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VatanMeskhetian Turks have sought to return to their homeland virtually from the moment of the lifting of the special settlement regime in 1956. The first organized effort to promote the rehabilitation and repatriation of Meskhetian Turks came in 1963 with the formation of a temporary Committee for Return. The Committee proved to be a tenacious and enduring organization in the face of official Soviet pressure. The Committee played a pivotal role in galvanizing continued Meskhetian Turk agitation for rehabilitation and return, despite KGB attempts to muzzle the movement. During the 1970s and 1980s, the Committee’s influence was especially strong among the highly concentrated diaspora in Uzbekistan, organizing protests and petition campaigns to press its cause.
The 1989 Uzbekistan riots shattered the Committee for Return’s organizational infrastructure, dealing a drastic setback to repatriation efforts. The sudden forced migration of Meskhetian Turks from Uzbekistan to other regions of what was the Soviet Union deprived the Committee of much of its cohesiveness. In 1990, the Committee for Return evolved into the Vatan Society in an effort to reinvigorate the repatriation process. But amidst the chaotic conditions of the Soviet Union’s collapse, leaders of Vatan, Turkic for homeland, have struggled to repair organizational links and regain lost influence. “In 1989 [before the Uzbek events] we could mobilize more people for a demonstration in Moscow than could the Crimean Tatars,” said Yusuf Sarvarov, the Vatan Society’s chairman. “The events in 1989 were created to weaken our movement, and we have not fully recovered.”
Organizational Goals
Vatan has two stated goals: formal recognition that the deportation of 1944 was unjust; and official permission for Meskhetian Turks to return to their homeland in Georgia.
The underlying tenet guiding Vatan’s action is the belief that Meskhetian Turks possess a distinct cultural identity that is essentially Turkish in nature. “History knows no Meskhetian nationality. We are basically Turks, although some differences have developed over the years. We speak a Turkic language and our traditions resemble those in Turkey,” said Khalit Tashtanov, head of the Vatan society in Azerbaijan. Vatan’s unwavering stance that Meskhetian Turks are ethnically Turkish runs counter to the Georgian government’s position, which states that Meskhetian Turks are Islamicized Georgians.
Vatan leaders say several conditions must be fulfilled before Meskhetian Turks can return. Firstly, Georgia must formally apologize for the 1944 deportation. This can be accomplished by the passage of a parliamentary resolution that rehabilitates Meskhetian Turks, absolving them of any alleged misdeeds or misconduct during World War II. “Everything begins with rehabilitation,” Sarvarov said.
A comprehensive legislative foundation also should be in place in order to facilitate the return, Vatan leaders said. “Right now, the legislative base is insufficient to govern the return,” Sarvarov said. Given their unwavering beliefs, Vatan leaders want repatriation legislation to recognize and protect Meskhetian Turks’ cultural heritage. Specifically, Sarvarov and others want the Georgian government to grant returning Meskhetian Turks special cultural privileges, including the ability to receive at least part of their education in their own language. “We are not looking to obtain some form of political autonomy,” Sarvarov said. “But we seek some form of cultural autonomy that would allow us to preserve our language and our culture. And it must be stressed that we would act in a manner that is loyal to the Georgian state. People who say otherwise are not being truthful.”
In some preliminary discussions on repatriation, Georgian officials have suggested that limits be placed on the number of Meskhetian Turks allowed to resettle in the Meskhetia region itself, adding that returnees should be evenly distributed throughout the country. Vatan opposes such a proposal, saying Meskhetian Turks should have the unconditional right to return not just to Georgia, but to specifically Meskhetia.
Implementation Difficulties
The implementation of Vatan’s repatriation strategy has been hampered by internal divisions and financial woes. Vatan’s national leaders today do not command the near universal support of the Meskhetian Turk community that it had before 1989. The funding shortage, in turn, hurts the organization’s ability to restore its lost cohesion. The result is that Vatan’s negotiating position is not as strong as it once was.
