Abkhazian MFA indignant with Vollebekk's accusations of oppressing national minorities

The statement of Knuth Vollebekk, Supreme Commissioner of the OSCE on national minorities (dated April 14, 2009), in which he accused Abkhazia of forced passportization, recruiting to army and restriction of teaching in the Georgian language, was groundless and engaged, as spoken in the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Abkhazia.

"Mr Vollebekk's statements are based on invented facts and don't reflect a real situation in the Gali District with mainly ethnic Georgian population," the MFA of Abkhazia has emphasized.

In the opinion of the MFA, "statements of this sort continue the policy of Georgian leadership to disseminate false information about the situation in Abkhazia with the aim to distract the attention of Georgian and international society away from what happens in Georgia as such."

"The unequivocal support of Georgia's actions by the OSCE has made impossible any further presence of the mission not only in South Ossetia, but also in Abkhazia," the Ministry believes.

The MFA statement continues: "The Abkhazian party, trying to give a constructive solution to the problem of training children in schools of the Gali District in Georgian, has set up a commission of experts in the sphere of education for considering the issue of training in the Georgian language with the Georgian counterparts, however, the Georgian party has stated its unreadiness for discussing the issue and failed to present any particular proposals. The OSCE, since being a party in the Georgian-Abkhazian negotiation process for 15 years, knows about it."

The foreign ministry marks that "numerous visits of international observers to villages of the Gali District also confirmed the absence of the problem of education in the Georgian language, as schoolchildren actually continue to be trained in Georgian; however, many international experts continue to politicize the issue."

As the MFA marks, "when speaking in his statement about forced passportization of the Gali District residents, the Supreme Commissioner of the OSCE on national minorities is deliberately distorting facts, since he knows that Abkhazian leaders do not award Abkhazian citizenship to those residents of the Gali District who have Georgian passports."

"Moreover," as the statement emphasizes, "without being a citizen of Abkhazia, a person cannot be recruited to the Abkhazian Army, since it is contradictory to the legislation."

"Numerous fact-finding visits of the Supreme Commissioner of the OSCE on national minorities to Abkhazia during several recent years allowed the OSCE to study the situation in the sphere of education and support multiple humanitarian projects offered by the Abkhazian party, in particular, in view of publishing textbooks in the Georgian language. Within all these years, the office of the Supreme Commissioner of the OSCE on national minorities failed to support at least one project, referring to scanty funds and other insignificant reasons," says the statement.

The MFA also finds it important to note that after the August war in South Ossetia, Mr Vollebekk "despite objective facts of human rights violations in Georgia," failed to make at least one statement, which would give "an objective evaluation of Georgia's policy on national minorities in spite of the fact that Georgia systematically violates the rights of Armenians, Ossetians and other nationalities living there."

Vyacheslav Chirikba, adviser of Abkhazian President on foreign policy, has expressed his bewilderment with Knuth Vollebekk's statement.

According to Mr Chirikba, the statement about forced passportization of residents of the Gali District has absolutely nothing to do with reality. As of today, passports of a citizen of the Republic of Abkhazia were issued only to 1500 of 55,000 residents of the Gali District.

"Is it forced passportization, if passports were issued to less than 3 percent of district residents?" asked the adviser. "Those residents of the Gali District, who don't want to take the Abkhazian citizenship, as it assumes refusal from the Georgian one, can be granted an endless residence permit with preservation of all the rights, except for the right to vote and take part in elections. If in the future a bilateral agreement is concluded on recognition of dual citizenship between Abkhazia and Georgia, the problem will be lifted completely. But we're today still far away."