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Forgotten Deported People

March 11, 2008

Eka Kevanishvili, Tbilisi

Nato Shavshishvili, who was deported from Russia last year during the “Big Deportation”, is now living together with her family in Varketili distict of Tbilisi. She was paralyzed and found herself living in very difficult conditions when she returned to Georgia through Armenia. It was very difficult for her to start her life from the beginning. She became a private entrepreneur and opened a small shop, but this ended up causing her even more problems than benefits. Many other Georgians who were deported as a result of the Georgian Russian Spy Scandal in November of 2006 are also now living in difficult situations.

It was more difficult to tally the number of deported people than we had previously expected. We were unable to receive this information in any subsequent bodies, including the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation and the Parliament of Georgia. These state bodies do not possess the information about the present condition of deported people. The only help that the government provided to them was to file a suit at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

At that time, Beso Bokhashvili was representing Georgia in the Strasbourg court. Now he is the executive director of the Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA). He states that Georgia has filed two kinds of suits in the European Court of Human Rights: One is intergovernmental- Georgia against Russia and the other comprises several individual suits from GYLA.

When the problem of deportation was “hot” and new, the representatives of the Ministry of Justice were eager to meet the banished people as they arrived in cargo planes at airports. The officials gave them their greetings and invited them for interviews. All in all, approximately 200 people were questioned.

“The questioning showed that the deportation of these people was part of policy of the Russian government. The most interesting aspect of the policy was that the deported people were put on a trial in Russia, each lasting for about 2-5 minutes only. These people were deprived of the opportunity to present their legal arguments during the trials.  They were barred from entering Russia from 5 to 10 years.”

Georgian media, including HRIDC’s portal gave wide coverage to the circumstances of the deportation at the time. At present however, we remain interested if anyone remembers the deported people who were forced to return to their homeland of Georgia. It turns out that very few people are concerned with their plight or the circumstances that surround their deportation.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice of Russia sent an official letter to the European Court of Human Rights alleging that the suit known as “mass violation of Georgian citizens’ rights in 2006 in Russia” filed by the Georgian Government to the International Court in Strasbourg was totally baseless.

In the official letter, the Ministry of Justice wrote that Georgian citizens were deported not because they were ethnic Georgians. The Ministry referenced statistics, which indicate that in the autumn of 2006, 6 thousand citizens of Uzbek origin were also deported from Russia while the number of deported Georgian citizens did not exceed 4 thousand.

The Russian government denied being held responsible for the deaths of Georgian citizens in pretrial detention cells. The Russian Ministry of Justice alleges that these people died because they were suffering from chronic diseases.

The Russian Ministry of Justice also claims that the Strasbourg court must not adjudicate the Georgian suit because it was filed with procedural violations: The Georgian side was to bring suit to the Russian court and only afterwards to European international court.

Beso Bokhashvili states that Georgian citizens were collectively deported because they were of Georgian origin and this is in violation of the Forth Article of the fourth additional protocol of European Convention. The Forth Article prohibits mass ousting of foreigners from one country to another.

A committee was created in the Parliament of Georgia on the issue of deportation of Georgian citizens. The committee gave a recommendation to the government to provide aid to those deported, but in reality the aim of the commission seemed to have more of a political purpose. Gia Tortladze, a member of the commission made clear that the commission was responsible to reveal the damages inflicted upon the deported people: “Helping them was not our obligation. We made a political evaluation on the issue of deportation and sent recommendations to the government. We recommended to the government to somehow support the unemployed deported people. But nothing has been done.”

The banished people were not very optimistic about receiving help:
Kakha Tsikhitavi: “No one has helped me. I am not expecting support from anyone, besides I do not want to disturb anyone. What’s the point? I am temporary unemployed as well as many people around me, but we are trying to make both ends meet. As for returning to Russia, it is out of question.” 

Nato Shavshishvili: “We are in a terrible situation. I can not describe how difficult it was to start my life from the beginning. I registered myself as a private entrepreneur and opened a small shop but in vain. One of my sons is a Russian citizen and preferred to stay there. My second son came with me. We went through a difficult time. I do not want even to recollect those days. For 2 days we did not know where we were. We were taken off the street to an unknown direction. I was paralyzed. My health is in a very poor condition, we hardly make both ends meet…”

Davit Latsabidze has found himself doing the same kind of job in Georgia as he did when living in Russia, but the salary here is much lower.

“When all this happened and we came to Georgia I was regularly visiting the Ministry of Justice for interviews. We were promised that we would receive some help or job, but in vain. We started working by ourselves. In Russia I was in a team of Georgian builders. We were repairing apartments and houses. We continue the same work here as well. Of course the salary is much lower but we do not have any other choice. The reason we left Georgia for Russia was to earn money, not to see Moscow…”

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