Logistics are a constant challenge for Vatan. The organization maintains its headquarters in Moscow, far removed from the main Meskhetian Turk populations in Azerbaijan and Central Asia. The distances involved in communications between the headquarters and local offices limit the Moscow leadership’s ability to coordinate policy, sowing the seeds for the emergence of differences in the formulation of strategy and tactics. “We simply do not have the financial ability to sustain proper contacts,” Sarvarov said.
According to Sarvarov, the only source of outside assistance is low-level support from the Turkish government. In 1998, he added, Vatan received $3,000 from Turkey, barely enough to pay the rent for the society’s offices on the outskirts of Moscow. Turkey also provides scholarships for 25 Meskhetian Turk undergraduates and five graduate students to study at Turkish universities. The level of support among the Meskhetian Turk community itself is modest. Given the harsh economic environment, few Meskhetian Turks have spare cash available for donations. And whatever funds that individuals are ready to give often goes to local Vatan organizations, not the international headquarters.
The organization’s influence varies among Meskhetian Turk communities throughout the former Soviet Union. The most reliable stronghold of support for the organization’s repatriation program is in Azerbaijan. But even in Baku, local Vatan leaders admit that the organization’s hierarchy in Moscow is marginalized. Most policy making, as well as implementation, occurs on the local level. “It is a unified organization, but local leaders have a large degree of autonomy,” said Khalit Tashtanov, the head of the Vatan Society in Azerbaijan. Within the Transcaucasian nation itself, Vatan is well organized, with offices in most localities with significant Meskhetian Turk populations.
It is much the same story for Vatan’s operations in the Krasnodar region of Russia. Sarvar Tedorov, one of the Vatan leaders in Krasnodar, said contacts with Moscow are sporadic and that policy often is shaped on the local level to better suit particular conditions. “We have proper relations with Sarvarov, but because of the financial difficulties we are limited mostly to talking on the phone, and sometimes we go one month without speaking,” Tedorov said.
In Uzbekistan, meanwhile, Vatan’s influence has eroded to the point of insignificance. The organization does not maintain an office in Uzbekistan, in large part because of opposition from the local political leadership. At the same time, Meskhetian Turks in Tashkent and other areas of the Central Asian republic are deeply divided on the repatriation issue, and many are highly critical of Vatan. They fault the Moscow leadership for failing to communicate, and, on a more substantive level, they tend to disagree with Vatan’s tactics. “Vatan is perhaps in too much of a hurry [in pressing for repatriation], and is not taking reality into account,” said Rashidov, the leader of Tashkent’s Meskhetian Turk Cultural Center. “From our point of view, the time is not right for Georgia to receive us.” Mavlut Fakhartatov, a Meskhetian Turk intellectual in Samarkand, claimed that Vatan’s haste was actually hurting repatriation possibilities. “The people who are insisting on cultural autonomy are doing us a disservice,” he said. “Such a stance just frightens the Georgians into thinking that we are separatists. We have no such ambitions. We should not set conditions for our return, but neither should we return if the Georgians set conditions.”
Conversely, Sarvarov and other Vatan officials in Moscow do not hide their bitterness at the lack of cooperation, characterizing the Meskhetian Turk community in Uzbekistan as acting in a selfish manner. “Meskhetian Turks in Uzbekistan are prosperous but they do very little to support the effort to return to our homeland,” Sarvarov said. “But if there was ever trouble there—a repetition of the 1989 events—you know they would be making appeals for our help.”
Current Activities
A primary task for Vatan leaders in Moscow is to raise the profile of the Meskhetian Turk repatriation issue in the world community. Sarvarov and others have attempted to widen their advocacy efforts by attending significant international meetings, such as the June 1998 meeting of the Steering Group of the CIS Conference on migration-related issues. “Our task is to continuously raise the repatriation question, taking into account Georgia’s concerns, and also stressing Georgia’s desires to integrate into the world community and the [civil rights] obligations that accompany such efforts.”
Another aim is to strengthen coordination among local Vatan chapters. With the exception of Meskhetian Turks in Uzbekistan, there appears to be general consensus on Vatan’s goals. Better coordination, most leaders both on the international and local levels realize, would increase the chances of those goals being attained.
