Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Georgia: Espionage Arrests Of Ethnic Armenians Stoke Suspicion Of Ru

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Georgia: Espionage Arrests Of Ethnic Armenians Stoke Suspicion Of Ru

    GEORGIA: ESPIONAGE ARRESTS OF ETHNIC ARMENIANS STOKE SUSPICION OF RUSSIA
    Molly Corso and Gayane Abrahamyan

    EurasiaNet
    Feb 12 2009
    NY

    Georgia's arrest of two ethnic Armenians on espionage charges is
    threatening to increase tensions in the country's predominately ethnic
    Armenian region of Samtskhe-Javakheti. Although aspects of the case
    remain unclear -- including an alleged confession -- the arrests have
    triggered public outrage in neighboring Armenia. Meanwhile in Georgia,
    many suspect that Russia is somehow involved.

    On January 22, police arrested Grigol Minasian, the 29-year-old
    director of a youth center in the town of Akhaltsikhe, and Sarkis
    Hakopjanian, the head of a local charity organization, on charges
    of espionage and of creating an "illegally armed group." The pair's
    lawyer, Nino Andriashvili, told EurasiaNet that the two men pled
    guilty to "part" of the charges during their January 24 arraignment.

    "In part, they admitted that they are spies, but they did not admit
    that they were preparing to form a [militia group]," Andriashvili
    said, adding that the two men told her they were under "pressure"
    when they made their admissions of guilt.

    A senior official from the Ministry of Internal Affairs,
    however, denies that either man has confessed to espionage. "No
    [confessions]. Nothing has happened yet," said administration head
    Shota Khizanishvili,

    The ministry has not named the country in whose favor the pair was
    allegedly spying. Local conjecture supposes that it is Russia, but
    no evidence has been presented to substantiate that claim.

    According to Andriashvili, the government's case against Minasian and
    Hakopjanian focuses on a questionnaire the two men were allegedly paid
    to fill out by a Belarus-based non-governmental organization. Little
    is known about the organization, called the Association for Legal
    Assistance to the Population (ALAP). Its website is not functioning
    and there is no listing for an office in Georgia.

    An online directory of Belarusian civil rights organizations identifies
    ALAP as active in human rights issues, and the recipient of a
    1999 award from the New York-based International League for Human
    Rights. The American organization did not respond to EurasiaNet's
    requests for comment. The ALAP, which at the time was headed by Oleg
    Volchek, a former state prosecutor-turned-reformer, opened a human
    rights protection center in 2001 in Minsk. In its 2004 report on
    human rights conditions in Belarus, the US State Department noted that
    Volchek suffered a severe beating in September of 2003 at the hands
    of an unidentified assailant. The attack came just a few weeks after
    a Belarussian court "shut down" the association. The circumstances
    surrounding the association's subsequent revival remain murky.

    The Georgian Interior Ministry's Khizanishvili would not comment
    on claims that the government's investigation focuses on the ALAP,
    adding that he did not know anything about the group.

    The ALAP questionnaire zeroed in on natural gas supply questions --
    an increasingly sensitive topic in the South Caucasus -- and general
    questions about Georgia that could be answered "from newspapers,"
    or from other publicly available information, lawyer Andriashvili said.

    Andriashvili said that the government is using a videotape that shows
    an inebriated Minasian and Hakopjanian discussing the formation of
    a militia group with an unidentified man from the ALAP. The video,
    the government contends, substantiates its claim that the two men
    were attempting to sow unrest in Samtskhe-Javakheti.

    Andriashvili stressed that while the two men admit to being on the
    tape, they claim that they were "just playing." The two, however,
    had misgivings about the ALAP, she claimed, and suspected that it
    had some kind of connection to Russia's Federal Security Service.

    In Akhaltsikhe, people close to Minasian, who was prominent in the
    town's ethnic Armenian community, describe themselves as flabbergasted
    by his arrest and the charges. By contrast, the arrest of the
    lesser-known Hakopjanian sparked few comments.

    "We are in a vacuum here. We don't know anything," said Veronika
    Hambarian, an Armenian-language teacher at Minasian's youth center.

    Hambarian recounted that police took the hard drive from the center's
    computer and all Armenian language material, including her language
    lessons and fairy tales. They did not take Russian or Georgian language
    books and materials, she said.

    Parliamentarian Tamaz Petriashvili, who represents Akhaltsikhe in
    Georgia's National Assembly, as well as an acquaintance of Minasian,
    described the arrests as a "surprise."

    As did some ethnic Armenians in Akhaltsikhe, Petriashvili suspected
    that "some people" -- a veiled reference to Russia -- want to
    create conflict in Samtskhe-Javakheti. Certain groups in the region
    "are financed as if from Yerevan, but that is not from Yerevan,"
    he said. "We all know that very well."

    Within Armenia, the arrests have set off a wave of public
    criticism. Rather than espionage, many people see the case as an
    example of an alleged Georgian campaign to push ethnic Armenians out
    of Samtskhe-Javakheti, a region that many Armenians see as historically
    part of Armenia.

    "We Armenians have always tried to have good relations with Georgia,
    but the only thing working in Georgia today is anti-Russian sentiment,
    and Armenians, Russia's partners in that context, are seen as
    Georgians' enemies," commented Yerevan-based political analyst Levon
    Shirinian. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

    A representative of the Armenian Foreign Ministry said that
    the government in Yerevan was monitoring the situation concerning
    Minasian and Hakopjanian's arrest. "We watch the developments and are
    in a continuous daily contact on various levels" with the Georgian
    government, commented spokesperson Tigran Balaian.

    Some politicians and interest groups, however, charge that the Armenian
    government has responded passively to the two men's arrest. The
    Armenian Revolutionary Federation Party (ARF), a member of Armenia's
    governing parliamentary coalition, insists that the region deserves
    to have some form of autonomy. The ARF regularly raises the issue
    of ethnic Armenian rights in Georgia during parliamentary debate
    in Yerevan.

    "The Georgians simply need to understand that if Javakhk [the Armenian
    name for Samtskshe-Javakheti] or any other Armenian-populated region
    loses its Armenian population, it does not mean it will be inhabited
    by Georgians," commented ARF parliamentarian Vahan Hovhannisian, a
    former presidential candidate and deputy chairman of parliament. "Any
    vacuum in the Caucasus is immediately filled with Turks."

    The issue of education is frequently raised as well in conjunction with
    coverage of the Minasian-Hakopjanian arrests. Many ethnic Armenians in
    the region have limited knowledge of Georgian and, hence, are unable
    to study in Georgian universities.

    Name differences divide the two countries as well on the
    Minasian-Hakopjanian case. While the Georgian government states
    Minasian's first name as "Grigol," Armenian media use the Armenian
    version of the name, "Grigor."

    But while Samtskhe-Javakheti is known for its strong Armenian ties,
    such cultural influences appear slight in Akhaltsikhe, where store
    signboards are all in Georgian. Georgian town residents interviewed
    had little or no knowledge of the arrests.

    According to Eduard Ayvazian, a computer instructor at Minasian's
    center, prior to the arrests, no real tension existed between the
    town's Georgian and Armenian communities.

    "There is discrimination here, but not strong discrimination,"
    Ayvazian said. "The authorities are afraid that a conflict can start
    here. But I believe they are moving in the wrong direction with these
    types of arrests."

    As a result of the arrests, many ethnic Armenians in Akhaltsikhe
    now "are actually thinking about how to leave here," Ayvazian
    continued. "We are all afraid. No one needs problems."

    Editor's Note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter based in
    Tbilisi. Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for the ArmeniaNow.com weekly
    in Yerevan.
Working...
X