A FRIGHTENED LIFE IN A WOODED VALLEY
A EurasiaNet Photo Essay by Clare Doyle: 12/06/02

Zula Uziyeva, with tears in her eyes, recalls planes dropping bombs on her family. Uziyeva and her family are Chechens who have lived in Duisi, a central town in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge for three years. The planes, she says, were Russian jets, ostensibly seeking rebels in Russia’s war with Chechnya. Her grief illustrates the confusion of Pankisi, a region that has become synonymous with lawlessness.

When Uziyeva and her family fled south from Chechnya in 1999, the Georgian government settled them and 4,000 other refugees in the Pankisi valley, home for several hundred years to Georgia’s own Chechen population. Rather than mixing peacefully, the refugees have lived alongside foreign extremists, Chechen rebels, corrupt Georgian officials and arms merchants in a zone of terrorism and lawlessness. "Planes came over and dropped bombs on us. That’s the kind of safe haven we were offered," Uziyeva says. She is desperate to return to Chechnya, but considers this an impossible dream while the war continues.

Although Pankisi is routinely called a gorge, this term does not accurately describe the eight inhabited villages that lie close to each other on a flat, green valley floor surrounded by wooded mountains. The refugees have mainly settled in three of these villages and in the town of Akhmeta, at the valley’s southernmost point. From Akhmeta to Duisi by car, even through several checkpoints, takes about fifteen minutes. To the north, the valley narrows into a gorge that is impassable for much of the year due to snow. It is some forty kilometers to the border with Chechnya. That is close enough for Uziyeva and other refugees to remain badly shaken by bombing raids launched on the area in the summer of 2002. Uziyeva blames Russia for the raids and is frightened they could resume at any time. Moscow has not accepted official responsibility for the attacks, but repeatedly threatened intervention in Georgia to close down what it described as Chechen fighters’ "terrorist bases."

"The Russians are the terrorists, not us," she says, adding defensively: "And even if some Chechens are terrorists, it’s because the Russians have made terrorists out of us." Other women living communally in a former school building in Duisi agree. "We aren’t terrorists," said one. "We want to live a civilized life, like everyone else. But the world has closed its eyes to us." Georgian security forces launched an operation to reclaim control of Pankisi after Russian pressure intensified in late August. After troops entered the valley, reports surfaced of increased tension, but the situation now appears calm. Military checkpoints remain, and outsiders may only enter the area under escort, but EurasiaNet saw no sign of a military presence in Duisi or other settlements. Local officials say troops are now stationed around the valley’s edge and on routes into the valley.

"The security situation has improved enormously," says Catherine Bertrand of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Tbilisi. "Before the Georgian forces moved in on August 25, we were very cautious about traveling there. Now, we’re much more relaxed." Other observers report that they have seen many fewer illegal weapons out in public. Bertrand says the troops set up ten new checkpoints throughout the area, and that there were tanks in Duisi as recently as mid-November. Their withdrawal signals a successful conclusion to the first phase of the operation. Some diplomats and aid workers had worried that the troops’ presence could trigger serious unrest in the valley.

That worry has shifted rather than receded. Other observers say that the lawlessness of Pankisi has been politicized, even made mythic, to serve Russia, the United States, Georgian government officials and the international media. They suggest that Chechen refugees have become scapegoats and that routine crime has been presented as worse than it is. It is true that before 1999, Pankisi served as a center
for drug smuggling, money-laundering and hostage-taking. Although it was ostensibly beyond the control of Georgian security forces, reports of official collusion in criminal activity there often surfaced. After Russian allegations that Chechen fighters had established training camps there, international news organizations began to explore Tbilisi. At the time, some elements in the Georgian authorities endorsed the view that the valley was a perilous area full of al Qaeda mercenaries. A senior US diplomat, Philip Remler, publicly and specifically linked al Qaeda and Pankisi in January 2002. A US-funded train-and-equip program started in Georgia a few months later.

But as Uziyeva’s story suggests, Pankisi now seems calm on the ground. "There are no fighters in Pankisi now, and even six months ago, although it’s true that there were fighters in Georgia," says the UNHCR’s Bertrand. She cites statistics culled from the Georgian Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation, according to which 85 percent of Chechen refugees in Pankisi are women and children. "The civilian population may have very close links with the fighters – they may be the wives and children of fighters – but they are separate from the fighters," she says. Bertrand maintains that the vast majority of Chechen fighters active in Georgia are based between Pankisi and the border.

The elected head of local authorities in the region, Zakro Kinkladze, broadly agrees. He says Chechen rebels in Pankisi were generally there receiving medical treatment. Like Uziyeva, he criticizes Russian forces. He claims Russian forces pushed fighters towards the valley "to create a focal point for their complaints" – but allows that until the August operation, Georgian attempts to maintain order in the valley were "a farce."

Refugees and locals generally welcome the troops, which has evidently discouraged bombing raids and may speed the distribution of aid from the United Nations’ World Food Program. But most have given up on Georgia. Several have written to senior government officials and to the UN requesting a move to a third country, and the Georgian ombudswoman is in discussions with foreign embassies. The UNHCR has proposed relocating the refugees to another part of Georgia, but is awaiting a response from the government.

The refugees are also waiting for answers and watching the skies. "We’d like to go anywhere; to Germany, France or Belgium," Zaurbek Batukaev says, waiting for his wife to collect their ration of oil, flour, tea and sugar. "But who listens to us?"

Editor’s Note: Clare Doyle is a freelance journalist based in Baku.

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Posted December 6, 2002 © Eurasianet
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