‘Shelter Capacity Exhausted in Gori’ – UN

Current shelter capacity in Gori for displaced persons is exhausted, the UN refugee agency said on September 2 and added it remained concerned about the humanitarian situation in and around the town.

UNHCR said some 4,200 people were registered as internally displaced people (IDP) with all of them from villages in the so-called buffer zone between Gori and the South Ossetian administrative border – an area under Russia military control.

The agency’s initial assessment indicates that some 450 people arrived from their villages within the last week “due to massive intimidation by marauding militias… beatings, harassment, looting and burning of houses.”
 
“The remaining 3,750 IDPs were on their way back home from Tbilisi and other parts of Georgia where they had sought refuge during the conflict over South Ossetia, but got stuck in Gori when they could not enter the buffer zone,” UNHCR said.

Some 1,200 are in the UNHCR tented camp in Gori; another 1,000 are staying with host families, and some 2,000 are dispersed in 22 collective centres around the town, according to the agency.

The local authorities said recently that the plan was to establish cottages in Gori before winter to provide shelter for displaced persons.

Ia Antadze, a respected political analyst and journalist, who is a regular contributor to the RFE/RL Georgian service, says official policy towards displaced persons gives an indication of long-term Georgian policy in respect of lost territories.
 
Below is Antadze’s opinion piece, which was aired by the RFE/RL Georgian service on September 2:
 
"Right now even top Georgian decision-makers may not know what Georgia will choose: war or peace.
 
In recent years the authorities have been sending mixed messages, involving on the one hand peace proposals towards the Abkhaz and Ossetians, and strong patriotic rhetoric focusing on militarization on the other hand.
 
We might not think much about it, but one of the key signs indicating the authorities’ preferred choice was their policy towards displaced persons.
 
The so-called first wave of IDPs, who fled Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the late 1980s and early 90s, has mostly spent the time since then living in collective centers. Although private investors in recent years have resettled some IDPS, this process has never been fully committed to by the authorities. Special schools for IDP children still exist, as well as collective centers where they still live in Tbilisi and in the regions.
 
People, who were forced to flee from their villages and farms, were forced to live in towns and cities, resulting in self-isolation, inferiority and unemployment.
 
Today’s crisis is throwing up different solutions, with Europeans proposing that state-owned land be allocated to the new IDPs and supporting infrastructure be developed. Essentially, those who fled farms and villages would be able to recreate their home environment somewhere else.
 
This model has both positive and negative sides. If the authorities follow this proposal, it would mean a recognition of the fact that those territories are lost for the foreseeable future. The IDPs from the early 90s sought for a long time an answer from the authorities as to when they would return. It took many years for them to understand that no concrete date was in sight. Those IDPs at that time could never have imagined they would have to live in such conditions for so many years.
 
Now the authorities are saying that they will provide IDPs from the Tskhinvali region with cottages before winter.
 
‘Cottagization’ of IDPs would mean cutting them from the land [meaning agriculture], and poses the risk of high unemployment and a high crime rate in collective settlement areas. Resettling them in urban-type apartments means giving them the hope that the state will soon help them return to their own homes.
 
As long as IDPs live in urban-type apartments, the IDP issue will remain at the top of the national agenda, and the country will have no other option other than to rearm and prepare for a new war.
 
But if the state finds the power in itself and the resources to resettle IDPs in villages, allowing them to recreate their natural environment, a real declaration of peace would be made. It, however, would also mean the state acknowledging its inability to promptly regain lost territories.
 
Now Georgia has two options: either war or peace. Resettling IDPs to cottages will at least indirectly mean war; their resettlement on the land and the creation of new villages will be a step towards peace. Europeans are proposing the second option and are even pledging huge assistance in support of it. Privately, IDPs say they would prefer to live on the land, instead of being resettled in cottages in urban areas. Now it is up to decision-makers to make the final choice."

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