Of course, improving the Vatan network within the former Soviet Union hinges on the ability to raise funds for equipment and travel that would sustain greater communications. Some outside observers suggest that the organization is in desperate need of capacity building if it is going to succeed in enlarging its funding base. “Vatan lacks money and it does not have a good foundation for fundraising,” said Alexander Ossipov of the human rights organization Memorial. “It [Vatan] also has not done a good job of reaching out to establish contacts with nongovernmental organizations in Russia, and elsewhere, that could help them achieve their goal.”
Hsna
The Vatan movement’s inability to maintain the cohesiveness of the Meskhetian Turk community was a significant factor in the creation of an alternative organization, known as Hsna. The organization prefers to use the term Meskhetians in referring to the formerly deported people. Founded in 1992, with substantial assistance from the Georgian government, Hsna generally espouses the governmental view that Meskhetians are Islamicized Georgians, with no Turkic roots, and thus not deserving of special cultural privileges for returnees. The organization is based in Georgia, which is home to a relatively small number of Meskhetians. In order to become a formal adherent of Hsna, it is necessary for the head of a family to declare himself to be Georgian, and for all family members to assume a Georgian surname. It is also necessary to pledge that all family members of school age will be taught in the Georgian language.
Hsna supporters describe Vatan’s return strategy as unrealistic, saying that it does not take into account the political reality in Georgia, a country riven by ethnic conflicts. If Meskhetians are truly intent on return, then they must be willing to assimilate into Georgian society, Hsna members say. “For me returning to the homeland was important. My ethnic origins were not the point,” said Feretdin Binaliev, a Meskhetian who moved from Azerbaijan and settled in the city of Akhaltsikhe in late 1997. Some Hsna leaders say that 20 percent of the Meskhetian community in the former Soviet Union are supporters, but there is little evidence to support this claim. The organization’s influence does not appear to extend beyond the borders of Georgia.
Although there are substantial differences on concepts of ethnicity and other issues, Hsna and Vatan leaders are able to agree on one thing: the need for the Georgian government to adopt a comprehensive law on rehabilitation. Isa Tavadze, the leader of Hsna, said he was working with Georgian parliamentary representatives to resuscitate a stalled rehabilitation bill, but added that he was not optimistic about a quick breakthrough. Frustration reached such a point for Hsna leaders that they even sent an appeal to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, seeking UN diplomatic pressure for a rehabilitation law.
Cooperation Prospects
There are virtually no contacts between Hsna and Vatan, but that does not mean the leaders of the two groups harbor mutual hostility. Hsna decries Vatan leaders as “out of touch with reality,” while one Vatan representative portrayed Hsna as “misguided and misinformed.” Nevertheless, opinions are devoid of vitriol. “Even though we have different opinions, there is no way I will ever call a Vatan member an enemy,” said Yasin Khasanov, a member of Hsna’s leadership council. “We are all brothers. They just call themselves Turks and we describe ourselves as Georgians.”
The lack of enmity would appear, on the surface, to leave room for a consolidation of the competing organizations. Such an alliance, repatriation activists say, would enhance repatriation chances. “The existence of two organizations hinders the resolution of the repatriation issue,” said Tashtanov, the Vatan leader in Azerbaijan. “It allows the Georgian government to manipulate the situation and create the appearance that they are interested in resolving the problem when they actually have no intention of allowing Meskhetian Turks to return.”
When broaching the topic of a merger, Hsna and Vatan leaders sound generally conciliatory. At the same time, however, few believe that the Meskhetian repatriation effort will become unified any time soon. “We are one people and we would like to find mutual understanding, but we seem to have fundamentally different ideas,” said Hsna’s leader Tavadze. Vatan leaders are adamant about preserving their distinct traditions, saying they will never compromise if it involves assimilating. “The Georgians are counting on the disappearance of our separate cultural identity, but this will never, ever happen,” Tashtanov said. “Even if we have to wait another 300 years, we will wait in order to reach our goal.”
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