TURKMENISTAN-UZBEKISTAN: Evidence of forced displacement, says report

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ANKARA, 13 Oct 2003 (IRIN) - The Geneva-based Global Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Project (GIDPP), initiated by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) at the request of the United Nations, has cited two Central Asian countries as part of its global report on IDPs.

"Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are two examples of arbitrary forced displacement in Central Asia today," Christophe Beau, a senior information officer with the Norwegian Refugee Council's GIDPP, told IRIN on Monday, noting, however, there had been a lack of information on both countries.

According to the report, released on Friday at the annual human rights conference of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Warsaw, 13 of the 55 OSCE member states - covering Europe, North America and Central Asia - were impacted by internal displacement. The 13, comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldavia, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, currently accounted for 12 percent of the world's 25 million IDPs.

Most IDPs lived in squalid conditions, packed into sub-standard housing, with poor access to water and other utilities, and having very little means of generating income. As a result, many were suffering from physical and health problems, nutritional deficiencies and epidemics.

Moreover, without a well-established international system to protect them, many IDPs were extremely vulnerable to discrimination and abuse by state authorities, the report added.

And while the situations in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan remained relatively minor in comparison with other countries, the fact that they existed at all appeared largely unknown. "They are not situations that have been well documented," Beau said, describing them both as small in scale. "In Uzbekistan, we are talking about a maximum of 4,000 people."

According to a US Department of State report earlier this year, armed incursions by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in the summer of 2000, prompted Tashkent to evacuate several villages along its southern border with Tajikistan. The populations of several villages in the Sukhandaria region were forcibly relocated more than 180 km from their homes.

The displaced villagers, mostly ethnic Tajiks, were reportedly rounded up and forced into military helicopters at gunpoint, while their homes were set on fire or bombed and their livestock killed. They were first moved to camps located in the steppes and were not allowed to bring their belongings with them. Later, in November 2000, the authorities reportedly moved the IDPs to relocation villages, where they had been expected to cultivate the land and rebuild their lives on their own.

"We are not sure they were really a security risk," Beau said. "We assume the insecurity risk is now over and that these people could be allowed to return. This [however] is not the case."

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Turkmenistan, the IDP situation is even less clear. "There are no figures available. We know that some political opponents or those who have been deemed 'unworthy' by the government have been sentenced to internal exile," he said. Moreover, there was also the risk of members of the Uzbek minority community living along the 1,621-km Turkmen-Uzbek border being displaced as well, he added.

Describing what had happened in the two countries as blatant examples of arbitrary displacement, most likely decided upon at the highest level, particularly in Turkmenistan, Beau said it was time for both governments to properly address the issue. Following an alleged assassination bid on Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov last year, two earlier presidential decrees - one in November and the other in January - provided for the relocation of "unworthy" citizens, thereby creating a risk of relocation for minorities or political opponents at any time and without valid reason.

"These two decrees should be urgently reversed and repealed immediately," he said, emphasising that anyone who had been displaced should be allowed to return, with their property rights restored. "We are sure some people were forcibly evicted from their homes," he said.

The NRC has called on the governments of all 13 countries cited in its report to address the plight of IDPs on their territories more seriously, while warning the international community against phasing out much-needed assistance prematurely. It also suggested that the OSCE was uniquely placed to play a stronger role in protecting IDPs.

[For a full copy of the IDP report see: www.idpproject.org ]

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