, a Karabakh foreign language
student, was apprehensive about meeting Azeris through the project.

"Before, I thought that the Azeris were our enemies, I never thought
I’d be able to sit down with them, to have a cup of tea and a chat,
but during the project I met Azeris for the first time and they’ve
become my friends. I didn’t feel any barriers between us," she said.

A dream

"I realised that it is not our fault," she continued. "People aren’t
guilty – neither Azeris nor Armenians. It was war. It feels like a
dream, sitting with them, talking to them."

Yet there is reluctance, by both Armenians and Azeris to remember,
recount and relive their experiences of childhood.

"I was five years old when the war broke out. I saw everything. I
lived in a shelter for about two years. There was no light, no
nothing. It was awful. I don’t want to remember that period," Suzanna
said, speaking quietly.

Vafa Farajova, a bright-eyed 31-year-old Azeri teacher and journalist
explained: "We have forgotten our childhood and school-years."

But she still has vivid memories of abandoning her home in Zangelan,
one of seven districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh occupied by
Armenian forces during the conflict.

"When we fled, all the routes to Baku were closed, all the districts
were occupied by Armenians so we had to escape across the river, via
Iran," she said.

"We left everything – our home, everything… We didn’t take my
clothes, my pictures, my dresses or shoes. I felt awful, I cried. I
kept asking God ‘Why? Why?’ Armenians and Azerbaijanis had had such
good relations. Every day, every hour, I asked ‘Why?’ Nobody answered
me."

Sense of the absurd

Making the films, which involved joint training sessions, gave them
the chance to express their frustration about a conflict they see as
senseless.

A film by Azeri journalist Madina Nik-Najat, titled "The
Bug-gobblers", unravels how conflicts begin, and the role of seemingly
irrelevant differences in behaviour.

It juxtaposes members of two neighbouring groups, explaining why they
simply cannot get on, mentioning different speeds of talking and
methods of baking bread. The audience at a screening in London’s
Institute of Contemporary Arts laughed out loud.

Madina describes the film as "almost a comedy, showing that conflict
will be present whenever there is difference".

Vafa’s film introduces the audience to a former solider, blinded in
battle, who bears the scars of the bullet which robbed him of his
sight at his temple.

He has rebuilt his life. He has returned to university to become a
teacher, got married and had a child but, asked if he would return to
the battlefield, he replies unhesitatingly: Yes.

The project, organised partly by Conciliation Resources, aims to
develop dialogue between young people from both sides of the conflict.

The idea is that the films will be shown to both Armenian and Azeri
audiences, but there is no guarantee that this will happen.

Sevak Hayrapetyan, a 26-year-old Armenian student, nonetheless says he
hopes the films may help increase understanding between Azeris and
Armenians.

"The war was incomprehensible for me," he says.

"I don’t know if this project will help end the stalemate but these
are at least small steps."

Story from BBC NEWS:
/7016962.stm

Published: 2007/09/28 13:29:00 GMT

(c) BBC MMVII

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress