khosq.com

By Naira Hayrumyan
ArmeniaNow Karabakh reporter
Published: 11 July, 2008
Twenty years after their deportation from Azerbaijan, Karabakh refugees say that their issues remain open, the solution to problems lying in the political field.

Armenian refugees and those who have migrated to NKR make 33 percent of the country’s population (which totals 137,800), which, in percentage correlation, exceeds greatly that of Azerbaijan, where refugees make 7.9 percent (total population 8.3 million). Refugees are going to turn to the UN Commission with a demand to recognize the rights of refugees living in Karabakh to getting compensation for financial and moral damage.

The first refugees from Azerbaijan, mainly from Sumgait and Baku, appeared in Karabakh in 1989 after bloody pogroms. People left everything they had earned by many years’ hard work- houses, property. Back then, Karabakh authorities took a political decision to show complete support to those refugees. They were given houses in newly built multi-storey houses together with everything they needed for living. Many were given jobs, children –enrolled in schools.

In 1991 hostilities broke out, and thousands of refugees took part in the bloody war that lasted till May of 1994. Many of them were killed for the Karabakh land; many others were left handicapped. A part of the refugees preferred to leave Karabakh and settle somewhere else. However, around 35,000 people still live in Karabakh without a proper status.

According to data by “Refugees and International Law” organization operating in Armenia, approximately 400,000 refugees have found shelters in the Republic of Armenia and NKR. Certain financial aid to refugees having settled in Armenia was given by international organizations as well. Meanwhile, UN and other international structures ignored those who settled in Karabakh.

The issue of Karabakh refugees is viewed in ethno-moral terms. Integration is considered to be a priority, and artificial classification of NKR citizens into refugees and non-refugees is unacceptable in the society.

Meanwhile, neighboring Azerbaijan actively uses the issue of refugees, receiving both financial and political dividends. Karabakh has never used the issue of refugees as a political lever either considering it ‘unethical’, or not realizing the political potential of the issue.

The President of NKR Refugees NGO Sarasar Saryan states that in the very beginning, after the deportation, refugee organizations used to be operating quite actively. “In 2005, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis visited Karabakh (at that time he was PACE rapporteur on Karabakh) and the first thing he did was meet Karabakh refugees. It became clear then that we had a chance to defend our rights on an international level,” Saryan says.

A workshop on “International-legal basis of refugees’ status” was held at the Resource Center of Stepanakert NGOs. The NKR Refugees NGO and the State Center for International Cooperation at NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs initiated the meeting. The purpose of that meeting was to work out an operational strategy for state and non-governmental organizations in the field of protection of the rights of refugees. The weakest points were identified, which, 20 years after deportation, are still actual for the refugees.

Refugees themselves have suggested that a Standing Committee on Refugees be formed in the Parliament, and a special directorate created adjacent to the government. As the Head of the International Center for Cooperation Zhanna Krikorova says an agreement has been reached with the Ombudsman that one of the Human Rights Defense office lawyers will be working specifically on refugee issues.

Armenian refugees living in Karabakh do not have an international status because of the country’s unrecognized status. Only in 2004 the “Law on Refugees” was passed, according to which Armenians living in different regions of Azerbaijan, who were deprived of their homes as a result of the Karabakh-Azerbaijan conflict, received refugee status. During the last 4 years NKR government has given them a modest compensation for lost property- approximately $120 per person.

Lawsuits against the Azerbaijani authorities are at the European Court of Human Rights now. Armenian refugees from Gyulistan village, Shaumyan region of NKR, currently under Azerbaijan’s control, have filed the lawsuits. Suits by other Armenian refugees from Northern Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan are being prepared. The estimated worth of properties of 500,000 Armenian refugees deported in late 20th century, both from Karabakh and Azerbaijan, is $5 billion.

“Today we are forced to state again that the issue of Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan remains unresolved. They have to receive total compensation from the Republic of Azerbaijan for their financial and moral damage including granting them the right to property of the liberated lands under the control of NKR. We also think that discrimination performed by some structures of UN to the refugees living in Karabakh, contradicts the norms of international law. We call upon the authorities of the Republic of Armenia to include the issue of refugees from Azerbaijan into the agenda of negotiations held within the framework of the OSCE Minsk group,” says the statement of the organization.