From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

Georgia From Solidarity to Solutions: The Government Response to Internal Displacement in Georgia
the government and may require an eviction. 23 Some
observers have expressed concern that cases of eviction
in which the only alternative accommodation offered
to IDPs was located in a region far from the IDPs’
current place of residence could amount to secondary
displacement. 24 For further discussion on this issue see
Benchmark 10, below.
2. Raise National Awareness
of the Problem
Does the government (at the highest
executive level, for example, the
president/prime minister) acknowledge
the existence of internal displacement
and its responsibility to address it as a
national priority?
The government of Georgia not only acknowledges
the internal displacement resulting from the conflicts
concerning Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it actively
promotes national and international attention to the
issue. Indeed, during his mission to Georgia in 2000,
Francis Deng, the Representative of the United Nations
Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons
(RSG), was struck by the degree to which the authorities
exhibited “solidarity” with IDPs uprooted by the conflicts
and that “[y]ears on, the government continues to
give emphasis to the plight of the internally displaced.” 25
More than a decade later, and now nearly two decades
23 The Standard Operating Procedures for Vacation and Reallocation
of IDPs for Durable Housing Solutions (2010)
(www.mra.gov.ge).
24 Amnesty International, “Index,” Uprooted Again: Forced
Eviction of the Displaced People in Georgia (August 2011)
EUR 56/005/2011 (www.amnesty.org); compare “Reply
by the Government of Georgia, Ministry of Internally
Displaced Persons, Accommodation and Refugees to the
Report by Amnesty International,” 5 August 2011 (http://
mra.gov.ge/main/ENG#readmore/635).
25 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. 1–2.
183
since displacement first occurred, the government continues
to do so. In addition, the government, at the highest
levels, also has acknowledged and drawn attention to
the occurrence in Georgia of internal displacement due
to natural disasters. 26
The government consistently and actively has endeavored
to mobilize attention especially to the plight of
conflict-induced IDPs and has done so in the domestic
arena as well as in major international forums including
the United Nations and the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Beyond the compelling
humanitarian reasons for calling attention to the
IDP issue, doing so has always had important strategic
and political value for the government insofar as it serves
as a visible reminder of the otherwise largely forgotten
armed conflicts of nearly two decades ago and the consequent
loss by the central government of effective control
over the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Consequently, internal displacement, in particular the
right of IDPs to return, is a highly politicized issue in
Georgia, on both the domestic and the international
level. Within the national arena, rhetoric on the issue of
IDP return has been especially strong in the run-up to
elections, with promises made, including by the president,
to restore the territorial integrity of Georgia and
thereby enable IDPs to exercise their right to return.
Typically such electoral promises have spoken of realizing
those goals within a very short timeframe—that
is, within a matter of months. 27 However, particularly
26 President Eduard Shevardnadze and, separately, the
Minister for Refugees and Accommodation, emphasized
the plight of disaster-induced IDPs in Georgia to the
RSG during his mission in May 2000. 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, para. 12. More recently, the incidence in
Georgia of internal displacement due to natural disasters
was flagged by senior officials in the ministry responsible
for IDPs in the course of a USAID-FORECASTassessment
undertaken in February-March 2009 by the author
and Guy Hovey of the ministry’s capacity and concerns
regarding internal displacement.
27 See, for example, “Georgia: Saakashvili Vows to Secure