Freedom for IDPs Costs 3 000 GEL

Last week, in Kutaisi IDPs residing in the hotel ‘Mtis Broli’ hold a protest demonstration. IDPs stated that they would not stop demonstration until the government gives up demanding so-called state debts from them.

The Central Government, more exactly, Defense Ministry considered that the participants of the Abkhazian civil war and their family members were receiving allowances illegally. The allowance was twelve lari a month. The Georgian government decided to make IDPs pay this money back to the budget. If IDPs do not satisfy their demands, they will be either bailed or face two-month pretrial imprisonment. Finally the court will pass verdict.

IDPs protest the government’s decision and declare that if they were receiving those allowances illegally; those people should be punished who granted them with those pensions. “We have no fault in it. If this government wants to find out the truth, they should carry out investigation and interrogate all people who made such decisions. What do they want from us, we have no crime in it,” said Svetlana Gogokhia, an IDP from Abkhazia.

On June 25 1999, amendments were introduced to the Georgian law on “War and Military Veterans”. According to those amendments, citizens who were fighting or working (in healthcare, communication service centers, air, railway or motor transportation, or in power energy fields, at bakeries, for mass media, and in local authority or Abkhazian Autonomous Republic governmental bodies) in the fierce battle fronts and their activities were directly connected with hostilities, will be granted with allowances. This law was implemented on January 1, 2001 and the IDPs started to prepare corresponding documents in order to receive allowances.

“A person should have been registered at the commission created within the Council of Ministers of the Abkhazian Autonomous Republic in order to consider him a war participant.  Afterwards, the commission was investigating whether the person was really a war participant and his/her family members had right to be granted with those allowances. According to the materials we have, the status should have been granted to IDPs by the structure s/he had worked for during the war. “Abkhazian Warriors Union” was carrying out survey regarding the situation then. The union had information where this or that warrior was fighting during the civil war. Then they applied to the corresponding service office of the Ministry of Healthcare and IDPs were granted with allowances. It is quite natural to ask-whether these people deserved those pensions, why were they granted with allowances? If they had deserved those allowances why is authority demanding that money back now? We could not find any legality anywhere. Did “Abkhazian Warriors Union’ have right to carry out the survey, because it was an ordinary non-governmental organization,” said Zurab Khurtsidze, head of the Sachino, Association against Corruption and for Customers Rights in the Imereti Region. He does not exclude the possibility that the union had directives from the governmental structures and then the activities ended with misunderstanding.

Victims of this misunderstanding are IDPs living in Kutaisi. Several days ago, mentally disabled IDP Vitali Gavasheli was called at the Kutaisi District Court on the basis of above-mentioned accusations. His neighbors have been demanding to release him since that time in vain. Some of the IDPs have already signed a document to pay a bail. One of them is Nugzar Gvazava, an IDP from Ochamchire District who now resides in the Kutaisi boarding school.

February 12 2007 resolution enacted by Davit Dvali, a judge for the Kutaisi District Court, states the following; “In summer 2001 Nugzar Gvazava decided to appropriate state funds through fraudulent documents. To accomplish his criminal intentions, under unidentified circumstances, he managed to prepare fraudulent notification # 990 which stated that he was a participant of the Abkhazian civil war. He acted in the name of Abkhazian Autonomous Republic’s commissariat. He produced the notification to the Kutaisi Office of the Georgian Social Insurance State Joint Fund. Since September 1, 2001 he received the pension until April 1 2005. In acting so, he seriously damaged state budget…”

As it has become evident, Gvazava plead guilty and paid bail of 3 000 GEL and does not face a danger of imprisonment anymore. He refused to comment on the situation.

“IDPs are forced to plead guilty. Actually they have not committed any crime. We will do our best to stop this shameful process and save the IDPs from shame. We are collecting documentations to prove that those people really were participants of the war and are not guilty at all. In fact, those people should be punished who is really guilty for having initiated such nonsense,” said Gocha Badzgaradze, a member of the non-governmental organization “Egalitarian Institute”.

According to the spread information, the process of inviting the IDPs to the prosecutor’s office and accusing them for crime is ceased. Representatives of the law enforcement bodies refuse to comment on the situation.

Shorena Kakbadze, Kutaisi