MPS SAY READY FOR ‘BROAD DISCUSSIONS ON CIRCASSIAN GENOCIDE’
Civil Georgia
April 27 2010
Georgia
A group of Georgian lawmakers announced on April 26 about the readiness
to launch "broad discussions on cases of the massacres and deportations
of Circassians" by the Tsarist Russia in the North Caucasus in second
half of 19th century.
The announcement by the Georgian parliamentary group of friendship
with the peoples of North Caucasus comes a month after Tbilisi hosted
a conference, Hidden Nations, Enduring Crimes: The Circassians &
the Peoples of the North Caucasus Between Past and Future. The
conference was organized by Washington-based Jamestown Foundation
and Tbilisi-based Ilia State University’s International School for
Caucasus Studies with the participants including, among others,
representatives of Circassian diaspora.
At the end of the conference, on March 21, participants made an appeal
to the Georgian Parliament requesting to recognize deportations and
massacre of Circassians more than a century ago as a genocide.
"You know that the international conference was held in Tbilisi
in March with consequent appeal to the Georgian Parliament… We
think that the first stage of these discussions should be an active
consultation with our and foreign academic circles, political experts,"
a ruling party lawmaker, Nugzar Tsiklauri, who is a member of the
parliamentary group of friendship with the North Caucasian people,
said on April 26.
"We deem it necessary to further broaden scope of discussions on the
matter both within and outside Georgia," he added.
The appeal also request the Georgian Parliament to declare May
21, "which marks the Russian celebration of the occupation of the
North West Caucasus in 1864, as a memorial day of the victims of the
Circassian genocide, and to recognize Sochi as the location and symbol
of Circassian genocide and ethnic cleansing."
In mid-April, an anonymous YouTube user posted on its account,
launched just a day earlier, several audio files of what is claimed
to be recorded phone conversations between senior Georgian officials
and diplomats, suggesting that Tbilisi is building contacts with
representatives of North Caucasian communities living outside Russia.
Recordings are allegedly made in mid-December, 2009.
In one of the audio files (several of them are of poor quality and
inaudible), which is described as "a conversation between Georgian
Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili and Georgia’s ambassador to
the United States Batu Kutelia", the man’s voice which is very much
similar to the one of Merabishvili tells interlocutor that there was
a misunderstanding and no meeting of the Georgian President with an
Ingush man, identified with a first name – Ibragim, was planned.
"Yes we meet with North Caucasians time after time, but not the
President… We are summoning them separately and talking with them…
Givi [apparently referring to a senior ruling party lawmaker Givi
Targamadze] and [Gia] Tortladze [a lawmaker from parliamentary
minority] usually meet them and I also meet them sometimes."
In another audio file, a man, porportadly MP Givi Targamadze,
alledgeldy speaks with Georgia’s ambassador to Egypt and Syria, Gocha
Japaridze and tells him "to find as many as possible North Caucasian
organizations – Circassian, Ingush, Chechen etc." in Egypt and Syria.
"To put it directly, in our Parliament we are intending to recognize
thier genocide… So now we are intensively engaged in searching
for these people everywhere, including in Turkey, Jordan; I have
already spoken with ambassadors there… Now I’m with Vano, together
discussing this matter," the man with voice very much similar to the
one of MP Givi Targamadze tells the interlocutor.
On April 23, a day before the 95th anniversary of the start of
the massacre of Armenians in Ottoman Empire was marked, a group of
Armenian community in Tbilisi made a formal appeal to the Georgian
Parliament – one of many other similar appeals made in previous years
– requesting to recognize mass killings of Armenians century ago as a
genocide. There has been no formal response by the Georgian Parliament
to those appeals.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
