Chakhalyan remains prisoner for other people’s education

As Guillame wrote in September, the interests of the Armenian national minority were suppressed in Georgia; she was asking to cut short such actions on the part of the government. "We have no right to put up with Georgia's violation of the international standards and the right of fair trial. According to the European Neighborhood Program, Georgia received sponsorship to the amount of 15 million euros to carry out reforms in the field of legal proceedings", - stated the European parliamentarian.

Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France also called to cease the unjust trial and resume all the rights of Vahagn Chakhalyan, but in vain.

The Georgian authorities would never initiate such a high-profile political case to surrender to the Armenians. The actual reason of Vahagn Chakhalyan's arrest and a severe punishment like that was the government's fear of turning Javakhetia, which adjoins Armenia, into a second Abkhazia or South Ossetia.

The United Javakh organization headed by Chakhalyan was against the unfair election of ethnic Georgians to the local government authorities in 2006. Protests started; there were even mass disorders. When things got as far as explosions, there started round-ups of the Armenian activists.

Two policemen died during the searches. Activist Gurgen Shirinyan suspected of murder took time to escape and was sentenced in his absence. The court took it out on the Chakhalyans. The authorities demonstrated the way they would treat anyone who dares to "demand the rights" of national minorities in Georgia.

The point, however, is that they did not seem to achieve the result they intended to, for the unfair trial, together with the ban upon importing Armenian schoolbooks, poor social conditions, oppression of Armenian churches and other things made the Armenians deeply ponder upon their future in Georgia.

It was just recently that the Armenian government dared to put in a word for the Javakhs before the Georgian authorities. Before that, the official Yerevan tried not to notice the problems of the fellow countrymen in the neighboring state.

Now the attitude towards them is changed. For instance, some of these days, a documental was shown in the capital of Armenia about the situation in Javakhetia and about the process of including this region into the Georgian territory in 1919: it was done not long before Abkhazia and South Ossetia were also included there.

According to PanARMENIAN.Net, the film is aimed to reveal the Javakh Armenians' problems that spoil their life in their historic (!) land: the latter got into the hands of the Georgian government, which is not the best one.

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Salome Batiani