From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

CHAPTER 1 Assessing National Approaches to Internal Displacement: Findings from 15 Countries
Return of IDPs and refugees always has been a heavily
politicized issue and a major stumbling block in the
peace process for both conflicts. While the Georgian
government has consistently promoted the right to
return and considers return a key element in its reestablishment
of territorial control over the two secessionist
areas, for the same reasons the de facto authorities of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia largely resist return, albeit
with some exceptions. Lasting political solutions to
these conflicts and the possibility of large-scale return
of the displaced have remained elusive.
At the same time, the government’s emphasis on return
has had the effect of undermining IDPs’ rights in their
place of displacement. Until 2007, IDPs were legally
barred from owning land or voting in the locality where
they were living while displaced unless they forfeited
their IDP status and its associated benefits. In addition,
IDPs were led to believe that by exercising such rights
in their place of displacement, they risked forfeiting
their right to return and regain their property in their
place of origin. At the same time, the authorities were
resistant to allowing international aid and development
agencies and donors to help IDPs shift from a
state of dependency to self-reliance by providing support
for livelihoods. Since the early 1990s, almost half
of IDPs have continued to live in the dilapidated and
overcrowded “collective centers” that were established
in schools, dormitories, factories and even functioning
hospitals and were intended to serve only as temporary
emergency shelter. 139
The situation began to change following the “Rose
Revolution” of 2003, which brought into power the
government of President Saakashvili. The new administration,
while maintaining the policy of promoting the
right to return, nonetheless slowly began to modify the
absolutist approach that impeded any effort to improve
conditions, at least in the interim, for IDPs in their place
139 UN Commission on Human Rights, Report of the
Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally
Displaced Persons, Mr. Francis Deng—Addendum: Profiles
in Displacement: Georgia, 2001, paras. 25–69.
154
of displacement. This significant policy shift was formalized
with the government’s adoption in February
2007 of the State Strategy for Internally Displaced
Persons, which marked the government’s first-ever
recognition that solutions to displacement other than
return—including supporting efforts toward local integration
and securing dignified living conditions for
IDPs in their place of displacement—were a legitimate
policy goal. In practice, however, return continued to be
emphasized, as reflected in the action plan for implementing
the State Strategy.
Yet following the August 2008 renewal of hostilities and
the subsequent recognition by the Russian Federation
and a handful of other countries of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia as independent states, the government and
population of Georgia have come to the realization
that return is not a viable option for most IDPs in the
foreseeable future. Beginning with the “new” 2008 IDPs
and then eventually including the “old” protracted IDPs,
the government began to implement the second goal of
the strategy: supporting improved living conditions for
IDPs in their place of displacement. The focus is heavily
but not exclusively on providing adequate shelter, and
by May 2010, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs had announced
that durable housing solutions were provided
for 20,800 people displaced by the August 2008 conflict
and for 10,911 families displaced from earlier conflicts.
However, at times the process of implementing the shelter
program, which in some cases entails moving IDPs to
new locations elsewhere in the country, has been tense
and problematic. In particular, IDP discontent escalated
in the summer of 2010 after the government announced
that thirty-six collective centers were not eligible for
privatization and would be evacuated and the residents
offered alternative accommodation in villages outside of
the city (where most of the affected IDP families refused
to move) or financial compensation of $10,000. The affected
IDPs staged mass demonstrations, at which one
IDP woman immolated herself in protest. 140 The Public
140 ‘Self -Immolation Incident Highlights Desperation of
Georgian IDPs,’ Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, 29
October 2010.