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9 March 1995
Doc. 7266
OPINION on the humanitarian situation concerning refugees and displaced persons in Armenia and Azerbaijan1
(Rapporteur: Mr JESZENSZKY, Hungary, European Democratic Group)
1. The motion for a resolution on the situation in the Caucasus (Doc. 6891) was referred to the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Demography for a report and the Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries for an opinion.
2. Taking as its basis Mr Atkinson's excellent report (Doc. 7250), which focuses on Armenia and Azerbaijan, the present opinion briefly considers the humanitarian position throughout the Caucasus concerning refugees from and persons displaced by the many conflicts which have been raging there for years.
I. The Caucasus
3. The situation in the Caucasus is comparable to that in the former Yugoslavia, though public opinion in the West is much more attentive to the latter because it is geographically closer.
4. The Caucasus is a mosaic of ethnic groups and religions with a population of 21 million and some hundred peoples. A political border divides the northern part of the range, which is in the Russian Federation and includes North Ossetia, Ingushia, Chechnya and Daghestan, from Transcaucasia to the south, which is currently made up of the three sovereign republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
5. The Caucasus has always been a strategically important crossroads of trade routes and invasion routes, enclosed by eastern and western empires. Historically, the Caucasus has invariably sought to free itself as soon as one of these empires showed signs of weakening. However it has never been a coherent entity, and rivalries and ethnic and religious conflicts have always divided its peoples, particularly as innumerable changes to borders have caused age-old resentments. This is no less so today.
6. In addition the two main, and traditionally rival, powers in the region, Turkey and Iran, are looking to re-establish their former spheres of influence. The Caucasus is also of paramount strategic and security importance to Russia, whose southern border and economic interests are threatened by the proliferation of national conflicts. To a large extent this accounts for Moscow's diplomatic and military efforts in the region. These have recently given rise to unacceptable excesses, in particular in Chechnya.
II. Recent conflicts
7. Virtually no part of the Caucasus has been spared.
a. Nagorno-Karabakh
8. Disturbances in this autonomous region of Azerbaijan with its ethnically Armenian majority go back to 1988. After fierce fighting Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence and achieved a territorial link with Armenia. A cease-fire was agreed in May 1994 and the CSCE Summit in Budapest on 5 and 6 December 1994 gave the go-ahead for a multinational buffer force. The committee recently produced a report on this conflict (see Doc. 7182).
9. The war has killed thousands, injured tens of thousands and resulted in more than a million refugees and displaced persons in Armenia and more especially Azerbaijan.
10. Between 1988 and 1992 Armenia took in over 300 000 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh and other parts of Azerbaijan as well as several thousand people from Abkhazia. Providing for these persons is made all the more difficult by a deteriorating economic situation, blocked lines of communication, and the continuing after-effects of the 1988 earthquake.
11. In Azerbaijan there are nearly one million refugees and displaced persons, who thus account for over 10% of the population. Despite its oil resources Azerbaijan's economic situation is catastrophic and the refugees are experiencing great hardship, more particularly on account of a shortage of prefabricated housing, food and fuel.
b. Abkhazia
12. The Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia (capital Sukhumi), situated in Georgia, fell to the Abkhaz separatists on 27 September 1993. The Georgian Government and the Sukhumi authorities signed a cease-fire agreement in Moscow on 14 May 1994. Russia placed 3 000 men at the disposal of a CIS buffer force. One of the key issues is the future of some 250 000 ethnic Georgians expelled from Abkhazia during the fighting. Only 20 000 or so regained their homes — many of which had been destroyed — after hostilities ceased. Negotiations are still in deadlock.
c. South Ossetia
13. In 1991 the Georgian Government abolished South Ossetia's autonomous republic status, triggering a South Ossetian revolt. The South Ossetians sought union with North Ossetia, which is part of the Russian Federation. After the fighting in 1992 a cease-fire line secured by Russian and Georgian troops was established under agreements signed in June 1992.
d. North Ossetia — Ingushia
14. In autumn 1992 trouble broke out between the Muslim Ingush and the Orthodox Osset as a result of a dispute over the Prigorodny area. Thousands of Ingush were driven from their homes in North Ossetia.
15. Ingushia has become a huge refugee camp. Even before the war in Chechnya, the Ingush Republic, with a population of 230 000, had had to take in 70 000 Ingush from North Ossetia.
16. In January 1995 it had to cope with a further influx of some 90 000 refugees from Chechnya.
e. Chechnya
17. The Republic of Chechnya, which, under the Russian constitution adopted in December 1993, is part of the Russian Federation, declared independence on 2 November 1991. The Russian army attacked Grozny on 11 December 1994. The Assembly held an urgent debate on the war last February, and this led, in particular, to the suspension of Russia's application to join the Council of Europe (see Resolution 1055).
18. Two months after the outbreak of armed conflict, some 160 000 refugees from Chechnya fled to neighbouring republics, in particular Ingushia, North Ossetia, Daghestan, Georgia and, in the case of Russians living in Chechnya, Russia. A third of the population is now living in exile. In addition nearly 250 000 people have been displaced within Chechnya itself; they have had to abandon their homes and nearly all their possessions and depend on parents or friends for shelter. According to the OSCE nearly 150 000 people — mainly old people, women and children — were in hiding in the cellars of Grozny at the start of February 1995.
III. Emergency aid and the need for a political solution
19. The Caucasus now has hundreds of thousands of refugees and there is no longer any realistic hope of a speedy settlement. The primary requirement is to get emergency aid to the civilian victims of the conflicts, to all the refugees whose only crime, in many cases, is that they live in the Caucasus and that they belong to a particular national or religious community. The United Nations agencies and the NGOs, in particular the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross, are to be congratulated — and were in fact congratulated by Mr Atkinson in his report for the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Demography — on their daily action and untiring efforts to help the Caucasus refugees. The Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries endorses the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Demography's draft resolution and draft recommendation and more particularly the appeal therein for increased international assistance to refugees in the Caucasus.
20. The refugee situation will be one of the crucial questions for the Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries to consider when it expresses its views on the applications for special guest status from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
21. Lastly, as pointed out by Mr Kovalev in his address in Strasbourg on 30 January, there is now an urgent need for a major Caucasus peace conference attended by all the parties concerned. The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly should certainly participate in such an initiative. Even before that the Council of Europe should offer its assistance in working out the principles and framework for a solution that would guarantee the future of all the national and religious communities that live in the Caucasus area. Recommendation 1201 (1993) and particularly Article 11 offers legal provisions worth considering.
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Reporting committee: Committee on Migration, Refugees and Demography (Doc. 7250).
Committee for opinion: Committee on Relations with European Non-Member Countries.
Reference to committee: Doc. 6891 and Reference No. 1888 of 3 September 1993.
Opinion approved by the committee on 6 March 1995.
Secretary to the committee: Mr Dufour.