KARABAKH VILLAGERS YEARN FOR NORMAL LIFE
Joshqun Eldaroglu

Institute for War and Peace Reporting IWPR
Sept 18 2009
UK

For Azeris living close to frontline the war is an ever-present fact.

The members of the United Nations are due to discuss Nagorny Karabakh
this month, in a move that may nudge forward the sluggish peace talks
between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

The Karabakh question is placed on the agenda right after Afghanistan
and the Middle East although, if previous sessions are anything to
go by, the conflict is unlikely to gain as high a profile.

Nevertheless, the Azeris who live up against the frontline that
separates the two sides wish world statesmen would listen to them
and help their lives back to the normality they lost when war broke
out over the enclave.

A ceasefire was signed a decade and a half ago, but in the village of
Alkhanli, which lies on the line of control, a generation has grown
up for whom the war is an ever-present fact.

The green fields that stretch beside the road into the village give
a calm, pastoral air, but the road itself is still chewed up by the
tank treads and bombs of 16 years ago and the village’s first houses
are empty and blackened.

Alkhanli is one of the largest villages of the Fizuli region, and its
lands stretch out for 12 kilometres around it. When this reporter
visited, its residents were frantically gathering in the harvest,
but the memories of the war hung over them.

In summer 1993, Armenian forces seized the village, and held it until
Baku managed to regain control early the next year.

"How could we forget August 23? Everyone saved themselves however
they could. When we were leaving, a shell from a ‘Grad’ (multiple
rocket launcher) hit the car in front of us. The whole family was
killed in one moment," said Elira Mahmudova, whose eyes filled with
tears just talking about it.

"Many people never returned to Alkhanli. Some people’s houses are
located very near the front line, it is dangerous to live there,
there is still shooting sometimes. And some people were just not
prepared to start again from nothing."

Around a million Azeris are still displaced by the conflict, which is
complicated by Nagorny Karabakh’s Armenian government having declared
independence unilaterally. It says it must be included in the peace
talks as a separate party, but this is opposed by Azerbaijan, which
considers Karabakh to be a renegade province.

Azerbaijan and Armenia lack diplomatic ties, and a peace process –
based on six so-called Madrid Principles supported by a group of
international mediators – has barely moved forward in a decade.

According to political commentators, the two sides have been discussing
some kind of exchange involving giving Azerbaijan the five regions
outside Nagorny Karabakh proper that Armenian forces either partially
or entirely control, in exchange for Azerbaijan recognising an "interim
status" for the territory, as laid out in the Madrid Principles.

The principles would also allow the refugees to return to their former
homes, whatever the political solution found by the peace process.

But, many of the Azeris who did return to Alkhanli would suggest
that, if the refugees are allowed to go back without security being
guaranteed, life could be bleak.

Unemployment is high here, and many young men have turned their
Soviet-made cars into taxis to earn what they can.

"Of my three sons, I only managed to keep my youngest one here. He
wanted to leave too. I had to marry him off, but his still hasn’t
found work," said Bakhtiyar, a 60-year-old man who declined to give
his surname.

This correspondent’s guide around Alkhanli was Seymur, a 45-year-old
local man who left during the occupation of the village by the
Armenians. He lost his mother during the fighting, and his father
became ill, leaving him and his brother to support the family. They
have not been able to move back to the village, but he remembered
clearly who the ruined houses belonged to.

"There was the biggest wine factory in the country here once… and
here was a collective farm… and here was another one… and here
was our house," he said, stopping the car and stepping out.

The courtyard of the house is choked with brambles, with just a
mulberry tree struggling to keep above the tide of vegetation.

"Here, try one," said Seymur, holding out a handful of fruit. "They’re
tasty."

The house of Seymur’s aunt is right up against the front line, and
she is visible to the Armenian soldiers who even, he said, take pot
shots through her windows sometimes. Not a single person or animal
was visible beyond the line, but we did not go too close.

In the Aghdam region, just a few dozen kilometres to the north of
here, five Armenian soldiers were shot earlier this month: another
reminder to the members of the UN in New York that this conflict is
far from over.

Joshqun Eldaroglu is a freelance journalist in Sumgait, Azerbaijan.