Refugee Watch-29- Book Review by Anita Sengupta

Steve Swerdlow “Understanding Post Soviet Ethnic Discrimination and the Effective Use of U.S. Refugee Resettlement: The case of Meskhetian Turks of Krasnodar Krai”, California Law Review 2006.

Aysegul Aydingun, Cigdem Balim Harding, Matthew Hoover, Igor Kuznettsov, Steve Swerdlow, Meskhetian Turks: An Introduction to Their History, Culture and Resettlement Experiences, Culture Profile No 20, September 2006.

Meskhetia was an imperial borderland located on trade and migration routes and disputed by different empires through the centuries. This region in southwestern Georgia is now known as Samtskhe Javakheti. Changing borders, empires and names, a variety of historical narratives and policies of classification has meant that the historical origin and ethnic identity of the Meskhetian Turks remains disputed. Repeated displacement in the recent past and the fact that both their ancient homeland and the place to which they were deported are now claimed by independent states has meant a perpetual status of statelessness for the group. The case of the Meskhetian Turks brings together the entire gamut of questions that the diaspora debate has thrown up: Who qualifies as a refugee? Can the right to return be legalized and enforced? In case resettlement is the only option, does the status of permanent exile necessarily allow for special considerations?

The first question that most writings on the Meskhetian Turks address is the fundamental one of who are these people whom Stalin deported away from sensitive borders to the more secure heartland of Central Asia during the Second World War. Here, the basic issue revolves around the question: Are Meskhetian Turks in fact ethnic Turks or are they ethnic Georgians who at some stage in history converted to Islam? Connected to this debate is the equally charged issue of terms used to define the group; Meskhetians (or Meskhi in the Georgian language) Ahiska Turks and Meskhetian Turks each carrying its own implications about the group’s ethnic identity and historical origin and therefore crucially connected to questions of right to return and repatriation. The term Meskhetian is commonly used by those who view the population as ethnic Georgians who converted to Islam and learnt to speak Turkish during the period when the region of Meskhetia was under Ottoman rule. The second term refers to Akhaltsikhe the largest city in the Meshketian Turk’s native region of southern Georgia and refers to the Turkish element of the identity and de-emphasizes the Georgian one. The third and most commonly used term emerged only in the 1960’s but came into wide use only after attention was focused on the group after they were forced to flee from Uzbekistan following violent pogroms in 1989. It is interesting that in the past they have been variously referred to as Meskhetian Muslims, Georgian Muslims or Soviet Turks. Policy shifts meant that for a period after 1935 they were called Azeris and recorded as such in their internal passports. Retained to this day these records further complicate an already problematic issue.

As a group the Meskhetian Turks survived mass deportation from Georgia, inter ethnic pogroms in Uzbekistan and ethnic cleansing in southern Russia before becoming beneficiaries of the an extremely selective remedy of resettlement in the US in 2004. Integration, repatriation and resettlement are the three themes that are examined in the writings in the course of a search for a durable solution. For the Meskhetian Turks a policy of resettlement is generally accepted as the most probable option. Integration within the Central Asian states, where they have lived for the last nearly half decade or the Russian Federation has not proved to be successful. In particular the discrimination that the group has faced in Krasnodar Krai where they have been rendered de facto stateless people has been highlighted as a classic case of state sponsored discrimination in practice. Similarly, while the voluntary right to return was formally recognized, in the context of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent states the definition of the term “country of origin” itself became problematic. The dilemma is compounded by the fact that the state from where they were deported, i.e., the Soviet Union no longer exists. The question then was could the Meskhetian Turks claim Georgia as their country of origin even though Georgia did not exist as an independent state at the time of their deportation? International standards have been shown to suggest that the Meskhetian Turks’ links of nationality with Georgia allows for the right of repatriation. In contravention of these norms Georgia refuses to recognize the link of nationality on the ground that the Meskhetian Turks were not Georgian residents in 1991 even though this was the result of their forced deportation and denial of their right to return.

With the recognition that resettlement is the only viable option there is then a debate on the criteria of who qualifies for permanent resettlement. Here the need to draw clear lines around the group to be admitted, the quest for what is defined as a “finite” group has meant the identification of a number of criteria that has raised questions about categorization as well as inclusiveness. Unfortunately, categorization has involved not just humanitarian concerns but also foreign policy interests. There is also the question of what Steve Swerdlow calls “the unintended consequences” of intensifying the problem of xenophobia and endangering the rights of other minorities in Kransnodar Krai, from where most of the Meskhetian Turks were resettled. The need to ensure a “human rights” approach to the resettlement effort would therefore necessarily need to involve authorities in Moscow and the Krasnodar Krai. While there is optimism about the successful resettlement of the Meskhetian Turks in the US, the inevitability of resettlement also highlights the tragedy of a transnational group whose right to return to what is considered to be “homeland” has been denied. As permanent exiles with a history of repeated displacements there is in their narratives reflection of a tragic reconciliation to the fact that there is no country for them to return to. While the success of resettlement policies in the US is elaborated on there remains the need to reflect on international norms for determining who qualifies as a permanent exile. There is also the need to bring to the forefront the question of similarly situated ethnic groups such as the Hemshins and the Batumi Kurds who were also victims of deportation and now face discrimination.