IWPR Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
Sept 11 2009

SOUTH CAUCASUS FRONTIER SQUABBLE
New Georgian border splits Armenian villagers from their land

By Naira Melkumian, Yeranuhi Soghoian and Nana Mamagulishvili in Bavra

Some Armenian villagers may have to slaughter cows they cannot afford
to feed, now that Georgian border guards have unilaterally decided
their traditional grazing lands are Georgian territory.

Georgian officials declined to comment on the situation, but some
Armenian politicians said the August 25 move by their counterparts in
Tbilisi was unjustified and illegal.

`I could not collect hay. I have 11 cattle, and what will I feed them
with this winter,’ asked Nvard Shahbekian, a resident of the village
of Bavra, which lies on the border between the two South Caucasus
countries.

She has calculated that she will need 20 tonnes of hay to feed her
livestock, and could now have to buy the feed at 80 US dollars a
tonne.

`What can I do? I don’t have this money. Even if I am going to be
shot, I must collect my own hay,’ she said.

The villagers said the Georgian border guards had suddenly set up a
checkpoint between them and their fields, and threatened to fine them
2,000 laris (1,200 dollars) if they passed it, although Georgian
officials were not available to confirm this.

Shahbekian’s cattle, and those of her neighbours, are hostages to
legal uncertainty surrounding the precise limits of the two countries.

Armenian and Georgian set up a joint commission more than a decade ago
to oversee the demarcation of their border but, as the Bavra
villagers’ struggle makes clear, problems remain since 30 per cent of
the border is yet to be agreed on.

Experts say both sides are guilty of unilaterally defining the border
to serve their own purposes.

`There have been cases, when according to the Georgian authorities,
the Armenian side has itself unilaterally moved the border, therefore
until the delimitation is finished and there is an agreement between
the government at the level of foreign ministers, who head the
commission, the territorial resolution will not be final,’ Sergei
Minasian, an analyst at the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, said.

The Armenians say the location of the border is laid out in a deal
signed between the two then-Soviet republics in 1921, and amendments
to it agreed over the next two decades.

`According to these amendments, the lands of Bavra in particular are
worked by Armenian farmers living in the village. Apart from this,
they have certificates of the privatisation of this land,’ said Shirak
Torosian, a member of the Armenian parliament from the ruling
Republican Party.

He is also chairman of the Javakhq organisation, which campaigns for
ethnic Armenians who live in southern Georgia.

However, Georgian politicians source their claims from a 1947 map,
which awarded the land to them.

`Now the Georgian border guards see the actions of the Armenian
villagers as a violation of the border, and bring in the 1947 map,
which supposedly agreed that this territory is part of Georgia, but
this is doubtful, since in that difficult time, when the Second World
War was ongoing, it is unlikely that the border could be surveyed,’
Torosian said.

The Armenian foreign ministry confirmed that the border delimitation
were ongoing, and had even been on the agenda when Georgia’s foreign
minister visited Yerevan on September 5. Georgian officials were
tight-lipped, however, and both the foreign ministry and the border
guards in Tbilisi refused to comment on the situation in Bavra.

`Between two young states, in which the process of institution
building is ongoing and the demarcation of the border is not finished,
such incidents can occur, but the situation is under control and will
be regulated,’ said David Darchiashvili, a member of the Georgian
parliament and chairman of its Committee on European Integration.

`The demarcation of the border is not completed, like with Azerbaijan,
but the situation is being stirred up by a few irresponsible
websites¦ I am sure that soon all will be made clear at a
diplomatic level. This can all be regulated if good will is shown.’

Armenia has good reason not to make a scandal out of the incident,
since 70 per cent of the country’s exports go via Georgian territory,
which is almost its only outlet to the outside world since its borders
with Azerbaijan and Turkey remain closed.

However, a number of recent bilateral problems have marred their close
ties. On June 19, for example, Torosian was barred from entering
Georgia without explanation. Torosian connects the refusal to allow
him across the border to his agitation on behalf of Armenians in
Samtskhe-Javakheti, where almost all the population are ethnic
Armenians, and whose rights have become a political issue in Armenia.

President Serzh Sarkisian raised the issue of Georgia’s Armenian
population in an address to diplomats on September 1, saying his
government needed to support their compatriots abroad.

`I think, that steps towards recognising Armenian as a regional
language of Georgia, the registration of the Armenian Apostolic
Church, and the preservation of Armenian monuments in Georgia would
only help the strengtherning of Armenian-Georgian relations, and a
deepened atmosphere of mutual trust. We must be delicate in all these
questions, but at the same time, consistent and principled,’ he said.

While the politicians discussed, however, the villagers of Bavra like
Valerik Margarian, were contemplating a winter without livestock.

`I have four cows and three sheep, and if I cannot gather hay to feed
my stock this winter, then I will have to slaughter them, and then
what will I live on?’ Margarian said.

Naira Melkumian and Yeranuhi Soghoian are freelance journalists in
Yerevan and Gyumri respectively. Nana Mamagulishvili is news editor of
the Fortuna radio station in Tbilisi.